#like he can genuinely be such a fun and fascinating villain!!!!! he can!! he's FUN in say superman birthright

[that-nerd-who-writes-fanfiction]

Sometimes I think Merlin and Arthur started the sacrificing each other to save each other shit too soon into the series.

Then I remember this scene exists.

(Screenshot from S1E2 - Valiant of Merlin bringing the snake head from the enchanted shield to Arthur to warn him that he’s in danger.)

They moved quickly, but they have a damn good reason for it. I honestly can’t say I blame them.

Merlin learned two things about his destiny with Arthur from this episode:

The first is that Arthur will listen when it matters, but his father’s influence runs deep. Arthur cares more about people’s opinion of him than anything else because he’s been groomed his entire life to become the future king, and Uther is tyrannical in his power so he believes that his is the only way to rule. Arthur picked up bad habits, so while he’s still young and learning what kind of man and leader he wants to be, he could still go either way and Merlin can’t yet trust him to always make the best decisions. (Proved in S1E3 when he enlists Morgana to talk to Arthur about the Afank)

The second thing is that Arthur believes in the systems that Merlin knows to be broken, so he learns it’s better to come to Arthur with results rather than warnings, because Arthur believes the systems in place can help, even in situations where they’d be more of a liability.

Both points are then enforced through season 1 and reinforced by Merlin himself in season 2 onwards.

Arthur learned that Merlin is loyal and honest to a fault, but because of the lifelong grooming as royalty and someone who’s supposed to be “above all others” - as proven when Uther says “his life isn’t worthless, it’s worth less than yours” to Arthur in S1E4 when he denies Arthur a group of men to take to save Merlin - it takes a while for it to really sink in that someone can be loyal and genuinely like him without ulterior motive, and when he finally does recognise that Merlin’s devotion is genuinely sincere, he pushes Merlin away (S2E1) in an attempt to keep himself from getting too close and then hurt by what his father would call his own naivety, rather than just admitting that sometimes people are just bad people who do bad things.

He then subconsciously or not learns that Merlin not being by his side is bad so he keeps him around but at a distance with walls built to protect himself. I can go more into that another time. Uther scapegoats Arthur for a lot, and even acknowledges that he’s a bad parent a few times but never does anything to change the behaviour so his apologies aren’t worth shit. Add that to the genocidal tyranny, and you’ve got a fascinating character who somehow isn’t the main villain of the story. I hate him, he should go play hop scotch on quick sand, but damn is he interesting from a writing/analytical standpoint.

So, yeah, they moved from “if anyone wants to kill him, they can go right ahead. I’ll give them a hand” (-Merlin S1E1) to “…Certain death. Few who have crossed the mountains in search of the Mortaeus Flower have made it back alive” “Sounds like fun” (-Gaius and Arthur S1E4) pretty quickly, but it makes sense when you think about why they moved that quickly with context of how they interact and their (assumed) past experiences.

[mamawasatesttube]

yknow i gotta say. lex luthor can be a really fun and interesting villain, but sometimes it does just take me aback the way some people talk about him when trying to make him funny and cool, as if his biggest and most infamous shtick is not extreme, violent xenophobia.

[puc-puggy]

really fascinated with deadpool & wolverine less as a movie and more as a corporate response to the growing insecurity in relating to and creating meaningful art. like, never have we been more aware of the impact that the relationship between art and artist is oppressively mediated by Corporation than right now with marvel, whose movies grow continually worse and more forgettable under growing corporate control, and this movie bears the weight of a particularly complicated and contentious merger. what they decided to do about it is just. fascinating. disturbing, but fascinating.

the movie is incredibly aware that it is a Product and seems to have completely sidestepped any attempt at meaningful storyline in lieu of packing as much Content into 2.5 hours as possible. and I mean Content. they broke him up with his girl & separated him from all his meaningful character connections, then sent him through a very funny but disjointed and lackluster plot, putting all the meat in nostalgic character interactions or gratuitous fan-pleaser match-ups that can work as tiktok clips. don't get me wrong, i'm a basic x-men bitch. wolverine is one of my all time favorites, especially early angry fucked up alcoholic logan. i gasped at elektra and straight up screamed when wesley snipes came into frame. I laughed out loud at the list of cocaine slang terms disney apparently has. it was fun! it succeeded in making me not mind that it was barely a movie.

and that's the rub, isn't it? it was barely a movie, and it knows it’s barely a movie. but it still has to connect with its audience somehow. and that, i think, is what's really fascinating. it forges its connection with the audience not by building characters or stakes and giving any of them genuinely grounded emotional arcs but by using a fourth-wall breaking character to commiserate with the audience about the impact of corporate ownership & profit on their relationship and access to the stories we love. while being the impact of corporate consolidation on stories you love.

deadpool makes jokes about his stupid villain and mcguffin machine, but the plot is still motivated by a stupid villain and a mcguffin machine. he jokes about being banned from doing cocaine on screen & does not do cocaine on screen because he can't. the corporation that now owns his IP has deemed it against their values. he jokes about what things "have to happen" in the movie because there is actually a list that they were given. as a friend pointed out, “the climax was exactly as contrived as it needed to be to make it a statement: ‘you see how this barely-fleshed-out villain character is just gonna kinda stand there in front of the macguffin machine for as long as we need her to so that we can have the conversations and tropes and results we want? yeah we're just gonna do that. we're gonna keep cutting back to her just standing there going Mmmmm mwah haha to specifically highlight how dumb it is. On purpose.’”

by embedding it in the plot with a character that breaks the fourth wall, the movie stops being “about” the plot on screen and starts being “about” the collective relationship to the characters, embodied by ryan reynolds, whose personal desire for a good deadpool & wolverine movie motivated by his pure love for deadpool is the mythological origin of the movie, and who was allowed to break character and say as himself to hugh jackman as wolverine “you have no idea how long i’ve been waiting for this.” he’s turned into a sort of avatar of the pure fan, who’s there to love the character and have fun and isn’t too bothered by logistics and legalities. it wants you to feel like deadpool also hates it when stories get shuffled because of corporate stockowners, like this extremely expensive bullshit is his personal protest and he's going to give them a proper sendoff & ryan reynolds was around to hold everyone up to standard. the corporation soothing the audience and fan that people who love the stories are ‘in charge’ enough to create a good time, lowering your standards and expectations of a story to what’s profitable for them to create.

kind of genius.

[ckret2]

What’s ur favorite GF character you almost never see mention/art of?

Lately as I've been digging more into Gideon's character in order to write him, I've actually been getting genuinely fond of that kid.

There's a lot to work with! He's the season 1 main villain and the villain with the most appearances, he does real magic, he's right on the cusp of forming a full cult around his fake magic, he's been earning his family's money since age 9 at least, he bonds with Mabel because they both like beautiful sparkly things—there's a side to him that vibes HARD with Mabel that she felt too that gets buried when he romance zones her, and it's a huge loss for both of them—he had the exact same "found a Journal and got obsessed with its magical/paranormal secrets and went to extremes trying to dig to the bottom of this mystery" story as Dipper but we never SEE that story because it's all offscreen and that's a WILD plotline for a kid coded as (Raised To Act Like) A Good Little Conservative Christian Boy, he's as much Ford's indirect protégé-in-absentia as Dipper was,like, he has nearly as much to flip out about re: the Ford reveal as the actual Mystery Shack household does, he's the only other person in town who understands the gravity of that, AND HE'S ALSO Stan's nemesis, which is WILD, they BOTH look goofy for considering the other their nemesis—he's summoned and betrayed Bill Cipher TWICE and lived to tell the tale, he went to WHOLE ADULT JAIL as a TEN YEAR OLD and formed a BIKER GANG that follows him just because they adore him and he brightens up their lives... There is so much! Going on with this kid! He's SUCH a fun & fascinating character, he can be an interesting foil to ALL the Pines in different ways and he's got the second deepest relationship with the main villain out of the whole cast just in terms of how much we can assume they interacted with each other...

But for a main villain and one of the most frequent recurring characters, Gideon gets next to no fandom attention. When I search his tag, nearly every post is about the whole ensemble cast with Gideon just happening to be included too; i can scroll for pages and only see 2 or 3 posts that are actually about GIDEON.

I'm assuming it's because he's chubby and has a goofy pompadour.

[descendant-of-truth]

On principle I don't really like the idea of Sonic being sent after Shadow at the request of G.U.N for two reasons:

It robs us of the god-tier cold open of the original game where Sonic busts out of a helicopter to escape arrest

I always loved the setup where Sonic and Shadow meeting was pretty incidental - neither of them had any idea who the other was, but Sonic thought Shadow was impersonating him on purpose while Shadow just thought he seemed fun to mess with

But depending on what the surrounding context is, I can see how the movie could make this plot point interesting in a completely different way that still complements these versions of the characters, even if I don't prefer it to the original.

So, some ideas:

G.U.N has been the villain of the last two movies, so in order for Sonic to be working with them, they must have a pretty good deal for him. My guess is that they promised to leave him and his family alone - no more schemes, no more kidnapping, nothing of the sort - on the one condition that "Team Sonic" helps them deal with Shadow.

This would already function as a narrative parallel to Sonic enlisting Robotnik's help later for the same thing. The name of the game becomes "we don't like each other, we're enemies, but we need to work together to deal with this guy because he's too powerful," which becomes a triple threat if the whole cast including Shadow gets to team up at the very end to save the world

I think it would also be very fun if Sonic is trying so hard to talk things out with Shadow in large part because he heard that there was another hedgehog on the loose, and wants so badly to be friends with someone like him that it takes at least one full-blown beating before he gives up on that idea

(The other reason he keeps trying is "it worked on Knuckles" of course)

Now, this puts Sonic in a fascinating position, particularly when using the game as a frame of reference. SA2 was very straightforward with how it presented its conflict at first: you have a Hero Story and a Dark Story, and as such you're primed to think of everyone on both sides as either being good or bad.

And most people, I think, were inclined to play the Hero Story first; it's the one with Sonic in it, and the select screen hovers over it by default, too. It tells a very simple story of Sonic and friends stopping Eggman's (admittedly very threatening) evil plan, developing some new rivalries along the way.

It's already a little bit of a twist for Sonic and Knuckles to have formed a respectful relationship with Shadow and Rouge by the end, since you see them as villains initially, but they still remain antagonists. Rouge returns the Master Emerald pieces, but she's still working with Robotnik. Shadow thinks Sonic is pretty impressive, but he still tries to kill him to stop him from saving the world.

But then you get to the Dark Story, and then the Final Story, and you think, oh. It's really not that simple.

For starters, you get to see more of Rouge's bond with Shadow. There's some conflict inherent to their relationship because Rouge is a spy and is only here to get information on Shadow, but after he saves her life, there's a definite shift to their dynamic. There's something genuine there, even if it doesn't get a lot of screentime dedicated to it.

But most important to the story is what we learn about who Shadow is, in part through his interactions with Rouge.

Shadow is cunning and ruthless - heck, his goal is to literally blow up the world. But whether out of compassion or survivor's guilt or both, he can't let Rouge die, so he saves her and then lies about his motivations for it to seem colder than he is.

And even though the things he's doing are definitely bad, his motivations are famously sympathetic; he wants revenge for his best friend, a young girl who was killed by the G.U.N military during a raid.

(It was implied that there was some sort of brainwashing done on him by Gerald after Maria died as well but that part of the story is incredibly vague)

By the end of the game, Shadow comes into his own as a hero and helps save the world instead of destroying it. And suddenly it makes sense why the stories weren't called Hero and Villain, because neither Shadow nor Rouge are especially villainous characters; Rouge is selfish, and Shadow is driven by grief and hatred, but they're ultimately kind at the end of the day. Both of them find people to care about - each other, as well as Knuckles and Sonic respectively.

But y'know, there wasn't a lot of ambiguity about who the heroes were in the Hero Story itself. Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are pretty clearly The Good Guys, and nothing they do is really questioned because they're always fighting The Bad Guys.

So what I'm seeing here is an opportunity for Team Sonic to not be totally in the right for once. Yes, it's good to stop Shadow from going on a rampage and destroying the world, but look at who they're keeping for company here. G.U.N? Robotnik and Agent Stone? As if either of those groups are trustworthy enough to not stab them in the backs as soon as it's convenient. As if they're not going to find some way to exploit Sonic for their benefit.

And frankly, Shadow is totally in the right to hate G.U.N, and Team Sonic for working with them. Given that his backstory seems to be largely unchanged, it's kind of impossible not to be on board with him fighting the protagonists at least a little bit.

Besides, I don't think it's a coincidence that Shadow is doing the wrong thing for the right reason, while Sonic is doing the right thing with the wrong people (and maybe also for the wrong reason). That has the potential to be very clever if executed well.

I can only imagine the dawning horror on Sonic's face as he realizes just how much he's not on the right side of this conflict; when he learns about what happened to Maria and everyone else on the Ark. Especially if Tom's family was involved in it, like the current popular theory going around.

Also, last-second realization: what if there's something more to that line from Tom, "it wasn't always easy, but you didn't change who you are in here"? Most likely it's going to be used as a way to show how Shadow is different from Sonic, because he did change who he was in response to trauma and it'll be really poetic when he "finds himself" again

But also, consider: maybe Sonic does end up changing throughout the movie. Maybe he does something that goes against his core principles in order to get an advantage in some way, and they kind of play around with the idea that Sonic is similar to Shadow in ways that aren't always flattering to either of them. I want those hedgehogs to make each other worse before they get better

In any case, there's a lot of potential here, and I'm very curious to see what they ended up going with

[isagrimorie]

Watching YouTube reactions to the last Agatha All Along episode I'm struck by how many people seem to disregard Agatha's actual grief and regret over, IMO, accidentally draining Alice to death. (Question mark?)

The Nerdy Nightly channel's review on the episode had a more nuanced take recognizing not only Agatha's complexity but also the metaphor of addiction that applies not just to Agatha, but to almost everyone in the coven.

I'm glad more people are discussing this metaphor for Agatha. It makes Agatha so interesting.

Also, in light of this, I think we can't push past that Evanora's ghost meant for Agatha to drain someone in the coven so they would all turn against her.

It's almost like pushing an addict off the wagon, except pushing Agatha off the sobriety train means people die.

Jac Schaeffer was never interested in simplistic morality plays. She is committed to exploring characters in all their complexities, allowing them to be their fullest, often flawed, selves.

Schaeffer explained her character writing approach while writing WandaVision:

“It was important to us that it be all Wanda and that it would be her responsibility because we didn’t want—we weren’t doing Mephisto, Nightmare, the Grim Reaper, or any other people or entities,” Scheffer explained. “If we’re not going to take the cheap way out that there’s this other force, right, if we’re going to give the gift of storytelling to Wanda, I give the whole power, she also then has the culpability and has the accountability.”

(source: Gizmondo) (hat tip to: @ennn)

(Emphasis mine.)

And it seems Schaeffer's views on writing have changed with Agatha All Along. She doesn't want an easy answer for Agatha's character, and that's genuinely refreshing. For a Disney+ character to be allowed to have her flawed and authentic self?

It feels right. It feels real.

Schaeffer mentions this in a recent interview with Script Mag:

I think the fun of Tony Stark is that he wants to be bad, but he's a hero despite himself. But Agatha is not that. Agatha is not a hero, despite herself. Agatha is entirely selfish and self-serving. I don't know, I feel like it should have been harder. It should have been more like, 'Oh, gosh, how are we going to make this villain sympathetic?' But it wasn't that challenging because she's not. It's never her aim to hurt someone. She doesn't hurt anyone just for the fun of it. She's interested in two things: She’s interested in what serves her and she's interested in witchcraft, specifically, enormously powerful witchcraft.

Schaeffer goes on to say that all main characters in Agatha All Along function as anti-heroes. And the writers go on lengthy debates about the story beats and character choices.

Later on in the same interview with Script Mag, Schaeffer discusses Agatha's hidden motivations.

The way I defined Agatha—prior to the room, prior to anything—is that she's a liar, that it's just masks. This show is about pulling that mask all the way off. And what do we see? What is under the mask? It's hard to talk about at this point because there's so many spoilers inherent in that. 

But I think what you can get from the earliest episodes is that, yes, she wants power, right? That's her superficial goal. That's her super objective. But that can't be it, right? That's boring. What's underneath it? And it's fairly clear from the beginning that she reluctantly wants community, that this is a covenless witch who, deep down, wants a coven. And that's fascinating to me. What did Wanda want? She wanted to be safe and cozy with her family. That was a that was a very clear, true north. But there, the friction was the sort of logistical trappings were untenable. For Agatha, she's in the way of her own thing. And it's much more of a subtext and a fabric that we then exploit and explore deeper into the show.

I love that we haven't been reading Agatha wrong -- Agatha does want, deep down, to have a community but she's been wearing her mask for too long that Agatha's also her own worst enemy. Her reputation and defensive persona push people away.

When backed into a corner, Agatha slips on the mask of a villain because if she hurts them first, then no one can hurt her.

It's so fun and interesting to have a character like Agatha again! Especially within Disney+ Marvel's ecosystem of shows.

Netflix Marvel used to feature similarly complex characters but Disney+ Marvel shows have struggled to find that line.

[aingeal98]

Something I enjoy a lot about Cass is that with a lot of heroes that don't kill it can easily veer into self righteousness. It happens with Bruce a fair amount and while it can make for a compelling character beat if done well, if done poorly it just kind of makes the reader annoyed lmao. Like why am I supposed to root for this guy when he's saying "If you shoot the man who killed your parents your soul will be forever ruined!" and acting like there's no difference between types of kill?

And the thing about Cass is that while her no kill rule is based on the experience of watching someone die and the horror she felt, and while she does project it into pretty much everyone she meets... It never comes across as unlikeably self righteous to me. Like for Cass every kill is a tragedy and while her no death rule is a moral statement it's also given more importance as an rule that gives us psychological insight into what governs and drives her. Even when she's wrong, even when the villain is so sympathetic and justified that there's no reason to root for her, the narrative always feels very self aware about it. Like when she let that father get arrested despite him just wanting his daughter back. The writer (Puckett of course) wasn't interested in convincing the reader that Cass's judgement was the morally correct choice. He was interested in what it said about her that it was the choice she chose.

And similarly when she approaches people to try and stop them from killing she always lacks the morally righteous air a lot of others carry. She's desperate and earnest and determined to get them to change but it's not because she thinks she's in any way better than them and has the right to pass judgement because of it. It's someone who genuinely believes that she's irredeemable manically trying to save everyone else because if these killers can do the right thing and turn over a new leaf then maybe... Just maybe... there's hope for her?

It's so compelling to me. The desperation and clear projection that happens when she goes out determined to enforce and/or promote her code to as many people possible. Every time she says someone can change she's speaking from experience. Because she views herself as irredeemable and beneath everyone but she's still out here trying to be good so maybe if others make the same choice it's proof that she's not doomed. That none of them are. She doesn't want the hitman to redeem himself by becoming a hero and helping his former victims. She just wants him to walk away, to start a peaceful and quiet new life. And when he fails to do that and they meet again she still won't give up on him. When she stands in front of the victims family she won't declare she knows better. She'll hopefully and uncertainty ask "But maybe... He can change?"

Like there's so much heart behind everything she does and every action she takes. Every time the topic of killing people comes up she's so earnest and clearly projecting her own issues and seeing herself in every murderer and it's so fun. It's so fascinating. I miss Batgirl 2000.

[codenamethebird]

More Hades 2 rambles from me! Though this time round it's a continuation of a point I made in this post.

Specifically, that I think the final boss of the Surface will be a living human mortal.

A couple people on that post disagreed that it would be a human, mostly just because of boss fight mechanics. Which I do get, but this is my not so little refute of that idea (all in good fun of course, I very well might be wrong! I just have thought a bunch about it since then and wanted to ramble about it).

I'll be getting into later how the game could have a hard mechanically satisfying human final boss later, because first I want to talk about how it would make sense naratively. Not because anyone remotely argued this point, I just think it's interesting haha.

So let's go back for a moment to Hades 1, and it's final boss, Hades himself. On a mechanical sense, it makes total sense, Hades is the god and master of the underworld Zag is trying to escape. He would be the final obstacle. But what really makes Hades work as the final boss, is the story and emotional reason he's there.

The plot of Hades is ultimately about Zag's messy relationship with his dad. And that final boss fight is an ongoing conversation with him. While irl you and your questionable dad constantly fighting to death is not a great way to fix your problems, these are weird bound to underworld greek gods. Death is their weird love language for like half this cast haha. There is a reason Death is one of, if not the main love interest.

Okay now that I've established that, let's look at the one final boss we do know from Hades 2, Chronos. Now it's Grandpa's time to shine. Unlike Hades 1, he fits a lot cleaner into a more traditional villian role. The monster who literally takes over your house and takes your family hostage.

In that way, it is a personal fight for Mel to save her family, but Mel lacks a specific personal connection to Chronos himself. Obviously there's the whole Grandpa thing, but she wasn't like raised by him or anything. He is a convient big bad she can hate simply and wholeheartedly. While he does try to challenge her beliefs at times, Mel will never listen to him because of the whole family kidnapping thing, and Gramps equally doesn't want to engage with her either. He just wants to be a dick to her.

While I'm a firm believer in the "We (the gods) are actually the bad guys" theory, I don't think Chronos is secretly an angel. He did you know eat his kids and that entire scene with Hades and him just reeked of shitty dad vibes. While Chronos might be better for humanity, I think he really is using them as a prop and doesn't genuinely care about them. (This is a derail, but I do think the human army side of things including Prometheus will turn on Chronos at some point. Specifcally that they are already planning to).

But yes, basically, while I adore Chronos as a villain, you get none of the character growth from either party that you got between Zag and Hades in the first game. Obviously, we are still in early access, so there's more dialouge to be had. But from what we have seen, those two are not changing the other. So this is my roundabout way to say that must mean the Surface boss is the one that is going to be all about Melinoe's character growth.

I don't think I need to explain why fighting a human would be a fascinating place for character growth for humanities #1 hater Melinoe. Mel's the Hades equivalent in this game (not the Zag), who will not listen to anyone who disagrees with her. Getting beat up by a human might actually start to get it through her head.

But also I want to dig into why I don't think the final boss will be another Titan. I've seen Atlas thrown around a bunch as a possible final Surface boss. Also Typhon... I'm certain there are others. But I don't know what they would add to the narrative, especially as a final boss? I think there's more evidence for Atlas, so I'll focus on him.

It would make some sense, he was the leader of the titan rebellion and much like Prometheus, in certain versions of the myth he was also freed from his punishment by Heracles! Which considering Heracles suspicious lack of dialouge so far, and the dialouge he does have being a god hater, I do think he's the one who freed Prometheus in this game.

But other than those connections, what does Atlas add to make him an interesting antagonist to Mel? He's not particularly tied to humanity, and while his punishment sucked he did lead a rebellion against the gods (and traditionally the reasons have nothing to do with humans).

Mostly, in my opinion, if the game was going to have a titan also be the final boss for the Surface, it wouldn't be Atlas. It would be Prometheus. He's the powerful titan who has a legitimate gruge against the gods and who can engage with Mel in interesting ways, challenging her stance against the gods. But they have already used Prometheus, I don't know how they could write Atlas (or whatever titan/god) in a way that would be more interesting than Prometheus, and rival the Hades boss fight for thematic weight. Also, it would be 2 titans in a row, which isn't nessisarily a bad thing, but still.

I've also seen people throw around it might he Ares, which I will admit would I would be way more excited for that another titan. Theres some interesting ideas to be had with an Olympian who has betrayed the gods. But we already have dialouge with Athena where she says how Chronos' armies motivations wouldn't line up with Ares'. And I feel like going from a dude only obsessed with war to someone fighting for some kind of higher cause would be a jump in character. Not impossible, but a little weird.

And ultimately, I just think that a Human would serve the purpose better as an antagonist to Mel who would shake her worldview on living mortals in particular. A fight with Ares would mess with her relationship with the gods, but not as clearly with humans.

Okay now that I've talked about themes, how about what people actually had an issue with lol, how would a final boss with a human make sense from a boss fight perspective. I have three main ideas, that don't really contradict each other and could all exist in the fight.

1st idea: multiple enemies. We've heard that there are human armies, the final boss could possibly be a leader of them. We could have hords of enemies, could have select recognizable commanders that have different skill sets, etc. None of the Surface boss fights have multi bosses in them (they have random mobs but none like the sirens or Theseus and Asterius), so I don't think it would be strange to have it. And while stretching the definition of a human boss a bit, these other bosses could be ghosts and other kinds of beings (I just think the main boss should be a breathing human).

2nd idea and tbh my main one. Have them be a Witch! Or some other kind of magic user. I feel like this should be obvious, but a lot of the theming around Hades 2 is witchy/magic stuff and it's wild we don't have a major witch enemy yet (other than obviously Hecate, but for obvious reasons I don't count her).

I'm thinking some kind of High Priestess of Chronos kind of character, we still don't know exactly how Chronos was revived and this could tie in, but there's a bunch of ways you could spin a magic user! I think it would be a prime place to put a narrative foil to Melinoe. A fellow Witch whose family was stolen away by the gods who is looking for justice. Maybe when finally looking into a mirror, some of the stuff Melinoe's been told will finally breach her thick headed skull haha.

I don't think I really need to get into the technical about how a witch fight could be cool. But one idea, tying into my first point, a magic user could have mind powers and compell powerful beings to fight for them. This could be the Zag boss fight of borderline crack theories or even maybe the aforementioned Ares who maybe got captured during his war path. A magic fight doesn't need possessed enemies, but it could be cool.

And finally, my 3rd idea. You might be going, but how could a human be more powerful than Prometheus? Well first point magic, but more seriously, just have them be boosted by Chronos and/or other allies. I mentioned a theory about a high priestess sort of character (the power of God and ani--), but more specifically, if they do go the route of a foil to Melinoe, she has her boons from the gods. Much like Theseus in Hades 1, the final surface boss could gain the boons of Chronos/Prometheus/and the like. Maybe even a Chaos boon, they have already aided Chronos once, and there's a decent chance the humans might betray Chronos at some point so Chaos might be chill with them. This could also be a way to introduce more titan characters and the like without needing to make models for them haha.

But yes, tldr, magic human gives us both the thematic weight of it being a human, witch stuff to parallel Melinoe, and just cool powerful magic fight as a final boss (and it could parallel the Hecate boss fight, the first boss u fight and the last being magic based).

[meteor752]

What I would have done

If you have been keeping up with my posts for the last week, you may have noticed that I fucking despise the new Descendants movie

There’s a lot of reasons behind this. One, nostalgia, I love the original ones (Harry Hook is one of my all time favorite characters lol I think he’s fun). Two, I expected more of the franchise, because it’s fucking Disney, and while I know Kenny Ortega wasn’t the director this time, there would at least be people who worked on the original movies involved in the process, so I thought they at least knew what they were doing. Three, nothing in the movie makes any fucking sense, and I’m not usually a person who gets hung up on nitpicks, like if you entertain me then do whatever you want, but my god it’s impossible to ignore.

But most of all, the story they were trying to tell just isn’t interesting.

Like, if I would tell someone what the best part of Descendants is, it’s not the songs, or the cast, or the costumes, or even really the characters. Don’t get me wrong I love all of those parts, and I doubt the movies would be even close to as good as they are if you removed one of these things. But the best and most interesting part to me, and to a lot of people in the fandom as well, is the concept of The Isle Of The Lost.

The concept of taking all of these classic Disney Villains with wildly different aesthetics, motives, ideologies, and overall moralities and placing them all on an island and make them build up a society, that shit’s fascinating, but the core movies do next to nothing with it cause they spend all their time on Auradon. The second one focuses the most on it, and guess what, that one’s the best one!

(I know the books exist, I read them, but they just weren’t that good, like it felt like I was reading bad fan fiction)

So what would I do for Descendants four?

Well, I’d set in on the fucking Isle.

Actually, I think this would genuinely work better as a series. Not that long of a series tho, maybe like eight episodes, each episode like 40 minutes long.

Each episode would focus on a different VK, set a few years before the first movie, and have a short composed story about their general life.

I don’t know which VKs exactly, but I think Harriet Hook could be interesting, her episode being like four or five years before the first movie so we can see preteen C3, I think that would be cute, also a young CJ.

Possibly the Gaston twins, though Lefou Deux could work too. Whichever it would be, the other would feature.

Jade, Jay’s cousin, could be a lot of fun, maybe have like a rivalry between the two.

Freddie and Celia, I think it’s insane that they never mention Freddie in D3, but like I wanna know what their relationship is like.

And of course, Red! Queen of Hearts is a villain, she should be on the Isle. And if any of you dare tell me that she’s from wonderland and they couldn’t like, capture her or whatever, they got fucking Hades on the Isle, they resurrected some guys to place them there, Queen of Hearts is not a problem.

(Also like, Morgie could be there, but this time as a real VK)

But yeah, lot of options lol.

Every episode would show just the grim reality of what these kids would have to live through their whole lives, the complicated relationships they would have with their parents, and really emphasize that fact. D1 was the only one that really focused on how the Isle kids were kids who were all victims of insane abuse their whole lives. I mean, in D3 they all like happily run to meet them once the barrier is down, which is crazy.

Also, the show would be rated PG-13. Like, I’m not asking for graphic scenes of abuse, but I do want it to be kinda gritty and grim, with some more psychological and mental abuse taking place. Also, we’re told multiple times about gang wars, but we aren’t really shown any. Maybe one episode could focus on that, like idk Clay Clayton (insane name btw) and his gang.

But most importantly, we’d have all the Disney villains in cool new leather outfits, which is what I think everyone wants tbh. I have gotten that one part of ‘Life Is Sweeter’ where the villain comes up more than any part of the movie, like people like the villains more than anything. And yeah I know they wouldn’t be young and hot anymore, but like we can have some extreme Milf and Dilf looks, it will even out.

Descendants is one of, if not the most popular franchise Disney Channel has made, it deserves a better continuation than Rise of Red.

Also, if the show is popular then we could have a season two/sister series, about the kids of Auradon, that could be interesting too, and also have some dark shit in it, idk. The way that Queen Leah spoke to Audrey in D3 had some dark undertones, so I think her episode could be interesting. Could also feature the political implications of The Isle, potential protests and propaganda, idk.

Also, Chloe can get an episode, so boom we got them both!

So what I’m trying to say here is this:

Disney hire me

[consumeroflemoans]

For the character break down since he's been in the public conscience, Sunday? Also Aventurine so we have the classic?

I DIDNT SEE THIS ASK OMG

Sunday

- How I feel about him?

Augh I love love love his character so much. He’s such a fascinating exploration of the trauma and grooming that can sometimes come from religious institutions. He’s a deeply flawed person that I just want to see improve

- Who do I ship with him?

Stellar question to ask the multishipper I have a few

Sunheng - This most recent quest really opened my eyes to this ship. Dan Heng and Sunday have parallel plots of redemption. They both have been made criminals in their own homes after doing something they believed was right. Dan Heng is further along in his character arc, so he could potentially help Sunday with his own development, helping him find his own purpose. Also they’re on the Astral Express together now (:

Sunturine - These absolute divas. The conversation between Order Sunday and Aventurine had my toxic yaoi bells ringing. I’ve talked about this before, but they are amazing foils for each other. Sunday is lowkey obsessed with Aventurine’s surface level frivolity, it was even mentioned in his argument against himself. The dynamic of the (metaphorical) straight man x the frivalous flirt is so fun. Also “It’s Sunday, the most handsome man in Penacony” plays in my head constantly.

Sunday x Caelus/Stelle - Now I don’t ship the Trailblazer with a lot of people, but this is one situation where I think it would work. Penacony was supposed to be a vacation for them and it turned into arguably one of the most traumatic experiences of their life. The dynamic between a villain searching for redemption and the one that defeated them in the first place is really fun to explore and I think there could be good angst.

- Non-romantic OTP?

Oh my god Sunday and Robin. Their sibling dynamic brings me life and the newest quest nearly made me cry. Sunday has been so dependent on Robin acting as the light in his life and he’s finally recognizing that he needs to secure his own independence. They love each other so much I hope they see each other again

- Unpopular opinion?

I’ve touched on this before but I don’t think Sunday has changed all that much yet. I’ve seen a bit of discourse surrounding the farewell quest because it’s frankly confusing at times. This quest wasn’t about him becoming a whole new person, it’s about him finally accepting that he can’t change the past. He can only move forward and work to improve himself

- One thing I wish would happen/had happened

Please please hoyoverse I am on my knees give Sunday more interactions with the Astral Express crew. I’m well aware he’s only a passenger but he could have so many interesting conversations with them. I was really hoping the room event had Sunday included. It makes sense why he isn’t but I’m still kind of sad

Aventurine

- How I feel about him?

Obsessed with this character. He’s my husband. He’s my darling little boy. He kicked off the growing trend of us really getting to see the plot from character’s perspectives and I think they did a phenomenal job exploring his trauma.

- Who do I ship with him?

*clears throat* Dr. Veritas Ratio. *the crowd goes wild*

I do think they have a fun dynamic. Once again the straight man character plays well off Aventurine gambling on everything. It’s also nice to see a character that genuinely cares. Someone who can say, no, stop, this is actively harming you. Ratio also doesn’t say that in the most polite way, but I think it makes them fun.

Also Sunturine again (:

- Non-romantic OTP?

Aventurine and Topaz! I really like to think of them as best friends. They’re lowkey bad influences on each other, but they work well together. There’s a lot of fun concepts for workplace shenanigans also with them working together as Stonehearts.

- Unpopular opinion?

I don’t think it’s an unpopular opinion but tbh I’ve seen a lot of people mischaracterize Aventurine as being incredibly reckless. His entire theming is based around gambling but he’s actually an extremely calculating character. He had an intricate plan on Penacony with multiple backup plans to fall back on. He’s very smart with his plans and knows how to make things go his way. That’s why he’s good at what he does.

- One thing I wish would happen/had happened

Proper Aventurine/Boothill team up when. I need to see them take down the IPC together. They’ve both lost their homes, their families, and their autonomy to them. I need this for my soul

[saltydkdan]

Thoughts on Strohiem? (From Jojo)

It’s… rough. I have OPINIONS ABOUT HIM.

For those unaware, or have forgotten. This particular ask is about the character of Rudol von Stroheim from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. A Nazi Major that is introduced in Part 2 of the series. I have always wanted a proper moment to spotlight how much I dislike this character. And not just how I dislike him as a character, but how I dislike his general inclusion in the story as well.

Listen, I LOVE this series. But even I have my limits. It’s because I love it so much that I critique aspects like this in the first place.

Warning, I’m about to word vomit about this because I’ve been DYING to talk about this somewhere.

BIG DISCLAIMER: These are my thoughts and mine alone. I know there’s a lot of… interesting anime fans out there that might disagree. I’m not here to debate on stuff like this, I don’t want to hear your contradictory thoughts on the subject. If I see a single person say I’m “virtue signaling” by saying I don’t like the Jojo Nazi character, I am going to mail you a pipe bomb (in the hit game Minecraft for Windows PCs)

Stroheim’s existence (or at least, how he currently exists in the story) is not handled all that well in my opinion. Like… not at all. I like to poke fun at it, but I genuinely think Araki fumbled the bag so hard with Stroheim and it's more and more unbelievable the more I think about it over time.

No matter how you shake it, Araki fully wrote a historically accurate Nazi character into Battle Tendency and proceeded to give him a redemption arc and make him a member of the supporting cast. Now of course, I know that Japan has a fascination with a lot of German stuff, so within that context I can kind of get why he exists in the way that he does, but it just feels weird and in bad taste.

Contextually, it makes sense. Do I like it? No. No I do not.

To address the elephant in the room, I get it. Araki really loves to write evil villain characters, and then having them be redeemed, or switch over to the hero's side after a certain point. I actually really enjoy this trope especially in Jojo! It’s one of my favorites. Especially how it’s handled in Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable.

However, writing a redemption storyline for characters like Okuyasu and Rohan is fundamentally different from writing one for Stroheim.

First and most obviously, unlike other characters, Stroheim’s whole character is based on an actual real life totalitarian extremist hate group who committed horrible atrocities across history (and still does to this day).

As if that wasn’t enough, he quite LITERALLY commits horrible atrocities ON SCREEN. Sacrificing an entire room of innocent people to Santana (the first of the Pillar Men) so that the German’s can awaken and study him in their secret lab.

Everything about Stroheim feels like it’s very intentional at the start. He is clearly set as a villain from the beginning, and it works fine. However once he self-immolates and blows himself up to destroy Santana, the story seems to continuously frame him more and more as an ally/hero from that point onward.

After he returns with his cyborg body, the fact that he’s a Nazi suddenly takes a back seat and now he’s continuously just framed as a “patriotic” soldier. Legit, the moment after he shows back up, Joseph internally comments on how he’s “not exactly a bad guy”.

Some people will argue on how it’s a bit more complicated than that, since Joseph also thinks about how he dislikes that he’s a German Soldier. But directly after this, he also states how he’s still happy Stroheim isn’t dead. If anything, from this point onward Joseph acts towards Storheim in a similar way to how he acts towards Caeser. Even if they aren’t best friends, Joseph still has positive feelings towards Stroheim, and I hateeeee that.

In the anime, they even make sure to call him a “German Soldier” and not a Nazi. The avoidance of that word really struck me as them trying to avoid that subject because they knew the way the character was treated was strange.

So anyway, as I was trying to say. Redeeming villain characters is one thing, but redeeming a villain character that is straight up a literal Nazi is something else entirely. Especially when like, not to nitpick, but Stroheim never walks back the more extremist beliefs that he for sure subscribes to.

-And if you’re one of those weirdos who tries to make a point by saying “well, he never outright says what he actually believes in! Maybe he is just fighting for Germany for his own reasons.”

My dude, he’s literally described as a “Patrotic Nazi”. What the fuck do yoU THINK HE BELIEVES IN?

Also as a final addition to this rant, I also don’t quite like how weirdly normalized that Araki makes the existence of “german soldiers” in his story even outside of Stroheim. Nazi’s are weirdly commonplace throughout the plot, and while it contextually makes sense since they kicked off the main conflict, they are almost always weirdly painted as neutral or even straight up good guys (after the Santana fight). Which is just really strange to me.

Like bruh, you mean to tell me that Caeser fucking Zeppeli is casually frieNDS WITH ONE OF THEM? BE FUCKIN FR ARAKI LOL

It also sucks how Stroheim is so increasingly present leading up to the final act. Like MAN, GET THIS MOTHERFUCKER OFF THE SCREEN.

The only good thing about the inclusion of Nazi’s after Stroheim’s initial sacrifice, is that we get to see the Pillar Man murk a shit ton of them on screen. Like, fuck yeah dude. A great way to power scale and show how powerful the Pillar Men are as antagonists, without me feeling bad that they killed a bunch of people to do so.

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents that nobody asked for. I still LOVE Jojo, I think it’s a masterpiece of its genre, but it’s because of my intense love for it that I criticize it’s missteps so heavily. I hope that my wording on this post is done well, I had to re-draft it a second time after accidentally deleting it once, so I have a feeling it’ll come off a bit scrambled.

That being said, thanks for the Ask!

[meldelen]

What does Sauron feel for Galadriel?

I'm aware I might be not saying anything new or original, I've read and queued other good metas that basically stand for my point as well; nevertheless, I feel like sharing my two cents concerning this. Sadly - or not - it will be another long ass read.

To be honest, whatever is going between Galadriel and Sauron is one of the main show's assets. Love it or hate it, the show would not be the same without this spice. And the way it is presented leaves no one indifferent. I could talk about this from Galadriel's POV, but I think I'll be going for Sauron's first, if anything because I find it more fascinating, as we're talking of a character that isn't even human, and the main villain, of course. And I'm doing it mostly concerning the show, even if I know Tolkien's books since I was 12. Unfortunately I can't analyze every single scene they share because it would last forever, but I'll try to focus on the ones that have more resonated with me.

Even if Galadriel is undoubtedly one of the most famous elves in Middle Earth, it doesn't look like Sauron knew her before meeting her in the sea. It is pure chance - apparently so - they meet and are taken together to Númenor. In these first moments he's mostly indifferent - and even hostile - to her, per their dialogue, except the moment he dives in and saves her from drowning amidst the storm. From that moment, a confidence grews between them as she's reassured in her position - which he never disclaims - of thinking he's a fallen king from a Southlander throne. Disguised as the human castaway Halbrand, the most fascinating about Sauron, I think, it's that he never lies to her, but doesn't make an effort to take her out of her incorrect assumptions. While not being honest to her, he seems to drift away from her as he pretends to "start anew" - through his long learnt abilities as smith -; while, at the same time, he gets drawn towards her by their kindred spirits.

Which is the start of it all. Sauron recognizes in her someone alike, fierce and relentless, prideful, ambitious and reckless. I think the discussion in the forge, after she drops him in the middle of a plot to return to Middle Earth and crown him, is highly underrated. He only wants to be left alone, she apologizes for having used him, and then confesses - thinking she talks to a friend and not a deceiver - that she can't stop, that because she was compared with the evil she was fighting they mutinied against her and was sent away. She also drops Finrod's line of needing to touch the darkness if one want to reach the light.

Halbrand's reaction to this is priceless. His expression, both shocked and emotional once he realizes she might be just the only one in Arda that might understand him - they mutinied against him as well, he ended a castaway. And then he expresses his condolences for her suffering and particularly, the death of her brother. Now, I believe he was genuinely sincere here, that he really felt for her grief. But being set on the path of becoming something different, it's precisely Galadriel who puts him out of it. Who sends him again to his former path. The horror of it all.

He never gets to tell her who he really is, and only admits it when he's discovered, because there was no way back once this is uncovered. Charlotte Brändström has confirmed that Galadriel loved Halbrand - rather, I think, the idea of Halbrand - in first season, but after the mask falls she won't love Sauron - for obvious reasons. He then offers her the most valuable position he can give her, but what does he offer?

To make her a queen. A queen, mind, not his queen. Now, I know shipping is nice and fun, but for all the tenderness he put into the offering - the warm voice, the chin caressing, the flattering and the temptation; "You bind me to the light and I bind you to power" - I can't avoid seeing that he never offered himself as part of the bargain. Love is selfless and you must give yourself for it to be real. As Charlie Vickers have well put, he does not see her as an equal. It is not a marriage/lover alliance of a king and a queen ruling together with love as a seal between them. Sauron appeals to her ambition, not to her heart. Even in that moment, before the blast of Orodruin, where they got the most intimate and close - "Fighting at your side, I felt... if I could hold on that feeling, bind it to my very being.." "I felt it too" - he is talking about fighting, and power, and ruling. And she understood it lately, when telling Adar he promised her an army, not himself. Maybe she meant something else in that moment, but he meant an alliance. And alliance in which they're not equals. A queen, but not his queen.

He has no queen. There's only one Lord of the Rings, and he does not share power.

I understand it's very tempting and frankly easier to read this in a romantic code, but I can't forget it's Sauron we're talking about. He's not human, he does not feel and act as human always, he's been awake since the creation of the world and he hardly can see an elf as an equal. The way he tried to manipulate her by taking the shape of Finrod, the long lost brother, and twisting his words to sway her will - it was beyond cruelty. It was Machiavellian, sadistic - and it was only the first of many offenses.

Even before wrapping her in his thrall he throws at her face all the sentences and reasons she had told him before, when she thought he was Halbrand the southlander and not the Dark Lord. Twisting her own words and shooting them at her like arrows - no, you said my past didn't matter, you told me to be free of it. Putting before her eyes the fact that he's back thanks to her and her alone. And that she's now isolated, for no one will accept her once it is known she's the reason he's back. Presenting himself as the only one who would take her, flattering her leading and ruling talents in his benefit, wrapping it with the cover of a redeeming light. Bastard.

Thankfully, Galadriel acknowledges his abuse and manipulation and actively rejects him. What does Sauron do then? He leaves her to die. Tied in his thrall, drowning, back to the point where she was sinking when he saved her, when she still did not mean much to him, but enough to care. Now it's over. You've chosen to refuse me, so die. Go back to the starting point.

And in that moment, he meant her to die, for she had hurt his pride. He's not a scorned lover but a narcissist that has been confronted in his arrogance, and so she has to pay. There is not love in any of these actions. In a fit of rage, he had let her to die. If Elrond wasn't around when he pulls her out of the pound, she would've drowned.

That fit of rage passes, and as it happens, he has time to reconsider his position. Does he know she has survived? What matters is that he moves to Mordor and directly sells her to Adar. Telling his former lieutenant that she has aligned with Sauron - !!! - and both must be stopped. He sells her location and sets an army of Uruk against her and Eregion. Dressing this betrayal as heroism as he endures torture for the sake of the soutlander prisoners, who get free thanks to this bargain.

Are these actions belonging to one who loves? It is atrocity after atrocity. Per his actions you can't tell he's in love, rather the opposite. You could say he's actively punishing her and plans to keep making her pay for her refusal. But of course, he's not driven solely by scorn and revenge, it's not even his main goal. Enter Celebrimbor and the Eregion plot.

When it would seem Galadriel is out of his mind, then this scene with Mirdania happens. Taking advantage of her vulnerability and terror of having seen him in his true form - even if Mirdania herself isn't aware that it was him who she saw in the Unseen World - Annatar flatters her and caresses her hair, comparing her beauty with Galadriel's. Yes, I know it's very satisfying to watch how he praises Lady Galadriel's beauty in front of another woman, in a moment of intimacy, but yet again, I don't see how this can be love.

It is obsession, and of course, manipulation. Playing a double game: one, to recruit Mirdania, to gain her confidence and devotion - he's well aware of what Mirdania is starting to feel for him! - by flattering her - your were so brave, your hair looks like Galadriel's in this light - because we should remember that Galadriel is famous for her beauty, but particularly for her hair is said to remind powerfully of the light of the Trees of Valinor, a light that was encased in the Silmarils. A light she refused to Feänor when he asked her strands of her hair.

Second, it is not only she won't leave his mind, at this point, he's starting to obsess with her, he covets her. He covets her and at the same time wants to punish her for her rejection. Again, I hardly see love in any of these actions. And it is horrifying how he later dismisses Mirdania's life after promising her reward, because she meant nothing to him. Galadriel, on the other hand... cut to the final temptation.

The most shocking in that last fight is that he starts by effortlessly blocking her attacks, for he does not want to hurt her - as he tells her himself. She goes berserk on him, driven by fury and rage, and all he does is blocking her, until he's forced to slash her to remind her who has the upper hand there - she's no match for him, even if she's a skillful sword fighter. In that moment, he's still in control of himself, and even he allows himself to playfully spit her back again the words of Finrod, twisted by his own interpretation: touch the darkness. Many fans have seen a lewd expression and breathing in that point - I think he's mostly panting for the fighting effort, but if there's any lust as you want to read it, then yes, it's lust for getting her, control her, for humiliating and proving her wrong again by drawing a false equivalency between him and her. In his mindset, of course. Innerly, though, he is searching for a servant, a slave if you want. Not a lover, not a partner.

Special mention to those shocking words, when she accuses him of having deceived and manipulated her all the time, and he answers it was "not all of it", for yes, I will concede him that he was genuine. He never lied. He had an honest feeling of starting anew. He saw in her a kindred spirit, and that is not gonna change. He might be admitting he cares/feels something for her, even in his own toxic, twisted way. Truly, the range Sauron has in acknowledging his feelings and not suppressing them, also in admitting them and use them as weapons, has me baffled. Maybe one of the most fascinating traits of him as character.

Galadriel won't stop attacking and rejecting him, so he loses his patience, particularly after being brutally kicked in the chest and thrown over the rocks. Then he pulls again his most cruel card by letting her see Halbrand again - the one she got to love, and he's well aware of it. But the thrall won't work anymore, so he switches to herself and Celebrimbor, to keep mocking her with cruelty, to draw again this false equivalency between them.

And when nothing of this works, and she keeps attacking him even after he offers again to join him, he has again one of those fits of rage and goes ballistic on her, until he resorts to the most brutal, sadistic resource: in what I think it's the foulest allegory of rape I've ever seen, he nails her to the rock by stabbing her with Morgoth's crown. Which is not just a mean to hurt her physically, rather, he actively forces the bond she has rejected to establish with him twice by then. Only blood can bind, and the iron crown already contains his blood after Adar stabbed him with it. His blood and Galadriel's blood merge and then the connection happens. His enraptured expression at this moment is both mesmerizing and revolting, for he's doing that against her will, while dragging her across the stone surface and twisting the spike inside her wound to increase her pain, so excruciating a tear runs down her cheek. While he repeats her he would've made her a queen, and put all Middle-Earth at her feet. Then he pulls out of her and watches as she drops to the ground. Truly brutal and sadistic. The punishment goes on and on.

After this he gains the ability to communicate to her telepathically and to watch her movements. Probably, also to know her thoughts more clearly than before. And he must have thought to command her will also, for she manages to trick him into believing she was going to give him Nenya, and after that she lets herself fall back on the verge of the cliff. Does he, with an alarmed expression, reach for the coveted ring, or for her instead? Does he do it for both? The fact is that he lets her fall.

And even immediately we see he's watching her, for the unwanted connection also allows him to spy on her. Again, he's making sure the ring is safe, or is she his concern? I'm gonna say he was rather checking on her. Nenya is made of mithril and adamant, so very unlikely to have taken damage for a fall.

Why this contradiction? His brutality and cruelty on her hardly fits someone who loves, and he has actively tried to kill her twice by now - always in a fit of rage, not all the time, as Vickers has explained. He didn't want to hurt her - when calm - and yet he forcefully bonded himself to her and enjoyed doing so, not minding her physical and mental agony in the process.

I can't see the slightest glimpse of love in all this abomination. He might have found someone so alike to the point of making him feel alive again and set him back on the path of world domination, but he's an older, immortal, cruel superior being who's been too long under suffering, darkness and despair himself. This is not an absolution, though. I still think he could've chosen differently, but as much as the next narcissist, when challenged or refused he takes a brutal, unrighteous retaliation and doesn't mind to make her suffer for it. Yet it is obvious he feels something for her, so she gets a special treatment if we compare Galadriel with the other lives he so quickly dismisses - much to her disgrace, though.

And I think it's this obsession of him, of having found someone so alike to him who could've been at his service - not at his side! - which makes he won't suffer that this someone refuses him and actively seeks to fight him. For that, he'll make her pay again, and again, and again, while claiming she's special to him, while tempting her with promises of power and light that aren't real. If anything, she'll eventually get the same treatment Celebrimbor got, as soon as she fails or rebels against him. As Morgoth did to him.

The fact the ship is so successful is tied to the fact that Sauron, for all his ancient origins and immortality, is still very human in his emotions and doesn't mind to open and show them. And the fact that once, Galadriel loved Halbrand, or rather the idea of Halbrand. He knows that, and it flatters him. It pushes his pride further, it lifts his ego even higher. He enjoys interacting with her in this twisted way and so playing with Galadriel might become his new entertainment, until bending her to his will, which is to make her serve... not to love her at all. That's why he won't kill her either, as long as he keeps that rage under control.

I thank the show for opening this world to us, for surely it's one of its best potentials, and unlike many haters claim, it is rooted in Tolkien's lore itself, which doesn't contradict. It its truly a complex dynamic and I'm sure many fans, specially shippers, might disagree with me, but this analysis doesn't intend to cancel anyone, rather the opposite. Shipping is fun and nice, but for me it's also important to acknowledge this dynamic is deeply rooted in abuse and keep in mind that Galadriel deserves all our credit for resisting his brutality and calling out his cruelty and manipulation, which a fair form can't mask after all, and they're doing right in not to bend to other narratives that might end quite differently, or burden a higher cost on the abused character, just for the sake of a temporary satisfaction.

[oodlyenough]

apollo justice: ace attorney thoughts

over the weekend I finished playing AA4 so I wanted to try to put my thoughts in order. much to think about etc

spoilers for the whole game obv, but i haven't played AA5 or AA6 yet so any mention of those are speculation lol

I had heard some pretty mixed reactions to AA4 and I had a lot of reservations going in. It's also probably the AA game I've played that I've been the most spoiled for, which is a shame but probably an unavoidable consequence of waiting for the port while engaging with the fandom. I don't usually like being spoiled but I think knowing the broad strokes of what to expect actually helped here. I can imagine an AU where I blitzed through the first trilogy and onto 4 with no idea of what was coming and being... very upset and disappointed by the direction it took. Having several months to brace for things like Phoenix's disbarment, the 7 year gap, Trucy, etc definitely softened those blows and made me more amenable to them than I would've been otherwise.

Cases

For the most part I thought the puzzle solving was good and the pacing was solid. The puzzles were mostly challenging enough to be satisfying to solve but not so challenging as to be infuriating, and I don't think I needed a walkthrough at all. 4-1 is one of the best tutorial cases in the franchise so far (though I'd give the edge to 3-1) and 4-4 was a really cool finale. The middle two cases tbh I also found fairly charming, and there's usually a least one case in the middle that seems to drag forever, so that was a pleasant surprise. I played Investigations 1 right before this, and I thought both the puzzles and pacing in that game were frankly horrible, so AA4 won a lot of points just with that.

I did think Turnabout Corner and Serenade would be more relevant in the grand scheme of things. The half-spoilers I knew had me expecting a much bigger web of conspriacy than we ended up with -- I expected it to be more than coincidence that Phoenix got hit by a car, more than coincidence that the Borginian egg coccoons are related to poison etc ... like... I fully assumed this was going to tie into the atroquinine plot. But I guess not ... ? Lol

Characters

The new main cast are all very likable, despite my initial reluctance to have a new main cast to begin with. Klavier was an interesting change of pace as prosecutor, in that he wasn't particularly antagonistic outside of the court, nor was he particularly preoccupied with winning, but he was still fun and challenging enough to face off against. Trucy was fun and delightfully bonkers as all assistants should be. Apollo's longsuffering exasperation was hilarious. Ema is the BEST I loved having her as the detective I wish she was there all the time.

I loved Beanix, for the most part. I can see why he rubs some people the wrong way, and tbh I'm glad his last canon outing isn't ... this. But I didn't find him wildly out of character, or at least, when he was feeling "out of character" vs the trilogy it made sense given the intervening events. I also thought it was fun to see him from the outside and see what a galaxybrain 5d chess master he is. I do wish we'd gotten to see more genuine moments of him with Trucy.

Kristoph was fun as a villain, though I have to say fandom led me to believe he was much more of a mastermind puppeteer than he seemed to be in reality. I was expecting a whole decade worth of conspiracies! Instead he fucked up once and struggled to fix it for seven years, lol. I also found the Kristoph/Phoenix relationship a) very fascinating, b) not really what I'd been led to believe by fandom (shocker). I like the canon more though -- I like that instead of being a retread of the Dollie betrayal-from-someone-you-love it was two guys who hate each other being forced to play nice as part of their own schemes.

Criticism

I think it's fairly obvious AA4 was meant to be a soft reboot of the series, to pivot away from the trilogy cast and set up our new heroes in Apollo, Trucy, and I guess Klavier. I think this is probably the entire explanation behind Maya and Edgeworth (and others but lbr those are the big two)'s conspicuous absence... but that doesn't make their absence any less conspicuous. I can squint and forgive neither of them being there when Phoenix is accused of murder, even though I find that insane. I can squint around Maya maybe being off in Kurain during the Enigmar trial, even though I think they could've used a line of dialogue to explain it. But then we started playing past-Phoenix for huge portions of investigation and that started to fall apart for me. Sure, maybe he's pushing his friends away because he's depressed, or maybe he wants to keep Maya out of things because he thinks it's dangerous, or whatever -- you could at least throw in a line or two saying as much. Not mentioning them at all and setting AA4 so closely after AA3, where Phoenix fell through a bridge to save Maya and Edgeworth chartered a private jet, just feels ridiculous.

I also think, at the end of the day, the story here was focused on and pivoting around Phoenix. The core question of the game is "what the hell happened to/is up with Phoenix Wright?" I love Phoenix, so that alone isn't a negative -- except that I think it meant Apollo, Klavier and even Trucy felt underwritten. Trucy and Klavier have such personal stakes in the unfolding events with the Gramaryes and Kristoph, but we only spend a little time and hints on how that might influence Trucy, who mostly falls into the AA weird girl pattern of brushing off major trauma instantly. (Maya got this a lot too in the original trilogy.)

Klavier ... I like Klavier, but they did not do much with him. How did he feel about Kristoph going to jail? He doesn't seem to hold it against Apollo, which is uh, noble, but perhaps not believable. He says he values honesty and truth but do we know why?

Apollo, likable as he was, felt like a passenger in his "own" game, rather than a major character. He doesn't even solve much of the stuff happening in the big overarching mystery -- he is Phoenix's avatar in court, presenting evidence and clues Phoenix left for him. Unlike Trucy and Klavier, who I am pretty sure take a back seat from now on, I guess Apollo still has two more games to try and flesh himself out ... lol but I also know fan reception of those two is not great, so my expectations there are minimal.

Overall

A really solid game that I enjoyed playing, though I can see why it's controversial and not some people's favourite, if they really loved the trilogy. I think it's debatable whether this was the best/only way to continue the series after AA3. And I am excited to read and write a billion 7 year gap fics now.

[charmwasjess]

I think I heard somewhere that George created Dooku and Grievous to reflect/foreshadow two aspects of Vader (gentleman politician villain and cyborg killer). What do you think of the relationship between Dooku and Grievous?

It changes a bit in canon I think, Dooku now has less a direct hand in his origin story.

Hell, Dooku changed a lot in canon. I’m glad he’s less a human supremacist now.

Yessss, Geode, coming in with the fun ask!!!! :D 

I’ve read arguments that Maul fits into this as well to complete the whole “the prequel villains all represent pieces of Vader.” Almost as avatars for RotS Anakin’s past, present, and future. Maul is the angry enslaved boy, Dooku is the fallen Jedi/former hero who betrays everyone he loves, Grievous is the coldblooded cyborg killer who lives only to destroy. 

I sure am grateful that we lost the tacked-on space racism (spacism) for Dooku, but I’ve felt that current canon does miss some of the prior rich characterization we got for Sith-era Dooku, as opposed to how much they’ve explored Jedi Dooku. And of course, that Jedi-era stuff is invaluable to me because I write mainly in that era (and I too-well remember a time in fandom when writing Dooku as having once been a good Jedi was considered outright OOC - whew, you should see some of the hate comments I got!) but I miss the Sithly depth. The Clones Wars 2008 in particular drives me crazy (affectionate) because it’s so fucking good, there’s so much beautiful subtext and tension to some of Dooku’s plotlines: untold stories and fascinating opportunities. I think a richer version of Dooku as a character was fully present in the TCW writer’s minds, it just got deprioritized to tell other character’s stories, so you just see the tantalizing shadow of it lingering in small details. 

Grievous is interesting as he’s almost a physical manifestation of what the war is intended to do to the Jedi Order. He’s a literal Jedi blender. A machine intended to break both their physical bodies as well as weaponize and pervert the ideals held sacred to the Jedi, that of life and choice and light and even lightsabers, these ceremonial objects with huge cultural significance to the Jedi which they spend their whole life training with. And yet, Grievous, without any holy connection to the Force, can pick up Lightsabers for Dummies ghostwritten by CD, spin his arms, and win. And win, and win, and win. 

And I think it’s interesting how Dooku’s participation in his training or origins gives the perception that Dooku understood this and did it deliberately. It really speaks to how far Dooku’s own soul has fallen, particularly since lightsabers and Makashi seem to be one part of his Jedi life that Dooku genuinely still values and finds sacred. In that way, like so much else, Grievous seems almost designed to be an act of psychic self harm for Dooku. (And that’s before you get into Legends and Dooku giving Grievous literally Sifo-Dyas’s blood and lightsaber.) 

There’s a tremendous scene in the EU book Labyrinth of Evil where Dooku shows Grievous a recording of Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting well together and just… gushes over it, genuinely happy and interested with their lightsaber development and expecting Grievous to take a lesson from this, while Grievous is like just sooo bored and wishing the Count would get to his point so he can leave. His own monster doesn’t want to talk to him about his dumb hobbies. It really epitomizes the way Dooku had built himself this cage for his own loneliness, constructed out of everything he used to love. 

Bonus Round

Narratively, in current canon, I’m glad we swapped in “Dooku gives Sifo-Dyas a Jedi funeral” instead of the EU version: “Dooku keeps Sifo’s corpse in a snow white style coffin in his basement to monologue most divorcedly at and then later stick all his blood in Grievous.” 

But Warren Fu being so proud of his design being chosen as the movie version for Grievous that he snuck his own face on Sifo-Dyas’s first visual appearance in that comic and made him Grievous’s blood donor is so fucking funny. I follow him on other platform and his birthday message to George Lucas this year was just a little clip he’d made of himself and George in front of his beautiful Grievous concept art. He's so proud still, almost 25 years later.

[bruhstation]

what playing god does to TWO mfs (explanation of their characters and relationship in act 1 under readmore)

at the start of casa tidmouth (tatmr), d10 is on this relentless quest on capturing lady. the reason of this is because he’s morbidly curious on what would happen if a mere human like him get into contact with gold dust. at that time, lady was putting on a disguise of a normal human working as a newbie in the northwestern railway, and d10 managed to figure out that she’s the lady of the legend thanks to various tales of her and the sodor’s rumours bulletin board. also because he eavesdropped on thomas and percy who wanted to help her look for gold dust resources.

throughout the beginning until mid of act 1, d10 plays this role of a saturday morning cartoon villain. every time he encounters the adventure trio, he always tries to thwart their plans using his 200 iq brain and rube goldberg machines (and incredibly incompetent dieselworks minions), though he always ends up failing.

another thing is that lady wasn’t really threatened by him. whenever d10 recites his essay on how he’ll capture lady, she would just smile and cheerfully respond to his genius plans. lady also perceives emotions and morality much differently compared to humans. she always believes that there’s a way out of every situation because... she’s a god! she has gold dust (albeit only a bit)! she’s not being mean or looking down on d10 or humans as a whole. it’s just the way she is. when humans panic over an injury, she nonchalantly believed it can be healed. when humans experience grief, she believed they’ll get over it soon. this is also because she never experienced companionship prior to arriving to sodor, so she had NO idea how to emotionally connect to others or understand how others feel. she just knows that her duty as the goddess of sodor is to help humans physically, not emotionally.

unfortunately d10 thought she’s looking down on him and always strives to improve his machines and plans to capture her. lady just plays along because she thought it’ll be fun to entertain a mere human like him. there are times where d10 managed to capture her (lady is still unfazed and goes along. she knew he’ll always fail) but as days and weeks progress, d10 slowly started to feel like his actions isn’t rooted in malice but rather because he just... wanted to do it. d10 felt uncomfortable about this relation because he had always thought of himself as this irredeemable, unstoppable force and is never bothered about it. he constantly wavered on his ideals whenever he thought of doing something nice for a change and always forced himself to think of himself as this tough, crazy maniac who’s a big evil genius to ground himself.

the days where d10 and lady didn’t have their one-sided rivalry, lady would just tease d10, tell him to relax his shoulders, and basically annoy him. it eventually evolved into days where they would have small talk about random things, like d10′s rube goldberg machines and lady’s godlike characteristics. lady thought that his machines are genuinely cool and awesome, something that he’s never heard anyone say before. d10 mentioned things about his fascination with gold dust and wanting to know more about its wonders or if it has any side effects... a goddess that learns about science, and an engineer that is interested in how magic works.

even though in their earlier interactions d10 always instigated first, it was always thomas that gave d10 the push he “needed” to kickstart his daily villainy shenanigans by exclaiming out loud something along the lines of “look! diesel 10!’s back!!!!”. so when he’s not present, d10 can’t bring himself to do..... mean bad toughguy things.

d10 initially thought that lady was sent by thomas to spy on his activities, but many convincing words from her proved otherwise. lady finally became honest on how she views humans and said that she found it hard to emotionally connect with others. her role as a god wasn’t to be worshiped, but to be relied on. strangely, d10 related to her. he always believed that there’s nothing science can’t answer. as long as he can use others using his knowledge and sheer willpower, he can achieve whatever he wants and quench any curiosity his brain comes up with. he pushed others away and others pushed him away because of his low sympathy and thought process that is considered “abnormal”. for the first time, lady truly understood the feelings of a human. d10 always takes his leave right before thomas arrives, though. he doesn’t want to make things complicated, but for the first time, he unconsciously felt like caring about someone else besides him.

seems like there’s a lot of things lady and d10 share in common.

and just like that, a friendship between them formed. lady is still her unwavering, cheerful self, but she began to think about her own feelings more rather than let others slide. d10 is still his maniacal, crazy engineer self, but he started to think about wanting to use his genius brain for something sliiightly less destructive. rebuilding the dieselworks, perhaps? one can only imagine. he still thought his machines were awesome, though, and he doesn’t think he can become a 100% good guy. d10 is the first person that made lady experience more “human-like” emotions, while lady is the first person that wasn’t scared of d10 and paid more attention at how intricate his machines are instead of how much they’re safety hazards.

things were starting to look good!

and then the first part of the dotd arc arrived.

[yellowocaballero]

obito fic 👀?

HELL YEAH BABY. HELL YEAH. I HAVE JUST POSTED THE 70K OBITO FIC GO READ IT.

Naruto. Man. Very treasured aspect of my childhood. I've written a few fics now that are about an influential childhood media or character, and they always have such a unique quality about them. But I love my BAMF!Sakura fics so much. You Call This A Utopia is for her.

I talk a little bit about the specialness of that useless little girl in the author's note, but #justiceforSakura has always compelled me - on one level, just such wasted potential as a character, but on another level, it was one of my very early frustrations with sexism in writing. I wanted to live vicariously through her, to use her as a self-insert power fantasy like all the boys got to do with all the male Naruto characters, but even if she's a chakra master (!) and genius doctor (!!) who can wreck mountains with her fists (!!!) she was never quite able to make the tween girl readers feel special, because she was never valued. BAMF!Sakura fics were how I was able to have my little kid power fantasies in my favorite good-bad shonen. Today, if I'm reading BAMF!Sakura fic I am spiritually watching Saturday morning cartoons and eating sugar cereal and crying.

I didn't have very strong feelings Obito until I read butter_peanut and realized that one could hypothetically make him the most fascinating fucking character. Naruto fic writers are so creative and magnificent and better than Naruto. I do vaguely remember Tobi being my favorite Akatsuki character, because he had so much personality and was a lot of fun after Naruto got kinda serious. butter_peanut having Tobi say the word "bestie" truly inspired me. After writing him I now understand them completely, because I have happened to discover that he is the funnest fucking character.

I feel insane. Like a precious few people know and understand that Obito is so much fun to write. I love writing insane people and we know this but Obito is truly on another level (he is a villain in Naruto and you cannot match that level in any other fucking series). He is genuinely so unhinged and he genuinely believes that he is a normal person. He is so fundamentally broken and it is so funny.

What caught me about Naruto villains - because this is Naruto, it is interesting in theory and so stupid in practice - is that they are almost all, fundamentally, good people. The goal of most Naruto villains is "create a better world with no war and only love and peace". Which means that you have to be a special kind of nuts to be a Naruto villain, because you are a good person who got so incredibly fucked up and twisted by your incredibly violent life that you are now an evil schemer who is trying to blow up half the continent. The evil in Naruto is on a systemic level, not a person one. You Call This A Utopia?! is fundamentally about this. Except stupid.

Tobi is also one of the most challenging but rewarding characters I've written. FUN FUN FUN. Lots more to say about literally all of this. For now I'll just say that I'm an adult, so these days I gravitate to adult POVs. Obito is the adult's window into a kid's world. But Obito is honestly an overgrown kid himself. Let's see how that all plays out.