#lightning is fucking powerful who could've guessed

[lxikoniko]

I will forever push the "In terms of raw elemental power, Jay would be the strongest and most versatile in terms of range of his elemental abilities out of the main group (not including Lloyd obviously)" agenda

[fangsded]

POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR FINAL FANTASY XIII -LIGHTNING RETURNS!!!!

I just finished Lightning Returns. Holy fuck that ending was BIZARRE but also the exact ending I wanted. I LOVED every second of the main story. I love the anti government/religion, I love the (in my eyes) hints at queerness, I LOVE the reunions, I love that they did closure for the sequel characters?? I LOVE CAIUS/YUEL/NOEL'S ENDING SMMM!!! I love literally everything about the end.

There are just a few things I don't understand:

When Lightning first goes down onto the first little bit of the cathedral, and she talks to Lumina, everything was pretty much okay until Lightning decides to make sure Vanille doesn't do the soul song. When Lightning decides to run off to do that, Lumina suddenly breaks down and begs her not to leave.. AND THEN POOFS AWAY WHEN LIGHTNING LEAVES??? Just go with Lightning, kiddo. It's not like she would've stopped Lumina if she was gonna help? Lumina seems pretty powerful too, she could've been a big help. 😭

When Lightning talks to "Cid." If Lightning could talk to the dead and hear them out better than Vanille could, why didn't they do that sooner than legit the last day to talk? Vanille could hear all of them at once and it was suffocating, but Lightning could hear one guy out that was speaking for all the dead, and actually figure out what to do. Why'd they wait till the very end to suddenly throw that bit of kinda big story at us? Lightning and Vanille could've talked it out and the whole soul song thing could've been stopped way earlier.

If Lightning lost her emotions not because of the gods, but because she shut them away when her mom passed, how come she actually had character in the first game, then suddenly she becomes helpers for God's and becomes emotionless?? Shouldn't she have been emotionless from the start if she "made herself emotionless?" She was pretty emotionless in XIII-2, and Lumina wasn't a thing, so it can't be because Lumina took the emotional part of Lightning and left her with only logic. Plus, if she genuinely couldn't feel any emotion till the very end of the game, why did she care to help Serah, or any of the others, and genuinely care when they were hurt? If she only cared about Serah, she could've saved many other souls, yet she went after people like Snow and Caius who were difficult or even impossible to save. She could've just stuck to finding oil for Bachti and small things like that. 😭😭

Remember these?

She felt genuine emotions like joy, worry, annoyance, and more but those are the pictures I have at the moment. If she lost her emotions because of herself, shouldn't it have been flipped? Where she is emotionless in the first game and grows to show her feelings by LR? She even was really shut off from everything in the very beginning and warmed up to the others enough to show emotion. But no?? more time passes and she shuts off after growing so much in game one???

This one I'm almost more mad about than Hope constantly in your ear bothering you all of LR.

If Noel cared enough about Serah to help at the very end of the game, why didn't he just help though the whole game? He wasn't doing anything after we beat him in the fight other than wandering Luxerion. He could've just tagged along. Lightning told him the goal was to save Serah before they fought and all he cared about was his Yuel, but suddenly at the very end he cares now? I could see why Sazh and Snow didn't tag along. Sazh had Dajh to spend the remainder of time with, and Snow technically had a house to rebuild even though it wasn't worth it since the end of the world was approaching, but I guess it's a better excuse than; "I only care about Yuel right now, so you can save Serah on your own."

If Lightning and Fang knew that Vanille was being manipulated a few days before the end, and Vanille regularly wanders the cathedral later in the day, and at least Lightning knows this, why didn't they just tell her? Maybe Fang knew less and didn't believe she could convince Vanille yet. But Lightning doesn't have an excuse. Lightning found out Vanille was being manipulated and why a few days before the end, and we could go up to Vanille and talk to her still. Why didn't Lightning tell her before the soul song was about to be performed??? She didn't even try at all, maybe if there was a scene where she tried and it didn't work without Fang being there for some reason then maybe the end would make more sense, but it was actually very preventable. Lightning also didn't know that Buhnavelze (or however you spell that thing,) was controlling Hope yet, so maybe Hope could've had a suspicious scene where he tells Lightning to go do something "important" before she tries to tell Vanille? That would've been great.

I also didn't understand "fake Serah" at all? Like, they said things like, "she was a fake the whole time." So that means for how long? Cause the whole time would mean she wasn't ever real including before the L'cie stuff, but I don't think they meant that? Unless they did? They mean just for after she died right? There's no way they mean to say that the whole first game journey was for a fake sister/fiance, right? The whole XIII-2 journey would've also meant nothing because the main character would've been fake, and saving her in LR would be pointless if she was fake the whole time too? So they had to have meant when she randomly appeared to attempt to toy with Lightning, right?

What happened to the fakes anyways? Tf happened to fake Serah? Did she just get cast aside bc she wasn't the real Serah? She explained that she had feelings and a soul, just not Serah's soul, which means she was a real person too. Did I blink and miss the scene where she turned into only a soul too or go into Lightning's heart or something? Cause after all the talk of doing what's right and making sure to save literally everyone except for Caius and most the Yuel's, there's no way they'd cast aside someone like that just because she isn't the actual Serah, right?

Now this one is probably gonna be excused with "they're just optional NPCs!" But I'm still gonna ask.

The fuck did they do? Did they develop mental disorders and become disabled? The side quests are SOOOO dragged out, and all they do is yap and yap. Most the quests are; "go up the hill and find the thing we've been searching for, for 500 years." Or "go find my wife's broken calculator for me that's just over there in the sand by the skeleton. My poor dumb soul can't be saved without that broken calculator." Like, really? Pretty much all the side quests are just nonsense fluff that they could very well do themselves. Why do their souls depend on Lightning doing everything, and why do they talk so much for so long and drag out everything as much as possible? AND WHY DO YOU GAIN LEVELS OFF OF THE DUMBASS FLUFF QUESTS THAT'RE SO SO PAINFUL? WHY WAS BUHNAVELZE SO HARD AFTER DOING MOSTLY ALL THE QUESTS TOO? YOU'RE TELLING ME THAT HE'S EVEN MORE DIFFICULT WITHOUT DOING ALMOST ALL QUESTS? I ALMOST HAD TO START COMPLETELY OVER ON THAT FIGHT 😰

Don't tell me about the four rooms at the end either, the fights in there were also way too hard and I couldn't do a single one. That shit is for new game+

Why is Buhnavelze so annoying? Like, he controlled Hope's body, right? Hope talked in your ear about everything and as many useless things as possible. Real Hope didn't do that. Why is Buhnavelze really damn annoying?

Despite all the flaws, I still love it and will be going rabid over it. This hyper fixation will be the most over the top so far because it's too good. I could make a bigger rant than this about why I love it, but I won't.

Please tell me about these things if you know about them though. I'd love to hear it out and learn why all these things happened the way they did.

[yakool-foolio]

Out of all of the Amaterasu employees that we see in the game, if you had to list them from most morally good to least, how would you list them?

Obviously, they are all terrible people in multiple ways, but I'm just curious

Hmm, interesting! I haven't even really considered how much they'd be weighed on a scale for their morality. I like contemplating new ways to 'rank' characters though, and the peacekeeper higher-ups, other than Yomi (and Hitman Zilch since they basically come in a package deal in my brain), do deserve some more attention from me, so I'll give it a go! I'll just stick with ranking the higher-ups since we have the most info on what we see of them in canon, so sorry Huesca, your judgement day will have to come another time (not to mention we don't have enough info on the specifics of how bad he really was other than him 'sacrificing others for his own research' and conspiring to kill Yakou's wife, but honestly that should be enough to send him into the murky depths of the river Styx). This list will go from least morally corrupt to most morally corrupt, but I think we can already tell who's at the top.

First off, it's our lil sickly guy Seth! Poor guy honestly did the least things wrong, probably couldn't even hurt a fly if he really tried. While he did threaten to sink the sub and arrest the detectives on scene, he did give them a time limit to investigate and find the culprit. It was a very restrictive time limit, but still a chance to save themselves nonetheless. He was just doing as he was ordered to by Yomi in regards to taking money from the church, who knows what would've happened to him if he disobeyed. Guess we'll never know, sorry Seth.

Next up is Martina. I've been debating on where to put her, but honestly compared to the others, she somehow manages to scrape by as the second least morally corrupt. Most of my reasoning is due to her actively realizing that Yomi was an awful influence and resigning as a peacekeeper. No peacekeeper other than Seth had that kind of hindsight of their actions being the cause of Yomi being Yomi. Martina's above Seth on the moral corruption list cause she still actively threatened to shoot two young detectives and definitely would've pulled the trigger had she not been stopped.

Swank takes a spot right smack dab in the middle on the Amaterasu morality scale. This dude is greedy af and worked alongside Hitman Zilch to frame Yuma for the massacre on the train. And he would've gotten away with it too, if it weren't for that meddling chief! As soon as Yakou stepped into the scene, Swank's disposition took a surprising turn. He surrendered Yuma over to Yakou when he could've easily still arrested Yuma and moved on with his day. And yet, all it really took was for Yakou to say 'I'll tell WDO about your bad behavior and they'd be so mad at you >:T' and Swank took the hint and backed off. MAN DIDN'T EVEN GET BRIBED WITH MONEY! HE JUST TOOK THE L AND LEFT! That's the power of the charismatic blue father figure for ya. Honestly, Swank could've been ranked lower than Martina, but as far as we know, he never got that same sense of hindsight, so he could still be a money-grubbing, mass-murder framer to this day.

And now we move up to Guillaume and Dominic. These two are inseparable, so they shall be treated as such. I think its safe to say these guys like the thrill of hunting down Yuma and want to beat him and his allies to a pulp despite his pleas for mercy. They punch first and ask questions later. Not to mention they view all citizens as slaves, easily manipulated the power of Amaterasu. At least they gave up on harming Yuma when they were given the actual culprits, but Yuma would've easily been turned to paste if not for the detectives' intervention.

And finally, earning the top spot for most morally fucked by a landslide is Yomi! Do I even really need to go into the specifics about why this guy is so damn horrendous? Well, let's do a lightning round! Yomi hired a hitman to kill anyone who criticized or went against him (such as Yakou's wife), violently abused and almost had his 'girlfriend' killed, planned the Amaterasu Express Massacres, physically punished many of his coworkers, manipulated Yakou into killing Huesca, kicked down a dying Yakou, threatened to kill the detectives multiple times, and attempted to leak info about a militaristic experiment to create immortal soldiers to other facilities for some cash. Fuckin' bitch.

[korinthiakos]

almost kisses that are interrupted by a third party

[ dream :)]

kiss prompts. ( accepting !! )

A hunger stirs within him - a ravenous thing; gnawing at his throat and his head. A need - clawing and scratching. And it was almost there. The Corinthian almost had it. He could feel nothing on his lips, but Dream was close. Dream did not breathe like he did. Sometimes Dream chooses not too. How different they were sometimes. Though painfully similar when it came down to loneliness. To be distant and mute when you're not feeling social.

He hated it.

And he hated that the moment was ruined. Corinthian's hot breath ghosted over Dream's lips. An old habit that refuses to die... He was so close to xem. So fucking close to experiencing the possible thunder that was Dream's kiss. Lightning rolling off the tongue. To maybe dread it and love it at the same time to feel such power. Power that he was close to experiencing...

Guess who ruined it? Guess who interrupted it? Guess who disrupted the coil that was so close to springing? The hunger that could've been sated for a moment. Matthew the fucking Raven.

"Yo, boss. Is this a bad time?"

Corinthian steps away before Dream does, knowing that Dream would do that first. "Birdie, I will peck your eyes out."

[knowlessman]

lol, forgot this show was a thing for a whole month. um, there's more nomus, there's smart nomus I think, endeavor fucking died except he didn't, anyway now it's movie time so probably nothing relevant to the current plot will happen and also nothing in this movie will become relevant to the plot even if it should. (bnha movie 2, heroes rising)

cg cars I think? ohey it's Lizardman from Every Villain Is Lemons. and some buckethead rando who looks like they wandered in from Dark Souls. and that… dude… the lock guy, forget his name. -- did yall fucking kidnap actual literal vegeta from dragonball

yooo it's fukken happening, Dancing Boy's fighting Frowny Man, I didn't think that was til next season

so they were actually just transporting solid snake?

(intro spiel) ♪ and then one sunny afternoon, All Might came to say... ♪

beach episode stuffs ig, no notes cept why did they have to intro mineta first

...tokoyami can fly? in broad daylight? is that, like... is that legit, or just movie-show inconsistency?

("you took an hour to find a lost kid? I'm gonna leave a bad review") should've scolded that kid back for making a fake call and wasting time that could've been spent responding to an emergency

bakugo: "I'm reserve, that means I can lie around and do fuckall unless a villain shows up" -- "cool, thanks for volunteering for guard duty" 'XD got his ass

"hurry up and master that quirk so I can fight you" bakugo continuing to think he's in dragonball

poor hat kid crying wolf. that sister of his is gonna owe him three buckets of ice cream for the chewing-out bakugo will probably give them

I thought the hero-nerfing darts were, like, resolved? Eri got rescued, but I guess there are still a lot of unused darts? -- ah, maybe they've just managed to replicate All for One.

holy shit they got jim carrey for this movie

"the next time you could come home was in ten days, right?" are these kids just completely unsupervised for ten days? don't they at least have a grandparent watching them? no wonder they can't find anything better to do than make prank calls -- dilf legoshi hates trucks? not clickbait?

k, confirmed then, psycho mantis or wever can steal quirks. …and he has mega-explosive farts that pulverise skyscrapers in the background and throw lightning everywhere whenever he does it. (he should probably take something for that.) -- now, I've never played the Metroid Prime games (cept Hunters and it probably doesn't count), but even I know a Phazon overdose when I see one

"you picked the wrong person to taunt!" "katsuki baku… oh! you're that guy that got taken hostage by the slime monster that one time, right?" -- "what's up with that guy, anyway?" A LOT. -- pokemon npcs, that's who these kids look like. they got "level 4 Caterpie" written all over them.

okay, dilf legoshi is on some cool shit. top-tier design right here for a filler villain

"an invisible wall made of air? wow, I definitely didn't just finish kicking someone's ass who had that exact quirk."

"what? the guy whose power is making explosions exploded his way out of my bandages!"

"I can't steal it… no, I don't have enough free spaces to steal them all…" shoulda bought more ram. that is interesting, tho; the previous avatars won't let One for All be stolen (or it just counts as as many quirks as it's had wielders, or maybe adds quirks to its, like, payload when a wielder has one?).

(giant inflatable-mascot-looking deku illusion) …hehe. kid could have a future in advertising.

"ha! I have air maneuverability, so I can get around your shields!" "in response, I summon yellow eyes blue dragon in attack mode!"

-- "detroit sma-" "holding priority, fartocalypse into forked lightning!"

"what happened to the villain we caught?" "you mean the one bakugo blasted in the face with nitroglycerin at point-blank range? he's tied up in the basement, but he's not talking much. probably because his lungs, teeth and entire fucking head got Galick-Gunned into oblivion"

good pep talk happening, but when does some kinda plan show up -- …okay this is actually an awesome plan, and not only takes into account everything the heroes know, but correctly guesses the villains' whole deal. …how the hell are the villains sposed to compete with this? 'XD I guess psycho mantis probably has some tricks left he hasn't shown, but they'll need some other aces in the hole. or at least to not try to come in via the front door.

dilf legoshi lights his cigar with his own fire breath. …damn this guy's cool. I mean, how many characters have fire breath, and I've never seen one do that.

they seriously have nothing to throw at psycho mantis but rocks tho, huh. they did say they gotta keep their distance, I guess. and it wouldn't be *heroic* to make spears or whatnot.

"we poisoned our weapons with a toxic mucus made by asui, who by the way can also turn invisible now." …hah????? is any of this shit canon? is this movie actually set a few episodes into s5? what gives? aoyama has also been firing lasers from his shoulders and stuff, and I don't think I've seen him do that before either. -- daaamn, dilf legoshi also knows hyper beam?

uh-oh, they got psycho mantis to his limit, but it looks like he's juicing with more Phazon to surpass it -- daaang, he's got cg thunder clouds going now. he's going super fartocalypse god super fartocalypse -- he's also got doc ock tentacles except they're dragons from yugioh

second time this movie these dumbass kids have been told to run from the villain and just sat there -- …kid, your quirk is illusions. like, okay, that didn't work last time either, but still, running TOWARDS the bad guy? and your brother is STILL just sitting there

"you did a good job, katsuma" no he fucking didn't, he ran AT the bad guy, maybe hoping his quirk would suddenly turn into something that could attack -- oh NOW you run

"but how did you avoid the lightning?" "we used kaminari as a lightning rod" 'XD harsh, but a legitimate strategy

"what would all might do?" idk, win? all might doesn't have half the brains you do, deku, I don't think he's ever made a plan in his life -- "the power to transfer power…" oh hell no, bakugo is the LAST person you should be trusting with this. deku, for all your brains, how do you still find it in you to assume the best of a guy who has bullied you relentlessly and unrepentantly your entire life?

(flashback) I forgot all for one doesn't have fucking eyes, wtf, he's got overgrown skin where his eyes should be

"besides, I'm sure all might would say it's fine if it's you" jesus christ, all might is an idiot and even he knows better than that. you may be the plan guy but you got a blind spot bigger than the sun. good thing this is a movie so nothing in it sticks.

"wh-what is this?" …so wait, you both did detroit smash and opened the clouds and shit and some lady started singing the star spangled banner or wevertf and you DIDN'T EVEN HIT THE BAD GUY WITH IT -- YOU BOTH HAVE FUCKING PURPLE ARMS AND YOU DID NOT EVEN HIT THE BAD GUY WITH IT??? HE'S STANDING RIGHT THERE TAUNTING AND POWERING UP WTF YOU JUST WASTED SO MUCH

this is some good-ass animation that they've decided to mute and set to America's football halftime showtune (it's just all slow and loud and showy so it makes me think of that, I have no idea what the actual song is but I think most of it's in English)

I'll say this about the last quarter, I like the bad guy's purple energy butterfly wings

"sayonara, one for all, I leave you in the most abusive, self-centered person I know's homicidal hands" -- "the predecessors gave them a miracle…" okay so maybe all might doesn't know better, but the previous avatars do and rejected vegeta, thank fuck

"good night, Nine. good work." but he didn't do anything here. also can handface eat people's quirks too?

"vegeta doesn't remember anything about the transfer of one for all…" again, thank fuck. I guess they knew he'd be impossible to write from there without officially making him an antagonist. hell, how often does a movie have to specify one character not remembering the events from it? (I know, from the writer's perspective it's just that he would talk about it, but really, they're way too generous to his personality in general)

the kid's only got a healing quirk, stop telling him he'll be a hero, he'll think he's a front-liner when he can do no good there. the back line is just as important.

eh. end part was a little annoying, but was good movie overall. Pretty much everybody got to do cool shit, and the action bits were cool.

[yourthirdparent]

hi! i was scrolling through tiktok and came across this account which writes original songs, and this might be my hiperfixation with him, but to me they are all about jason, thought you'd like it

https://www.tiktok.com/@eclipseofthemoons?_t=8WQULb8NRwb&_r=1

heyo! i love this actually and you're so right. sorry to subject you to this but i'm gonna jot down my ideas on a bunch of her songs that i can see being about jason. putting it under a readmore cuz this'll get long.

this one is about him dicking around and having flings with random people at edgarton after he gets the prophecy from herophile. he's already decided that if he and piper go on the quest then it'll be him who dies, and he's accepted that it'll be Death with a capital D, so he knows he doesn't have much longer to live and has decided to do a bunch of shit to like make it count or whatever. the "clearly made up crime" mentioned is actually jason continuing to live after the first prophecy (both the "[person] or jason is gonna die" prophecies were actually just to make sure jason would end up dead quick). the crime is made up because it literally isn't against the rules that he continues to live, like either he or leo had to die and leo did that so jason should be able to head off totally fine. jason recognises that it's stupid as hell that they're just making shit up about how it's against the dumb ass rules for him to live when it shouldn't be but he's accepted it and is now just deciding to mess around. the last line of "when my body and my innocence aren't mine" conjures a specific idea for me but it's probably too dark for me to share anywhere so i'll just say it's about how he sacrificed his body and his childhood to the legion through the years he was there

this one is about the bitterness he feels towards his time spent as centurion then as praetor at camp jupiter being him being a tool for the gods for most of his life. "i created those around me" is about him training the newer members of his cohort. "playing god is funny til you have to choose who's dying first" is about how he used to use his power as a way to generally fuck around with people (like jokingly saying he'd punish someone for very light things) or improve the legion (like establishing better ways to handle younger campers or the whole changing the name to the first legion to represent a new start for rome) but eventually he has to lead his cohort and the legion into battle and send people off to do things that would likely lead to their deaths. "our bodies were the vehicle, transporters of the soul" is about how demigods are treated like pawns to assist in the plans of the gods. "i was young and bold and stupid in a six foot, self dug hole" is jason reflecting on how he used to throw his life away to carry out the wishes of the gods. "was i the only one to question anything at all? i guess i was, that's my bad. i'll answer to her call" i like to think that jason started questioning if a life serving the gods was worth the sacrifices he makes the instant he had to send someone off to what would probably be their doom. he starts asking if it's really a fair life if it's spent serving beings who don't care about you. juno doesn't really like that he's thinking things like that so she snatches up any memories of that when she sends him off to camp half blood. "my immortal evolutionary traits are still intact. i am unapologetic for the sympathy i lacked" is him p much saying he's got the powers of the gods and he's not afraid to use them if the gods try to take him down. unfortunately this is kind of overshadowed by the next lines which are "i left my body back in california cuz i'm weak" which i decided is basically him leaving the life he could've led back at the park his mother left him at, and "overdosed on phenobarbital, it's part of my mystique" with phenobarbital being used for seizures which can be caused by flashing lights which can be replicated with something like idk lightning which jason summons quite often. epileptic jason is real to me

THIS ONE OH MY GOD I AM BARKING AT MY SCREEN AND SCREAMING INTO A TUPPERWARE. it's about jason having his powers taken from him after the whole "calling zeus unwise" thing. he was probably getting someone out of a dangerous situation by jumping from something high, like a tall building or a cliff, when suddenly he figured out that oh shit he can't fly anymore. "did anybody listen? did anybody care?" is him questioning why nobody caught him. i like to think that he was carrying percy at the time and they landed in a body of water and poseidon caught them in it. but like, obviously poseidon wasn't trying to catch jason, jason was just attached to percy at the time so he ended up tagging along for the ride. so jason's wondering like, why did nobody else try to catch him? why did some wind god or another sort of water god that he'd helped, or someone like frank who could fly down not catch him? if not for the fact that it was percy that he was carrying, would he just be dead? all cuz his father took his powers from him for making a valid point? and uhh "i'm praying to a god i don't believe in on a dare" is him 1 losing all respect for zeus because what kind of piece of shit lets their child jump off a building and then takes their power away right when they're going to die? and 2 still praying desperately to zeus and any other god that could possibly save him on the vague hope that they would save him. "i'm not sure what i'm missing, a piece forever gone" is about how his powers (more accurately, the reminder of him being jupiter's son) is such an engrained part of his identity that when its taken away its like there's a piece of him that's just missing and will never be brought back. "i misplaced my mind at sunset" is him calling zeus unwise right after apollo was sent off to be punished later (and also close to the end of summer), "and stole it back by dawn" is him making the choice to go into the fight against caligula knowing he'd die close to the end of apollo's journey (and a bit into spring). (the seasons thing is about the concept of spring being dawn, summer being day, fall being dusk, and winter being night. like seasons corrospond to points in time in a yearly sense rather than a monthly sense). "me and my numerous souls" is the idea of the lives lost in battles jason led haunting him until his own death.

this one actually just has a couple lyrics that are jasoncore but !! funsies. this one's about his relationship with piper and dealing with the end of that while dealing with the prophecy in tbm. "it is simple, it is stupid that i'd rather write than speak, but melodies are easier when we haven't talked in a week. i'm on thin, thin ice, i've lost my way, i'll save it for another day" is him throwing himself into his work to avoid having to talk about him and piper drifting apart. just desperately avoiding that conversation because it's worse to deal with the awkwardness if they break up. "every word i say is just a lie" is about him neglecting to mention what herophile told him in the prophecy, "i'm betting with the gods until i die" is about him. b. betting with the gods until he dies. he's praying and he's trying to get his work on the shrines and such done before he dies (maybe working a bit harder on underworld gods so he doesn't have to worry about them being pissed at him when he gets down there). "i don't feel much but that's my only sin" is aroace jason. sorry bout it he's aroace for this pologies

this one is very priest jason, pretty god jason if you feel it. maybe he's gotten closer to the underworld gods or is the god of judgement (which works awfully well with his father being the god of justice). either that or its him being told all this by the judges when he reaches them. or by the spirits in the long ass line to judgement. or by nico before he even dies!! endless possibilities :)

this one. i literally can't explain it just listen to it. literally just. you understand. just all of it. gifted kid, struggles with english, mentions of storms and lightning bugs and promises. i don't need to explain. jasoncore through and through. especially the "i need more storms that blow you off your feet and carry you away, i need lightning that dances across the sky in graceful fury, i need fields of fireflies floating in the endless skies" bit. obviously cuz yk storms, lightning, but the way they're used seems graceful and calculated rather than angry and irrational and impulsive. this is gonna take a violent jump into anger issues jason but it feels a lot like how jason is expected to be cool and calm and whenever he shows anger everyone tells him to stop because he's supposed to be better.

maybe my hyperfixation on him isn't big enough to connect all of this one to him but the beginning sure as hell fits. also feels pretty leocore? like all of feels leocore. but more importantly jason. anyways "i'm overwhelming, overbearing to distract from the plain fact that i have no personality" and "i'm obnoxious cuz i own no originality" are jason not knowing who he is and throwing himself into anything that can make him seem like a whole person, like for example leaning further into his friendships (more specifically the idea of being the mom friend) than most other people tend to, or being annoyingly enthusiastic about anything he's interested in. like he's exaggerating any part of himself that he's certain of in the hopes that he'll convince everyone he's an entire interesting person. "i'm just copying whoever seems to be doing well" is self explanatory, he's mimicking everyone cuz he doesn't think he can do fine if he just Is what he is without any input from other people.

this one is hoooooh. again it's just a few lyrics but hwow is it banger shit. "the antagonistic arguments that line my unpaid debts is a pressure i can't withstand" is about how he feels like he owes something great because he's a jupiter kid at a camp that's named after his father and titled something that legitimately applies to him (fulminata, armed with lightning) and how everyone pressures him to be better than others cuz of it. and yk. anger issues jason. he feels like he's being antagonised. "showing pain is childish when i cry" is about jason being expected not to feel sadness or pain or anything and how he learned to crush that down and not cry and so he considers himself crying to be childish because the last time he cried was when he was a little kid who missed his family and the wolves and was overwhelmed from the new surroundings he was thrown into. "i'm praying to a god that's just a lie" isn't jason believing that the gods aren't real but rather that praying to them for things is pointless because they'll never listen. "i'm drinking down a tin of pastel paint cuz neon colours make me want to faint" can be many things. examples examples uhh autistic jason. like neon colours are just too damn bright for him and can overstimulate him vv easily and pastels are just easier for him to take in. or it could be a metaphor for demigod life being too much for him (represented by neons because chb has bright ass orange and camp jupiter has not really a neon purple but it's certainly not very pastel) and him heading out into the mortal world which is like less harsh and contrasted and more just blank and light. less heavy.

i didn't get to all of them cuz it would take me like a week to write all of it (this took me like an entire 24 hours hshs) and would be SO long (this is 2133 words rn it'd be so fuckin long if i kept going) but you're so right and am now obsessed with her music. thanks for sharing!

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hey Lizzy, do you think Michael was a bigger bad guy in Season 5 than Lucifer? Everything that was happening could have been prevented by Michael, if only he decided that The Apocalypse was not worth it. To me, Michael could've "walked off the chessboard" and stopped Lucifer's evil plans without needing to fight. Lucifer wasn't the one above reasoning, Michael was. What do you think?

I absolutely agree that he was the bigger bad guy… I hadn’t thought about his motivations so much because he seems impossible to reason with that I can’t imagine he’d actually have walked off the chessboard in any version of this, but he was the one kept at arms length and represented through the most slimy intermediary of Zachariah, who is probably the most easily-despised character on the show ever, and that’s just his underling as a taster to his personality. :P

The narrative played with it in a lot of ways - Lucifer you’d EXPECT to be the worst because of the name, although I think he was doing truly evil things with truly evil methods all year, and all their previous trauma and all the mytharc related death sources back to him through the whole show, e.g. Azazel working on his orders. 

I think Michael represents the unfeeling establishment in a lot of ways - that there wasn’t really an option to him of walking off and not doing the thing and that fate was sealed by the fact Lucifer had already done a whole lot of awful… In 2x13 he’s described as “The fighter of demons. Holy force against evil.” and in a lot of ways he’s paralleled to Dean in roles and family dynamic, but in a really bad way. He represents the part of Dean that could be taken to the extreme to kill his brother if he was ~too evil~ and whether we’re sympathetic to Sam or Lucifer on this matter, Michael is not because he has the most absolute, black and white view on evil ever, the same thing that Dean was being taught to set aside in season 2 when this comparison was first made and the arc about him being a killer or not was first floated. Dean does have compassion and when Cain asks him about it later he says he didn’t kill Sam because you never give up on family, ever. 

Michael seemed to have one purpose only and that was to do what God said up to and including killing his brother if he had to (although I suspect it was really more like striking him down and throwing him in the cage because of the whole Mark business, when you look back on it with retcons >.>) and the way he’s represented in the narrative, as the mystery person running Heaven we only know through his underlings - that is, a mindless army of angels and a middle management of snivelling brown-nosers in suits whose primary character trait is being petty - doesn’t reflect well on his compassion. We can deduce just from Cas’s programming and comments on archangels etc that Michael is so absolute and black and white, and since he’s been running Heaven, he is the root cause of what makes it everything that it is, especially as God’s absence is so heavily emphasised. 

When it came to the storytelling in season 5, they showed us Lucifer in the first episode, and just a warning that Dean was Michael’s vessel, so in the first episode Dean is the one with the big burden, and though we might be able to guess Sam has the same thing coming because the Lucifer thing has been so tied to him, we see Lucifer get his standby vessel so he can go literally raise Hell for a while, and he fucks around playing the pantomime villain. In 5x04 the manipulation is coming from MICHAEL’S camp, showing us Lucifer as the villain who wins and the angels are all gone and can’t do anything about it, but Zach is the bad guy of the episode and it’s part of the manipulation on DEAN and the weight put on his shoulders. They’re USING Lucifer as the ~wooo scary~ bad guy to convince Dean. 

Michael only gets a few minutes of actual screentime and only 1 appearance before the showdown, and I think holding back on his appearance made him far more the threat. Lucifer didn’t NEED Sam to fuck shit up because he was already causing huge earthquakes and gearing up to wipe cities off the map. He had Death tethered; the damage he was causing was already very real and he could have kept going and going and Sam saying yes was a way to slow that down as much as to have the big old showdown. Finding out about the rings and using them was again something they could have done without Michael - in the end all he was was bait to draw Lucifer out because Lucifer wouldn’t face him until he had a vessel strong enough he was sure he could win the fight. The THREAT of Michael is that he JUST wants to fight Lucifer and go for another round of the true story of Supernatural - the Cain and Abel/Michael Lucifer/God Amara fight that Sam and Dean are the lightning rods for. The actual THREAT in the show, really, is never that the entire planet will get blown up or whatever - if Sam n Dean die good but that happens, oh well, sad but noble ending. The darkest, worst way it goes is Dean kills Sam, bending to the endless pressure of the narrative which they inhabit, in a universe engineered in a duality between siblings with a creator/destroyer dynamic. 

And Michael was the instigator there, the example of the Dean/God/Cain side of things that would destroy the sibling for being bad or dark or in need of saving from themselves or to save others from them or whatever. The real damage, the real threat in the narrative, is Dean killing Sam, and has been since season 2 in the sense that it’s just put out there that he might one day have to do it if it comes down to “kill him or save him” which is the same problem all the other versions of their story had until they hopefully broke the cycle by ~the river ends at the source~ing God and Amara. 

Once Michael had possessed Adam and Dean had overcome this huge burden and the story switches all gears to Sam’s redemption arc and giving them a way to defeat Lucifer if Sam will sacrifice himself (and so nothing like Dean’s enormous personal arc of resisting everything Michael stands for and his so-called destiny to give into it knowing it will almost certainly be how he ends up killing his brother because 5x04 and he also believes that they “keep each other human” so as soon as he leaves Sam unattended he’ll somehow end up possessed probably :P), the fact that there had been choice there (in the sense that Dean has historically always overcome destiny and always had the philosophy against it in a different way to Sam that reflects how they won in 5x22 the entire show) is totally different for Sam and Lucifer. Lucifer as the obvious villain cavorting around has to be stopped and Sam has his own reckoning with him that NEEDS to happen and it’s been framed the entire time as something that has to happen via Sam being possessed - Michael is still out there now and with Dean not involved he suddenly has no power to STOP Michael from fighting and killing Lucifer (Cas seems certain he’d win and I listen to Cas and also this makes sense in the narrative and NOW we know Michael had that cruel lance so thanks season 12 once more for proving me right :P). 

So the threat going into 5x22 is not that Lucifer will kill Michael and Adam, because that’s boring, and then go do the apocalypse, because that’s impersonal to the characters especially if Dean’s dead so we don’t even have Endverse versions of them to assume are out there, but that Michael will kill Lucifer and Sam, because that’s PERSONAL, so again he is the thing that they’re swinging against, the REASON they need a no-kill ending because SAM is involved and will get hurt (by Michael), and boxing Lucifer (and Sam) away is the plan to stop  him because Michael can’t be reasoned with, so the only option is to take Lucifer off the playing field entirely so Michael can’t go after him - for the sake of the planet but also for the sake of not killing Sam. Because the Cain and Abel model says Michael will kill his brother and Michael thinks Lucifer is evil and must be stopped and as a representation of the worst mindset of Dean programmed by John (that Dean has been resisting all along since 2x01 when John did this to him in the same way God did it to Michael) that’s just what he has to do.

I mean the other side is always valid as a threat and something to be concerned about/care about, and for the characters weighs on them all the time as a thing they need to worry about, but the stories are powered by what’s PERSONAL and why them and not literally anyone… Adam here helpfully representing “literally anyone” :P The 3rd brother they just can’t afford to care about as much. Because we’re supposed to care about Sam so much more, and we know Michael is so absolutely unreasonable (not that I seriously trust Lucifer to have lain up arms but the point was I think to prove to us and for Lucifer needling Michael into it that he WOULD kill him and couldn’t forgive him for what he was/what he’d done), the threat is all absolutely coming from Michael, to the point he’s the one Cas “hey assbutt”s away for a few minutes because they hope there’s a chance to get Sam back to do the ring thing but Michael is not going to give Dean the chance to talk to Lucifer/Sam to try a peaceful solution. He HAS to fight and therefore he is the conflict in that scene.

So I think from the start of the season the conflict is presented first and foremost as Dean resisting Michael, Michael is built up as a totally unreasonable villain way before he ever says anything, representing destiny and the worst version of the cosmic sibling story, and then once Dean has resisted his part, Michael switches to the overall part of the story that causes the conflict, as the backdrop to what Sam is fighting for when he overcomes Lucifer, and why it’s so urgent not just to stop Lucifer but the WHY and WHEN of the fight and for their own PERSONAL stories it’s important that Michael is there to fail to kill Lucifer and to be resisted. His inability to let go is why he ends up going into the cage, pointlessly, leading to the instability in Heaven - although ultimately a better, more peaceful, hands-off Heaven once his influence is pretty much all gone. 

Also it’s a crying shame they never brought him back, but he’s just too HUGE. If he comes back it will be a storyline that pretty much has to end the show because he was such an impossible villain to have on the stage, that he *only* showed up in a flashback, where history disarmed him from acting, as a ball of light to possess Adam, off-screen, and in 5x22 to say his bit and be locked away. And, I think, why they have emphasised he’s broken now, in case they do bring him back, because if they think Lucifer is too huge an element to reasonably have running around in the story, Michael would bring it crashing to its knees at full power. Raphael wanting to restart the apocalypse was bad enough for the world… But they CAN bring Lucifer back and have him run around like a pantomime villain, and they can find ways to restrain him and suck all the terror out of him and turn him into a caricature. Michael was so absolute and unwavering and absolutely needle point to a purpose, I’m not sure what they’d do with him. I mean bringing in that lance was amazing, and underlined that Michael only had one purpose, and how utterly powerful and awful he is - seeing his power destroying Cas like that but knowing it was meant for Lucifer… I mean, THAT is the scary character who stays hidden in the shadows the entire length of the show, in the way where Lucifer managed for like 2 seasons before he was like HI I’M HERE PAY ATTENTION TO ME, which then became his role but in larger text every subsequent time they’ve dragged him back out, and as loud as that gets, it proportionately diminishes him as a character >.> Horror works best when you don’t know the adversary or they’re so utterly incomprehensibly *something* that you don’t know how to deal with them…

… except I think that’s the problem the writers might have with Michael too :P