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maguro13-2 · 3 months ago

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Frieren : Okay...Here goes.

Fern : You got it on video?

Frieren : Yep.

Fern : Shh! Shh! Here she comes.

Serie : (whistling) Say...What's this banana peel doing on the floor?

Serie : [thinking] Hmmm...[determined] Oh well, I hope I don't mind stepping on it, I might just go get my cleaning gloves and let a real pro do the handy work.

Frieren : Oh man she's gonna do it.

Fern : She's gonna do it.

Serie : Sorry, Mr. Banana peel. Beggers can't be choosers.

*METALLIC CLANG+CRACK*

Serie : OWWWW!!! My foot! My f***ing foot! Oh sweet Je*us! My foot just hit it hard! I stubbed my foot on a banana...(removes banana peel to reveal to be a block of sement) sement?

Fern : What the hell!? Who put a cinder block in the middle of the floor?

Frieren : What? I didn't put up for any--(both her and Fern gets grabbed by a furious serie) Uhhh...Hey there...you.

Serie : What did I tell you about pranking me on purpose!?

Frieren : Come on, bro! Look it's a prank! A prank!

Fern : We set up all of those pranks to make you slip on a banana peel, but we didn't meant to put that Cinder Block that would actually hurt your foot!

Serie : That's stubbing my foot, you clods! And now I have to go to the doctor for this. Oh wait a minute, I don't need a doctor, I can heal myself with magic. (uses magic to heal her foot) So...How does it like to be putting you in a hospital? (cracks knuckles)

Frieren : Oh boy.

Fern : (To Frieren) I told you that was a bad, so what's the deal with that kind of prank about hurting people's feet with a block? So I thought this is going to have good pranks. What she's gonna do, beat us to break our spirits and make us go to the hospital?

(changes to Frieren and Fern covered in bandages and casts)

Fern : Wow. I didn't think she had the guts to make us look like punching bags. Can't believe she made us beaten us into sense.

Frieren : I thought it was cool, bro.

Stark : You just had to realize that pranking someone isn't a good idea.

Frieren : (sarcastically) Yeah, pranking someone isn't a good idea.

Stark : Idiot.

*DBZ SFX : Hit*

Frieren : (straining in pain+Grunting) ...My...spleen.

Fern : That's gotta hurt. Okay...Never prank again.

*alternate take*

Frieren : Alright, Fern. You got it on tape?

Fern : Yeah.

Frieren : Oh boy. This is going to be the ultimate prank ever.

Fern : Totally. (holding a camera)

Frieren : Alright. Let's open the doors and...

(the lights went out)

Frieren : Hey, who turned out the lights?

Fern : What gives, dude!? Where did all the lights go? Frieren, did you forget something to pay the electric bill?

Frieren : No I did not, I did once. But that wasn't me.

Fern : Oh really? That's someone doing, wasn't it?

Frieren : Uhh, yep.

Fern : Hmmm. Strange. I feel like that we're missing something.

Frieren : I'm not wearing anything with my melons hanging out.

Fern : Are those peaches as well?

Frieren : Peaches and Melons? What the heck is that? I don't remember peaches and melon a thing would you?

Fern : No...It feels like that I feel completely shameful.

Frieren : Then why is that?

Fern : Because, I don't think we're not even wearing undies either.

(lights turn on)

Fern : AAAAH!!!

*Warioware SFX : Piano*

Frieren : Our clothes! Who the heck took our clothes!? This was supposed to be the ultimate prank!

Fern : But I didn't plan this prank, that wasn't me when I had the chance of pulling the prank!

Frieren : If you didn't do it, then who did?

Serie : Haha! I did! Get a load of this, ladies and gentlemen! Two naked mages going live nude!

(everyone laughing)

Serie : Get a load of the mages buck naked!

Frieren : Oh no! She planned all of this!

Fern : This is not even cool! Not cool! NOT COOOOOOOOL!!! (her mouth engulfs the camera, then cuts to Fern waking up from the dream) AAAAAH! Must've been a wet dream in my pants!

Stark : Did you even think about dreaming of being in ENF, guys?

Frieren : No...We weren't going ENF.

Fern : But that was the craziest dream about being pranked in the nude! That is totally not cool!

Frieren : And I always had my coverage to get the pranks out of there system.

Fern : So in the meantime, what did you think of it?

Stark : What I want to know is that who put a fake spider in the bathroom while I was taking a shower?

Frieren : I ain't pulling a spider prank on you.

Fern : Oh God, not that spider demon from Japan again!

Arachne : Hey, what are you doing!? I'm taking a shower with--

Fern : Get out! Get out! Get out, now! Out of this house! Scram! (kicks Arachne out of the house)

Frieren : Yeah, these pranks are serious business when it comes to other pranks. I wonder what happened to the last prank?

(camera pans to Serie)

Serie : Finally. I can get a daily news reads on my nice throne. It should be nice and cozy with my nice throne, so that I have a nice crossword puzzle to finish that--

*tire screeching*

Serie : Ehh? (sees her throne messy)

[Ed, Edd, n Eddy Lunchroom Rumble Music : What a Mess)

Serie : Okay...WHO SAT IN MY SEAT!?

#frieren at the funeral #sousou no frieren #frieren: beyond journey's end #frieren #fern #stark #serie #madhouse #funny #comedy #pranks

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prying-pandora666 · 9 months ago

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Yes, it really does.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the fact that the friggin Air Nomad Genocide was not directed, acted, and shot as a horrible, cruel massacre from the POV of the people being slaughtered, but instead as an adrenaline rushing action scene where Sozin has a DBZ-esque fire shield that somehow deflects wind (???). Nothing but a power fantasy. Think about how war is depicted in other movies and shows. Think about what film does when we are supposed to empathize with the ones being aggressed upon versus the aggressors. Then see what NATLA chose.

Or how about the fact that Aang has none of his motivations for The Guru set up? As others have artfully and comedically pointed out:

Or how about the water sibs?

Katara who has lost all of her anger, her passion, her idealism, her inner strength and perseverance, her dedication to never turning her back on people who need her no matter the risks. She’s now… a mild mannered a girl with all the personality of cardboard who constantly gets belittled by not only her brother but also the narrative which actively agrees with him! Even her trauma is made a mockery of. Kya’s death is now not only made her fault for recklessly trying to bend when she was told to hide, when it wasn’t before, they also place this highly traumatic incident before Sokka’s big traumatic memory of… kinda disappointing his dad one time because he botched a coming of age ritual. In the language of film, stakes are meant to escalate. By placing Katara witnessing her mother be burned alive before Sokka overhears dad saying he’s disappointed, they’re putting more importance and emphasis on Sokka’s trauma. How is that not the ultimate undermining of Katara’s trauma and loss? The entire show, she never once even mentions her mother’s necklace. There isn’t time to dwell on anything about her. Even when she gets to the North, she doesn’t get her moment to earn her place. She just IS a master. Oh well. What a waste of Kiawentiio’s acting talent. Everyone who came away from NATLA thinking she can’t act? I implore you to check out Anne with an E. She’s phenomenal!

Meanwhile, the show can’t stop kissing Sokka’s ass for five seconds at the expense of everyone and everything else. No longer is he the neurotic, sexist, xenophobic kid just doing his best to keep them all alive while slowly realizing that his ideas about what it means to be a man are phony and based on nothing but his desperation to live up to his father and protect his remaining family and tribe. No longer is he a wannabe warrior who has to learn not only how to fight but the respect and discipline and responsibility that come with being a leader. No, now he really is just the leader of his tribe, constantly talks down to his sister (which the narrative agrees he’s correct to do because it’s completely devalued the labor Katara does now, something the original NEVER did and took great pains to explain the sacrifices Katara made for her brother and tribe, to the point of missing a lot of her childhood), and yet every single character just cannot stop telling him how great he is! Suki doesn’t humble him anymore. Now she is thirsting over him with zero self respect like a vapid horndog ON SIGHT. She thanks HIM for bringing the world to her—instead of Aang, the living embodiment of her idol Kyoshi—when in the original she was the one who opened Sokka’s eyes! Even Yue dumps her chad fiancé the moment she meets Sokka in the spirit world! And even after she dies, Arnook doesn’t softly and quietly mourn Yue beside Sokka like he did in the original. No, now Arnook just HAS to reassure Sokka about how important HE is and how grateful he is that SOKKA was there. It’s beyond parody.

Don’t get me started on Zuko. We’ll be here all day picking apart how they removed all of Zuko’s moral ambiguity and complexity and had Iroh basically look into the camera and say “you owe Zuko your loyalty”. Gee, thanks! Being talked down to and spoon fed how to feel is SO much better than slowly watching him go from the angry, violent teen willing to burn down the homes of innocent civilians and threaten his own crew and Uncle, to the troubled young man forced to confront that everything he has ever believed is a lie. Nope! Why would we ever want tension or intrigue or meaningful development? He’s already had a meaningful conversation with Aang for some reason. Good luck justifying his betrayal in Book 2 now.

And poor Azula. If it isn’t enough that the fandom can’t decide whether she’s the embodiment of psychopathic evil or a helpless little meow meow (spoilers: it’s neither), now NATLA has to join in on completely reducing and misinterpreting one of the most complex and fascinating characters in the entire franchise. Far from the cool, calculating, clever prodigy that keeps her insecurities and vulnerabilities hidden beneath a mask of unshakable perfection, making her eventual breakdown and the reveal of her true feelings all the more powerful, now they’ve turned her into what Zuko was supposed to be! Volatile, angry, openly insecure, jealous of her brother’s success, constantly venting to anyone who will listen about her problems.

Bold of them to have kid Zuko beat Ozai in the Agni Kai though. Yeah, I’m sooo scared of Ozai after seeing his teen son get the better of him and only lose because he didn’t have the stomach to finish it. Just awful. Writing 101 tells us not to undermine our final villain in the first season! Rest assured though, they’ve already gone ahead and ruined Toph ahead of time by needlessly stuffing in a plot from Book 2 about the Cave of Two Lovers! Only instead of sensing vibrations (you know, the way Toph uses seismic sense), the badger moles now sense “love”. I can’t wait to see Toph sensing love through her feet, I guess! Assuming they even keep her blind!

But hey, it was all worth it to have moon spirit Momo. I GUESS.

Listen, it’s true that changes will always be necessary for adaptations. There’s nothing wrong with making changes to suit a different medium. But needing changes is not an excuse for horrible, sexist, pro-imperialistic writing! However unintentional some of it may have been!

All this AND every single recognized Cherokee Nation has spoken out against Netflix casting Sokka’s actor, since he’s registered with an alleged pretendían tribe that siphons resources from actual Cherokee people without requiring any actual proof you’re Cherokee as long as you pay.

How much further from the spirit of the original could you get?

what’s so crazy abt natla is that the cast is so phenomenal. the show itself absolutely butchers the story in all aspects other than appearance. the heart of the entire show and the entire emotional arc of avatar, the family that the gaang becomes, is no where to be seen within the actual text of the show yet every interaction between the actors behind the scenes and on social media has that heart. it’s so sad to see actors that look exactly like their characters and who understand and care for their characters so deeply be given material that feels hollow and void of all of this. natla has an insane level of untapped potential buried beneath netflix’s terrible handling of the story and that’s what i find the most frustrating and upsetting.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #avatar #Natla #anti natla #natla critical

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theshinsun · 6 years ago

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me scrolling through a twitter full of old vegeta art I haven't seen in years

#shin speaks #its stupidoomdoodles #the legend #made me realize i really miss dbz #maybe i should rewatch some #thatd be the healthy thing to do not going back to my kakarot rp blog right???#ignore me #this message will self destruct #dbz #stupidoomdoodles

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limenysnocket · 4 years ago

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Expensive Thrifting

Taika Waititi x Reader

Summary: Like a lot of girlfriends, you steal your boyfriend's clothes. But, what happens when roles switch, and your boyfriend steals your clothes?

Request: @honorarytenenbaum (FROM A LONG TIME AGO I'M SORRY)

Warnings: Swearing

Words: 1.7k another shorty for you

A/N: Okay. So. To get back into the spunk of things, I've decided to challenge myself to write a fluffy fic this time. I didn’t edit it much, so be prepared for mistakes.

@honorarytenenbaum @olyvoyl

•○●•○●•○●•

"Hey Taik," your voice echoed through the large house, from your room, down the stairs and into the living room. "Have you seen my DBZ hoodie anywhere?"

You don't receive an immediate answer, so you go to look for yourself. After a quiet walk down the stairs, peering around every corner for him, you find him sitting in the living room, sitting on the couch, in a very... awkward position.

"Are you okay?" you were concerned. You've never seen his leg bend like that before.

Taika's head snaps right to you, and he looks speechless. He's trying to come up with something. "I'm great. Just chilling. Watching..." he looks to the television screen. The television wasn't even turned on.

"Go on," you encourage, now leaning on the guardrail to the steps and tilting your head. He's still quiet.

After another long, insane moment of hesitation, he finally picks up a bowl from the ground. "Grapes?" He offered them out to you, and all you did was just stare at them.

"No, I'm good," you hummed, eyebrows furrowed while Taika still tried hard to play it cool. "While you were having a stroke, I'm assuming, I think I lost my Dragon Ball Z hoodie. Have you seen it at all, or did it get mixed in with your laundry?"

"Uh, no. Nope. I don't even like that show. Sorry," he looked away and up at the ceiling like a purposely oblivious little boy. You were starting to catch on. Suspicious, but you didn't have enough evidence.

"It's hard to miss, Taika. You seriously didn't notice it going into the wash with your clothes? At all?" you held your hands up, and he began to twiddle with his thumbs.

"Nuh-uh," his answer was stout. He was still avoiding eye contact with you. You gave up.

"Fine," you huff, then drop down from the final step. "I'm just gonna go have a look for myself. You know, just in case." You walked right by him. His position didn't waver, except for his eyes that were bouncing all over the place in order to still avoid you.

Instead of actually digging through laundry, you hid behind a corner, and lurked there to casually stalk your boyfriend. He was still acting weird when you left. He would check over his shoulder from time to time, and after a minute or so, you finally saw him get up and start digging through the couch cushions. He didn't make much of a sound, but he certainly found something that he liked, because he picked something up, and he had the biggest smile you had ever seen on his face.

All it took was a little glimpse of red-orange fabric and you knew. He had your hoodie.

You burst from your hiding place instantly. "Taika David Cohen, I know what you're hiding!" You shout at him and instantly he's a deer in headlights, but not for long. His eyes never moved from yours and there was a brief moment of silence. He juked the couch corner once, at first thinking he should run to the kitchen, but ultimately made a break for the stairs, hoping to make it to the bedroom with the only lock. You, like a dope, ran right after him.

His long legs helped carry him, but you had unwithering speed and determination. At the end, he almost had you. His hand was on the doorknob and he was just about to slam the door shut to lock, but you pushed through like a tank and plowed into him. The force you had knocked him back onto the bed, but the hoodie was still in his hands. You reached for it, but he scrambled to the other side of it. He didn't notice where the bed ended, and fell to the ground as a result. He picked himself up, thankfully unhurt and unphased by the whole chase, and the thing you wanted was still in his grasp.

"Taika," you were panting on the other side of the bed, and you outstretched a frustrated hand. "Give me the hoodie."

"Absolutely not," he wasn't breathing as hard, and he hugged the hoodie close to his chest.

"This is the third time this week! Give me the damn hoodie! I just washed it!" You shake your hand to add emphasis, but all he does is just look at it with a disgruntled attitude.

"It's your fault for being gullible and not watching your things better," he stuck his tongue out at you, childishly. The longer this went on, the more huffy you became. All you wanted to do was relax in your favorite hoodie and maybe cuddle a little bit! That's all!

"Okay, that was a low blow from the biggest procrastinator on earth. And, like you said, you don't even like Dragon Ball! Why the fuck do you want it so bad!?" It was a petty argument, sure, but you were a bit hardheaded, so why not drag this out a little longer?

"I could like it!" He shouted and spluttered, trying to come up with excuses. "And it's comfortable. It's a massive size!" He held it out in his hands, just looking at it, and his eyes lit up. "We could share!"

"No."

His idea was stomped out quickly, and he went back to pouting. He wouldn't give it up yet.

You sighed, getting tired of trying to find a solution. Your eyes started to trail, looking for something, anything, to call it even. Just to your luck, you landed on the closet.

"Give me your One Piece sweater," you said, and folded your arms.

Taika, still admiring the piece of clothing in his arms, became suddenly baffled and looked right at you. The look he gave you said it all. "No!" That word was popular with him today.

"Why not?" You said, eyes lingering over to the closet again. "What's stopping me?"

His whole body tensed and his jaw shifted. It was a sudden standoff, just waiting for the other to make a move. At first, he tried to make up more excuses, but you taunted him like Chris Tucker in Rush Hour. With every stumble and fumble he made with his words, you played the shadow game with him.

When he was at his lowest, you bolted to the closet. He dropped your hoodie and ran right after you, just as the closet door swung open. Your hand was centimeters away from the hanger you needed, but Taika came crashing right into first, bumping you right out of the way with his hip. With plan b failed, you ran right to where he dropped your hoodie and managed to snag it in seconds just by the sleeve.

In your moment of glory, you were cocky enough to try and run out the door. Taika had been anticipating that move, ever since he got his One Piece sweater and saw you dive for your hoodie, he was waiting in front of the door. So, when you turned on your heel and made a mad dash, you ran right into Taika and his hand had grabbed onto the collar of the shirt.

Taika tried to yank it from your hands, and you gasped, holding on tight. He tried again and again and again, but you kept holding. Neither of you were noticed that the fabric was slowly starting to rip.

"Taika! It's not yours!" you yell, pulling back.

"I know, but I like it! It fits me!" he yelled back, and yanked it.

Childish taunts went back and forth, and both of you were both talking at the same time for a point in time. The room started to swirl, and eventually the strings keeping the hoodie together grew tired of the fabric and it just...

Snapped.

There was a piercing rip, and both you and Taika stumbled back. He left with the entire collar in his hands, soft string still dwindling from it and hanging from under his nails. You broke away with the rest of the hoodie. Once you realized what happened, it fell from your hands. You kind of just... looked at it. Your hand came up to cup over your mouth and your other arm cradled just beneath your chest.

Taika was talking to you, but you just tuned it out. When you finally looked back up at Taika, you had a look on your face that he only saw during actual, serious fights. He had royally pissed you off this time.

At least he had enough sense to move out of the way when you walked out of the room. He still had the collar in his hands, and he watched you go downstairs.

You needed to cool off for a little bit. You went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water and sat down on the couch. You curled your legs up to your knees and turned the television on. You weren't really in the mood to watch anything, so you endlessly flipped through the stations, reading the descriptions and quietly wondering how some of these shows even made it at all.

You hadn't noticed it, but Taika had summoned up enough courage to come downstairs. He brought a peace offering with him. He slowly crept to the living room, staying out of your peripheral vision for the time being until he was behind you and the couch. He cautiously came to wrap his arms around you, making you pause from your channel flipping and he buried his nose into the crook of your neck. He let the thing he brought slide onto your knees. It was his One Piece sweater.

He murmured a soft, "I'm sorry," into your tender skin and kissed at it.

You couldn't stay mad at him, no matter how hard you tried. Your hand went up into his hair and you massaged his scalp the best you could with one hand. "It's fine... but there's one thing you can do to make it up to me." You pulled away from him and folded your arms. He sighed, giving you a soft frown, but he only knew it was right.

"I'll buy you a new one..."

#taika waititi #fanfiction #taika waititi x reader #taika waititi imagine #taika waititi imagines #taika waititi x you #taika waititi/you #fluffy #gosh I missed writing fluff this is nice #should I write something dirty again???#thoughts

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rhetorical-ink · 5 years ago

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Haikyuu!! SPOILERS: Chapter 401, How We Connect the Dots.

**PENULTIMATE SPOILERS BELOW**

I just posted a video with my live reactions to the chapter, but here are my highlights, because FURUDATE YOU MADMAN GENIUS. This chapter connected so much together. So, let’s do:

My Top 10 Thoughts on Haikyuu!! Chapter 401:

10. Of course. In true Furudate fashion, he has Kageyama block the spike from Hinata, BUT, what Kageyama doesn’t realize is all the training on the beach Shoyo has done to prepare for such a moment. And that heel kick! *swoons* Also, someone reacting to Season 4, Episode 9 of the anime, where Hinata kicks the ball back to himself called this happening all those months ago...Furudate is next level at foreshadowing. Not that we didn’t already know that.

9. Hey, remember how in the VERY FIRST chapter of Haikyuu!! Shoyo did this crazy run across the court to score? Yeah, Furudate knows we remember. And he pulls this -- and Kageyama’s beautiful reaction, only for --

-- Only for it to all be a DECOY. Kageyama, you made this monster, you know. I love that Shoyo has come all this way from wanting to score all the points to accepting that the decoy DOES have a vital role to play, and in this instance, it’s allowing Bokuto to score the winning point for the MSBY Black Jackals. Just look at that smile! And of course, Tanaka and Asahi KNOW the power of Hinata as a Decoy...because they’ve been in Bokuto’s shoes before.

8. UGH, the aftermath of that moment is glorious, which will detail down below -- but I love Shoyo and Kageyama’s interaction, though. How they’re still keeping track of each other’s wins and losses, exhausting Miya, hilariously, and showing that they’re on equal footing now, after all these years. This chapter is just cementing the last several chapters’ worth of character development.

7. ARE YOU SHIPPERS READY FOR YOUR FOOD?!

Because these next few pages were healing my shipper heart. I mean, yes, the Kagehina fanbase is raving right now, but let’s talk about THESE ships below, starting with:

Tsukishima x Yamaguchi:

So, Tsukishima, of course, is not sappy about any of this and just points out how the season’s just getting started (ready the fanfics, y’all).

And of course, Yamaguchi wants to watch Tsuki play! Yachi says she’ll come too! I LOVE how just like he was with Akiteru, he doesn’t want them to come watch (even though we all know he’ll love it when they’re there). Now, some people have commented that Yamaguchi could be with Yachi, but y’all...Yachi is in Tokyo. Yamaguchi and Tsuki both live in Miyagi. I can’t wait for all the Sendai Frog/TsukiYama fanfics!

If you’re looking for an extra Kagehina crumble, just look at the end of this adorable exchange between Romero, smol adorable Rubens, and Shoyo (who perfectly crouches down to talk to him MY HEART I CAN’T), to see Kageyama notice that Shoyo can speak multiple languages...oh, honey! If only you know about Hinata and Pedro’s marathons of DBZ in Portugese and English! ^^

Also, Furudate WE SEE YOU. We see you being meta and implying that now Haikyuu!! is over, he’s moving on...Akaashi’s line about going forward hit me hard...it’s like he’s telling us, the fandom, that going on to start something new isn’t so bad. SO YOU SAY.

BOKUAKA NATION -- WE CANON NOW, RIGHT?!

I love that Akaashi gets to interview Bokuto (IS HE GOING TO BE THE STAR of the Volleyball manga Tenma Udai is writing?! He would be PERFECT for it!) and how happy Akaashi looks, even if he and Bokuto realize how differently they view the term “normal.”

ALSO, it’s implied above that Akaashi, Bokuto, and Tenma were going out for drinks...which now....we know that it’s just Bokuto and Akaashi, since Tenma was going home. Uhm, FAN FIC WRITERS ASSEMBLE!

I also love that Udai joins the club, along with Fukurodani’s coach and manager, of people who realize that Bokuto and Akaashi are weirdos but they are weirdos together, so it’s fine.

Keeping the “Ship Train” going, we get little bits of Shimizu x Yachi from the bathhouse before the Inarizaki Match, where Kiyoko finally acknowledges she is okay showing her legs...thanks to Yachi’s words. I also find Suga wanting to know “the tea” on the situation to be adorable.

AND FINALLY, YES, Y’ALL:

I was spoiled with Kuroo’s return, but seriously, Furudate, you saved him for the end here so INTENTIONALLY.

Because OF COURSE Kuroo would work for the JVA. As a promoter. CONNECTING people...with Volleyball...because that’s the Nekoma way.

And FURUDATE ARE YOU SUGGESTING TO US THAT KUROO AND KENMA ARE BUSINESS PARTNERS AND COLLABORATORS BECAUSE MY KUROKEN HEART IS SOARING --

-- and let it be known Atsumu Miya rightfully doesn’t trust Kuroo, and neither does Sakusa. A nice SakuAtsu crumb where we actually see Sakusa agree with Miya without sacrasm or question! Poor Shoyo is a salesman’s dream, though. I mean, Kuroo does look a little sketchy in some of those shots...BUT....

6. Kuroo’s speech about sports was SO fitting. Seriously, everything he says here is BASICALLY what makes Haikyuu!! such a great series. I DID laugh out loud at the line about “hardly anybody dies.”

*Flashbacks to “Dead Daichi” meme*

5. It’s taken us the ENTIRE series, but Kageyama finally talks to Kindaichi and Kunimi. This was so heartwarming, seeing Kageyama wanting to play WITH THEM. AS A TEAM. This made my heart expand three sizes. The character development on Kageyama, and Kindaichi, is through the roof.

I also LOVE Kunimi the most in these panels. Kunimi is a MOOD.

Y’ALL. I’VE WAITED 400 CHAPTERS FOR THIS PANEL OF THESE THREE HAPPY AND BECOMING FRIENDS AGAIN.

4. I love that Hoshiumi doesn’t see Hinata as a Rival, but as someone that is going to help him show the rest of the world the strength of someone who doesn’t have height. I also find it interesting that we see the Japanese Olympic Coach walking out just as Hoshiumi gives us that beautiful gaze. So...does Hoshiumi know he’s going to be on the Olympic team, with Hinata, maybe? Foreshadowing, perhaps?

3. Okay, okay, I held it together until this page.

It wasn’t Ushijima’s panel with Washijo that got me.

It wasn’t Saeko and Akane reuniting, though that was sweet.

It wasn’t the three “Pure Captains” reuniting, though it made my heart happy.

It honestly wasn’t the five first years together, either. They’re all so happy and having a laugh at Kageyama’s expense, and as beautiful as that panel is.

SUGAWARA IN LINE TO GET KAGEYAMA’S AUTOGRAPH.

That is what got me.

Him in line, so meekly, to get the autograph of his kouhai, the man Suga joked would have to tell about how much he learned from HIM when he was giving out interviews and autographs...I just...Sugawara made me cry. That is all.

2. Then there’s this last page. 2021.

"We overcame difficulties and stand here.”

Furudate really said “screw you” to Covid messing up the timeline.

Yes, seeing Kageyama and Hinata in their original jersey numbers was amazing, but I think we all saw that coming if these two happened to get on the Olympic team.

What I want to focus on are the two countries we see included in the bottom corner here. We see:

Brazil -- and some fluffy haired man carrying the flag for the team.

And we see the United States -- there’s several American Flags and stars and stripes on the shirts of the crowd, there.

SO, HEADCANON TIME:

* Oikawa was on the Argentinean League, so could he play for Brazil? It’s not likely, but not impossible....BUT, I don’t think that’s it.

I don’t think Oikawa is on Japan’s National Team for the Olympics.

If he is on the Olympic Team, I think he’ll be on America’s.

Why? Because, and this could be because I’m the biggest IwaOi shipper, but Iwaizumi was still in the United States with Ushijima’s father at the end of Chapter 395. And if he’s still there, there is no reason why Iwaizumi couldn’t be a physical trainer alongside Ushijima’s father for the U.S. Olympic team. And why wouldn’t Oikawa trek over to the States to be on the same team as Iwa-Chan’s working with? I’m probably wrong, BUT --

We also still need to see Seijoh’s banner, and as others have theorized, how fitting would it be to see Hinata, Kageyama, and (probably) Ushijima on the team facing Oikawa? I just....I’m betting money that Oikawa shows up in 402. I hope we at least see him on the Olympic Stage. OIKAWA DESERVES IT.

1. So, who are we missing that hasn’t been shown yet?

We still need to see the rest of Nekoma (Lev, Yaku, Yamamoto, Kai....could they be in the stands or on the Japan team? I guess we’ll find out!)

We haven’t seen Daishou and Mika -- I would love to see them watching or narrating in the audience during the Olympic game.

And finally, yes, we’ve seen Tendo in the Chapter 395 flashback, but we’ve never seen what he’s DOING. Furudate has shown us with every character what they’ve been doing since the timeskip....EXCEPT TENDO. I’m calling it that he’ll appear one more time next chapter, too.

So....guys....I’m staying off of Social Media from Wednesday to Sunday next week, to prep for the last chapter and not be spoiled. I’m going to do a live reaction for YouTube, and I’ll post it here. You can see the one I did for 401 now.

Furudate, this series has been immaculate. Time for one more round.

Let’s all cry together next week.

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dragonsballsz · 4 years ago

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Galaxy brain realization: Vegito's name uses the "-to" from "Kakarotto" because, as suggested by the name, Vegeta is the dominant personality that makes up the fusion, while Gogeta uses the "Go-" from "Goku" for the opposite reason.

i’ve heard that theory before, and i’m not against it, but it’s not quite the theory i usually go with.

anyhow, buckle up bc this gets extensive.

both goku and vegeta refer to vegeta as “vegeta” (bc his name is vegeta), but they differ in terms of how they refer to goku. neither gogeta nor vegito spend much time pondering their names - they just basically go “guess i’m gogeta/vegito” and move on. but in the manga, vegito explicitly refers to goku as “kakarot” before deciding on the name “vegito” for himself.

this comes right after goku and vegeta’s argument on fusing, which, following goku’s explanation of how it works, has vegeta state that he’d rather die than fuse with goku, and goku responding that this isn’t the time for pride. however, vegeta says that he feels goku hid ssj3 from him during their fight either as manipulation or mockery, and that that’s why he refuses to fuse. goku tries to explain, but vegeta comes to the conclusion that goku was mocking him, only agreeing to fuse after goku tells him that buu has eaten bulma, piccolo, gohan, goten, and trunks. even then, he’s still clearly unhappy about it.

that discussion, to me, demonstrates how little goku and vegeta understand each other. despite knowing goku’s kind and honest nature, vegeta still isn’t able to come up with a reason for goku not to use ssj3 that doesn’t boil down to something antagonistic towards vegeta (manipulation or mockery). on the other end, goku - understandably - assumes vegeta is refusing to fuse bc he feels that working with goku infringes on his pride rather than bc he feels slighted that goku didn’t go all out against him earlier - he misses that it’s not so much vegeta’s pride as a saiyan warrior as it is his deep-seated insecurity of not being strong enough.

their inability to understand one another is still key to their relationship, and that shows in vegito. to me, vegito’s name - and the basis of his existence - come from how vegeta and goku view one another. vegito showcases their respect for one another’s fighting abilities, but his personality doesn’t quite mesh with either of them. he switches from dramatically announcing that he’s “super vegito” to a serious face ready for battle. “super vegito” is a callback to when vegeta first achieved super saiyan, declaring himself “super vegeta”. goku was barely conscious for that, but it occurred right after vegeta viciously kicked him out of the fight (yes, he was technically saving him, but he made sure to be as nasty about it as he could). as for the serious face, that shows up multiple times. however, i’m reminded of planet namek, when vegeta had just been murdered by frieza (but hadn’t quite died yet). he’s lying there dying, and watches goku’s face go from concerned to understanding to determined.

vegito’s behavior seems drawn not from goku and vegeta’s actual personality traits but from how they view those traits in one another. vegito is arrogant and clever, vicious and excitable. but all of those traits are only shown briefly, even in the limited time vegito is onscreen. i believe that this is bc the impression one person has of another can only ever really scratch the surface of who that person is - that’s not necessarily a bad thing; just kinda how it goes.

after falling apart, they seem to have gained a stronger understanding of each other - vegeta still refuses to fuse inside buu, but that’s bc he finds that dance ridiculous and demeaning. this time, however, goku just lets it go. he puts up no argument whatsoever to vegeta’s refusal to fuse. to me, that’s because he’s gained a deeper understanding of how vegeta functions (read: barely) and where he’s coming from. on vegeta’s end, he becomes much more cooperative with goku, now that he’s quite literally been in his shoes. he knows goku isn’t looking down on him, he knows he’s not being mocked or manipulated. when goku asks vegeta to buy him time, vegeta agrees right away. when vegeta is about to kill good buu, after ignoring mr. satan’s pleas for him to not do that, goku steps in and tells dende to heal him. rather than blasting buu out of spite, vegeta asks goku for an explanation and backs down once he’s gotten one. he still makes it clear that he views buu as a threat, but he’s a threat vegeta is willing to allow to keep living. for vegeta, that’s huge. remember, this is the guy who slaughtered the ginyu force as soon as goku took them down, only sparing ginyu himself because he’s no longer a threat and will have to spend the rest of his life as a helpless frog. and yet he spares buu, who is still an enormous threat and who vegeta died trying to get rid of, solely because goku asked him to.

so vegito, to me, is symbolic of them learning to understand each other. he’s quite literally the final step to cement them as friends - the physical embodiment of going to therapy, if you will.

gogeta, however, seems much more put together. granted, i haven’t really been able to consume much media with gogeta in it - he’s not a canon manga character, which is my main source for consuming dragon ball, so my main source for gogeta is clips i’ve seen on youtube and things i’ve read on the wiki.

gogeta comes off as more solidly a person. i feel in part that this is due to his first appearance being in gt, where goku and vegeta are on somewhat better terms than in dbz. from what i’ve seen, gogeta is much more put together than vegito is. he’s still willing to pull pranks and mock people, but there’s always an ulterior motive. he’s got goku’s humor, but he’s able to put it aside in order to defeat an opponent - or use it to his advantage. he’s got vegeta’s viciousness, but he’s able to curb it once the threat is neutralized, even if said threat is still alive and could return to wreak more havoc.

the way i see it, vegito represents goku and vegeta’s understanding of one another, whereas gogeta represents their understanding of themselves. various traits show through more in various circumstances, but neither is ever what i’d call “dominant”. for example, if a bookworm and a jock were to fuse, you’d see more of the bookworm if you were in a library and more of the jock if you were in the gym. the presence of the other wouldn’t be lessened, it would just be less noticeable to outside observers. i think it’s the same here.

that’s just my take on it, though.

#dragon ball #dragon ball z #dragon ball gt #dragon ball super #theterrifyingrenegadeteenager #vegito #vegitto #vegerot #gogeta #son goku #kakarot #vegeta #prince vegeta #vegeta iv #long post #fusion #meta

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Prince of Wishful Thinking (Tom Retrospective): Tough Love or The True Monster

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, what is usually my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor but since I NEED to cover the season 3 finale as vital part of Tom’s story, we’re taking one last look at the tragic tale of Meteora Butterfly before the finale sends these two stories hurtling together. You’d THINK this would be the last detour of this already sizeable arc.. and you’d be wrong as i’ll also be covering Kelly’s World, as I feel it’s vital for both “Curse of the Blood Moon” and “A Boy and his hard to remember title”, as it provides extra context for Marco’s anguish in the former.. and provides extra evidence for why a CERTAIN MOMENT in the latter pisses me off to no end.. seriously even when as universe dies and the only people left are Frankllin Richards and Galactus, there will still be a little note reading “Fuck how they treated Kelly” written in all caps so Galactus remembers to yell it.

So sadly that DOES mean it’s been three entries in this retrospective in a row that either haven’t feature Tom at all or in the case of the last episode only had him in short cameos. I mean we did get his love affair for pie but we also got a creepy goblin man forcing his girlfriend and best friend to kiss each other, his best friend being WAY to eager to jump to that conclusion, and neither considering using Marco’s Scissors because the writers only remember he has those half the time in Season 3... and clearly I ddn’t either as I forgot to mention that plot hole, something @jess-the-vampire brought up to me. Sadly I DID forget to consult on this when we talked earlier this week , and she’s not online as I write this so I won’t have her insight for this one.

But if you want some Tom content, i’m happy to share my crossover ship for the boy with you. I’ve been shipping him with Octavia from Helluva Boss lately. Because of course it’s Helluva Boss, i’ve not been at all subtle with my obession with it and much like Letterkenny, X-Men and Dragon Ball Z Abriged it is a love I never plan to be subtle about.

But I just think they compliment each other well: They have contrasting atittudes, and tastes in music, but seem like they’d share hobbies. Like taxidermy.. I could see Tom buying this... demonic combination of a badger, a skunk, a deer and my nightmares Octavia is preciously holding up.

Granted I also feel tom would both animate them with their dead souls.. and then use his new woodland friends of the dammned as a chorus to sing “Can You Picture That” from the Muppet Movie, because that’s what my mind does on a regular day. I think the contrasting attitude creates great chemstiry and it made me also realize I have a thing for ships with directly contrasting home lives. Tom has two loving decent parents who deeply love one another and at worst simply didn’t reign in his worse behavior because it was standard for demon stuff. Octavia in contrast simply has two parents, one who DOES love her and tries his best, but his best includes calling his side piece “My big dicked blitzy” right in front of her and hiring said side piece to guard them, and her mother who clearly thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional well being she hired a cowboy to shoot her daddy dead in the middle of a large crowd. The point is I think they’d be adorable and they both badly need to be happy after being emotionally fucked over by people they care about.

But alas my new ship will have to wait as we marginally important things to get down too.. things that will impact both this season and the next’s endgame and utterly destroy Eclipsa and Moon’s relationship for good. Sound fun? Well if so join me under the cut won’t you?

We open in the Pidgeon Kingdom.. and things aren’t exactly great.. and by that I mean Meteora stomped a hole through it and ravaged the place and Rich demands blood.. and vengance.. and possibly blood vengance. But not Tekken Blood Vengance.. he already has like 5 copies of that on dvd. Still needs it on Blu Ray though, hook him up if you got it.

So Moon and Eclipsa are trying to smooth this over/find out which way did she go George which way did she go, and are angrily dismissed after they try Rich’s patience, not helped by Eclipsa not being familiar with the Pidgeon Kingdom because they hadn’t slaughtered everyone who used to live there yet. Look that’s what happened, Star outright mentions in the Big Book of Spells that htey suddenly sprung up where another kingdom was and no one knows what happens. There was some bird murders up in that place.. or birdur if you will. Some birds drank some human blood. This is what Alfred Hitchock tried to warn us about with his film built on horrifying actress abuse.

The point is with some more pidgeon-led murder stabbings on the cards our heroines are trying to find her since their attempts to convince Rich not to go on an Archer Style Rampage fell on deaf ears.

But it’s clear from the second the two are alone both have diffrent priorties: Eclipsa desperatley wants to find the daughter she lost and talk her down from what sh’es become, help her become better and hopefuly heal from the pain she’s been in. She’s lost her husband, her kingdom and centuries. She can’t loose her baby girl too.

Moon on the other hand... clearly has no intrest in helping Meteora or stopping this peacefully. Her first thought is stopping Meteora. Her living through it is not necessary. It’s also clear her racisim isn’t REMOTELY gone depsite Buff Frog and Star’s best attempts and despite learning just how deeply and horribly Mewni’s engrained racism has hurt eclipsa and destoryed Moon’s own family history. To Moon this is just a big monster to fight.. i’ll dive into this more in a bit.

For now our heroines encounter an angry mob. This time their not here for Homer Simpson, but for Meteora as her rampages have destroyd their towns, livelehoods and given some weird guy a hat. It’s the best bit of the episode and i’m embarassed I forgot it happened.

So with them being no help our queens back out but end up finding some actual help: Eddie! You know the guy from the episode I skipped over... River’s cousin or something like that. He dosen’t have a wiki entry, I do not know why. He’s voiced by Rhys Dharby of Flight of the Conchords Fame whose since made quite the career as a voice actor. No major roles yet that i’m aware of, but a lot of delightful minor ones like this. It’s good to see him he was one of the highlights of that show and not just because he sang this..

youtube

Eddie showed up in the Bog Beast of Boggabah and I honestly forgot he was in this episode.. but again, it’s Rhys Dharby. It’s not like suddenly finding out “Aw god dammit Pauly Shore is in this”. So Eddie agrees to help as he’s been tracknig Meteora.. and we find out something troubling: Meteora is getting BIGGER. Gradually, to the point the bog from said episode Is skipped over is drained because she DRANK IT. We also get a great exchange “I’d hate to see the size of her mother” “Actually her father more than helped with that”

Awwwww.... seriously Esme Blanco is a national treasure and has some great deliveries in this one.. and some heartbreaking ones. But before we can get to that it turns out Meteora sucked the powers out of Eddies family.. who he misses..e xcept one guy> That guy can fuck right off. Seriously Eddie is also a national treasure and I wish he’d shown up in season 4. I mean he couldn’t of HURT it. For one it’s Rhys Dharby and for another that season shot itself in the face, both feet, the groin and then the face again enough that I don’t think anything could hurt it as bad as the writers already did.

But sadly we say farwell to Eddie as he goes out how men have since the begining of time.. deciding to poke a strange creature till it murdered him. Or took his soul out in this case, speaking of which...

Yeah while I couldn’t get Jess in time for this review, she did bring this up in the past: Meteora’s ablility to pull a

Comes right the fuck out of nowhere with no build up and no explination for it. She DID drain personalites and according to this episode youth.. but that was with a big ole machine. It MIGHT have been intended to be one of Globgor’s powers.. but that makes zero sense, as if he COULD do that, as we saw with Toffee last season when he had that power, also out of nowhere but at least it made a touch more sense given his power was draining magical energy anyway at the time, so adding souls to that isn’t a huge stretch, but as we saw that would’ve been game over for the comission, especially since we DO see him fighting them one on three next season. If he had this power, he wouldn’t be in crystal and I think they realized that, but just tried to act as if his daugther COULDN’T do that and assumed everyone would casually forget. And I get not accounting for me writing about this years later, even I wouldn’t of thought that, but not counting on fans both young and old to latch onto a continuity error? Have you met fandoms Disney, have you? It dosen’t bring the story down entirely and I get WHY ti’s there, so she can nonlethally kill people so we’re not down most of the cast for Season 4, but it feels like an easy win button and one she barely uses despite it being eye beam activated. It should be easy enough to pull, boom, soul suck, win, rinse and repeat. It’s okay to have uber powerful tequniques but they have to have a drawback. For instance the Kaioken from DBZ. It’s a really damn cool technique that gives the user a neat red aura and amplifies poewr.. but the more you amplify the more strain it puts on your body and the more likely you’ll die, and Super later creatively explained why it hadn’t been used since Super Sayian was introduced because said form would’ve sped it up so much it’d be too much for a body to take. Here whie Meteora dosen’t use it in EVERY fight, she uses it enough that it makes no sense this isn’t just her first move for every fight she gets into, mental breakdown or not.

That being said Meteora’s current mental state as she talks to her mother, having regressed to talking in only a few words and acting like a child, makes perfect sense. Henious already wasn’t in great mental shape to begin with, having a slow sustained breakdown since Marco overthrew her. and now on top of this she remembers her whole life has been a lie, starts to mutate into her natural state at a rapid and likely unehalthy pace, and then finds out on top of all of this Mewni is rightfully owed to her. Given she ended last episode blowing a guy up for rejecting her, it’s not a stretch that given even more power and no time to process anything, Metora would deteroate further.

Esme and Jessica really knock this scene out of the park as Eclipsa presents Metora with her old doll Bobo and gently trying ot talk to her.. but you also get the fear Eclipsa feels as she tries to awkardly manuver around the fact her daughter is far more unhinged than she was prepared for, even threanting Eclipsa simply because Eclipsa wanted to be called mother instead of mommy. But despite this fear.. Eclipsa wants to help and Walter beautifuly captured metoera as a hulk like tragic figure:a being with low sanity and too much power desperate to be loved by the one person it cares about. And it makes it even more heartbreaking as Eclipsa explains what happened: bad people trapped her , a disfunctoinal society with a racist queen and even more racist subjects has taken hold in her absence... and it’s clear both want opposite things: Meteora wants what sh’es owed, her family back on the throne and Mewni back in her graps, but has lost herself so much to rage, anger and insanity she can’t see it’s not hers to take, while Eclipsa.. just wants her daughter back. She’d be happy just settling down with her and having a LIFE after hers was taken away. Eclipsa just wants a chance to be with what family she has left. It just HURTS to know that despite RIGHTFULLY hating the comission, despite having eveyr reason to take the crown from Moon by force and make the world better by force.. she dosen’t want that. She just wants some peace. It’s selfish... but it’s hard not to be when you havealmost nothing to hold onto. Eclipsa has lost her legacy, her husband and her crown... Meteora is all she has and all she wants and sh’ed of been happy if she just accepted that. If that was enough.

But the real telling part, and the thing that ultimately makes this go as bad as it does.. is Moon’s reactions to all of this. Sh’es CONFUSED by Meteora having a toy as if that’s foreign to her a monster would, and she’s cleaerly livid , if restrianing it, at both Meteora’s deire for the crown and Eclipsa RIGHTFULLY calling out the state of how things are, and mildly at that. Despite seeing how much damage Mewni’s inherent racisim has done, how it lead to her living a lie, ruined Eclipss, Globgore and Metora’s lives, despite how DESPERTLY her daughter struggles to fight against it, despite seeing firsthand that Monsters can have famiies and lives... she can’t let it go. She can’t see monsters as people. SHe dosen’t see a flawed person who was turned into a metpohrical monster by years of brainwashing and abuse and is slowly unravling under the weight of her true self.. she just sees a threat to her kingdom. She dosen’t see her kingdom as racist, just as it should be. And she dosen’t see herself as stepping down like hse damn well should’ve the MOMENT she found out everything. Because at her heart Moon can’t accept the truth and clings to her racisim.

And that my friends.. is what ultimately leads to Tragedy. Not Meteora’s unraveling mental state, not Eclipsa’s naitvite. What happens next is ENITRELY Moon’s fault. Whle Eclipsa was failing to get through to Metora, she was trying her best and might of gotten somewhere.. but Moon was already settling to attack.. and does so, making it look like Eclipsa set her own child up.

A fight ensues, a suprisingly even one... but Eclipsa breaks it up and PROVES her way could’ve worked. In one of Esme’s best performances sshe tearfully tells her daughter she loves her.. that ALL she wants is time with her to make up for what she’s lost.. she dosen’t need a kingdom or her crown or her wand, all things she DESERVES... she just wants her daughter. She just wants to help her baby girl before she goes so far down this path of hatred and vengance she’s alreayd well trod upon there is no point to return to.

It gets through to Meteora, makes her stop... and Moon TAKES ADANTAGE OF THAT. She then restrains metoera with a magical rock barrier and starts palpatineing her to death. It’s a horrifying moment that ultimately shows who Moon really is.. that when given the chance to let Meteora go, let her CHANGE and grow as a person and help the kingdom.. she instead tries to kill her. When she’s no longer a threat, hasn’t seriously hurt her in their fight, and could use her power to RESTORE the damage she’s done, fix what she’s broken and help the kingdom grow and mend the bridges racisim has torn down. But all she can see is a monster, and something to destroy.. not someONE to save.

So Eclipsa does what Moon would do if it were star about to die and saves her daughter, desperatly trying to stop mooon.. and allowing Meteora to get a clear shot and take half of moon’s soul. While Eclipsa is able to stop her from taking the full thing, Moon is left disoreinted and half alive and leaves on insticnt to parts unknown while Meteora escapes. Eclipsa is left alone, devistated and with her daughter truly lost. And the worst is truly yet to come.

Before we get into final thoughts i’d like to talk about how this scene impacts Moon’s betryal later. To me having rewatched this scene.. it only makes it work MORE making it clear Moon simply can’t fahtom racial equality and that she can’t fahtom that eclipsa had very good reason for doing what she did ... to me it comes off as her using Eclipsa betryaing her as a very flimsy justifcation to not validate her rule and to first retire and then try a coup. That “Well she “BETRAYED” me so i’m fine. “ But in truth... she betrayed Eclipsa first. She attacked her daughter TWICE when Eclipsa was close to getting through to her Her reasons are flimsy.. because i’ts not ABOUT eclipsa, but what eclipsa represents: equality with a race Moon dosen’t see as people. It’s about Moon’s racisim coloring everything tills h’es truly blinded and should have lost everything She didn’t because the ending is a fucking disgrace, but we might get to that at some point, the point here is for all that disgrace’s faults... it did get it right here, and Moon was always portrayed as being unable to let go of her racisim no matter what it cost her or how much her daughter despteratly tried to change her. Trust me as someone whose Dad used to argue that gay marriage meant he should be able to marry his cat, and who still argues against trans people using the bathroom of their choice, I get trying desperatley to change someone who don’t wanna. “Sigh”.

Final Thoughts: This episode is truly excellent. The writing is top notch as is the voice acting for all involved and the climax isa true, well led up to tragedy. The animation is also on point, with the characters emotions on perfect display. This is an episode I now realize is one of the series best and worth ar ewatch if you haven’ts een it. Truly amazing stuff that gets me pumped for the finale.. and disapoints me in how the series could reach these highs for one finale.. but would sink to it’s lowest point for next seasons. Next Time on Prince of Wishful Thinking: Star tries depseratly to find her mom, while Marco, Tom and a motely crew of misfits try to take down Meteora and Tom learns the awful truth from the photo booth and wears a zuko ponytail which weirdly looks good on him. That boy can rock anything let me tell you.

If you enjoyed this reviews, please consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As mentioned my 30 dollar stretch goal includes a review of the cluster fuck that is the series final arc, and the goals up to that , me making 20 and 25 dollars a month repectively, have their own nifty rewards: At 20 i’ll review Darkwing Duck once a month, the two remaning Ducktales 87 mini series I have not covered and the Danny Phantom film The Ultimate Enemy. 25 meanwhile gets you reviews of the Proud Family Movie, the theatrical recess movie and the Kim Possible almost finale movie so the drama. And 30 also gets you reviews of every episode of gravity falls season 1 at least one a month till I finish it at some point, so as you can see you get a lot of bang for your buck and these reviews will be public for everybody. Not only that but joining my patreon gets you a review a month if you pitch in 5 dollars and evne if you can’t swing THAT much just 2 bucks gets you access to my discord, a guarnateed pick in my shorts, votes for patreon exclusive reviews, and SAID patreon exclusive reviews. It’s a lot of bang for your buck is what i’m saying so please help me out so I can make a living off this and sign up today. I even JUST ADDED an exclusive and utterly insane scrooge mcduck review, The Great Wig Mystery. So throw in a buck to check that out.

And if your intrested in Tomtavia... please hit me up. I’m really proud of it and until then... i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

#star vs the forces of evil #tom lucitor #prince of wishful thinking #meteora butterfly #eclipsa butterfly #moon butterfly #rhys dharby #disney xd #disney channel #disney plus #reviews

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inconnusmademoiselle · 3 years ago

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1-5 for video game ask!

1. Do you try and stay away from walkthroughs?

Typically, yes. I try hard not to rely on them, but sometimes I just get impatient lol. I do like to go back and replay games with walkthroughs though to see if I missed a side quest.

2. Company you’re always loyal to?

Nintendo. 99% of the time, I enjoy whatever they put out there. Growing up, I felt like they took forever to make new games since my preorders kept getting delayed lol. but now I can definitely appreciate that they take their time and try to give us something special with every new release. I also love all of Nintendo’s trademark characters and games for nostalgic reasons lol. It’s what I mostly grew up on.

3. Best game you’ve ever played?

Oh this is hard lol. I think I gotta say Twilight Princess (I played the GameCube version, just to clarify lol) The art style/graphics were so unique, that soundtrack was amazing, and I thought the controls were great. I also can’t say enough about the story line. I LOVED the way it was connected to ocarina of time but didn’t really piggyback off of it too much. I don’t know if you’ve ever played it, but the damn twist that Midna a was this beautiful Princess all along really just blew my mind lmao. I remember my jaw dropped to the floor the first time I saw that cutscene. The character designs were also awesome. Princess Zelda looked so mature and refined ❤️ I need to stop right now because im going to write a damn essay about how much I loved the dungeons.

Best fighting game though? DBZ Budokai 3. I am unbeatable lmao.

4. Worst game ive ever played?

Superman 64, hands down.

Honorable mentions: Ju-On the grudge haunted house simulator and DBZ Sagas lol

5.a popular series /game you just can’t get into no matter how how I try?

This is going to be very controversial, but Breath Of The Wild. The Zelda series is my all time fave, and I usually love every new entry, but im just not feeling it. The more I play it, the more I realize that I just don’t like open world games all that much. I like structure and direction I guess lol. I’m also not that crazy about the voice acting. And one of the biggest things that bug me? Link’s costume design. The blue tunic is awesome! But I was really hoping that a new twist on the classic green tunic would have made an appearance before the final showdown with calamity Ganon (and have receiving that tunic be part of the story line). The chosen hero always wears green!!! 😫 I also wish it had dungeons with distinct soundtracks and aesthetics. God I probably sounds like a picky snob lmao

Are the graphics amazing? Is the soundtrack great? Is the storyline memorable? Absolutely. I can give that game credit where it’s due, but it just isn’t for me lol. On that note, I’m kinda bummed that there’s going to be a BOTW 2. I’m still patiently waiting for them to do a game that looks like this E3 tech demo. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Thank you so much for the asks!! ❤️😃

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straightfacedstrangeness · 4 years ago

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Not that anyone asked (but seriously I’d LOVE for someone to talk to me about PokeSpe (just no spoilers past vol 13)) but since I made an offhand remark about my Top 5 favorite characters, it occurred to me that I actually DO have approximately 5 top favorite characters, and I’m procrastinating on work, so I’m gonna ramble

**just in case, note that a lot of this will revolve around my childhood experience with gender in a “I’m AFAB (and present-day me still identifies as a cis girl) but I don’t fit in with what media is telling me girls are like” way, a brief childhood feeling of homophobia, and probably general TMI about my opinions and emotions throughout my life, haha

1. Yellow

Okay, so, I was a little kid when Pokemon Adventures started coming out in English, back when manga was released as single-issue monthly comic books instead of complete volumes. So I was rereading the same chapters over and over while anxiously awaiting the rest of the story (and wound up missing a bunch of issues anyway)

I enjoyed the RGB arc, I thought it was fun, but I didn’t LOVE the series until Yellow showed up. At that age my ideal crush was “a cute boy my age who would be nice to me” and Yellow was presented to the reader as a cute boy my age who was sweet and kind and gentle, but also good in a fight, as all shounen protags must be. Extra bonus points because they had just a few physically weak Pokémon and tried to fight battles in a way that minimized damage to their own and the opponent’s Pokémon, which meant they fought in a particularly smart and clever way. And I was considered “smart” for being good at school, so being a SMART cute “boy” my age who would be nice to me, Yellow was PERFECT. I mean, I loved the arc in general because of the clever battles, and the mystery of what had happened to Red, why these people were after Pikachu, why Yellow was so secretive about themself and their mission, etc was really engaging. But also I adored Yellow as a character and partly in a “I wonder if ‘he’ would like me??” kind of way X’D So to my tiny child self who didn’t even know it was possible to like-like someone of the same gender (because I hadn’t read Cardcaptor Sakura yet XD ), the reveal that Yellow was a “girl” was devastating—I had to cross out floating hearts on at least one drawing of us holding hands (scandalous!) and, while kind of stunned and shaken for a while, decided that what I’d felt all along was a deep, intense desire to be friends X’D (which probably wasn’t too far from the truth since I was pre-puberty and later turned out to be asexual)

(Also note that I never got the RGB issue that had the chapter where Red helps a little ‘girl’ capture a Rattata—later proven to be Yellow’s backstory—so the gender reveal really came out of nowhere for me.)

But anyways, I still love Yellow as a character for all the above reasons, without the crush aspects because I’m way older than them now.

Also when I reread the series ten years ago, I finally realized “wait, aside from surprising the reader, there’s no real plot reason for Yellow to pretend to be a ‘boy’ except that Green told ‘her’ to—so why did ‘she’ do it?”...and because at that time I didn’t even know that nonbinary genders existed, I decided it was cus they had low self-esteem and pretending to be a different person gave them courage (the same reading I had for Mulan at the time). These days I’m more inclined to “yeah, I think Yellow’s nonbinary,” but that other interpretation was deeply relatable to me and only made me love Yellow even more.

2. Bill

Bill’s definitely a character I’ve grown to love more as an adult, since I’ve gone from seeing myself as “a protagonist doing cool things” to “a side character just living their life who hopefully gets to do something once in a while.” But as a kid and now, I like him mostly for the slapstick and goofy expressions and the (early chapters Viz translations) outrageous accent X’D My brain desperately craves endorphins and the best way to get em is through a good laugh.

But also, I liked that he was introduced as a goofy character-of-the-week who got into ridiculous trouble and had to be rescued, but then kept being brought back, was slowly built up to be the “smart sidekick who explains things,” and eventually got to the point where he was participating in big battles (the Yellow finale on Cerise Island). I rambled about this in the tags of another post, but I liked that he was a character who was “weak” without being “useless.” As a kid who was good at school, I was obsessed with being good at things and had developed a black-and-white view of the world where either you were “strong/smart” or “weak/stupid” to the point that failing or just being not-so-good at anything was devastating (it still kind of is), because that meant I was actually “weak/stupid” when I was supposed to be “strong/smart.” So it was kind of awesome that this guy who kept getting into trouble and having to be rescued—and didn’t even want to BE part of the final battle—managed to hold his own and get through it and help out instead of being a burden that dragged everyone down. Seriously, he used a MAGIKARP effectively—the Pokémon everyone makes fun of for being “useless” and he used its one attack to save his life!

(Bonus points for all this happening in contrast to my devastating childhood experience of stanning The One Girl Character in every popular shounen series, waiting desperately for her to get to do something in battle, and then her one spotlight episode revolved around her struggling because she was so weak...not only was that actually happening to a boy for once, it was actually happening in a more satisfying/empowering way :’D )

3. Gold

I have extremely specific tastes when it comes to “the dumb shounen/action movie protag,” because as a kid I hated it when the main character was “dumb” because I was “smart” (re: good at school) and people who were “dumb” shouldn’t deserve to be the main character and have all the cool powers and save the world and stuff. As an adult, I hate it when male characters are dumb and/or jerks but it’s treated as fine or even sexy(??) and the other characters fawn over them, and I generally still kind of hate it when characters who are dumb and/or jerks get the big important role when there’s a female character RIGHT THERE who’s more competent (and OF COURSE she has to wind up falling in love with him)

But anyway, I have extremely specific tastes, and Gold is it X’D He’s the perfect combination of “unshakably confident in his own stupid/egotistic views” and “treated as annoying and/or comic relief by the rest of the cast” with a bonus dash of actually being really clever in battle (so my inner child goes “Ah yes, technically, he is ’smart,’ and therefore...worthwhile“) Making me laugh while also impressing me is like the key to my heart.

4. Crystal

I’m too lazy to look it up, but when Viz was publishing Pokemon Adventures as monthly comics, they must have switched to publishing it as trade paperbacks only and/or had a huge gap between the end of Yellow and the start of GSC, because for YEARS I’d thought Yellow was the end of the series and was shocked the first time I saw later volumes. (My dad was buying us the monthly issues at the local comic store, and either they wouldn’t have ordered the trade paperbacks or he wouldn’t have thought to check those shelves.)

Anyway, that’s a long lead-in to the statement of “Crystal would automatically be my #1 or #2 if I’d read her arc as a kid.” She’s a girl, she wears pants, she’s EXTREMELY smart (genius-level “book-smarts” about every Pokémon’s behaviors and weaknesses PLUS being clever in a battle), was tough as nails (she KICKED her Pokéballs!!), had no interest in romance or her appearance, AND had a short arc about losing her confidence and training herself back up to full power. I would have KILLED for a character like that when I was a little girl being told that “girls don’t like action shows like Dragon Ball Z” (but I was a girl and I did???) and that girls were supposed to be pretty and obsessed with fashion and dating, and that girls were never the main character of action series, just side characters who either did nothing or got one chance to do something and were pathetically weak (see above, and/or Sakura’s fight against Ino (Naruto), those couple filler eps where Téa/Anzu played Duel Monsters (Yu-Gi-Oh), Videl getting pummeled by Spopovich (DBZ), etc).

So anyway, she’s awesome, she’s exactly the type of character I would’ve loved as a kid. The only reason she’s behind Gold here is because at my age, “makes me laugh” > “the kind of main character I used to wish I could be”

5. Green (the girl trainer...I’m just too loyal to the Viz version to call her “Blue”...)

I’m trying not to rehash the same “I’m a girl but none of the girls in my shows/comics are like me!” childhood woes over and over, haha, but as much as I always enjoyed Green for being extremely clever and outsmarting the boys and being funny when she did so, she always lost points with me for being “pretty” and flirting to get her way, because that put her in the box of “girls are supposed to be pretty and desired by boys and obsessed with their appearance and romance” that was so foreign and disheartening to me as a kid.

But her staredown with Ho-oh at the end of the GSC arc TOTALLY got me. As a sad adult with anxiety, watching characters who are absolutely terrified overcome their fear, watching characters who are completely beaten down struggle back to their feet and keep fighting, is like my ultimate power fantasy. That sequence genuinely had me in tears.

Also her bond with Silver is super precious, especially since that’s like the first time in the series we’ve seen her be genuinely emotional and vulnerable with someone instead of teasing or manipulating them.

Honorable mention: Sapphire

I haven’t gotten up to R/S in my reread yet, and I only read that arc once over like a weekend ten years ago, but I’m pretty sure she’s gonna be a Top Fave cus again there’s that “I'm not like other girls!” childhood feel (last time I’m saying it, I promise)

It’s a story arc where one protag wants to fight the gyms and the other protag wants to win the beauty contests, but the one who wants to fight the gyms is the girl!! And she’s the typical “dumb but extremely good at fighting” shounen protag but she’s the girl!! She’s feral and illiterate and a total tomboy and wins all her fights and she’s a GIRL!!!!

Anyway, those are my kids and my dude and my probably way-too-personal reasons why. If you wanna reblog, reply, or send an ask about your own faves...please

#pokemon adventures #rambling #crackpotawesomes #spent like an hour and a half on this oops

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engineerdz · 5 years ago

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Guiltless Chapter one

Just posted my first DBZ fanfic! you can find it on Ao3 here. It kind of aligns with Kakavege Week prompt: hypnotism (kind of?)

Summary:

“Don’t antagonize him,” Piccolo ordered. “He can’t feel guilt right now, so he will act on all his impulses. It’s up to you to control yourself around him.”

“I was just standing up for myself,” Goku mumbled sullenly. "It's not my fault he got himself stuck Majin."

“I’m not running like some kind of coward,” Vegeta spat.

“Don’t be a fool,” Piccolo argued. “We’ve got nothing.”

“You have nothing,” Vegeta started. “But I’m a Saiyan warrior-”

Goku grit his teeth as he squinted out through the fog, still not able to sense a damn thing out there. He’d probably heard Vegeta’s pride speech a hundred times by now, with all the battles they’d fought together. He’d never really agreed with the concept - Goku would sacrifice his own pride gladly, if necessary - but hey, whatever kept Vegeta up and swinging. Goku had his love of fighting and the ki power to back it up, and those were the things he could never lose.

Well. Until today.

“-his pride,” Vegeta finished behind him. “So feel free to continue hiding in this hole like rabbits. I’m going to go out there and fight the bastard.”

“I’m going too,” Goku announced, turning around from his vigil at the front of their cave to look at his companions. Vegeta smirked in triumph as Piccolo grimaced.

“You can’t use your ki,” Piccolo said. “No Super Saiyan, no energy blasts, no flying, no nothing. You’ll die.”

“Ah, come on, Piccolo,” Goku cajoled. “I’ve got my fists.” He glanced over at Vegeta, and decided it was worth indulging his ego one last time, in case this was the end. “And my pride.”

“Ha!” Vegeta said. “We may make a proper Saiyan out of you yet, Kakarot.”

Piccolo sighed loudly and rubbed his temples. “I hate magic,” he muttered. “Have you guys heard from Gohan? His mystic transformation was magically induced, he might be able to pull some power on these guys.”

“Eh,” Goku said. “I think if he could fight, he would be here by now. That witch Abraca must have done something to distract him.”

“Magic power is a bullshit cop out, anyway,” Vegeta said. “I’m leaving.” He brushed past the both of them to exit their cave, knocking his shoulder into Goku’s arm roughly on his way out.

“Bye Piccolo!” Goku echoed. “Dragon balls should still be working fine, once it’s safe to come out. Wish us back when you’re done!”

“Unbelievable,” he heard Piccolo scoff as he ran out of the cave and hurried to meet Vegeta. Vegeta, despite his big words, was taking the tiniest steps possible. They couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of their faces with all the magical fog swirling around, and there was no clue as to where their enemies were.

“Which way should we go?” Goku asked, his arms falling into a defensive stance as he inched forward on Vegeta’s right.

Vegeta was flexing his inward hand out in front of him, opening and closing his fingers like he could message a ki-ball into existing. “Damn. Can’t even make a false moon in this thing.”

“Whoa,” Goku said. “Throwback. That was magic?”

“Only magic-adjacent, apparently,” Vegeta huffed.

“I think we should go right.”

Vegeta, predictably, went left. Goku let out a “hey!” just so Vegeta wouldn’t realize he was onto him, and kept at his side.

“Will I ever be rid of you, clown?”

“It’s not like you have a lot of other options, here,” Goku pointed out. “Come on. Who would you rather have on your team?”

“I work best alone,” Vegeta snarled. “You’re going to give away our position, making this much racket-”

“I hope I do, then we’ll get someone to fight,” he said. “And come on, I know you liked working with Trunks from the future, at least . You’d team up with him again."

“Trunks has gone back to the future, and is never coming back.”

“He could come back,” Goku argued. “He went back into his timeline where Bulma’s still alive, they’ve got a time machine.”

“But the gods are onto us now, and he can’t use it,” Vegeta said firmly. “So no, I wouldn’t even team up with Trunks.”

“Baby Trunks,” he suggested.

“No. And don’t call him that, he’s eleven.”

“But he’s the same person!”

“They’re not interchangeable!” Vegeta snapped, and threw a lazy punch out to his side in the general direction of Goku’s face.

Goku leaned backwards to dodge the blow, and that was when his feet were swept out from under him. “Ah!”

“Kakarot!”

Goku spread his arms to absorb the speed of his fall, back landing on the ground hard. He kicked outward immediately, using the momentum to launch himself back to his feet. His kick connected with something that exploded into green light on contact - he pivoted, retreating until he felt his back hit Vegeta’s.

“It’s the goddamn... holograms, again,” Vegeta panted, dodging as he jerked them both to the right to dodge a burst of energy that exploded at their feet.

It took much more effort than usual to stay together. Goku still couldn’t sense Vegeta’s ki - he couldn’t sense anything - all their coordination had to be done through aborted gestures and pokes of elbows. “I’ve got 6 greens and a yellow,” he called out over his shoulder. “The greens explode on contact.”

“The yellow is the leader!” Vegeta shouted. “And the blue ones are making more - goddamnit -”

Goku punched a green one, and was forced to leap away to avoid its blast. Another one surged forward, aiming for his gut, and he was only able to take care of it by taking another lunge away from Vegeta. “They’re trying to separate us!”

“Obviously!” Vegeta screamed, sounding pained. Goku glanced away for a precious second - he could still make out Vegeta’s silhouette, but the fog would make him impossible to find if they separated any further. Another energy blast forced Goku to dodge again, but he managed to cartwheel sideways and hook his feet around a blue hologram’s neck, slamming it onto the ground where it fizzled and died.

Vegeta shouted again. Wordless, this time. A cry of pain, it had to be - it was too short to be anything else. “Vegeta!”

“RAAAAAGHHHH!” Vegeta screamed - frustration, this time. “I’m fine!”

Goku had seen Vegeta pushed to the verge of collapse and still insist he was fine almost as many times as Goku had heard the pride speech. He slapped one green hologram into another and took the opportunity to dive closer. “You sure?”

“Of course! The red bastard just got a lucky hit!”

“What red-” Goku started, and then there was a blinding pain at the back of the base of his neck.

And then he fell.

A field of white.

“Kakarot!”

Screaming far away, like it had to echo across caverns and caverns to reach him.

He couldn’t feel his toes.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

He couldn’t feel his tongue.

“Trying hiding behind your magic now, you WITCH!”

He couldn’t feel anything.

He blacked out.

Goku woke with a start, sensation flooding down his limbs in a wave of pins and needles that died down as quickly as it came. There was a hand on his cheek, and a hand on the bottom of his jaw. “Come on, Dad, keep chewing.”

He swallowed down the familiar taste of a sensu bean and opened his eyes. “Gohan?”

Gohan smiled and let go of his face, letting Goku swing up into a sitting position. “Phew. Thought we’d have to use a Dragon Ball wish on you for a second.”

“I’m fine,” Goku said, reaching an arm back behind him to touch the back of his neck, the last place he remembered getting hit. The fabric of his gi back there was sticking to his skin, and when he pulled his fingers back around they had an annoying residue of blood. “Wow, that does look bad.” He looked around at the empty field they were sitting in - it was a clear, sunny day again, and aside from a few scorch marks there was no evidence that a battle had taken place here. “What happened?”

“Good news and bad news,” Gohan said, jumping up to his feet. Goku followed suit, reveling in the fact that his ki seemed to be back and working as good as new. He stretched as Gohan started rambling. “The good news is that we were able to beat Abraca’s ki-blocking spell and all her minions, and that she won’t be bothering us again.”

“Aw, I missed out on the fun,” Goku pouted. “Were you able to do it Mystic?”

Gohan made a face. “It wasn’t me, actually. That’s kind of the bad news.”

Goku took another look around the battlefield. “Where are Piccolo and Vegeta?” he asked suddenly.

“Piccolo’s guarding Vegeta,” Gohan said. “Well. He’s probably keeping tabs, at least.”

Goku stopped fidgeting and stared Gohan directly in the eyes. “What do you mean, guarding? What happened to him?”

“So the good news is that Vegeta was able to pull out some magic to beat Abraca,” Gohan said, and then the corner of his mouth dipped. “The bad news is that Vegeta’s Majin again, and we don’t know how to turn him back.”

#kakavege #my writing #goku x vegeta #kakavege week

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comicbookuniversity · 5 years ago

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Dragon Ball Super and the Future

by Bunnypwn Gold

I am a huge fan of Dragon Ball, as I have stated here before and as I have written about in the past. My love and knowledge of this franchise is deep, and I will always be ready to enjoy what it has in store and wrestle with the ideas in it. And right now, it’s a great time to be a fan, because Dragon Ball Super is going strong. The anime has come to a conclusion and/or could come back in the future, and the manga is approaching the climax of its newest story, the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga. It’s amazing for a lot of reasons that I’ll discuss as I respond to this article by Kofi Outlaw, which praises the saga for going back to DBZ style storytelling as a “course correction.” While I agree with several points in this article, I also disagree with the basic premise and argue that the author is only saying these things about the saga because he has not been paying attention to how consistently better the manga has been than the anime of Super. I am using this response to organize my thoughts on how Super has gone so far, the divide between the anime and manga version of events, and the future of the series as a whole, not as a pro or anti stance against Kofi or his article, to be clear.

At the beginning, Kofi criticizes Super for having low stakes and focusing on making Goku and Vegeta the sole focus, increasing their power levels dramatically and leaving other characters to languish. He also said that there were a lot of gimmick fights. Overall, the story structure had changed to reflect this change in character focus and the villains were weak and unmemorable. This new arc, featuring fan-favorite villain Planet-Eater Moro and a range of great battles with his bandits for the Z Fighters to show their stuff, is a return to the DBZ structure, and it features all the brutality and high stakes of the old days. Best of all, it lays the foundations for a new future focusing on other characters.

I have to say, I agree with much of this. The focus on Goku and Vegeta as “Gods” and their super-special Saiyan-ness in the meta canon is really annoying to me. Elements of this were seen in DBZ, as the humans and Piccolo stop trying to catch up to the Saiyans, and it was all GT was about, making that series a big disappointment for me. The first three stories of the Super era are notably low stakes, as well, and I would have liked a little more tension. There could have been more focus on other characters and a larger cast in general, and that certainly would have been enjoyable. And to finish it out, I am very excited for what the Moro story means for the future. The whole thing has a “last chance to shine” feel for the old guard of characters we’ve known and loved for years, Goku is probably going to master Ultra Instinct and thus complete his journey as a martial artist, and it still opens up a lot more about the history and lore of the series to explore in the future.

Beyond that, I have a lot to disagree with. For starters, if you look at the Tournament of Destroyers and the Tournament of Power and just see a bunch of “gimmicky fights” and no stakes, you’re missing the point. I always loved the tournament stories in Dragon Ball, and both of these Super tournaments deliver on that joy. The manga had a lot of important differences with the anime in how these tournaments went, too. Before the Tournament of Destroyers, the manga went through a condensed version of the Battle of Gods events, only offering one extension in the opening to give an actual benchmark on Goku’s strength so we know where we’re starting as a series, an important gift the anime and movie fail to deliver. It then time skips past the Resurrection ‘F’ story, which I think is sad, but ultimately serves the manga’s purposes. After Goku got his God form, the next thing we see, before the Tournament, is Goku training with a new master, showing that he’s back on the path to martial arts excellence. By skipping the Golden Frieza fight, the manga passed on a story that only shows off how cool Super Saiyan Blue looks (a term, by the way, the manga invented because it’s better); outside of showing off this new form, the Golden Frieza story adds nothing. As Goku and Vegeta enter the Tournament of Destroyers, they build a team entirely focused on power, and lose one of their strongest members because of a test of intelligence. To further drive home the point, Goku’s final battle with Hit ends with him realizing that his strength allows him to outmaneuver an innovative and amazing fighting technique, Time Skip. He then forfeits the match so he can have a real fight with Hit later, where Hit can try to kill Goku and has time to train beforehand, which sounds a lot like a DBZ style story. It’s the first step in Goku relearning that technique matters more than power. In the manga, they also gave more love to Piccolo. In the anime, they had him be effectively useless, barely able to fight Frost, a Frieza parallel. The manga had Piccolo fight evenly with Frost, who later shows that he’s almost an equal with Super Saiyan Goku; Piccolo lost because of poison, not because he “could never hope to beat a strong person.” It’s not as cool as it could have been, but it’s more than Piccolo ever got in the anime.

Now, I have to vehemently disagree that Zamasu was a weak, forgettable villain who existed solely as a gimmick. The Zamasu story carefully builds and delivers on the many themes of the franchise that I identify as atheist. Throughout the series, Toriyama repeatedly introduced gods of varying kinds and levels of divinity for the sole purpose of tearing down the illusion of their importance and special qualities. Gods in this world are a verifiable fact, and not only are they just people with a particular job, but every time Goku and Vegeta meet a god, they treat them like anyone else and show them no special respect or deference. Goku and Vegeta are the best exemplars in the series of treating deities like normal people, something the series itself does regularly. It’s one of my favorite parts of the series, as an atheist myself.

So, here we have Zamasu, a deity who believes that he’s uniquely capable and qualified to rule all of existence and that mortals aren’t worthy of life. In the Bible, on more than one occasion, God decided to wash the world clean of humans because they had become too sinful; similar stories exist in other religions and cultures. In this case, Zamasu is motivated by intense and literal hatred of mortals, who he sees as not simply having “become too sinful,” but fundamentally incapable of being anything else. He extends this hatred to other gods who want mortals to exist and do as they please. His rise in Future Trunks’s time to be the almost-almighty God with a Capital G is the antithesis of what the series has said about gods and divinity on every level, and that’s exactly why he’s such an amazing villain. He also checks a lot of other boxes. He uses the power of a mortal who made himself into a god, Goku, to kill the gods and overpower the mortals. He also relies on a mortal, Trunks, to develop his power and another, Dabura, to create the opening he needed to start his plan. In working to bring the downfall of all mortals, Zamasu in effect worships at the altar of mortals and relies on their miracles to succeed, just as Goku has trained with several deities on his path to success.

Trunks is also notable, because growing up, Trunks didn’t have any gods to look to like Goku did. The first “god” in Trunks’s life was Goku, as both his mother and teacher would talk about Goku as their main inspiration for hope. Goku was made into a mythical figure that could have fixed everything, and that’s exactly what Trunks used time travel for, both times he employed the strategy. That’s why Zamasu taking Goku’s body was so impactful, because “hope” came to kill him. Goku’s ultimate failure to defeat Zamasu also tears down the idea of Goku’s “divinity” in the same way as other gods were taken down a notch. This results in Goku calling on Zeno for help. The development of Goku and Zeno’s relationship is interesting and important in setting up the conflict of this story. They become friends because Goku is the only person who treats Zeno like he’s not special, which seems to confirm that Goku’s relationship to divinity is proper. At the same time, Goku doesn’t like Zeno, because he knows Zeno is just a bored shut-in and likely doesn’t understand Zeno’s role. And really, Zeno doesn’t have a role like the Gods of Destruction and the Supreme Kais. He’s in charge because he’s the most powerful and can destroy all of existence with a thought. That’s exactly what Zeno decides to do when he sees Zamasu and the multiverse he had been ignoring, getting rid of everything because he didn’t like how it turned out. Not unlike Zamasu with mortals; in effect, Zeno is the thing that Zamasu wanted to become, and that story ends with his vision of reality being carried out. It was the ingenuity of mortal time travel that made some form of happy ending, because like in every other Dragon Ball story, you can’t rely on the gods for most anything. So yeah, Zamasu is an amazing villain and his saga was brilliant. My main criticism of the manga version was that the setup was rushed, so the death of Future Bulma happened off panel and the death of the rest of the mortals in existence was breezed by. Plenty of brutality and high stakes, if you ask me, though yes, I wanted to see it with my own eyes more.

Then we get into the Tournament of Power, a great tournament story that really drives home the point of the god-centric Super run. The Tournament of Power, if you didn’t guess, isn’t about power. It’s about teamwork, strategy, and skill. In the manga, this is made absolutely clear. The downfall of everyone in the tournament is that they rejected this basic premise or were wiped out by someone who would later meet their downfall for rejecting this basic premise, setting up their incorrect view to be knocked down in the end. Goku brought Frieza onto Team Universe 7 because he feared they would need his raw power, ignoring the possibility they bring in Yamcha or Chaozu for a friendly face that works well with their team. Hit reappears and shows that he has gotten way stronger. However, he loses to Jiren, Goku’s main opponent, in the opening of the tournament because he was relying on that raw power and abdicated the potential of his famed fighting technique. Multiple times, stronger and more arrogant solo fighters regard those fighting as a team as being weak and no threat. The main exception to those relying on teamwork being weak is Gohan, who was very strong and wanted to work as a team. In the anime, Gohan was made inferior to Frieza and ultimately lost trying to beat a lesser opponent. In the manga, Gohan, in his Potential Unleashed state and not as a Super Saiyan of any form, fought evenly with Hybrid Super Saiyan Kefla, who I suspect was the second strongest person on the field, and double-KO’d with her. In the fight, it’s implied that Gohan could go Super Saiyan while using his Potential Unleashed state, but chose not to so he didn’t have to rely on that kind of gimmicky power. It’s incredibly badass and satisfying.

As the fight with Jiren nears its climax, Goku uses a strategy that could kill him in an attempt to overpower the foe who’s stronger than any God of Destruction. This prompts Roshi to step in and admonish Goku with the single most important line in Super. When Goku says he needs more power to beat Jiren, Roshi says, “Hmph…Power, y’say? Plain old fighting strength? Who the heck taught you that? Vegeta? Frieza?” This is a great moment, because not only does it push Goku to go for Ultra Instinct and focus on bettering himself as a martial artist once again, but it pushes back on the worst lessons fans take from the franchise. Goku isn’t cool because of his strength, and he’s not so strong because he can transform. It’s all about that martial artist’s journey, baby. Goku grew up constantly learning new ways to become a better martial artist than he was the previous day, and it was pure passion driving him; he got to where he is because he took every opportunity to better himself, with his transformations just a convenient way for the story to keep upping the stakes. Jiren is the pursuit of raw power incarnate, with indifference and constant dissatisfaction his reward, and all he wants is his dead master to tell him he’s finally a good fighter. He’s everything Goku was becoming, and Goku overcame him by returning to his roots. He was able to fight Jiren evenly with a technique that anyone, theoretically, could learn if they reached the same heights of martial arts mastery, as proven when Roshi uses an imperfect form of Ultra Instinct to trade blows with Jiren. The manga anchors this lesson because it focused on technique the whole time and built towards this moment: Super Saiyan God was just another technique that showed Goku he had a lot left to learn; the Tournament of Destroyers showed how boring life is when you’re so strong you can’t actually test yourself; Zamasu showed how power is corrupting and how the pursuit of it changes you; and the Tournament of Power shows how damaging and literally suicidal pursuing raw power over personal growth is.

And to put the nail on the coffin, Goku doesn’t beat Jiren with Ultra Instinct, but instead beats him by briefly working with Frieza; you can’t master the path of a martial artist in one fight. Android 17 wins the tournament for their universe by playing dead, an age-old strategy, and uses the Super Dragon Balls to wish back all the universes destroyed by Zeno. While that can be seen as lowering the stakes, it’s no more stake-lowering than any other time the Dragon Balls have been used this way in high-stakes stories, and the stakes in this case were the destruction of eight entire universes. That’s pretty darn high. Also, it’s a good time to point out that Zeno was the real villain of the Tournament of Power. He was going to destroy eight universes out of boredom, and then remembered he could instead let one survive by having them Hunger Games for his amusement. There are no stakes, no reason to fight, without Zeno. There’s going to be conflict with Zeno in the future, I’m sure of it.

The anime followed a very different route than the manga, focusing entirely on Goku’s raw power and how cool he is. They added a lot of filler moments to both increase the number of gimmick fights and silly, campy fun, too, which made the whole thing lower stakes and less brutal. As described in regards to Piccolo and Gohan, the anime also made other characters weaker compared to Goku and Vegeta to amplify the impact of their unique transformations. In the Tournament of Destroyers, the anime introduced the idea of Goku using Kaio-ken while Super Saiyan Blue, for no other reason than to let Goku use a bunch more strength after he proved he could win. I won’t get into it, because it’s a tangent, but the entire concept of Blue Kaio-ken is BS, and the DBZ anime is where the proof lies; the Super manga actually touches on that exact thing, since Goku trying something like Blue Kaio-ken against Jiren is what nearly kills him and prompts Roshi to step in. Anyway, the anime also elongated the Zamasu story with a series of gimmick fights meant to show off how cool the three Saiyans were, even though they knew from the start that none of them would beat Zamasu. That story featured a bunch of secretly alive people, too, lowering the stakes and overall brutality of Zamasu as a villain. The time between Zamasu and the Tournament of Power, including the lead-up to the tournament, was spent showcasing filler side stories that make the other characters, ignored for most of Super, look way cooler and stronger than they actually ended up being. For as much as I wanted to see more from Krillin, Tien, and Piccolo in the manga, at least Toyotaro didn’t jerk us around acting like they were going to be way bigger players than they were. And the way the anime presented Goku achieving Ultra Instinct was focused entirely on strength and treating it like a super cool new transformation, which it isn’t. So if you were watching that story, I could see how you come out of Super thinking that it’s less intense, more gimmicky, and glorified one or two characters to the detriment of others. That’s why I think you could only be as impressed with the Moro arc as a “course correction” if you’ve been paying attention to the anime and only just now got into the manga.

This brings and end to what I’ll call Phase 1 of Super and to a time skip past the battle with Broly (which I would argue was for the same reason the Golden Frieza battle was) and into the Moro arc, which I agree is a great story that brings back a lot of things Super wasn’t doing enough of. It even brings back the meta story structure of the Buu Saga, since the first part is a very Phase 1 storyline and the second half, after Goku and Vegeta are defeated, is much more of a DBZ storyline, just as Kofi described. It’s like saying, “Yeah, we want to pivot away from this, we’re done making that point.” Looking at the first part of the Moro arc, you can read it as a way of reinforcing the grand statement of Phase 1, that the constant jockeying for power and strength and the glorifying of a couple people to the detriment of others is a bad way to write a story. The reason that’s important to say is because that’s the way a lot of the meta canon has been going for a while, at least it seems to me; all the fun, original video game stories are about Saiyans and their super special Saiyan-ness and how super cool strong they can get. It’s why GT was such a disappointment to me, and as I said, it stopped several great characters from trying to become better during DBZ. I think Kofi is right to say moving away from that model of storytelling is a good and important shift in the right direction, though I can’t say if it’s for the same reasons. That’s because, if it’s not clear, I think that what Super did along the way in Phase 1, at least in the manga, was better, more important, and more complex than the simple glorification and valorization of Goku and Vegeta, loaded as it was with themes arguing against that model and continual demonstrations of why they need to switch back to a focus on their martial arts journey. The structure of the Moro arc only serves to reinforce and finalize this thematic argument. As it continues, we are undoubtedly in store for some truly amazing fights and a satisfying, climactic battle with Moro for the entire Dragon Gang.

I also want to make a very important point for how the series is moving forward. Kofi says that Toriyama is switching back to this DBZ style story because he “has learned a thing or two from his mistakes.” For one, the massive success of Super doesn’t really seem like a mistake for anyone to learn from. For two, it’s really in poor taste to imply that Toriyama is changing how he’s writing a story because of negative fan reaction. Allegedly, that sort of thing happened with the Buu Saga, which is why Goku came back and we saw Super Saiyan 3, the perfect continuation and parody of the Super Saiyan form, all because the fans didn’t like Gohan’s high school adventures. I don’t think that’s happening again, allegedly, and in my opinion it’s not exactly a good look to say that it is. For three, that almost literally can’t be what’s happening, because Toyotaro has much greater control over the narrative by now. For those who don’t know, the way Super is being created is that Akira Toriyama writes plot summaries, and then lets the different creatives develop it from there, free to add and subtract and move around what they will. The anime team decided to focus on power and how super cool Goku is, and that version of events reflects that. Toyotaro, artist and co-author of the manga, kept his eye on the martial arts journey while executing this long vision of Toriyama’s to introduce new levels of grandeur and warn against getting lost in it, and that version of events reflects that. Over the course of the series, each creative team was given increasingly greater control over the narrative, leading to greater divergences; the two Tournaments of Power might as well be two different stories. By now, in the Moro arc, with no competing anime version of the story, Toyotaro has much more authorial control than when he started, and that will only increase until, as I hope and predict, Toriyama officially hands off the series to Toyotaro’s capable hands so he can write new stories for the foreseeable future. So no, I don’t think it’s very accurate to say that Toriyama learned any lesson because Toyotaro is the one making the important changes in how the story is told, not Toriyama. Keep your eye on the prize, you know; forgetting Toyotaro’s role means forgetting that we can and probably will have new Dragon Ball that isn’t a video game or video game-related story after the passing of Toriyama. I think the long hiatus of the anime reinforces this: Toriyama has said that if the anime team followed Toyotaro’s lead, they wouldn’t make so many art mistakes, and allowing the manga to develop lead time could be a strategy to follow the manga as a source material in the future, rather than continue this confusing dual path.

So yeah, the Dragon Ball Super manga is better than the anime in every way, and judging the series by the anime alone is setting yourself up for disappointment. The Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga showcases an amazing villain for the franchise, and it sets up more to explore in a future that values the contributions of the full cast. It also, to my eyes, foreshadows the end of the road for the Dragon Gang we’ve been following so far, and thus a potential new beginning with their successors; I mean, there’s no more time after this between Beerus and meeting Uub to use, and meeting Uub is the moment Goku passes the baton to a successor. This is a time to look forward to that bright future and reflect on the themes the manga has been developing as we head into it, as well as what the two versions of Super mean for the franchise as a whole.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #Dragon Ball Z #goku #tournament of power #universe 6 #zamasu #goku black #jiren #vegeta #moro #Akira Toriyama #toyotaro #manga #anime #comics #comic books

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chapter-17 · 4 years ago

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Not quite 10 years of pony

Well I feel like since we’re here at the decade mark since Friendship is Magic first aired I should probably say SOMETHING in my usual effort to pretend I’m even remotely close to being someone anyone would want to listen to!

I don’t know what it was about Friendship is Magic. It was a good show but there had been good shows before and there will be plenty of good shows to come, but I think what clicked the MOST is that when it came out I had recently moved out of my parent’s house for the second time at age 23, and for the first time I could just... do what I WANTED to do, stress free.

Flashback way further to when we first got satellite TV when I was at the tail end of grade school. Prior to that TV was just our antenna, and let me tell you, that was the crappest of shoots. At least 50% of the time there would be too much signal interference. We got the joy of picking between the channel with no sound, the channel with sound but no picture, or the channel with maybe 25% of each but we could KINDA detect something coherent in it. I’d wait all week for episodes of Dragonball Z to air at 6 AM on Saturday only to have my kid heart crushed by the entire episode being in varying states of chaotic viewability... not that things HAPPENED that much. You dang kids are spoiled with your DBZ Kai! (Shakes cane!)

But then, satellite TV! My GOD it was amazing. Not only could we SEE AND HEAR THINGS BESIDES STATIC, we got a guide with a menu and everything so we could see upcoming shows! But then also, Cartoon Network... and Toonami... and DBZ EPISODES EVERY NIGHT HOLY FUUUUUCK also this other show called Gundam Wing or whatever I don’t think anyone paid any attention to that one.

...

(Discretely adjusts camera away from shelf full of Gundam models in the background)

Anyway another couple Cartoon Network/Toonami shows I remember actually watching for the first time was The Powerpuff Girls and Sailor Moon... but I watched them HESITANTLY, and in secret. We had two TVs set up and if mom and dad were watching something I didn’t want to watch I’d be fine going to the other side of the house to chill and watch the other connected set on a different channel. This was stress incarnate. I’d split my attention between watching the show at low volume and listening for footsteps getting even REMOTELY CLOSE so I could hit the previous channel button before they could hear what I was watching. There are grown adults who watch outright pornography at their workplace office with less caution than barely teen kid me watched perfectly harmless CARTOON SHOWS. I was thoroughly ashamed of watching these shows but in spite of this I watched them anyway and came to really like them, Powerpuff Girls in particular.

Now of course this was a big nothing burger to worry about, my parents wound up really liking Powerpuff Girls too, but this is a trend for me. I’m internally terrified of anyone in real life finding out I LIKE... well, anything. At some point when I was a kid it became cool to hate Power Rangers, and I didn’t hate Power Rangers, but if I ever said I didn’t hate Power Rangers I would get absolutely shit on for it. I took away the lesson that you shouldn’t outwardly LIKE THINGS.

Basically just Rainbow Dash realizing she likes to read Daring Do books and keeping it a secret with the same fervor a murderer would employ to hide a corpse, but it’s for DECADES instead of 22 minutes. Frankly, I still feel this way. All my shirts are monotone with no art or anything, and I even feel a slight cringe whenever I bring out my wallet to pay for stuff because my wallet has a Nuka-Cola logo on it. I go out of my way to make sure you know nothing concrete about my interests just by looking at me.

So then decades later I’m living on my own for the first real time with a job and everything and one of my WoW buddies keeps linking me stuff related to a MY LITTLE PONY show of all things. Eventually he gives me a link to watch the, then latest, episode called Call of the Cutie and I begrudgingly watch it. Then I say “...god damn it” and start looking for episode 1. I never would have done that if I were still living with my parents, no fucking WAY. Friendship is Magic was the first show I realized I could just WATCH without perpetual existential terror clawing at my brain because I was alone, and it was genuinely positive at a time in my life where I thought about suicide way too much without thinking it was a PROBLEM.

Then something WEIRD happened.

See somewhere in my mid teen years I made a personal vow to never write fanfiction again after writing a small chunk of fanfiction. My teen self thought that fanfiction was an uncreative endeavor, and that people who wrote it were foolishly wasting their time with something that could never legally make them any money when they could be writing original fiction instead, and potentially getting published! But for some reason, for the first time in like a DECADE, Friendship is Magic actually got me to read fanfiction from other people. Not just fanfiction, but cringy crossover fanfiction with genres that couldn’t POSSIBLY work for something like My Little Pony!

Then for SOME reason I got the idea to write a sequel to someone else’s crossover fanfiction and crossover MLP fanfiction now accounts for basically ALL of my online writing material what the fuck happened.

But yeah here we are a decade later. I still haven’t finished Reunion, I’ve taken the better part of three years to write what I have of this miniseries, dad’s dead, I had to move back in with my parents, my dogs are dead, grandma’s dead, Friendship is Magic is over and done with and I likely missed all opportunity to get a readership from my inaction and mental issues, most of my friends have little to no interest remaining for the show so the thing that got me friends in the first place is now ISOLATING ME due to my continued interest, I’ve been diagnosed with severe depressive disorder and since I lost my job I have no reasonable access to medication, a conversation with a friend recently made me consider that I might have undiagnosed ADHD but, again, no access to medical care, I’m trapped in a situation I see no way out of short of basically leaving my loved ones to die without my help, I have little to no privacy anymore so my introverted ass gets NO MENTAL REPRIEVE and it’s so... fucking... tiring.

I’m TIRED. I feel at 33 the way I assume someone would feel at 63 and I never ever ever see it getting any better than it was for me around the time season 5 was still airing.

About the only thing that feels good anymore is knowing how much weight I lost this year.

So yeah... I miss Friendship is Magic, sure, but I also just miss WHEN Friendship is Magic was airing, because it may likely end up being the best time in my entire life.

Sad.

#My Little Pony #Friendship is Magic

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yoon-kooks · 6 years ago

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Witch Hazel- Pt.3

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: FanficWriter!Jungkook, Idol!Reader, College!AU, Angst, Fluff

Summary: There are two students in your art class with a secret: you and the quiet Jeon Jungkook. You’re a problematic idol singer, infamous for your ice cold reputation and perpetual resting bitch face; he’s the artist and author behind the viral comic series based on a certain ice queen idol. After a blowup of destructive rumors, lost motivation and inevitable solitude, you stumble upon Jungkook’s comic and find a new and unexpected light.

Word Count: 2.7k

Parts: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // ?

A/N: i made an unintentional dragon ball z reference at the end of the previous chapter, and now this chapter is loaded with anime references LMAO dont worry if you arent familiar with dbz or sailor moon though!💖

As you approach the entrance to the mall, you have but one wish: Taehyung better show up before Jungkook. Not because you prefer Taehyung, but because you’re terrible at handling small talk and conversation—especially with a timid introvert like Jungkook. You’d rather leave it up to talkative Taehyung to prevent any awkward silences.

Unfortunately for you, however, your wish is not granted. Instead, you spot a bespectacled boy in a bucket hat and white shirt (not a hoodie for once!) sitting on a bench and taking pictures on his phone right outside of the mall. He doesn’t seem to notice you until he looks up from his phone and you’re standing right there with a tiny wave hello. Flustered, he adjusts his glasses and waves back, but that’s the extent of your greetings to one another.

So for the longest thirteen minutes of your life, a huge gap of nothingness sits between you and Jungkook on a wooden bench outside of the mall, waiting for Taehyung to show up. The boy resumes taking photos of the blue sky and the mall itself. You don’t get what’s so photo-worthy about an ordinary sky and the generic architecture of the mall. But then again, this is a boy who also probably has 256GB of storage space dedicated to pictures of his favorite idol (one of which is his lockscreen)—and you certainly don’t understand the appeal of Snow. Therefore, you do not bother asking the boy about his reasons for wasting storage space on certain photos. You wouldn’t understand anyway.

And since Jungkook is too busy using his phone for photos at one end of the bench, you decide to use your phone to text the missing boy from the opposite end of the bench.

10:13AM Y/N “Taehyung, it’s past 10. Where are you??”

10:14AM Taehyung “On my way baby. And don’t worry, I promise I’ll make it worth the wait 😉”

As both a desired and disliked idol, you’ve been called a lot of things: beauty, bitch, babe, ice queen, slut, witch. And you’ve put up with it because you feel like, to some degree, you brought it upon yourself. But you’re wondering what you did to deserve a “baby” from Taehyung. Because the last thing you want is for someone who’s kind-of-not-really your friend to make any sort of romantic advances on you when they know nothing about you.

10:15AM Y/N “Who are you calling baby.”

10:16AM Taehyung “?”

10:17AM Taehyung “But you were fine with it the other night 🍆💦”

10:18AM Jungkook “monkaS”

10:19AM Taehyung “Wait”

10:19AM Y/N “What’s a monkas”

10:20AM Taehyung “Oops wrong chat LOL”

10:21AM Taehyung “Anyway I already told you guys yesterday that I wasn’t coming to the group project thing. I’m busy.”

He sends a screenshot of the group chat where he very clearly had said he wasn’t free. You must’ve missed that text somehow—a fatal mistake on your end because now you’re alone at the mall with Jungkook and it’s damn near impossible to talk to that kid when you can’t even relate to him. At least Taehyung could’ve broken the ice, but of course he’s too busy getting laid.

10:22AM Y/N “Can’t you fuck around later?”

10:23AM Jungkook “poggers”

10:24AM Y/N “What’s a poggers”

10:24AM Taehyung “Sorry I need at least 2 business days to cancel or change an appointment. I’m a man of my word, not a monster ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

10:25AM Taehyung “But have fun on your date without me~”

10:26AM Jungkook “it’s not a date”

10:26AM Y/N “It’s not a date.”

At least you and Jungkook can both agree that it isn’t a date. But that doesn’t change the fact that you’re stuck hanging out with him for a few hours to “get to know each other” for your stupid art project. How are you even supposed to get to know the boy when there’s nothing to talk about?

“What’s a monkas and poggers?” you ask, because your antisocial mind can’t think of anything else to say once the spam of text messages ends.

“Oh that…” Jungkook looks back down at his phone, scrolling through the text conversation to track down his cryptic messages. “It just means like oh my god and stuff.”

“In what language?” you attempt to keep the small talk going. But from the look of Jungkook’s shifty eyes, it seems you’ve probed too far.

“Gaming... language…”

“Oh.” As far as you can tell by his brief responses, the boy would rather not elaborate further. So you let the conversation die.

Instead, the two of you begin wandering around the mall, hoping it’ll spark any sort of conversation. Of course it doesn’t.

At least not initially.

For exactly 16 minutes (you would know because you’d been checking your phone every other minute as if time would pass any faster that way), you and Jungkook aimlessly walk around the mall without saying a word. And it isn’t until a new shop fills Jungkook’s eyes with sparkles that you spot an opportunity to make something happen.

The shop window is decorated with the cutest recognizable characters: Pikachu, Totoro, Naruto, Sailor Moon, and all their friends. The boy appears to have his eye on the green dragon summoned from seven Dragon Balls. He doesn’t say anything, but it’s obvious he’s interested.

Knowing him, he’d say no if you asked him if he wanted to go inside, in fear of being a burden and wasting your time. So you find a loop hole.

“Let’s go in here,” you say. He nods, obediently following you in but keeping a safe distance. While he’d say no to his own desires, he has a hard time saying no to what everyone else wants. Sounds familiar.

The first thing you see when you walk in is the magic girl section. As someone who grew up admiring Sailor Moon, you would’ve liked to have scouted out that section for nostalgic purposes. The only thing stopping you is the hoard of weebs in that corner. Jungkook, on the other hand, goes right in.

As he joins the frenzy over waifus and body pillows, you shake your head and make a U-turn towards the section with ninjas, pirates, dragon slayers, and Saiyans. The seven plastic Dragon Balls call out to you, just as they had to Jungkook before he got distracted by pink-haired heroines. If you could have one wish granted with the magic of the Dragon Balls, what would you even wish for? There’s not much that you want, except for maybe a life you don’t feel ashamed of. But not even magic would be able to help you with that.

Sighing, you pick up a display model of one of the Dragon Ball fighters and replace his natural black hair with spiky blonde hair to transform him into a Super Saiyan, an almighty hero to protect the world.

“What exactly is the science behind turning blonde when they unleash their Super Saiyan strength?” you mumble to yourself… and the quiet boy next to you. He has a tiny shopping bag with him, so at least you know he didn’t splurge on a body pillow.

“From an artist’s perspective, it makes it easier for people to distinguish between different power levels. Especially in the comics where it’s black and white, so…” Jungkook’s rambling fades out when he realizes you might not be interested in his weeby-artist mind.

“That makes sense,” you say, still fumbling around with the Super Saiyan’s spiky blonde hair. You’d thought maybe it meant something more significant. As if changing one’s appearance could make them stronger by hiding who they really are. “But I suppose not all plot details need to be that deep.”

He nods and picks up another Dragon Ball character, the bald kid with six dots on his head, and wiggles it in your direction. “Is this the kind of anime you’re into?”

You can’t help but sneer at the random but mysterious six dots on the bald head. “This and Sailor Moon.”

Jungkook’s magic girl radar goes off when you mention Sailor Moon. “Oh, so like heroes and stuff?”

“I guess,” you answer, though you’ve never really thought about it that way. It’s not like you intentionally sought out for anything involving superheroes, but it’s something you’d always been naturally drawn to. “Though it seems a bit childish to say it out loud, doesn’t it?”

“I’m sure everyone has wished to be a hero at some point in their life,” the boy says, glancing back at the seven Dragon Balls. “After all, heroes give us something to admire and believe in.”

“Exactly.” You set the Super Saiyan back down on the shelf and stare at the glammed-up Sailor Moon beauties from afar. For just a split second, you’re reminded of your fateful decision to become Snow. “Kind of like idols, right?”

Jungkook flinches, clutching onto his shopping bag as if you’re lowkey judging him for being obsessed with not only pretty idols, but also pretty magic girls. You weren’t planning on bringing up the topic of idols because it can be quite toxic for yourself, but it somehow slipped out of your mouth in the presence of the biggest Snow fanboy. Oops.

“Yeah, kinda…” He lets out a half-laugh, but it sounds forced, only to fill another round of awkward silence as you both exit the anime shop. Great, you’ve brought up another touchy subject and now the boy’s back on lockdown. And just when the two of you were starting to get on the same page.

“I mean… I used to look up to the Sailor Moon characters… because they were my idols… my heroes…” you stumble over your words in an attempt to salvage any momentum you had built up with Jungkook. Surely this is something the weeb can relate to and not feel bad about now that you’ve exposed a bit of your dark past.

“Really?” He tilts his head and eases his grip on the shopping bag. “Who’s your bias—I mean favorite—of the Sailor Scouts?”

You assume he’s asking because your favorite can say a lot about you. Do you prefer crybabies like Sailor Moon, smarties like Mercury, hotheads like Mars, muscles like Jupiter, or perhaps the one who fantasizes over becoming an idol? “Sailor Venus.”

Before responding, Jungkook shuffles through his shopping bag and pulls out a tiny keychain of Sailor Venus with her pretty long hair and orange sailor suit. “Me too.”

You wonder what that says about Jeon Jungkook.

By the time lunch comes around, long silences still follow into the food court but somehow you feel less pressure to fill in the gaps. You’re simply okay with being in the boy’s company. Something about it is almost as refreshing as the iced tea you’re sipping on.

As you down your drink, you stare intently at the tall stack of pancakes across from you. The boy’s plate of fluffy delicacies has to be quadruple the size of your tiny salad bowl that you ordered out of habit.

“Um… do you want some?” Jungkook points to his pancakes, but his eyes are glued to your lips—probably because of the drool and not because you share the same pout as Snow.

“No thanks, I’m trying to eat healthier, and I already splurged on pancakes the other day,” you sigh. Even though you've taken a step back from idol life, you feel the need to maintain your image and health for the sake of fans who may worry about you. It’s in your blood, and sometimes you hate yourself for it. “But honestly, you’re really tempting me, you know.”

“Here.” Before you can refuse, Jungkook plops one of his pancakes onto the rim of your salad bowl. “It kinda defeats the purpose of dieting if it makes you unhappy, right? But that’s why cheat days exist~”

“That’s true.” You take a single bite of your pancake, savoring its subtle sweetness. You can’t remember the last time you found pure bliss in something as simple as pancakes without worry. “Thanks, Jung-”

You’re cut off by the fact that the boy’s stack of pancakes vanished, only leaving traces of syrup on the plate and a cute little crumb on the corner of his lips.

“Did you just inhale all your food while I took one (1) bite?”

He swallows the food in his mouth and takes a sip of his milk. “Maybe.”

You don’t know whether to be shocked or impressed, but it made you giggle either way. “You’re a funny guy, you know that?”

Flustered, the boy scurries off to dispose of his food tray. You rarely hand out compliments, and maybe this is why. It probably seems too out of character for someone like yourself, and Jungkook’s fragile little heart can’t handle it.

You punch yourself in the face until Jungkook walks back to the table. Seeing as you’ve only started making a dent in your lunch, he captures a few more photos on this phone, this time of the mall interior and food court. Then he pulls out his sketchbook.

He begins by mapping out a blank page with light lines and dots. Little by little, he adds in the tables, the people, the food. And before you know it, he has the whole food court sketched out and you haven’t even touched your salad yet.

“Are you into architecture? Or like exterior & interior design?” You don’t exactly know the proper art terms for whatever Jungkook’s drawing, but it would explain why he always seems to be taking photos of wherever he goes.

“Yeah, architecture and design are cool.” He shrugs and doesn’t sound all that convincing. So he diverts the spotlight back onto you. “By the way, I mean this in the least offensive way possible, but you’re not an art major, right?”

“Are you saying that because I’m shitty at art?” you pretend to be offended, but you know he’s not the malicious type. “Or because I’m always carrying a guitar to class?”

“The latter.” You see a tiny smirk on the boy’s face as he continues to add in details to his sketch. He’d never say it, but you can tell he’s also thinking your art is complete trash. “Is it music theory? Or just guitar? Or songwrit-”

Bing! Your phone notification saves you from a potentially loaded question about an uncertain future in music, and you couldn’t be more grateful. It’s a new Witch Hazel update from jk.seagull.

You glance over to Jungkook, expecting him to have the same notification on his phone. But he doesn’t. “I would’ve expected you of all people to have notifications turned on for Witch Hazel.”

“Really? Is it because you think I’m that in love with Snow?” It’s Jungkook’s turn to pretend to be offended. You’re glad to see him lightening up and not taking things to heart.

“Are you not in love with Snow?” you tease. Jungkook freezes and so do you. Why the fuck would you ever ask him if he’s in love with an extension of yourself? You don’t want to hear the answer because it’ll hurt you either way. “Nevermind, don’t answer that.”

You quickly skim jk.seagull’s beautiful comic-style artwork and stop at a panel of Snow and the new bunny boy character squaring up.

“But doesn’t this look like something right up your alley?” You flip your phone around to let the boy see the cute art.

“Does it?” Jungkook looks up from his sketchbook and puts down his pencil.

“Yeah, it feels like it would be more your style than realistic architecture would,” you say, although his sketch of the food court is somehow more gorgeous than the actual food court itself. “But I don’t know… You’d be fine with anything in the art field, to be honest.”

To your surprise, the boy shakes his head at your phone screen. “I’m not cut out for something like that.”

“Coming from the best artist in our class,” you say unconvinced. He has to be joking. Or maybe just overly modest. “Obviously I don’t know how you are with storytelling and stuff, but your art is undeniably incredible. And you have a lot of passion and knowledge for comics and anime…”

“Thanks, Y/N, but I don’t think that’s the problem.”

#bts scenarios #bts fanfic #bts imagines #bts angst #bts fluff #jungkook fanfic #jungkook x reader #bts college au #jungkook #bts #bangtan #witch hazel

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alyseofwonderland · 5 years ago

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Alyse Reads The Goldfinch, Part 2

What follows is my best attempt at liveblogging. I had the books as an audiobook in hopes that I could keep it from taking even more of my life from me. This was perhaps a mistake. I think I broke Siri trying to make notes. The notes that are rambly are the ones I dictated.

I entirely blame @rollono for my suffering. But I am also aware that it seems to give her joy.

Every time I reference Tara, I am talking about @wellntruly who’s own live blog of the book was the only roadmap I had to follow in this waterlogged wasteland of a novel.

Part 1

I thought Tara was making up the Camel-hair coat bit but APPARENTLY NOT.

Architecture has that much to do with the city and or northern Europe, really? I mean, “whitewash” doesn't everybody do that?

Nina ( @proud-librarian ) is going to have a lot to say about their descriptions of the Netherlands and Amsterdam in this book. like oh my God!

Theo Deckard doesn't understand how thermostats work.

This isn't satire? I don't understand we're like three minutes in and it has to be satire. right. right?

Who the hell says my mother and I didn't like my father much? like what.... what is this? what am I reading? what is happening? what.... I don't understand.... okay maybe fine whatever

This feels like it should be... I don't know.... satire is the word I'm looking for again. I don't want to just repeat what Tara, said but Jesus. the start of the story is he is rich enough to have a Doorman but not rich enough to afford the fancy private school, and him and his friends break into vacation homes in the Hamptons. what is this? what is this? I just... just.... just write a Jane Austen or Lord Byron novel if that's what you want to do just do that. do that.

My audiobook app just turned itself off in the middle of a passage because it decided I didn't need to listen to Theo talk about whatever he was talking about.

Curse you, Donna Tartt, for also being in the "all things coconut smell like suntan lotion" club. I did not want to have this in common with you.

I am laughing so hard it turns silent into my steering wheel because the audiobook reader makes Tom Cable sound like a surfer dude from the 70s, and I. cannot. handle. that.

"I like to think of myself as a perceptive person" is basically the way that I know that Theo has about Harry Potter level skills of observation when it comes to the people around him.

Y'all this book would be so much better if Theo actually thought like a 13-year-old that he is supposed to be in the intro part. That would just be peak comedy, which is really what I'm looking for.

Audrey Decker and the Laura Moon from American gods are now the two people that I have ever known to call men "puppy" which I still find alarming, in both cases. Surprisingly they also both die, so I guess more things they have in common.

The longer this book goes on the more clear it is that I am not bougie enough for its contents. ( timestamp 30 minutes)

(GIF BY @rollono BY MY REQUEST FOR EVERY TIME THIS BOOK MAKES ME FEEL POOR)

I just can't suspend my disbelief enough to think that a 13-year-old would know this much about their parent's job and be able to ask questions. I'm trying to think of what my dad was doing when I was 13, and I mean I know where he worked, and I know who his boss was, but if you tried to ask me daily issues or me giving advice... oh my gosh. I just can't. nobody talks like this.

I’m making a face akin to Kermit the frog.

I threw up in my mouth a little at the description of Pippa walking past in the museum.

Did we just describe a 12-year-old girl's arms as marble? is that what just happened? did I just have to listen to that?

Theo has given me a lot of like “Golden State killer” vibes right now with his desire to poke around through all these people's homes and stuff. like this is clearly the Visalia ransacker's motivation in the 70s. I know too much about true crime, that's what's happening right now.

The true-crime serial killer alarms keep going off in my brain.

I know Tara already mentioned how ridiculous the Murphys bed story is but it really is incredibly ridiculous and breaks the tension of the entire scene that is occurring at the time (laughed uncontrollably to the point that Siri typed nonsense)

I get it, Donna, you know things. You do not have list every fire truck to prove it.

Let's take a child to a dinner at 3 am. Really Donna?

Why does Donna insist on giving me the text of signs around whats going on? Why did I just listen to the smoothie specials while an emotional scene is occurring?

Donna, did you just call Mrs. Barough a weasel? [afronted gasp]

OI! (me shouting when Donna says that Andy was weird for being lactose intolerant.)

Pukes in my mouth a little at the term 'high verbal'. I get it, Donna, you think you are smarter than all of us stop being a dick.

Donna Tartt would make it to r/iamverysmart in like a minute if she understood how the internet worked.

WHO TAUGHT HER ABOUT FMA?

Okay, so either Donna Tartt knows someone who lost a parent and basing this off them or like went through it herself because I am white-knuckling through the grief bits trying not to have my own trauma response to the situation. Or she wrote Theo with like the exact grief I had. Her incessant need to list things in a room is the only thing between me and a spiral of remembering my dad's death.

ANDY IS A RAY OF LIGHT AND DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE IN THIS FAMILY OR IN THIS BOOK!

Five whole hours before the first sight of Hobie. Like Jesus.

I miss Terry Pratchett.

Hobie thank you for making this book interesting again.

Hobie is now my main squeeze and I won't hear a word against him.

POE DIDN'T INVENT SCIENCE FICTION FUCKING MARY SHELLY DID. DONNA WHAT THE FUCK.

The Hobie part of the story just makes me more sure that a version of the movie should have been without the Baroughers (sp?) and only included Hobie and Pippa.

Any is a murderino. I love this baby boy.

Aw, I love Hobie so so much.

Donna if you call Andy annoying one more time you are gonna catch my hands. (She just referred to his voice as annoying twice in a conversation and I swear to god I will rip this character out of her snobbish clutches she doesn't deserve him.)

Theo on this we agree, I too enjoy Hobie.

Hobie is the only person who belongs in this novel and he's a god damn delight.

SEVEN HOURS AND THE PAINTING HAS COME UP AGAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN LITERAL HOURS.

Theo straight up using Spanish to fuck over his father is just *chef's kiss.

I can see how much contempt Donna has for Xandra is longer and deeper than this book will ever be.

I am going to suplex Larry Decker I swear to god. (i have a very particular trigger to spouses bad-mouthing the dead one due to personal experience.)

Necco wafers are no one's favorite candy Donna. You can't just say shit like that and expect anyone to believe you.

I have just realized that Donna Tartt has never been to a public library. How do I know? Witchcraft books are never on the shelves. Ask any librarian. They are stolen pretty much the moment we buy them.

I am standing dead in the tea aisle at the store because Theo just thought it would be “gay” to tell the doormen he has known almost his whole life he is gonna miss them. (hours later I realize this is her backtracking in edits going "shit shit shit I have to add the repression in somewhere for those dumb readers that don't understand art" and I hate it more.)

Mrs. B is ready to physically fight Larry and I would pay real money to see it.

WHY DOES DONNA KNOW ABOUT DRAGON BALL Z?!? Step away from the things I love Donna I don't trust you near my media. (Also why she does reference it she clearly has NO concept of what DBZ hair would even look like to expect me to believe any child could achieve it.)

oh my god, Boris. I'm so happy to see you.

I am happy to report the audiobook narrator does not do an Australian accent for Boris. Thank the lord.

I knew I was going to love Boris but like a few minutes in I adore him.

It's interesting to me that Theo and Boris seem to have received similar amounts of attention/affection from non-parent adults, but while Theo finds it uncomfortable Boris soaks it in.

The Australian part of Boris's accent seems impossible.

*sobbing audibly into my keyboard* Popchyck

Boris you sweet like socialist.

Comrade Boris we need you in this election.

I'm sad he (Boris) doesn't get to go to college and like piss off every yuppie and hippie, and just make Philosophy 100 and Government 250 absolute hell for everyone.

Drunk Boris at Thanksgiving is a gift.

Me listening to this book before Boris: half paying attention, fucking around on my computer, doing chores. Me after Boris shows up: staring at the middle distance determined to listen to every fucking word because this prison sentence of a novel is finally interesting.

James: you said the author is a snob and you aren't enjoying the main character. Me: yeah James: then stop reading it. Me: No, then Donna and her Anna Wintour knock off hair cut will win. James, frowning and backing out of the room: k sweetie.

6:30 am is too early to hear Theo Decker describe his bed as "our bed"

I WAS RIGHT. Boris belongs in college making every American white kid absolutely furious in every Poli-sci.

Larry Decker calling Theo and Boris his "kids" made my heart skip a beat.

So the nurse notices they don't have vitamins and smell but doesn't call child services. I mean I know that I learned that school nurses are less likely to call CFS on white kids than they are on black kids but like god damn.

The sheer salt of Theo refusing to learn the name of Boris’s girlfriend is so hilarious.

Now *this* is gay.

The truth is Theo is ready to cut a bitch.

Fellas is it gay to do shots while your boyfriend talks about his girlfriend?

Theo trying to set up Boris with like a nice polite girl who won't fuck him is fucking hilarious. This poor baby gay.

Theo (and Donna cuz she writes him) have never heard of learning disabilities and I will legit throw down.

LARRY IS A SCORPIO IN CANON?! I thought that was something from the fan fics. omg Ally hates this.

No one wears white sport coats Donna stop trying to make it happen.

Boris totally knows what's going on with Larry and he's just trying to look out for Theo because he loves Theo but oh my gosh Boris why do you make me feel so many feelings!

Please, Donna, I am begging you to stop telling me what the light from the sun looks like at different times of the day. I just can't take it anymore. Every scene of Theo in Xandra's house does not need the qualifier of what type of sunlight he is seeing. Some times fine. But every time?

My entire stomach just dropped when I realized what Boris has done, and I'm just I'm so sad. this is not how I wanna start my commute to work today.

I have just had my first moments of being very proud of Donna's writing, because long long time ago, in the same chapter, she had the bit about how Xandra will say "apparently" when she's being bitchy with Theo and now in a conversation where Theo isn't paying attention to her she says "apparently" to Larry and I just had to stop and say this, this is the writing I'm looking for Donna. This is clever and interesting and I LIKED IT. Stop making lists and do more of this.

Friendship ended with Book Boris, Movie Boris is my best friend now.

I don't understand how the director and the screenwriter of the film could move who said those lines and then not make it gay. Like, commit to your choice.

My mom: You finish that book yet? Me, angrily: No. My mom slightly worried: do you like it? Me: unclear.

NEW CHAPTER!

Theo, I need you calm all the way down when you are looking at Pippa.

Love this lawyer. I want to be his friend.

God poor Pippa. All the shit she goes through and she still has to put up with Theo's weird obsession.

Theo, you slid right back into the serial killer habits in a second and I want you to stop it.

Oh god, I feel that in my soul. Like "no sir you have it wrong I look more like the parent I like best." (also I do look more like my dad. like way more like him)

I am begging someone to get Theo some kind of hobby or help or something so he stops acting like a victorian ghost.

I am gonna have to get the actual book so I can see what weird spelling is going on with the text messages. I just know its weird. The narrator does it in such a weird voice.

We spent so much time dealing with emotional issues and other whatnot that going back to the bit about the painting feels like a huge tonal shift in the book. I'm like staggering around confused.

Literally no one uses strawberry shampoo.

Love that Theo ‘s final plan is the one Andy purposed an eon ago.

Salty that Theo is getting the cool college experience that Boris would have crushed. I would have paid good money to watch him make the philosophy department cry.

[kermit in the car gif]

Yo! Theo struggling to deal with school is like exactly my semester after my dad died.

The adults attempting to force him into different living arrangements is so what we dealt with post my dad’s death.

Grisha! (Russians the only people I trust atm)

Tara was right, Andy's death comes off like a joke!

I gotta say, Crime Theo is my favorite Theo so far.

I don't know which serial killer Donna was channeling to write the parts about Theo being obsessed with Pippa, but it is just so intensely a serial killer vibe I cannot even begin to describe the look on my face; the feelings I'm having. I'm just like this man is going to kill someone. he's going to kill a lot of people. not only that it's going to be a lot of women because he doesn't view them as people. that's what I'm getting from this it's. Theo doesn't think women are people.

If Theo was on reddit he would be part of r/niceguys and r/iamverysmart.

If I have to listen to him drone on about his fantasies of Pippa for one more minute I will kill myself in the baking aisle of Aldis.

HES HOARDING HER HAIR?! HER UNWASHED CLOTHES?!? Please someone put him in jail.

[the sound of me throwing up in the frozen food section as Theo describes Kitsey]

Donna don’t try to act like you didn’t add that foreshadowing yourself about Andy. You crack me up you relentlessly snob.

How is Theo just The Worst all the time?

Theo freaking out because two gay guys know what’s up with him is just *chef’s kiss

Me having seen only the movie: Theo and Boris should get redemption and a romance run away. Me now: [ gif of “Ive had enough of this guy” from IASIP]

I mean I understand that John Crawley was a coward in so many of his directorial choices, but the fact that he didn't put the second meeting of Theo and this Lucius guy into a crowded weird restaurant where they're both getting hit by the waiters as they go past is just the weakest move you could've made. because this makes it so much funnier.

I'm with Hobie.

honestly this book should've just been 20 hours of art crime and like to shave off a good 10 hours of LISTS because that's what 10 hours is. give me 20 hours of art crime. I would love to watch each sale happen that would've been riveting to read but instead.... this.

Bish, you like those earrings or I will cut you.

Theo salty, while Kitsey picks out new china, is so fucking hilarious.

him just like "why are we buying new plates when my job is literally to find plates that were made by craftsmen?!?!” but being too fucking repressed in his bullshit to say anything, so he just making some poor sales lady suffer.

my friend Ally: “Theo’s repression makes everyone suffer is a good summary of the book.”

Alternative version of this book that would have been 8 million times better: Theo gets into art crimes but is also a serial killer. We don't know the second bit but it begins to start dawning on us as women seem to disappear from his social circles and weird hints of thoughts about blood and rivers. Bonus points if it ends with him on the run from the law with his only vaguely criminal (by comparison to serial killer Theo) boyfriend. We are left to wonder if they will be gunned down in the chase or if perhaps there will be one more body to great the river.

Theo's textbook serial killer nonsense is only comparable to the sheer petty gay energy he gives off.

The power trip he gets from being like "hahaha yes I have bagged the ice princess who wanted nothing to do with me when we were kids" is just so gross and hilarious.

Theo realizing he is not the only sociopath in the room is just *chef's kiss.

Boris, did you really send some guy to just watch your ex?

Boris, I am begging you. You have made Grisha so upset.

Donna shying away from describing Boris comes off, if you don't know who we are talking about, as weird and slightly racist.

You have the internet Theo, you can look up when movies are going to start. You are not living on the moors.

HOW IS THIS BOOK NOT A SATIRE OF AMERICAN PYSCHO FOR PEOPLE THAT HAVE BONERS FOR ANTIQUES?!?

Boris returns. I have almost forgiven him for what he put me through.

Maybe "fuck you" can be our always.

*tries not to cry when I realize that Boris' friends have heard about Theo

bless Aneurin for everything he did for this reunion in the movie.

Why is Boris such a slut? Why will I forgive him for anything?

Is it gay to think about the guy you used to jack off as handsome when you meet each other again?

Genetics means those kids can't be Boris' unless his mother was blonde. (Theo kind of agrees.)

My soul has left my body at the concept of Boris having a wife and kids.

I'm not saying I endorse crime, I'm just saying a mobster front with a pun in the name is really on-brand for me.

Knowing what I Know. That Boris thinks Theo is gonna try to kill him when they go for the "surprise" just makes the whole thing so tragic and sad.

Boris and his dog REUNITED AT LAST. I'm not crying. I'm fine.

Interesting that the next story we hear is about Gyuri's dead "brother" right after Boris says that Theo is "blood of his heart, his brother". Like. I might not be the biggest history buff in the world but I know gay code when I see it.

I mean I knew this was gonna happen, but I can't help but feel personally betrayed by Boris once again.

Donna, stay away from stuff about computers. Your attempts to use them make me, a technology expert, cringe.

Boris like "you don't deserve this dog. I deserve this dog."

"Babe I get that you are a WASP at heart but I need you to fight with me like a Russian now." - Boris to his disaster husband

"Did I lie?" "YES" (me laughing so hard I'm practically crying)

why does no one in this book appear to exchange numbers or like airdrop contact info.

Does Donna think that people only have iPhones?

Ally who is CTRL F reading this book "'Every few hundred pages she's like 'oh yeah, it's modern times...they're texting and there's emojis!' Seriously, there was the mention of emoji's and my soul escaped my body for a minute because it had no tether to time or space" @aces-low

Off the top of my head, the name that Donna is not saying for this Horace to guy is Volkswagen.

Instead of being in the mob Boris should run an animal shelter.

Boris being Bitchy and jelly when Theo is talking to the German guy is just so cute. You two deserve each other with your weird shit.

If Donna wasn't a coward this book would have had Theo just getting eyeballs deep in art crime with Boris and his associates.

Adding a sin for making me listen to whatever that just was.

Things Donna forgot to list in "girl food": chicken wings, bread, rolls, other types of bread, garlic bread, a bit more bread, maybe cookies, eight more cookies, 20 more cookies, every type of chocolate humanly imaginable, jam, and barbecue ribs.

What do ankles have to do with being attractive?!?!?! this isn't the Victorian age!

(from Ally re this comment: “I'm now convinced that every day Donna sat down to write this book she spun a wheel with different years on it, and that's the year the book was set that day”)

I didn't mind Kitsey cheating on Theo, because he doesn't even really like her. Until just now, when I realized that Mrs. B knows about it and she's keeping it from Theo, and my heart broke into 1 trillion pieces. she is the closest thing he has to a mother and he realized that she kept it from him, and I should not be crying in my car before my special Valentine night dinner.

James just walked in during a part describing Pippa and goes "Men writing women, huh?" and I had to pause the book, turn to him and say "a woman wrote this" and he just looks at me like 0_0

Mrs. B clutching Theo's hand so he won't leave her alone with Smalltalk-old-man is honestly the cutest thing in this entire book.

Hobie being able to be spotted from a distance at all times! I have a friend who is 6'5" and we can find him in crowds so easily!

Perhaps the funniest moment of this book is Theo saying "if girls loved assholes then Pippa would love me". buddy I'm going to post this entire book to r/niceguys

I WANT MORE ART CRIME! Why did you make me listen to 15 hours of boring nonsense when we could have had ART CRIME!

I deeply enjoy Boris's commitment to being a dramatic goofball, falling to his knees just be annoying.

Movie Boris appears in a dramatic way. Book Boris is just like there and also shoving food in his face and walking out of the party still eating all the food he just put in his cheeks like a chipmunk.

Hobie just like "if you want to run off with your gay love i'll cover."

Theodor Decker you get back in there and make sure that thief stays away from Nicole Kidman she has been through enough already!

Theo, I know that you don't actually have brains for anything besides drugs, crimes, being weird about women, and your own ass, but you could at least listen when people speak.

Theo is such a mess. He doesn't belong in modern times. He deserves to be Jack the Ripper.

I know the narrator is saying croissant the "correct" way. But every single time it happens I'm so fucking confused because who just leans into a french accent that hard for a single word?

Theo offers an actual good idea that Boris is going to use later and they all look at him like he's crazy.

I know "my brand" is "man holding gun" but listening to Boris assemble a gun I'm like "oh goodness I need to lay down". *fans self

Theo suddenly "I have made a huge mistake"

It's interesting to me how reluctant Boris is to make Theo a larger part of the heist. Theo reads it as frustrating but I read it like a kind of care and affection. He doesn't want his friend mixed up in something he can't handle, despite the fact that he wants Theo close so he can get him the painting back.

I see now why the heist in the movie was so fucking confusing. You need the Horst stuff and like a bunch of other nonsense that does not translate well to screen unless you re-write all the connections, which John Crowley was not willing to do.

Really love the "women drop their mark the first time" bit.

me: Theo I swear to god stop being high and sick in your room and go get some actual clothes and medication or at least don't make me listen to so much of it

this book is not 30 hours long. its 15 hours of a book and 15 hours of Donna going "gotta get that word count up or people with think I'm weak". Please, Donna. I don't need to hear this one thing happen for so long. It adds nothing to the tone, the themes, the plot, or the ambiance. You are just writing words for words sake.

The first suicide note was so well crafted that I honestly want Theo to kill himself now. If he can manage to write the others pretty okay I will be happy with this ending.

Don’t think I didn’t notice that the ghost of a dead loved one appeared on Christmas Eve.

I'm sorry who doesn't respond to "didn't you get my text?" with "my phone was dead" instantly?

me listening to Theo throw a tantrum at Boris because neither of them is capable of explaining themselves and like speaking as normal humans do: "It would have been better if Theo died"

Why must I be forced to listen to Donna make these scenes longer because these people don't talk like people?

Thud by Terry Pratchett does a much much better job of asking the question "can we trust our hearts and be the person we want to be?" And it honestly gives a better answer. And has you know, clever writing.

I thought it was like Over. I did. I was like "oh this is it wrapping up" ONLY THERE IS 30 MORE MINUTES AND I WANT TO SCREAM!

Me certain the book is over: i mean maybe this is a good ending

Me seeing i still have 30 more minutes: this is the worst book ever

This book held me fucking captive for over a week and all it left me with was like a few good lines, burning hatred for the main character, and the desire to go into Donna's home and rearrange all her stuff.

also, I now hate antiques. out of spite.

don't read The Goldfinch. it's not worth it y’all.

#jabberwockytalkies #words #donna tartt i just wanna talk #the goldfinch #alyse watches stupid movies #theodore decker #boris pavlikovsky #larry decker #xandra #donna tartt #this book beat me up and took my money and my will to put up with men

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l0ve-pand0ra · 5 years ago

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unpopular my hero opinions!!! waaa if u get offended they arent real ppl. and fyi this is one of my all time favorite animes.

1. todoroki isnt less cool now bc hes not the stoic asshole with no friends. the only reason yall think that is bc he gets so little screen time and time to shine bc when he does hes so much better then deku so they constantly dim his character down

2. todoroki would have made a more compelling and interesting and believable main character rather then deku.

3. deku was Never the underdog, he got all mights (the #1 heros) quirk Given to him for FREE. and all might favors him and gives him special treatment. and he gets away with everything. his family is super supportive. hes deadass not the underdog just bc he breaks his bones for a while. especially after season 2, underdog my ass

4. it makes zero sense that todorokis deep rooted issues and trauma got resolved with some words in a couple of episodes. meanwhile it takes bakugou 4 season to even consider changing his mindset on deku. even though bakugous whole issue is something he MADE UP in his head. again, todoroki getting done dirty

5. deku should not have beaten overhaul. when he went out to fight i literally rolled my eyes. sure the fight was impressive with stunning animation and sure he had eri. but ur telling me a freshman beat a villian with a quirk that allows him disassemble and reassemble matter which if you forgot what matter is it everything around you everything including the air.

6. todoroki and Bakugo werent in season 4 for much of it purely because of how popular they are and how much more people prefer them to Deku

7. sir nighteye rlly died without recognizing deku as being worthy of one for all... welp

8. shinsou got set up to the max going up against deku who for whatever reason on that day decided to tap into some dead mfs living inside him.... COME ON

9. this one isn’t unpopular but HOW DID U.A NOT THINK TO USE SHINSOU DURING THE OVERHAUL CASE???? like i understand hes not in the hero course but dude.......

10. my hero has weak villains, the league is a joke with no clear direction for the whole anime, they start showing promise at the end of the overhaul arc. n i adore the league n its members but in the anime the jus seem lost with no clear direction ... and all for one aint all that. stain on the otherhand is the only good villain with conviction and is super compelling the stain arc was way ahead of its time

11. WHY TF DOES IIDA GET SO MUCH SCREEN TIME,???? FUCKING MOVE LIKE HES NOT EVEN COOL???????

12. tetsutetsu deserved to be in class 1A and has more charisma and likability then most of class 1A.

13. monama has a reason to be peeved, like come on 1B is literally known as lesser 1A... that is annoying

14. present mic is ugly n just bc him and aizawa are friends doesn’t mean you Have to ship them together. aizawa can do so much better.

15.(basically point 2 expanded lol) todoroki should have been the main character. hes way more compelling and has a way clearer goal then deku. now if deku became the worlds first quirkless hero thats one thing. but can you imagine todoroki having to decide if he should accept all mights power and if he does is he doing it for the right reason? or seeing an in-depth look into his family situation. like come on the set up with dabi being his archenemy secret brother, n if u want some bland het romance him and momo. bruh it writes itself.

16. deku having multipal quirks is such Bullshit. like come on giving him more quirks wont make him more of a compelling character.

17. the history of one for all makes no sense. i dont understand sure its buliding of power that gets passed on but,?? why couldn’t all might use all the quirks of the past users, why wasnt he able to see them like deku??? and idk it feels like they are always changing some part of one for all making it inconsistent.

18. bakugou has the best hero custome

19. the show is missing a character in 1A with a healing quirk. i feel like having someone like that would have really added to the show and would have been interesting.

20. tamaki is so much cooler then mirio, his quirk is so much stronger and dont get me wrong I love mirio and his quirk is incredible but tamaki basically as acess to an unlimited amount of quirks. plus its not just food he ate that crystal guys crystal n produced them. its badass

22. todoroki and bakugou not passing the hero exame was bs. todoroki was provoked by the baldheaded kid and he’s the one who started the fight not Todoroki. bakugou is himself and does not do fake comfort hes not all might, whats important is saving people if he gets the job done who cares. them not passing was jus an excuse to push their characters aside for the season.

23. the gentle arc was lame and made no sense especially bc of the roller coaster that was the overhaul arc. i understand that’s the point of it was so Deku realizes that not all villains are these horrible nasty people that are human too but like the placement was just so weird especially since it was before the endeavor and hawks arc it just made no sense to me at least. it just seem like another way to make the viewers think Deku is super cool main character. and once again he gets to defeat a villain all by himself... le sigh

24. bakugous anger is completely unjustified the entire series. I adore Bakugou and I adore his character and he is one of my favorite anime characters ever but He has no reason to be mad he has an awesome quirk he’s a prodigy at everything he does he has both his parents he’s wealthy he is well liked and popular where is the justification for his anger and I’m not saying that just because you have a nice life doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to be angry but this dude is yelling is mad all the time there’s issue with that. and as I stated previously his issue is something he made up in his head. he construed a narrative in his head who deku is.

25. anyone else feel like U.A is understaffed ?

26. that wood hero is a misogynist and hates women... he was real up in arms about mont lady when she was the one who actually stopped and captured that villain.

28. best jeanist is so cool im so sad where is he please come home. he’s literally the coolest pro hero. i dont like how he tried to change bakugou but he had a point on bakugous attuide being a bit much sometimes.

29. endeavor does not deserve a redemption arc stop normalizing forgiving your abusers people don’t have to forgive their abusers no matter if they’re their parents. and choosing not to forgive them doesn’t mean that you’re holding onto this huge anger and it’s holding you back it just means you choose not to associate with them and to keep them away from you and I totally understand that Todoroki technically needs his father to teach him how to improve them but he doesn’t have to forgive him neither do his siblings they have every right to hold endeavor accountable for everything hes done!

30. MY HERO IS AMAZING AND THESE OPINIONS WERE JUS TO HAVE FUN AND MEAN NO HARM!!!! REMINDER THIS IS ALL FOR JOKES AND FOR FUN AND U DONT HAVE TO AGREE!!!!! my hero is one of the best shonen animes up there with the classics like naruto dbz and one piece, and also am i in no way actually criticizing the author lol Horikoshi has more talent on the tips of his finger nails then my whole bloodline will probably ever have lol !

#my hero academia #unpopular thoughts #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #anime #katsuki bakugō

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