#its not that it aged badly

[mychemicalseal]

rewatching BBC Robin Hood (2006) for the plot.

the plot:

[thekidsarentalright]

for the love of god hi hello hi can anyone hear me hello

[danganronpa2]

girl. im thinking about diavolo again. 18 years old, already paranoid enough that he told his summer fling a fake name, burning down his hometown and running away to another country and digging up an arrow that gives him the ability to remove himself from any harm but ONLY if he is constantly vigilant. surely this wont make him worse in any way. like king crimson is so shitty in terms of consistency and battle mechanics but its SOOOO GOOD character-wise like the way it both reflects his personality AND reinforces his paranoid hypervigilance..... and encourages him to act like hes exempt from the consequences of his actions...... maaaaan. and not to even mention the catholic shit with fate bc i want to put him and pucci in a mason jar and shake them around like salad dressing.

and also his obsession with burying the past and how he buried his mother under the floorboards and tried to kill trish in the basement of a church and dug up the stand arrows that had been long-buried in the earth. and the boss-employee charade that he and doppio maintain rather than confront whatever trauma they survived in their childhood because burying the past and overcoming your weaker past self is the only way to get stronger. and the way NONE OF IT EVEN WORKS IN THE END... even bucciarati and polnareff didnt stay properly dead when he killed them god whats that quote he has "The past... even when you break it to pieces and emtomb it in stone, it crawls out like a worm." LIIIIKKEEEE. ITS ALL FUTILE IN THE END. AAAAUGH

[robinniko]

idc what anyone says louis looks so hot with the grey

[kindaasrikal]

Stress must’ve rlly hit Wu, Garmadon, and Misako bad, cause how are these three out here looking like my great grandparents when Ed and Edna, Ray and Maya, Lou, and even CHEN AND CLOUSE, look like old parents from 40-50.

CHEN IS OLDER THEN GARMADON AND WUUUU WHY DOES HE LOOK THE SAME AGE AS ED AND EDNA AND GARMADON LOOK SM OLDERRRRR

I’m sorry i swear it’s only been ten years. Cause it was ten years ago or so from season 1 that Garmdon got banished (since Lloyd is ten-ish). How did they age so much two of them are immortal, Misako is understandable she was under stress and still looks somewhat younger.

WU WHAT DID YOU GO THROUGH

[pasteilian]

You always talk about Leo’s relationship with Donnie and Raph since there his big brothers and he has baby brother privileges but what’s his relationship with Mikey like since he’s older than Mikey

Yeah, I would say I'm more focused on the dynamics between Raph, Donnie, and Leo, so Mikey takes a hard backseat in my lore. Oops. 💀

I would say they have a very strong bond. They tend to lean on each other a lot, especially since they both know the feeling of being smothered and constantly treated like a child. It's especially hard for Leo since the huge gap in maturity between him, Raph, and Donnie came out of nowhere. Raph leaves for two years and when he comes back, he's an entirely different person on an entirely different level than Leo.

He looks up to Raph and wants to make him proud, but he feels like nothing he does could ever impress the person Raph is now. But not only is he dealing with that, he now has to come to terms with the growth of Donnie.

He's no longer Donnie's twin; he's Donnie's younger brother. He feels like he has stayed stagnant in his growth and feels left behind when dealing with his older brothers. But when it comes to Mikey, they can see eye to eye, speak to each other without the fear of being talked over, and not have the constant annoyance of being coddled. Mikey doesn't trust Usagi, but he also doesn't completely disregard Leo's opinion on the rabbit.

Umm, to cut the ramblings short, Leo feels like he lives in the shadows of his big brothers now. The constant fear of letting them down by failing as a leader is a drain on him, and he finds comfort in his younger brother. Blah blah.

[strawberrychevalier]

i don’t know if somebody has already pointed this out yet or not, but solas is definitely using eyebrow pencils right? the updated eyebrows aren’t so drastically different that it looks like a new brow, it really just looks like he’s making them a little thicker and giving them that little tail 😭

[bookshelfdreams]

finally watched Netflix The Sandman a while back and can i just say, from the way fandom talks about it, I would not have guessed that Hob Whatshisface is a minor side character who was in half an episode, and who's most notable action is loudly thinking about getting in on the transatlantic slave trade.

(before you get your knickers in a twist, I'm not making a judgement on anyone's character for liking him or shipping him with Dream, or whatever. There's just certain tendencies and patterns in fandom, and at some times, they are more apparent than others)

[spaghett-onaplate]

depression is really weird actually wdym i spent 2.5 years of my life in bed

[dangopango00]

TAOQI DOODLE Im so hyped for wuthering waves eueweyutweuueeee I wanna draw all my fave designs but im lazy so i started with the easiest of my top 5 gn

[vrains-rewrite]

Hello! this blog is for a group of people wanting to rewrite yugioh vrains in a new context, honouring canon where it works, but including parts of the story that were cut for time (for example i am staring at season 3 directly into the eyes and promising I will flesh out the characters within it the way they deserve).

We'll also be patching up plot holes that have been mildly annoying us for years now, and making changes here and there to duels and to world-building, and you (the people of tumblr dot com) can influence this.

Writing isn't actually going to begin until a month or two from now, but until then, this blog is going to be a place for us to gather information on the changes people want to see Asks (including anonymous) are fully open. You'll soon get introductions from each of the creators (there's currently 3 of us working on this) and posts discussing changes that could be made (though we cant spoil the whole thing of course lol

Expect more from us

- Teal

[lumi-waxes-poetic]

Some Tolkien affirmations to help you along when the darkness seems too much and everything seems lost

"The world may be grim, but there's always hope. Even in the darkest of days, there may be one bright star to guide you."

—Elrond

"It is not despair, but only the handing on of a torch."

—Aragorn

"The greatest good returns at last to those who share it freely."

—Gandalf

"It is not by sorrow and by suffering that we grow. It is by the choice we make when faced with sorrow and suffering."

—Fëanor

"The world is changed because I am in it."

—Bilbo Baggins

bonus round (Tolkien never actually wrote this — Peter Jackson did — but it's a good fucking line and Tolkien would have 100% agreed with it):

“Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love."

— Gandalf

[pikkish]

I'm new to the fandom, just played 2016 and Eternal in quick succession. Eternal's DLC left me really dissatisfied, but I can't really explain why or how. Based on that poll you made, it's clear you've got some Opinions on the writing, so I was hoping you would like to share them? I feel like I need someone to mull over that whole story with. You can message me privately if you wish!!

Hi there! Welcome to the Doom fandom! I hope you enjoy your stay here more than you enjoyed TAG's writing! And you're more than welcome to come yell with me about Doom and its related games any time!

You're more than correct in your assertion that I have some Opinions about modern Doom's writing, in fact, I have quite a few of them. Most of them can be summed up as "the writing is just plain bad," which is probably also the reason you're unsatisfied with it. It's inconsistent, it regularly sacrifices coherence for the sake of something that looks cool for trailer shots, it has a lot of details that very much could be interesting plots but are simply ignored after their first mention, and at least a few more things that I'm forgetting, it's been a little bit since my last playthrough of TAG and these are just the major ones off the top of my head.

Take Hayden, for example. In 2016, he's the classic egotistical, powerful CEO of a major weapons industry, who maybe didn't necessarily intend to get a ton of people killed, but now that he has, he's gonna stick to his guns and insist he's still in the right, this was an unfortunate accident, but what he's doing is necessary, for the good of humanity, can't you see? He's the good guy! He's just trying to make things better! And he's dedicated to this course well enough that he's willing to betray the man who's there to save him, and boot Doomguy back into Hell at the end of 2016.

Then you get to Eternal, and he's inexplicably changed his mind for no good reason? And it's not like he's learned his lesson and has become more humble for it; sure, he got his rear handed to him by demons, and he emphatically states that the creation of Argent Energy is an "unholy union" that "cannot continue," but at the same time, he still acts constantly like he has everything under control and heavily implies that, were he in charge, this situation wouldn't be so bad- as if he weren't in charge when it got this bad. It's like they wanted him to have the exact same attitude (and therefore, ability to deliver dramatic voicelines) as in 2016, but didn't want to commit to him being a villain, so they just went "ok! he doesn't like Argent Energy any more," and went with it, then never felt the need to explain how or why this complete shift in attitude came about. As a result, it feels like Hayden has no clear motive or goals, and falls pretty flat as a character in general.

And then, to take it into TAG, there's the Seraphim, and don't even get me started on how much I hate that that's his name, "seraphim" is the PLURAL form of "seraph," it's like how "Guy" is a real name but then if they decided to name a character "Guys" instead, and it drives me crazy-- whom they go to some lengths to confirm is, in fact, the same person as Hayden, but then, despite the fact that Samur is sick and dying from the moment you revive him, for some reason, Hayden has to turn back into Samur. I suppose there's maybe some indication that Samur and Hayden are actually different people implied by Hayden referring to the Seraphim in the third person through the beginning of the Atlantica level, but there's still never any explanation given for that, whether they are or aren't the same person, or why you need to bring Samur back in Hayden's place.

And then, you beat Samur up, and guess what? He immediately stops being relevant to the plot and is almost completely forgotten. And that's a recurring theme in modern Doom! Olivia Pierce and the Khan Maykr both share the same fate, the moment they're dead, they practically just stop existing. Sure, there's the statue of Olivia in Nekravol, and, like, a single mention of the Khan in one of TAG's codices, if I remember correctly, but personally, to me, both of those feel more like the devs giving you a wink and a nudge and saying "haha hey, remember them?" like it's more of an Easter Egg than them actually having any significance.

And then there's the whole mess that is Davoth. Admittedly, having the Divinity Machine be fueled by his power, and Doomguy being enhanced by that power is thematically appropriate, what with the whole reason Doomguy wins being that he's even angrier than Hell. I also think something like the Divinity Machine and Dooomguy becoming superhuman did have to happen eventually, because how many times can one man singlehandedly beat back the whole of Hell itself before he stops being just some guy? But I don't think it was executed very well.

For one thing, I don't think it was a good move to imply that Doomguy always was some sort of pseudo-god super entity right from the start. Sure, like I said, he did inevitably have to stop being just some guy, but him being just some guy was a good bit of the charm of classic Doom in my opinion. All we knew about him was that he loved his pet rabbit, and was more willing to punch his commanding officer in the face than follow an order to shoot civilians. And yeah, if you take that, and also assume that the story cards are Doomguy's own internal monologue or at least a representation of his attitude, then you can't really say he was ever a blank slate character, but he was still just some guy, and he was relatable for that. And going "well, actually, he was a godling from the very beginning" just doesn't feel very good in my opinion, and feels like a big retcon besides. (And we'll get to more "well, ACTUALLY" stuff in a bit, but first I wanna finish up the tangentially Davoth related stuff first.)

All that aside, if we take it at face value and say sure, Doomguy was always something a little more than human, always destined to become the ultimate warrior, rather than making himself into the Doom Slayer by surviving Hell, then there's still not really any reason for Davoth to have looked exactly like him, beyond going "you-- but EVIL!!" for the drama of it. I think there was maybe one codex entry that says Davoth's whole soul-stealing operation was for the sake of providing his own people with immortality, which is to say, he was fighting to protect his home or something to that effect, so an argument could be made that his looking like Doomguy is an attempt at exploring "this is you, gone too far, this is you if you ever let go of your morals, this is everything you risk becoming," but, again, it's mentioned like... once, in one codex, and never explored or elaborated upon further. If I remember correctly, Davoth himself never even acknowledges this, it's just the codex entry, and he just goes on about how he'll kill Doomguy and destroy everything he ever loved. If they really wanted to make him a sympathetic villain like that, then they should've actually given us the opportunity to feel that sympathy for him. Let me see the people he's trying to protect- is it an idyllic paradise, oblivious to the lengths being gone to to keep them comfortable? A broken, dying people who should have gone extinct long ago, but for this thievery of the lives of others? I know Hell is supposed to be Jekkad, corrupted, and even in theory, that's fine- you could say Davoth's become so ruthless in pursuit of this immortality for his people that he's blinded himself to how it's also destroyed that which he was attempting to save- but you can't really see that. It's still just Hell, not really any sort of remnant of something worth saving.

And speaking of that. Trying to make Davoth a sympathetic villain at all feels like a bad choice to me. Doom is about fighting demons, about carving a bloody war path through the ultimate evil of Hell itself, and about feeling viciously satisfied about doing it. Making it about a desperate man who can't accept that he failed to save what he cared about, and making about killing that man before he does any more damage in attempting to do what he's already failed to do just doesn't feel good the way the rest of Doom does. And beyond that, TAG doesn't even succeed in the emotional gut punch that would come from it, had they managed to make Davoth into an actually sympathetic villain. It's like they're trying to strike a balance between the gratuitously violent and exhiliratingly triumphant feel that Doom is known for, and an emotionally impactful story, and as a result, both end up landing somewhere between mediocre and just plain bad.

I don't have a good segue into this bit except to say it's coming back to the "well, ACTUALLY," thing I mentioned earlier, which is: there are a lot of parts that feel a lot like a six year old kid is just making up the plot on the spot, like, for example, "Doomguy LAUNCHES himself out of a CANNON and he has a MAGIC SWORD and a PET DRAGON that carries him to the MAGIC CRYSTAL in the MIDDLE of the PLANET." Granted, these ones are pretty small and relatively inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, and, yeah, okay, they do look pretty cool. But they don't really... fit? Yeah, it's not like classic Doom didn't have this too, In Doom I alone, Doomguy gets pissed about not getting a reward for beating up the barons, practically just jumps off the side of Deimos, and then finally gets to go home when a secret teleporter just opens beside him after Hell decides he's "too tough" for it. But that all fits in classic Doom, because it's not trying to be a serious, grimdark story. Classic Doom is goofy, and it knows it, and it doesn't try to be anything else. But modern Doom tries so hard to be a very serious, dramatic story and also keep the sillier bits of classic Doom, and- yeah, okay, I already made this point once, but here it is again- it ultimately kinda fails at both as a result.

But then there's the bigger of these, namely VEGA. You spend the majority of both 2016 and Eternal with him as your main companion, and, as far as I can remember, there's never really anything to indicate that he's anything other than what he's introduced as, a sentient AI, created to help manage the Mars base. And then you get to the end of Eternal, and- after basically making you sacrifice him for a second time- with next to no buildup, go, "well actually, he's the god of the bad guys." And I'd complain about that plot thread also being brought up and then dropped with no further elaboration, except they do elaborate on it, and that's basically all that TAG is about. They spend the whole of TAG 1 telling you how VEGA is the god of Literally Everything, and how he made Davoth, then didn't kill him when he started to get out of hand, and aren't you MAD at him, for making all your problems, for being too merciful with his own creation that he loved, and don't you just wanna DESTROY the thing that would give him power again?

And then you get to TAG 2 and they spend the whole time going "WELL ACTUALLY it's DAVOTH who's god and VEGA STILL couldn't kill him and he's been LYING to you this ENTIRE TIME." It almost feels to me like a bad fandom interpretation to justify not liking a character, except worse because they're actually the ones who made the character and wrote the story, and I'm not entirely sure why they intentionally tried to make VEGA a helpful, likeable character, gave him a backstory that arguably makes him more sympathetic than Davoth, and then went "actually we hate him now and are gonna do everything we can to try to make you hate him too."

There are definitely more things I could bring up, like whatever the whole deal with the wraiths and the World Spear is, and probably a handful of other things I'm forgetting, too, but it's getting late and I gotta get up to go to work tomorrow. At any rate, thanks for stopping by and giving me an excuse to finally yell about these things! Feel free to stop by and chat with me about video games whenever you want, I love getting to hear other people's thoughts on these things just as much as I love getting to give my own.

[eeriemothz]

thinking about Solas visiting his love every night in their dreams but disappearing every time they reach out to him. I am unwell.

[ableedingpromise]

God I'm so fucking annoyed how come she gets to treat me however she likes and then gets to say she didn't mean it?????

[rexscanonwife]

Naw but the way Charles literally has a spidey sense when somethings wrong with the boys 😭🙏💖💖