#okay they're retconning him to be weak and all that's fine

[blocksgame]

Purgatory, sleeping through the first night -

qsmp, /rp (feat. small selection of guys I had specific mental images about)

There’s a space left open next to Antoine but it won’t be filled for a while at least. Etoiles is too pent up and busy to sleep, he’s strategizing, he’s leaving to fuel the furnaces and pace. Like Etoiles, Fit has a tenuous relationship with sleep even on Quesadilla Island, and they’re not on Quesadilla Island. Fit is generally having a grand old time, but he will not be sleeping tonight, not in a lawless death arena surrounded by other people, that’s not happening. So both of them are propped up against the walls of their underground base, and they're texting Phil.

Phil is stressed. Phil is afraid. They kept saying shit about the eggs and some mystical bullshit and now there’s a death game and they’re pitted against each other and reality works differently here, Phil knows how to build something from wild nothing but not here and he hasn’t had to fucking do it in a long time, alright, and it’s scary, every time. Okay? It’s scary every time!

The first day’s work kept his mind busy, at least. But he sits in his little shelter with his friends piled around him, asleep, and thoughts like is this real start poking through. He asks how Etoiles is feeding everyone. Fit sends him some tips on crafting. Soon he is messaging them like a lifeline.

(Bad has not slept in weeks. He has no need to start now. Don’t worry, go to bed, he tells Tubbo. I'll keep watch. Bad keeps an eye on the minimap all night. But it’s pretty quiet. He considers trekking to the other bases for a little tomfoolery. But there’ll be plenty of time for that later.)

Roier is affectionate and loves to cuddle. Forever does too, but he's subdued. He’s still weak and he winces when things touch his partially-healed burns, or when the water’s too cold or the sharp bamboo leaves rake at his skin. Roier kills mobs for him and forces cooked fish into his hands, get you better faster, yeah? At night, Roier sends Cellbit pictures of them cuddled up, to show him they’re alright and to say wish you were here.

All of Phil’s people are scared. Most of them are not hardened survivalists the way Phil is. Curious detective Cellbit left the island bloodstained and with a strange gleam in his eyes, he’s been going through some shit, clearly, and now they’re here, so.

The only way he seems ready to relax is curled up close to Phil, like Phil is the only one he can feel safe around. Phil lets him keep his eyes on him, what else is he going to do? No skin off Phil's back. Cellbit texts with Roier for a while, then tries to sleep, ends up spending longer just staring at his communicator until he’s finally asleep or at least trying, again, again.

(We could retcon Mike as being there this whole time. In which case – maybe still out of it, maybe still feeling complicated about Fit, but that’s complicated rather than strictly negative. And he doesn’t know where Pac is and he’s not used to sleeping alone. Forever’s there and he’s family, so that’s a fine option. Or alternatively - Fit lets Mike lie beside him, as he and Etoiles mutter about strategies and smother laughter late into the night. Lit up by the screens of their communicators. Full circle again.)

(*I guess the vibes are more pinpointed on "like halfway through day 1" but it's minecraft time. whatever.)

[worstloki]

I watched the Loki show and I've always hated Loki. The Marvel version ofc. And I liked the show. Which made me think that the people who love Loki must've hated it. Why did Marvel make a show for Loki haters? Because I loved seeing him getting his ass kicked, I don't think the poor Loki stans can relate. Wonderful job Marvel, what the hell 😭

most of the people i've seen who enjoyed the show liked the changes because they didn't like Loki before or want him replaced with Sylvie or find getting beat up hot (all valid, just kinda sad reasons imo) 😭 i figure it's because the people who liked the OG Loki had a whole complex character with heavy writing and that was up against a jokesy trickster character that would be easier to use to convenience so Marvel being a coward would rather destroy the established one 😭 they can't have Loki running around generally coded as an outsider abused by the systems around him because the show pushed forward terrible messages and they couldn't have the audience thinking about it so they retcon-ed and made him a simpering idiot (derogaffectionate) 😭

[hamliet]

Share us your Enji thoughts pls 🙏🏼

I’m at a loss for words. Lmao.

Leaving aside the new spoilers which I'm going to assume aren't actually like... as bad as they seem, because if Enji even consumed Deku's arc then there are no words for how bad that is writing-wise--

It's a whole mess. It's become a jumbled mess of retcons that could work, where I see the intention, but where the execution is so bad it just feels like induced whiplash. Just because I can see what Hori's trying to do doesn't mean it works, because it just flat doesn't.

The retcon with his dad is like... hoo boy. Okay. Let's step back for a minute and look at the intent and execution.

Intention: It does make sense for Enji to have serious issues after his father died trying to save a little girl. First of all, Enji could feel like prioritizing others over family is the heroic thing to do. Enji could at the same time be struggling with resentment over this, and that result in him bleeding resentment and his issues into how he interacts with his family, and how he intertwines family and being a hero.

Additionally, Enji could be struggling with the idea of weakness. He misses his father, and wishes his father hadn't died. Weakness led to his father dying, so if he's strong, his child self wouldn't have to suffer. Tragically and ironically, he then ends up inflicting trauma on his own kids instead of healing his own.

This works. It really does. Where it all falls apart is the execution.

Execution: It is WAY too late in both Enji's arc and the story itself to give this revelation the resonance it needs and deserves. It had absolutely zero set up. None. Zilch. Enji's character traits alone are not set up.

To explain what I mean by set up, let's look at the set up for the Dabi=Todoroki Touya reveal. We had Dabi introduced with that mysterious "too bad, Todoroki Shouto" line that bled familiarity in Japanese. We had Natsuo early on saying to Rei that he couldn't forgive for what Enji had done to "you, Shouto, and...." And that was all before we even had Touya referenced by name, and his story became increasingly clear to us before Dabi even told us his name.

Compare that to this. We never had Enji thinking "if only..." or "damn my old man" or anything like that despite dozens of chapters in Enji's head. The narrative never asks us to wonder about Enji's family. Even if Enji is repressed, and he is, we could have had Rei being like "after what happened to his father..." or Shouto being like "Dad never talks about his family" or "I never knew my grandparents." We don't have any of that.

That's why, even if the characterization could neatly slot in, it doesn't work to suddenly bring this up so late in the story. It doesn't impact Enji's arc because Enji's arc was never about confronting the ghosts of his past, but instead confronting the monster he became. These could easily have been entwined, but they weren't.

Instead, the story set up Enji's arc as a failed hero who projected his failures onto his children and wrought destruction as a result. It set up the main question of Enji's arc to be not how great he is as a hero--Shouto already thinks he's a great hero cue chapter 193! Half the story ago!--but how he will be as a father instead. Shouto reminds Enji of this again, and again, and again throughout the second half of the story. And now it's just Enji actually needs to be a hero because he has to confront the ghosts of his dead father, so it's fine for him to have being a hero as the crux of his arc.

That's bad writing. It's cheap. I want to care. I don't care about Enji and his father because it was never brought up, so how am I supposed to find catharsis in this moment? What are the emotional stakes? They're made of paper, not stone. I feel nothing seeing him prove himself a great hero--again.

I want to see him save his goddamn sons.