#nevermind the war crimes

[spacedebris1993]

I swore off the espark but like why even try to make mr mega idiot likable/right if you were gonna do an abusive dynamic with him and the fly guy. The ethos of this show is all over the fucking place

[fromtheseventhhell]

The fact that so many Daenerys haters now stan Aemond and Aegon II and intensely woobify them.

Proof that people would love everything Dany did if she was a man cause Aegon and Aemond are actually guilty of the things they accuse Dany of and they get a pass. Male characters are always given more grace than female characters but it's crazy how hypocritical those specific groups of stans are

[eorzeashan]

lol @ my parents and specifically my dad being so brainwashed by capitalism that every country that didn't subscribe to its system was always poor and deserved to be and the global south was never ramsacked by america or had any cia coups and i'm making it all up and capitalism is a good and pure system and the incredibly skewed and corrupt and incorrect view of communism they have because of traumatic personal experience is the only fact and ONLY type of communism to ever exist which makes them more qualified to talk about it than thousands of authors and teachers who have both experienced and studied it in an unbiased way for decades with entire degrees. I hate capitalism and the way its poisoned my parents minds so thoroughly that the entire idea of capitalism being a system that everyone is born under and forced to participate in with inherently unfair advantages is impossible to fathom. surely america is just rich because the system works and we were only self sufficient! BECAUSE WE PLUNDERED EVERYONE ELSE?

[cryptic-klepto]

Yall are the Nazi's useful idiots. Block me.

I don't have mutuals because if I give any of you long enough you'll inevitably prove to be Jew Haters. I've blocked half this hellsite because you crypto-fascists masquerading as progressives can't read my pinned post BEGGING you to block me first. "Haha this person posts funny/informative posts. I'll follow them! ...Oh wait they mindlessly eat up nazi and terrorist propaganda like they're fistfuls of shredded cheese direct from the fridge at 2AM. Well nevermind then. Unfollow/blocked." Palestine will not be free or at peace with Israel destroyed and Hamas in control. Hamas has been murdering, raping, and torturing Palestinians for almost 2 decades. On top of that, so many of yall regurgitate nazi conspiracies and blood libel like you are vultures vomiting up worms to feed other mindless pawns of the Far Right. Leftists have been doing more legwork to promote the agenda of fascism than any Proud Boy or Neo-Nazi Gun Club has in years. Do I seem mad? I am mad. I'm mad that those I care about have to start making plans for when their home countries kick them out or hunt them down. For when YOU hunt them down. Not "if." WHEN. They know that they have nowhere to turn but Israel, the one place that has never turned them away. Every single country refused Jewish refugees during World War 2, during to pogroms, during the purges. Every single one. With one exception. Israel. That's why Israel must survive. Because without Israel, the Jewish people may not. They are a remarkably tenacious people, survived everything the world has ever thrown at them. The Romans, the Nazis, the Soviets, everything. But I don't want my loved ones to be in survival mode for every subsequent generation to follow. I want them to be and feel safe. That's what this is about. Safety. Jewish people, AND Palestinians, are being held hostage by Hamas. Women, children, elderly, the disabled. If you want a ceasefire, then they must be released. It's honestly the simplest and easiest demand Israel could make. Return the innocent. And yes they are innocent. They're only crime was not being Hamas, a crime so many of you openly believe deserves the death penalty. You want to free Palestine? Free Palestine from 17 years of Hamas tyranny. Demand that the hostages be released. Only then can their be a ceasefire. You can't expect Israel to just lay down arms while her people are having their heads cut off. Are you stupid or do you just want Jews to die that badly? Don't answer that. Two things can be true. Free Palestine from Hamas. Free Israel from Netanyahu. Release the hostages, negotiate ceasefire. Stop parroting Far Right propaganda. Jump off the bigoted bandwagon. Failing that, STFU and block me. I'm sick of this shit. Eat glass.

[nomomio]

Warning: Blue Eye Samurai season finale spoilers

My mind has been on that final fight betwen Mizu and Fowler. Something I really love about Fowler's reaction to learning Mizu's sex is it wasn't of like. "You're now weaker than me in my eyes". It was amusement. It was in the "oh you just keep getting better". It didn't feel like misogyny. It was an "oh shit plot twist" moment. (Nevermind the weirdly familiar tone in "Little Miss" which is given the capitalization of a proper name).

Fowler is from a post-Queen Elizabeth the First Ireland. He is from a Europe that at this point in history, while gender equality is far from ideal, is intimately familiar with the "classically male" brutality, cunning, and malice women are capable of. That women are just as capable of wanton destruction as men are, even if Edo-era Japanese culture says otherwise. The English Civil War led by Cromwell happened while Fowler was already running his little crime circle in Japan. The events that led to just how mentally messed up he is were a direct result of decisions made under Elizabethan rule. Imagining the rapid fire thoughts running through his head in that moment. Combine all of this with his other "your white side is showing" comment??? (Or whatever the exact quote is) Ugh.

There's a level of admiration in some of his final lines in that scene. Malicious joy. Amusement and desire to provoke the already seething onryō that is Mizu. Mizu being female wasn't a lesser thing to him. It was simply, interesting.

[respectthepetty]

The Loyal Pin - Episode 9

I love that this episode started with one color-coded brother being so happy after a night of partying.

And the other one losing his color because he is internally freaking out trying to convince himself that Anin basically had sex with her best friend on the lawn for everyone and God to see because she was drunk. Keep telling yourself that lie, dear brother. I used that excuse in college too. Alcohol just makes people gay . . . er. Sure, Jan.

But we all know Anin is sexing up her girlfriend, SOBER, so now it's time for a color-coded beach trip, so TV can lie to us again that sex in the sand is romantic and not torturous. However, the skin is awfully soft after rolling around it in for a bit, so I guess beach sex has its perks beyond, you know, it being sex.

But the heteros do not understand the queer agenda and immediately start wrecking Pink Person Pin and Blue Beauty Anin's beach sex plans.

However, Ueangfah is color-coded yellow, and Pranot is in shorts, so even though it's looking bad for the lesbians, the bisexuals are thriving, and the bisexuals are ME!

Shesus Christ! Nevermind, nobody is doing well now that Kuea has shown up IN BLUE! This is actually why I stopped writing this recap because I was livid when I saw this mediocre man wearing Anin's color. The audacity of a cis hetero man will never stop amazing me. It's cool that he picked up that Pin likes her love interest in blue but he missed one important factor in that equation. HE NEEDS TO BE A GIRL! All that money, yet he can't buy a damn clue.

Yet the girls are still trying to Live, Laugh, and Love under these terrible color-coded conditions!

But Aon is playing these color-coded games too in order to get Anin's attention and wearing versions of pink and purple throughout the trip. Basically the love rivals are waging a strategic color-coded war, and if I wasn't so pissed off at them, I'd be really proud of the wardrobe department for acing this assignment and earning its paycheck.

But I AM pissed because these rivals are doing the most to get in between the ladies and make color-coded fetch happen when IT'S NEVER GONNA HAPPEN, GRETCHEN!

One of them even decides to go as far as DROWNING to get attention! This is like the extreme version of "instigating a fight so his hands can be on you" but because we are dealing with lesbians it's "drowning in the beach trip so her lips can be on you." And I know she didn't do it on purpose, but the structural sexism in this scene with all the men refusing to give her CPR because it wasn't proper is why feminism is for EVERYONE! There is nothing inherently sexual about lips touching lips, yet even when SAVING A LIFE, everyone made that shit sexual (INCLUDING PIN!) and I'm looking at a show set in the 50s (60s?) and feeling like it's about 2024, so now I'm pissed about it.

And this is how I know Aon is not showing her true colors because unlike everyone else who has a consistent color, she is flip flopping like those fish she almost drowned with in the water.

But it doesn't matter because now that Aon is out of commission, the girls can get a moment together to try to make beach sex happen. Spoiler: It doesn't happen because Pia is not about that "Be Gay, Do Crime" life (fun fact: public sex on a beach is illegal in most places, like Thailand).

Which means the beach sex is on hold AGAIN because the color-coded brothers must make sure they throw a party (which Pranot does not plan and it's probably why everyone hates it!), and it also means that the love rivals are at it again with the color-coded shenanigans starting with Aon, in purple.

And now Kuea enters in blue.

But my sunshine Ueangfah is looking hella fine and doing her best to bring a smile to Anin's face who is pressed that Pink Person Pin is dancing with Kuea even though it was her own color-coded brother WHO IS A PRINCE that keeps forcing Pin to do this little song-and-dance, literally. I'm gonna grab my girl Ueangfah and head out because she deserves better and by 'better,' I mean me.

Pranot is judging this entire shitshow safely from his seat because 1) he did not plan any of this so this is not his shitshow, and 2) unlike these other men, he knows better than to get in the way of lesbians and beach sex, so he makes sure to keep his ass seated and not ask none of them to dance instead opting to down this awful wine that he knows damn well does not pair well with the food. He is a king among peasants.

But because of the hard work of Prik and Pia, the real VIPs here, the color-coded girls in love finally get beach sex!

AND A PROPOSAL! A sand version of the pink sasa bunny that Anin gave Pin with A 💗 P on it holds the ring that will forever tie Anin to Pin's heart (and will cause them a lot of problems, but those are tomorrow's problem, not today's).

The girls' skin is soft (from beach sex). They are glowing (from beach sex). And they are practically engaged! All is well and they can now live happily ever after.

That is until this Blue Bastard pops back up.

He instantly clocks the ring on Pin's finger and instead of minding his own business, he apparently will make it everyone's problem because the man is determined to marry a lesbian who doesn't love him nor want him, and I am once again standing in front of y'all screaming that feminism benefits everyone including men who think they need a wife to be complete.

Pia and Prik pick up what I'm dropping off, and are backing up their girl in this battle for Pin's hand as they wear blue . . . and orange . . .

And this is where some of y'all really lost your minds because Anin wore yellow thinking it might have been connected to my babygirl Ueangfah, but have no fear because I offered a Wild Ass Theory way back in the second episode.

As the color-coded girls in love age and inherit more adult responsibilities, I think they will incorporate another color.

And those colors are the ones that belong to their mothers.

The girls have been living in a nice little bubble in Pine Palace, but Anin is a princess and Pin is not, so the expectations for their positions in life are coming at them quicker than they want to believe. Pin's mom has mentioned several times that both girls must marry, and Anin's brothers have made similar comments, so even though the girls are growing closer, I think harsh reality is already sneaking into their plans and the colors might be telling us that.

So I think the girls need to be careful or they will turn into the mothers, and because I think Pin's mom is a lesbian who vowed to be the perfect woman rather than love someone else after status tore her and her girlfriend apart, the truth might be closer than I realize, and her color-coded story is similar to the girls in more way than one.

But the colors could all be meaningless, and I could just be crazy. Who knows, you know?

[wantonlywindswept]

adopted baby Guard Din idea that I am never going to write

because it would involve logistics and quiet moments and idle life which I am very down for reading but cannot for the LIFE of me actually sit down and write

So the war ends, Palps is outed as a Sith and an asshole and dies somehow, and the Senate eventually decides that the clones do count as people and thus are allowed to leave the GAR if they want. Give the bureaucrats another few years and they might even give out backpay and citizenship, so long as you stay in the service--wait what do you mean the entire Guard is resigning. What do you mean they've already left orbit?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE NOW MILLIONS OF FILES ON THE HOLONET ABOUT THE SENATE'S SHADY DEALINGS???

Guard, collectively: lol cya suckers

Fox is of course one of the last ones out, and since this was all planned on the down low, everyone's been split into groups so they can take commercial flights, since they're not about to be accused of stealing ships. (They also leave their weapons and their armor behind, in a giant macabre pile in the middle of Corrie HQ. Even their helmets, their faces, they discard: it's time for a rebirth.)

He and Thorn and a few other Corries have a stopover on some tiny station, waiting a week for a delayed transport to arrive, and in the meantime they're approached by some locals who just fled the planet below. Separatist remnants attacked their homes, forcing them to leave everything and everyone behind; can the big strong clones do anything about it?

The Big Strong Clones: Oh shit we finally get to kick some Seppie ass? Sign us the FUCK up.

The eager group does not include Fox, who could not care less about the Separatists and would very much like to finally catch up on his sleep. Unfortunately that means that the group that goes down to the planet is Unsupervised.

(Thorn does not count as supervision. Thorn, bereft of Senate oversight, has finally allowed his Inner Chaos Gremlin to fully emerge. Thorn needs more supervision than the shinies.)

Thorn, three days later, waking Fox from half-hearted sleep by dropping an entire natborn child on him: Hey boss, look what we found! None of the refugees claimed him, so we called dibs. Can we keep him? Fox, staring at the child: ...

Din, staring back: ...

Fox: ...no..?

Din: *sad but understanding big brown eyes*

Fox: Nevermind this is my child now.

Din has gone from two parents to one parent and hundreds of overprotective brothers.

Eventually his group makes it to their destination, Din in tow. I am uncertain of what the destination is but it is a planet that is as far away from Coruscant that the Corries could find. I am tempted for Tatooine not because I like Tatooine (I share Anakin's loathing of sand and deserts) but because Luke's description of Tatooine in ANH was 'if there's a bright center to the universe, this is the planet the furthest from'. 

Corries, hearing that: Fuck it sounds perfect. 

Anyway they make it to Tatooine, there is probably purchasing of some shitty land/buildings that nobody wants out in the wastes bc crime, scum, villainy, etc, but it's not like they have problems taking care of anything that tries to mess with them. 

Where did they get the funds?

Shh don't ask about it.

Stone takes up moisture farming. Thire takes up farming-farming. Thorn shoots gleefully at anything that shows up unannounced within a ten-mile radius. Literally everybody dotes on Din. There are a surprising amount of peaceful days.

Eventually some dumb shiny goes: Hey don't kids need friends? Shouldn't we set up some playdates for him or something?

The shiny is not called dumb for asking the question, but they are called dumb for thinking that the question would only ever be taken rhetorically. Fox disappears for two weeks and then comes back with a black eye and a yowling hissing Boba tucked under one arm, looking stupidly pleased with himself.

(Boba is also pleased to be back with people he knows will keep him safe. Boba will not admit to this under threat of death or dismemberment. Boba is a SERIOUS SCARY ADULT BOUNTY HUNTER.)

Boba also decides he will be Mortal Enemies with Din, which after about ten minutes of meeting him morphs into If Anyone Hurts Din I Will Kill Everyone In This Room And Then Myself because all clones be the same, really.

Din has gained another brother/bestie. (Or potential future boyfriend, whichever floats your boat.)

Somehow they still end up overthrowing the Hutts.

Officially the GAR knew and knows nothing about the Guard leaving Coruscant as soon as the metaphorical paint was dry on their sentient status.

Unofficially Fox's batch harangues him every single day for photos of his new kid(s). They eventually show up unannounced, demanding time with their nephew. (They are shot at by Thorn.)

Din gains five new uncles.

The batch proudly show pics and holos to their battalions. Din gains millions of new uncles.

Fox finally gets a full night's sleep.

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin Ep2: "Inside Man" Breakdown

(Previous episode)

I think so much of this episode, to me, was about identity in our characters. And with Oz, you get to see all these different moments, all these different faces that he puts on, literally. You have the charmer at the party. You have the double agent, the two-faced liar. You have the man who's kind of, like, sucking it to Sofia, and trying to get in her good graces. You have honest Oz with Victor and how he's able to just be himself because he's let Victor into his life that way. And then you have the comforting Oz, which is with his mother.

And on the flipside we have Sofia, who is also in this place of identity, where she's come out of prison, she has the Hangman name connected to her. And society is telling her who she is, and her family is telling her who she is, and she's trying to define who she is within her family and within her place. And now that she's lost Alberto, she's lost a big part of her identity. The one person who truly loved her and stood by her side.

Like, we wanted this episode to really explore all the different pieces of these echaracters, and then also just to feel chaotic because with Oz - He's just like, a hair ahead of the next thing that goes wrong, and has to switch, you know, from moment to moment, so...

AMY: Yeah it's almost like he's the cartoon coyote who runs off over the cliff, but if he keeps pedaling, maybe he can pull this off. - -The Penguin Official Podcast, episode 2

Back when the first episode dropped, I had a friend reach out to me (a friend who, up until this point, never so much as entertained the idea of a Penguin not played by Danny DeVito) and tell me that it was shocking to see The Penguin painted as a sympathetic character, that the show went through such lengths to humanize the character and get us on his side and whatnot. Which, true, is part of what it's doing, I imagine a lot of people had a similar response. It is pretty great, then, that this episode is almost precision constructed to slap you in the face for thinking "oh this dude ain't so bad" after the first one, what a scumbag piece of shit Oswald is in this one, I love it

I get the sense that what's left of the plans they may have had for an Arkham series are gonna be coming through a bit in Sofia's arc, already establishing right off the bat what a ghastly place Arkham Asylum is, scar tissue on Sofia's soul that won't leave her alone.

Calling it right now that we're gonna pan upwards in the dream and see Oz shooting Alberto as soon as Sofia finds out.

I'm glad that they've made efforts to avoid dumb namechecks and references for the sake of it so I'm pretty confident Sofia's weird therapist won't turn out to be like, Jonathan Crane in disguise or secretly named Harlan Quinzel or something, but everyone's in unanimous agreement that this dude is sketchy as fuck and something is up with him. Dr Julian Rush is a supervillain name, nevermind the hypnosis lights and his behavior and that painting that looks like it was plucked straight out of The Riddler: Year One. You can make a Batman universe as grounded in realism as possible and Gotham City will still have cartoonishly ominous medical professionals.

"This man is a dog. But a dog can be made submissive." Spoken like everyone who's ever employed Oswald Cobb for anything. I like how Nadia and Sofia have the exact same view of Oz and where they think they stand with him.

Fuck yeah, Shohreh Aghdashloo, I was so excited when I heard she was announced for this, loved her in Mrs. Davis. The only problem with Clancy Brown and Shohreh Aghdashloo together on screen playing husband and wife mafiosos is that it should be incredibly hard to root for anyone else. If this wasn't the Penguin show, I would be extremely bummed out at anyone but them winning this gang war.

I really love this show turning not just Sal Maroni, but the Maroni Crime Family, into this totally distinct thing from the Falcones, I love the little tale they spin in the post-credits video about how these two met and exchanged their cultures and how Maroni formed his entire power base around her Persian gang and that's the gang that they form in Gotham nowadays. I would love it even if it was just an excuse to have Aghdashloo on the show, which it is, but it's also one of the many interesting nuggets of worldbuilding that they're adding here. It's also nice to have asian/middle-eastern characters in Gotham that aren't connected to the fucking League of Shadows, no connections to Fu Manchu and ninja squads and whatever.

In fact none of this Long Halloween/Falcone/Maroni shit has ever been as interesting as it is here in this saga, actually why bullshit around, most if not all of it has never been interesting period. Because this abstains so hard from using all the Batman comic elements people will turn up to the movies for, it has to make soup out of all the usually extremely barebones elements of regular Gotham crime, so that you will be invested in stuff involving like, Johnny Viti and so on, and it works, they're real characters now. This has to make people out of these guys like nobody's ever had to or tried before.

In fact here's another example of where the approach this universe takes to realism works: It's the first time in the show that anyone's ever said the word Penguin, and it's the first time anyone in this universe has called him Penguin to his face. Batman and Gordon kept calling him that amongst themselves, but never in direct conversation with him (closest they get is calling him a stool pigeon). And obviously you get why nobody does that openly to him, it's a crude and offensive way to refer to his disability, so obviously most people are not gonna call him that where he can hear it, especially when he already has a nickname via "Oz". So when Johnny Viti steps out here out of the blue and calls him "Penguin!", you get holy shit, what the fuck is your problem. Instantly communicates the sheer disdain and disrespect, and crucially the power over Oz, that this guy has to be calling him that in public like this. And you get to feel Oz bottling up the rage he takes at that offense. They don't have to make a thing of it, it lasts like a second, but it's a harsh reminder of how much that name stings, and so it gains weight like it never really had before.

Ah, the lovely Sopranos school of playing licensed music to signal people are about to die horribly, can't get enough of it.

I love that two episodes in the show has already established an extremely fitting routine for how Penguin does things: he spends a long time prepping schemes and setting up dominos to fall so he can ascend in the ranks, everything blows up, and then he has to scrape and struggle to slip away from the fire via additional long-term schemes and spur-of-the-moment bullshit and sheer luck, ultimately succeeding in securing an advantage but also putting himself in greater risk. Everything he does is the next step in a master plan and him shooting himself in the foot, it's just perfectly Penguin. Even when he wins, he still loses, and vice versa.

Of course Oz used to be a barback who bullshitted his way into becoming a driver with a stolen car, and of course his old boss just happened to be a rat who got shot in the head. Who would have guessed that Oz' boss got killed, just like his old boss, and his old boss that came after that one. We can talk about a lot of the ways in which Penguin emerged practically fully formed in his debut, but it turns out there was another one I had neglected. From his first appearence to 83 years later, dude just cannot stop killing his bosses.

Oz's relationship with his mother continues to be fascinating and heartbreaking and I dread how much hurt this is gonna pile on the two of them and us alike as audience members.

Oz planting Castillo was so fucking scummy and also so much smarter. Of course if he planted Viti people would be onto him because of the attack, of course Viti still had enough room to defend himself especially with the Maronis seizing Oz's blackmail. Nobody would suspect Castillo, and nobody would look deep into Castillo, and Castillo being gone only isolates Sofia enough to drive her right into Team Penguin.

"We all gotta make sacrifices, pal"

Love Sofia's tiger suit, love Sofia's wardrobe here in general.

When I say that the Falcones/Maronis/etc have never been a tenth as interesting as they are here I am very much including Sofia in this. I like Sofia Gigante as a design, but even when I assumed nothing terribly interesting would be done with Sofia here, I still said they had very good reasons to not replicate that design here, and this episode illustrates another one: Sofia Gigante is not someone people would dismiss and badmouth within earshot of her. Nobody sensible would dare not give her the reigns of the family if she wanted them. Sofia Gigante is not really a character so much as she's a menace for Batman/Two-Face to be up against. She is the inscrutable monster that Gotham City has projected onto this Sofia and is already treating her as.

Sofia isn't just dealing with the struggle of being a woman left alone in a fiercely patriarchal hierarchy as well as mental illness without proper support and with her peers ostracizing her with disdain and fear (and over something she may not even have actually done), she is dealing with the fact that society has branded her a Batman Villain and treating her as such. She is the scary new threat to be afraid of in Gotham, the psycho in the papers, the latest mutant atrocity born from corruption and crime, denied dignity and personhood at every turn and thus driving her to salvage what little she can in the only way she can, the only way anyone in Gotham can: turning the tables and exherting power and fear over others instead.

Best exemplified by that scene with her friend and that little girl. She's approached for the first time since she returned by someone who's treating her as a friend and a peer, talking about casual friend things that she hasn't heard in ages, and then one little interaction drives a veiled knife the deepest into Sofia's heart, so in turn she drives one back, and flaunts the power she has as a monster.

Love that scene where they bring Evrad to her and she's very clearly upset at having her brother's wake interrupted / reminiscing the way Alberto was brought to her on the back of a car, but deciding fuck it, bring him to the basement. Love all the ways this episode establishes Sofia as our other protagonist moving forward.

Kay could see how Michael stood to receive their homage. He reminded her of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity, who, by divine right, held the power of life and death over their fellow men - The Godfather, by Mario Puzo

Greatly enjoyed this reversal of The Godfather ending shot they've done with her, the don closing the door on the woman excluded, except we're inside the room the whole time as it closes, and it is she who is framed by opulent surroundings, it is she who gets to be framed in comparison to Roman statues the way Michael Corleone was in the book. We know who is the real don of this family framed behind the closed door.

"I'm not safe. I'm home."

I know Vengeance is not showing up here, but now I actually do want to see an interaction between the two of them. Prince and princess of the city, the broken children of Arkham, grappling with a loss that's hollowed them out and an intertwined city-reshaping legacy and a separate name consuming every facet of their life. She isn't even really a Batman villain here and I already think she's an excellent Batman villain.

For so much of her life up to this point, all she had to do was endure the nightmare only so long as it took to rejoin her brother and return safe to the protection of the family, in the kingdom which belonged to them. And now her brother is gone, murdered by someone within the family, the kingdom stones her at every turn, and she has no one to count on but the family dog nipping on her heels.

On some level, she knows he can't be trusted, she knows he's lying, but there's nobody else on her side left. Nothing else to lose. She's fallen, and in the bottom she can now join the man who's been there for as long as she's known him Or at least, the man who used to be at the bottom, because now he's got someone else to be there instead.

Topping off the episode we get this snippet of Oz at his most openly monstrous so far, in appearence as he looms down on Victor and in attitude towards him, and it's delightfully fucked that for all intents and purposes, this is still him playing nice. Because even still, he's not just being cruel for cruel's sake, he's trying to get Victor to wake up, trying to teach him a lesson so he can stop choking and get used to the corpses, because this is what it's like to be The Penguin's Robin. That he has a motive to be doing this doesn't make it any less of a horrible fucking thing to do, and it doesn't make it any less cruel, because it isn't just about reprimanding Victor and teaching him a lesson, is it? Nothing's only ever one thing with Oz.

Not when he starts off saying "Lay down, where you belong". Not when he's taking the moment to vent about how Carmine treated him in the same breath he's comparing his relationship to Carmine with the one Vic has with him. You can’t have power over someone without putting them down, without demeaning them. Somebody's gotta be at the bottom. Somebody's gotta dig up the grave. And to the rest of the Falcones, that is still Oz, but now there's someone else down there in the shit and Oz is the one putting him there.

I think maybe my favorite thing about this episode, in terms of how it contrasts the previous one, is that everything Oz does here to get ahead is predicated on exploiting/backstabbing people who are on the same position he's in, if not lower. It's easy to root for the guy when he shoots Alberto Falcone, and desperately selling out some random kid to buy himself seconds to live against Sofia is not ideal but hardly that damning. But this episode ups the ante by giving Oz a bodycount of 5-8 people, most of which are directly and even gruesomely murdered by him, and all of them were people in the same position he's in that relied on him.

The guys at the truck that used to work with him at the warehouse and were laughing at his jokes seconds before ("Oz you fucking traitor!"), Ervad the Maroni ally who played his part at the truck hijacking and was willing to sell out Viti even under risk of death, Castillo the guy whose testimony bought him goodwill before Sofia, none of these are people Oz has any kind of moral highground over, none of these are the people keeping Oz down, none of these people had revenge coming their way (...I mean okay Castillo did torture Oz last episode under Sofia's orders, but nothing Oz did to him here was motivated by that), and none of that mattered. You could also argue he's backstabbing Eve and the girls, even if not intentionally - he gave her name to Sofia as an alibi, Eve has no idea how right she is to be scared of Sofia finding out and how much Oz is bullshitting all of them.

Victor's yet to figure out that being on Oz' good side, making jokes with him and doing what he asks and having his back, will not save you from being killed for him or by him if that's what it takes for him to survive. Like he says in one of the promos: No such thing as good or evil, only survival.

Working 9 to 5 was a perfect anthem to close out the first episode and to associate with Oz, but one that's stuck in my head even more is the one used to close out this episode, the Floor Cry cover of Happy Together. It feels like such a perfect song to close out this episode and herald the start of Sofia Falcone's new journey, it's her theme and it stuck with me.

Out of all the things I could have expected about The Penguin going in, Sofia Falcone becoming one of my favorite Batman characters was definitely not one of them. She can strangle and torture whoever she wants, who cares, god forbid women do anything.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

I've said all of this stuff already but I'm pissed rn and it's therapeutic to type it out:

Maul's presence on Mandalore in TCW s7 is NOT a priority. The political situation on Mandalore, while shitty, has been the same for the civilian population since s5, with or without Maul there. Things can wait a bit.

Sure, capturing Maul is possibly time sensitive (since they don't know how long he'll be on-planet), but taking back Mandalore isn't. If Maul leaves before they show up the planet is just as easy to take. Bo-Katan is using his presence as an incentive because she doesn't have the necessary forces to win, whether or not he's there. The situation is only urgent for her because if Maul leaves then the Republic has no reason to help her cause. The situation is not urgent for Mandalore because, again, it's been the same for basically a year - Maul's presence has little impact on the people, his forces are the problem and they have never left.

The Republic didn't "refuse" to help after s5, they just had no more reason to. Almec is still legitimately Prime Minister (accepted by the people) and Mandalore is an independent sovereign system that has spent actual years refusing outside interference. The second Maul bails "helping" goes back to being called "invading".

Capturing Maul is also not even a priority to the Republic (Republic =/= Jedi Order) because Palpatine ordered the Jedi to stop bothering with him in s5. Officially Maul is 'just' a crime lord, and he's not allied with the Separatists or even attacking the Republic. It's well established in TCW that the Jedi don't have the manpower to deal with the underworld anymore. What's the point of dismantling black markets and crime rings if the planet gets bombed into oblivion the next day? Priorities.

The Jedi can't do what they want with Republic resources. As awful as it is, the Clones belong to the Republic. The Jedi can be ordered to pull out of a situation whenever the Senate pleases. (see above)

Capturing Maul (what would be the Jedi's goal going to Mandalore) would really best be accomplished somewhere he doesn't have all his forces backing him up (again, confronting there is for Bo-Katan's benefit because her own goal isn't just to capture Maul but to beat his forces which she wants the Republic to do for her)

The Battle of Coruscant is ABSOLUTELY a pivotal point in the war and the main priority. The second the Separatists show up above the Republic's central seat of power? The political and military capital? The most densely populated planet in the Galaxy? It's time to drop literally everything else. The Senate is there. The Temple is there. A LOT of their troops are stationed there. There are hundreds of thousands of billions of people living there. Even pulling forces out of allied worlds to go help Coruscant wouldn't be a dick move, just a desperate one - nevermind waiting to send troops to a neutral-on-a-good-day-and-more-or-less-enemy-the-rest-of-the-time world.

The Jedi don't even refuse to help.

They don't.

Why am I typing all of this to defend their refusal to help? They don't refuse to help.

Obi-Wan wants to take a hot minute to THINK ABOUT the implications of going guns blazing into neutral sovereign territory to confront a dude who has an extremely personal vendetta against him and is known to set traps of precisely this kind. (And Obi-Wan is right to consider these things because HEY! IT IS A TRAP! MAUL SLAUGHTERS A BUNCH OF CLONES AS A BREADCRUMBS TRAIL TO LEAD SOMEONE HE HOPES TO BE OBI-WAN INTO A TRAP!)

Obi-Wan also answers to the rest of Council, just like every other Council member. Bo-Katan gets pissy that he's not giving an answer right that instant because SHE needs Maul to still be there, but thinking things through is literally Obi-Wan's job description.

And after all this, after the attack on Coruscant and the political considerations, THE JEDI DON'T EVEN REFUSE TO HELP.

The Mandalorian traditionalists' favorite pastime is attempting to kill Jedi. Not too long ago, Bo was right there when Pre was trying to kill Obi-Wan. And then trying to kill Ahsoka. And then allying with the Sith (who notoriously want to kill all the Jedi) on two separate occasions (Dooku and Maul). The Mandos PRIDE THEMSELVES on hating the Jedi. There has never been in canon an instance of a Prequels-era Mando warrior helping a Jedi out for altruistic motives.

Bo-Katan is appealing to the Order's decency (saying that her people suffer etc etc) but she doesn't even have the honesty to couch it as a real, desperate plea for help. Instead she presents the situation as transactional, as though she was bringing anything concrete onto the table. If the Republic comes in, takes Mandalore for her and captures Maul, she has contributed to the effort how, exactly? What has she given the Republic? How many people fight for her is left pretty vague but we really don't see that many of them. Plus it's her planet. Fighting for it isn't her giving the Republic anything, it's still her helping herself. And yet she gets incredibly pissed when Obi-Wan takes time to examine the 'deal.'

In light of the two previous arguments, the Jedi would in fact have been perfectly justified in telling Bo to eat some freaking humble pie.

THE JEDI. DON'T REFUSE. TO HELP.

Sure it's Obi-Wan specifically who okays the operation, before the rest of the Council can make a decision, but do they order the troops to pull out afterwards? Nope. Do they sanction him? Nope.

They do help.

They really shouldn't have let Bo-Katan in charge but hey, they get all massacred after that and the Republic's backing is literally what gives Bo-Katan legitimacy in the eyes of many clans for decades after (see the Protectors' position in Rebels. Her legitimacy stems from SATINE'S and the Republic apparently backing her up as Satine's heir. It's not from kicking Maul out.)

(I love Bo-Katan as a character but as a person she's. huh. a lot. She changed from outright villain to morally gray character because the villains got a lot worse not bc she got better lmo)

So the Jedi absolutely did help afgfdsdfgfdsdfd why are people getting pissy about Obi-Wan - who has a complicated history with Mandalore that involves a loved one getting murdered in front of his eyes by Maul - hesitating to help

They really didn't refuse to help.

They really had every reason to

It would have been perfectly reasonable in fact

Yeah they have a mandate to protect innocent people but there were a lot more innocent people on Coruscant

Innocent people who did want their help instead of yelling GTFO every time they showed up

Because the Mando civilians sure didn't want them there

Oh and also? They didn't refuse to help

[pumpacti0n]

Reading the room

"A prevailing sentiment is that now is not the time to criticize Biden because SCOTUS & the Heritage Foundation have declared war on the left & Project 2025 - the White male Christian Evangelist mission - which was, in part, tested on a few African regimes in exchange for "aid" - is finally coming home to roost, so "vote blue no matter who!"

We should seemingly ignore every lie, every 2000 lb. bomb, every weapon shipment, and the literal piles of dead & obliterated bodies we've seen every day for the past nine months because if we criticize Biden or point out the Dem party's complicity in genocide, it will complicate what we must defend against in November.

Nevermind the illegal settlements and land grabs in the West Bank, the torture and abuse of Palestinian hostages, nevermind the under-counted death toll, the expanding war, the disdain for international law, the ceasefire ploys to continue the genocide, the lies direct from the president's mouth, nevermind the added funds that Biden and democratic mayors across the country are giving to militarize the police and build Cop Cities because November is just around the corner.

Now is not the time to point out what Dr. King, Assata Shakur, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture and so many of our revered elders have told us about "liberals", or to bring up Fannie Lou Hamer's "Nobody is free until everybody is free", or to point out that Biden is opposed to expanding the court, or that the Dem Party elite endorsed candidates to run against Black progressives that called for a ceasefire, or that actual climate defenders have abandoned Biden, or that he has "green-lit" more oil drilling than his right-wing predecessor...

The prevailing sentiment is that we should forgo any leverage we may have as voters, that this is no time to demand more from our handlers, we should let them kill or exploit as many Palestinians, Congolese, Haitians, South & Central Americans and Asians as they want because we got an election coming up in November and if we don't ignore what these same blue folks are doing in our names outside of the country and vote blue, the red ones are gonna take away our rights at home.

Now is not the time to educate voters on the Dem Party's center right policies or to point out how a coalition of progressive 3rd party candidates could carve a path for citizens to actually achieve the policies they dream of and break the corporate hegemony, or to point out how a mass social movement, already underway, could be mobilized to force the power out of the hands of those who hold it over our heads, pointing to what we should fear from the other side, while making zero concessions to our demands.

Now is not the time to make demands or correlations between the fight against the gender binary & the readily accepted political party binary. Now is not the time to educate, push, or think, now is the time to fear!

Now is not the time to point out that Black Americans comprise 25% of the world's prison population and that the policies that imprisoned them were drawn up by Biden and imposed by Clinton. Now is not the time to bring up the Clinton's involvement in Haiti, or Obama's war crimes in the Middle East. Now is not the time to bring up the Middle East or America's imperial agenda readily endorsed by both parties or to acknowledge it as part of white supremacist ideology.

Now is not the time to learn any lessons from the "mask-off" moment that would align anti-Zionism with antisemitism, or to question the US military's role as the world's largest fossil fuel consumer, or to question what game the Biden administration is playing with Israeli billionaires to facilitate greater mineral extraction in the Congo. Now is not the time to think globally or to connect the dots between what its imposed on the global majority for our so-called comforts at home.

Now is not the time to understand what LandBack means in relation to climate, colonialism, genocide or to make any amends, right any wrongs, redirect our agendas, beat down corporate or foreign lobbies...No, no, no! Now is the time to fear.

Now is not the time to hear how you sound, to point out how you got got, to remind you that you could actually transform society if you decided to hold a meeting tonight, to call your friends and family, to organize, create think tanks, food banks, community policing organizations* that force out the men in blue (the silent partners in your ..."no matter who" slogans).

Now is not the time to point out that the bloodbath you're avoiding is already overflowing with blood, that your self-centered focus is exactly what the bloodthirsty expect from you so that they can carry on with business as usual, or that you've allowed fear to diminish your concerns to the point of voting for business as usual."

[source]

[ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her]

It's gonna be fascinating seeing Miorine work through her cognitive dissonance. Because, like, the girl's been studying at a military school and is the heir presumptive to a military tech company, nevermind that she very much considered using her own company to make walking war crimes. In the abstract, she's very desensitized to violence and brutality. But now suddenly it's not just words and statistics and investment reports, now it's a man turned to pulp in front of her in a heartbeat and sprayed across her face, and the person she cares about most being surprised that this bothers her.

I wonder who she's gonna be once she sorts all that out.

[kokoa-la]

This is a snippet of the first chapter to my fic Robin Hood (reference to this post)

A Crow's Murder

Danny was thoroughly exhausted. Ever since he died, he could never seem to catch a break. At all. Even as a 20 year old civilian, life wanted to punch him in the face- repeatedly. Sure, he may have been stealing from labs at night (Wayne industries included) but they had tons of money for replacements! Look, ghost hunting without using his ghost powers was tough, especially when the entirety of the Fenton labs went up in flames. The only thing he had on him when he left was a blaster and a thermos, not enough for the jobs he was trying to accomplish. He really wasn’t a criminal! It was all for the greater good! He swears it! Heroes break the law to save people all the time, how is he any different? (They’re not fugitives with entire government branches after them).

Still, he didn’t want to leave Gotham just because the Bats were getting closer on his tail. He was doing so well at not using his powers, even learned how to lock pick so he avoided walking through walls! Sam would 100% be proud of him and his hard work at fucking over large corporations and unethical research.

Anyways, his little Bat problem is what led to his current situation, moving apartments into Crime alley, specifically Red Hood’s territory. When he first got to Gotham and accidentally hobbled inside he immediately ‘Noped’ right out of there. First off, the vibes were retched. Second, he knew a warning sign in aura if he ever saw one, and the border between uptown Gotham and this was blaring red lights and sirens screaming “STAY OUT”, and Danny knew how to listen to directions like that. Sadly, now he was left with no choice.

Batman had been patrolling around where he lives a little too much recently. Normally, the clan would take turns patrolling certain areas at certain times for safety, but not recently. Danny knew they were catching onto him. His ghostliness messed with cameras when he let his aura loose, but it didn’t erase the fact that the footage existed. He knew they didn’t have a clear picture of him or his abilities, but they knew he existed and knew he was a phantom thief, and that was enough. Danny no longer questioned their titles as ‘best detectives in the world’. After all, they were giving him a run for his money.

Moving to Crime Alley was indeed the best option, though. Danny had analyzed the bats and their movements ever since he moved here a year ago at 19. He knew that after Red Hood had his whole war with them, they backed off of the area and the haunt finally settled as the vigilante’s territory. Now, a few years after that, the bats left the area alone except for special circumstances during major events. That meant that the safest option for the halfa right now, was to walk into the lion’s den and pray he wasn’t hungry.

.

.

.

Maybe he shouldn’t have started thieving this soon-

Currently, he was being chased to hell high waters by Red Hood and his two guns affectionately named. To be fair, he didn’t even get to actually steal anything, so technically he wasn’t breaking the law. Sure, he broke into a VladCo. Lab and went rummaging through the computers using tuckers parting gift to him- but that didn’t make him a criminal. Honestly, he was offended, didn’t even get to trash the place as a ‘fuck you’ to Vlad. The man deserved it after the shit he pulled ever since Danny turned 14. The man had disappeared like his parents, and while it was concerning, Danny couldn’t help but be glad he was gone.

“Stop!”

A robotic voice called after him from a few feet behind. How Red Hood was so large and still this fast was beyond him. Nevermind the fact that he felt dead, but not. He wasn’t necessarily a halfa, but he did have that ‘totally died and didn’t revive right’ vibes to him that just gave him a chill.

Danny didn’t answer him, just continued running for his life and jumping between buildings. Maybe he did use his powers a bit to make landings easier and make up for his obvious lack of experience or skill, no one could call him out on it.

He had just wanted information on where the man had gone. While he was thankful for the somewhat peace, Vlad disappearing always meant bad news. Worse if he was in danger and caught by the GIW. There were reports of Vlad being seen at some of the Wayne Galas, but that was half a year ago, no word since. He’d hate to say it, but he was worried. Sure, he hated the man’s guts- he was a total fruitloop and only got worse over time, but he was the first halfa, and whether Danny admitted it or not he learned a lot from him. Sue him for being a little concerned, if not for Plasmius, then for himself. The GIW having any ghost was bad news for him. Live research only spelled bad news. 

The lab was practically no help. The only thing the computers contained were some schematics for his equipment in the basement, but none of it was the real dangerous stuff like the portal or even cloning pods. Danny was still happy he got the chance to destroy the lab and all the tech in it, he loved Dani, but he didn’t think he could handle another clone dying or destabilizing. Dani was in the Ghost Zone, exploring and mapping out all of its locations. He didn’t know what he’d do if she got caught in the crossfires of this war. 

Danny jumped from one roof to another, he had to keep to buildings close to each other. Unlike Red Hood, he didn’t have a grappling hook to bring him across streets. He didn’t want to alert Batman of his not-totally-human status. Best case scenario he thought he was a meta who could fly and would do his whole ‘no metas in Gotham’ spiel. Worst case scenario he figured out Danny was a powerful ghost who happened to be a fugitive from the government and would turn him in. From then on Danny didn’t know what they’d do to him, but he’d never tell them how to build the portal. That information died with him and him alone. 

By the time he heard bullets going past him and a rubber one hitting him square in the shoulder, he knew he had to get gone. Danny had already ran past his new home, any farther and he’d have to use his powers way longer than normal. Slowly the two had gone up in height between buildings, by now if he fell off the side he’d get at least severely injured, but that height was nothing to his flight. Danny waited another minute before speeding up and widening the distance between them before ‘slipping’ and falling down the side of the building rather ungracefully. 

By the time Red Hood caught up, Danny was gone. 

___________________________________________

Here's the link to the fic! A Crow's Murder

@dat1angel @redhoneysugarorange @easily-broken-by-emotion @summerfox1988 @bathildaburp @collectingthegoods @ravenr22 @strawberryfire17 @idontgetpaidenoughforthisshit

[spopsalt]

Ignoring the fact Adora DID ask Catra to go with her, why is Adora 'abandoning' Catra a bad thing? She left because THE HORDE IS EVIL and attacking innocent people! It doesn't matter how close Adora and Catra's relationship was, their interpersonal relationship should not be used as a morality litmus. IDC if they're literal soulmates, Adora leaving the Horde and Catra (who clearly sides with the Horde) is a GOOD THING. Its an ANGSTY scene emotional wise, but their emotions shouldn't be used to decide if Adora is a good person or if she did the right thing. She DID. It was 100% the morally good and correct thing to do. Adora did absolutely nothing wrong.

It bugs me so so much that people equate the effect that scene had on Catra to actually judging Adora. Its so messed up. Just because Catra was torn up about it doesnt mean what Adora did was wrong. Why did this fandom prioritize Adora's personal relationship and Catra's feelings over the anti-war message? It wouldn't bug me so much if this take is strangely common AND the show seems to agree with the fandom too.

I hate how this show uses a very important topic such as war and use it as a background dresser and decide on whether or not someone is good is by using their interpersonal relationship with other characters instead of what they DO (ex: Shadow Weaver. She was one of the few characters who actually took the damn war seriously but oh since she abused Catra she's irredeemable, nevermind that the damage Catra had done to the ENTIRETY of Etheria in the span of the entire show was even worse than what SW did. Its sickening)

Exactly! Adora left her abusive environment, which is better for her overall mental health, if Catra did always love Adora like she claims, she would put Adora's mental health over her own selfish wants. Like did she seriously expect Catra to stay in the horde and commit war crimes with her sister? Do fans really want Adora to stay in the horde so she can commit war crimes and spare her abusive sister's feelings? I do not get it.

[archduchessofnowhere]

I’m seeing your rewatching posts of Die Kaiserin and after you fully rewatch I would honestly love to hear a rant comparison of how inaccurate the show is compared to real life. Like I’m seriously invested

Hi! Honestly if I make a "side by side" comparison of all the inaccuracies this answer would be 20k words long jgkglj. I feel that sometimes I come off as too obnoxious pointing out every little inaccuracy so I tried to do that a little less in this rewatch, and instead focused on which I believe are the biggest issues.

Personally, I think the problem with Die Kaiserin's inaccuracies is that they betray a completely lack of understanding of the history and the people they are adapting. It's not just that they changed dates or that they aged up characters or that the women wear corsets on their bare skin (all things that bother me too); is that the characters are so different to their historical counterparts that they are practically unrecognizable. Just to list a few of the crimes of this series' characterizations:

Elisabeth is no longer an introverted and sensitive teen girl who suddenly becomes empress and can't adapt to her new role, she's an outspoken, defiant young woman (her age in never mentioned but Devrim Lingnau just can't pass as a fifteen years old) who is more compassionate and clever and better than every single other woman in this series. She is just so Different and Not Like The Other Girls!

Franz Josef is a weak willed ruler who is easily manipulated by his mother and is apparently uncapable of assert his authority. Nevermind that the real FJ ruled as an absolute monarch since he was 18, and never allowed anyone near him to have too much influence.

Archduke Maximilian, FJ's liberal, romantic brother is turned into a womanizer bad boy who wants to steal his brother's throne and wife. Since he has no political leanings to speak of in this series, it's not really clear why he even wants to be emperor, funsies?

Archduchess Sophie was always going to get the short end of the stick, as the idea that she was a mother-in-law from hell is very prevalent in fiction and nonfiction. But this show takes it to a new level: she isn't an strict mother-in-law, she's cartoonishly evil. She orders executions and arrests (withouth his son's consent!), she threatens to lockdown Elisabeth forever if she doesn't agree to divorce FJ! She disdains her sons and calls them weak! (nevermind that the real Sophie adored all her children)

And I could go on with the rest of the supporting characters, but my point is: I don't know who these people are, they resemble their historical counterparts in name only.

And I guess I could forgive that if the series was at least an entretaining court drama, but honestly I just think that on top of being inaccurate, it is very dull as well. There's a whole episode set at a wedding party, and if well done I like this sort of "real time" episodes, but in this case I was terribly bored because nothing of note happened (oh no Elisabeth saw FJ's former mistress among the guests! She will now walk around asking people if they know who the woman is for the next thirty minutes). In fact the pacing is so bad that season 1 may take place in the span of three months for all we know.

Also practically all the conflicts this season are fictional too: Elisabeth not getting pregnant (false, she became pregnant two months after her wedding at most), Max planning a coup on his brother (false, Max loved his brother and would never do something against him), FJ wanting to build a rail but the evil conservative ministers being against it because they want to go to war (false, there wasn't opposition to industrialization - Austria's neutrality in the Crimean war had nothing to do with that), and so on.

Ultimately I think that if you know nothing (but like, absolutely nothing) of the real history you may enjoy this show as a soap opera (because the fictional love triangle gets a lot of screentime), because Die Kaiserin is really not the serious period drama it seems to believe it is.

[weatherman667]

Dems: Try to assassinate Trump, convict him of not crimes and not torts, try to financially ruin him with an excuse so terribly, his creditors supported him, and committed treason against him to keep the forever war going.

Dems: If Trump gets elected, he's going to try and lock us up.

Voters: Yes, because everything you did is a crime.

Dems: What about Black men? Do you know what Trump is going to do to you?

Black Men: You tried to lock him up for paying off his side-ho. That could have been me.

Dems: What about the Latinx community?

Latinos: STOP - CALLING - US - LATINX!

Dems: What about women?

Women: I have children to feed, and my grocery bill tripling makes that a little difficult.

Dems: What about White Men?

White Cucks for Harris: *tries to speak*

Dems: Nevermind, we don't need to hear your white rage and white fragility. You've spoken over minorities often enough.

[willow-springpaw592]

My thoughts on the newest main story quests, some positive and some...slightly on the fence:

First of all, I like that Linda is shown to actually have a backbone and will snap back at people if they insult her. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but for a while it seemed like she was just the token intelligent one of the group who never got into conflicts. So I really liked seeing her stand up for herself this time against the dark riders!

I like how the druids can send messages via runestones to each other in times of crisis. It's something I never would've thought of, and although the way the runestones just grow out of the ground could seem silly and nonsensical in a way for some, I personally really like it!

Also, the magnetising void! It was so cool! I wonder what past Soul Rider performed it with Concorde? I would say Elizabeth, but that just seems too obvious. I love that we got to see a more dangerous side to the magic of the Sun Circle, and I really hope that this is something they will continue with for the rest of the Circles. Maybe for the Moon Circle, Linda could be able to cast dangerous illusions to confuse the dark riders? Or send visions that can drive people mad? It's probably too 'evil' for the Soul Rider circles, but I think it would be cool to see the dark side of the Keepers' magical abilities.

Now, onto the bombing of Dark Core Headquarters. I find it really difficult to believe that DC was never actually drilling any oil. They couldn't have partnered with GED forever, could they've? How could they have made money otherwise? At some point in history they must have drilled for oil, and then stopped for some reason. Maybe to put all their money into the equipment to build the Hadal gate (which btw confirms that Garnoks prison is indeed super deep under the sea, and not in some untouched corner of Pandoria) Anyways, I really hope this is not SSEs attempt at portraying DC as somewhat redeemable with 'oh no they actually weren't polluting the island at all, they were doing nothing wrong!', nevermind the fact that they are working towards releasing Garnok, who has made it very clear by now in regards to his plans for the island.

Well whatever, moving on from that, Erissa! Finally! I was hoping she'd have some lines of dialogue, but I did love her cartwheel/flip coming out of the portal. It's nice to see that Mr Sands is back in action again after not being present in the story for damn, what 5, 6 years now?! I though he and the Dark Riders would've been a bit more annoyed about the oil rig's destruction, so I guess the Soul Riders have got their war crime charges dropped for now at least.

Now for the obligatory Darko mention. With every new release of the main story, I get increasingly more worried about what SSE is planning on doing with him now. He should've been in the ending of this quest, yet he wasn't, and there's been absolutely zero mentions of him ever since the saving Anne quests from other characters, even though he was probably a massive source of trauma for Anne if he was the one who guarded her prison cell, and she seemed to have a very deep hatred of him going off of her mentions of him at past seasonal events. I can't find my screenshot of her one at Midsummer but she said something along the lines of, "What do you think happened to Darko? He had better still be alive. I won't let him take away my chance for revenge." Yes I know, I remembered one line of dialogue at an event years ago, can you tell I'm obsessed yet? I want to say that they're planning something big with him and the Nightmare Institute, but I've got this horrible feeling that they'll either reveal he's dead( even though the soul riding missions are proof that he isn't) or they'll just totally write him out of the story from now on because they've got the new Dark Rider models now, so they can do more with them. I know most people hate him, but I think he has the potential to be a really interesting irredeemable mad scientist type character, so I really hope they haven't given up on him yet. I'm probably being really over dramatic right now XD, but he's been my no.1 character hyperfixation since 2018 so that's my excuse lol.

I really didn't think this would be so long but to summarise: Anne and Linda are badass, I want Avalon to deck someone across the face, and I want Darko to make his dramatic appearance again someday :''(

Well, goodnight! Please share your own opinions with me if you'd like, I'd love to know everyone else's thoughts!