#or things not relevant to the main plot

[randomnameless]

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't FE15 state that although god's control is removed, there's still evil in mankind's heart that must be vanquished or something along those lines? It kinda makes the whole "humanity f*ck yeah" shtick feel hypocritical doesn't it?

Yep,

Because FE15 couldn't nuke FE2 from its DNA, by virtue of being a remake.

So we have two, contradictory messages in this game : Duma BaD and Gods BaD and must go because BaD and they "make humans do BaD things"...

and you have the "gods might be bad, but humans are still BaD without their influence" message at the end - when the entire game (and the timeline and supplementary materials!!) has been pushing the first message.

So...

In a sea of "Gods BaD" waters coming from the remake, you still have the lone "evil remains in the hearts of men" raft that is, somehow, pushed to the forefront in Part 6 where both Celica AND Alm call Thabes the result of human folly, and the player knowing that Grima - who was originally the RED CAPSLOCK eldritch monstruosity before FEH retcon'd them in a tits'n'ass character to uwu about by stealing Anankos' backstory - was "man-made".

And yet, given how the "last word" about FE15 - as in last material revealed - was the timeline in the Memorial Book, we close FE15's book by "and Duma was BaD".

I mean, look at all those mentions of Rudy being so brave and strong and uwusome -> Duma's degenaration is directly tied to how awesome Rudy needs to be in this calendar.

Rudy is so brave to stand in front of a degenerating Duma? -> Duma was insane!

Rudy is so thoughtful and sticks to his promise to Duma by sealing Mila -> akshually Duma wasn't completely insane because he told him to seal Mila and not to kill her even if I said the inverse 3 lines earlier...

[driftingballoons]

Day 2: Evolution

it may not evolution in the typical sense, but they can’t dwell on that right now

@heropartnerweek

[trans-xianxian]

so many otherwise good wei wuxian posts ruined by op thinking that he thinks he's bad/struggles with his goodness

[xx-k1tsun3-k1d-xx]

sins of the flesh moment

[arabian-batboy]

When you really think about it, some of these new shounen shows like JJK, BNHA and Demon Slayer are lowkey as bad as older shoenen shows when it comes to how they treat their female characters.

The only difference is that new shounen learned this neat trick where they will allow their female characters to have one epic moment in a side-fight that can easily be removed without effecting the plot too much and somehow that’s enough to gaslight people to think that they’re watching peak feminism.

[yuseirra]

Aratate Shrine is dedicated to the two kami deities, Ame no Uzume no Mikoto and Sarutahiko no Mikoto, and celebrates their marriage to each other. Ame no Uzume is known as a deity of song, dance, and the performing arts. Sarutahiko is known as a deity of guidance in travel and education, among other things. Together, they are kami deities of matrimonial happiness and fulfilled wishes.

The nature of this shrine draws followers with creative aspirations, including some well-known actors and actresses. Many who seek guidance in their careers or love life come here to pray and consult the priest.

So this is the description of the Aratate Shrine that makes an appearance in the story(that everyone goes to pray, it's going to be there in anime S2 soon too!)

Oh.. Okay?? Okay?? Didn't Kamiki mention about wishes when he talked to Ruby and Aqua??(147,153?) About fulfilling them?? Didn't he congratulate Aqua about it? What's with him?? Is he really some sort of god? Actually, I'm pretty positive about the entire Hoshino family being "gods who don't realize they are gods"..(144)They really have to start discussing what they're going to do about those random ideas about gods they've been throwing out there. It's about time, it's the final arc!!

If the guy is about "guidance", it's going to be really bad if he gets corrupted. The songs imply someone being given a "flaw", isn't that about him? I had this thought going for awhile. I really hope they tackle this whole idea of gods being there soon if that's supposed to be important. And if so, saltwater could really have some purifying effects. Sarutahiko has to do with Misogi and I looked into a little bit, it does involve both salt and water. I'm half serious. It really may help him if he gets dunked into the sea then. Have him fall. He won't die. Rather, I feel he CAN'T die. Something is making him suffer but I feel it's also preventing him from death too. I feel like he would have followed Ai long ago if he didn't have any hope of meeting her or such.

[bugsbenefit]

ngl, it IS really funny to me to see people in posts about Finn's panel being happy about "having Mike's cluelessness confirmed", because... what exactly would Finn have needed to say for you to think he wasn't clueless? because saying Mike is clueless is literally the only way for Finn to dodge Mike's feelings/sexuality right now

"yes Mike knew what Will was talking about/that Will was hurt/ that Will was crying, he just didn't do anything about it because... uhm..." he doesn't really have a way to explain the van scene without prompting more questions from the audience

i'm personally not very hard set on any interpretation of the van scene. i think it's possible to write the story from here on out with Mike being confused and not sure what to do with it, thinking Will was a bit more involved with everything than he let on, hoping that Will was actually talking about himself etc. a lot is possible from a writing perspective since they didn't give us Mike's pov at all

but the idea that actors would "confirm" an interpretation in a panel is insane to me. they told everyone and their mother than Will was straight for 6 full years. if anyone asked Noah if Will was gay/into Mike post s3 he straight up lied, because it was in his contract. Will being gay and in love with Mike was only supposed to fully get addressed in s4 so up until then Noah had to reflect the popular/heteronormative audience opinion of Will just being behind in development

Finn talking about Mike's opinions/thoughts in scenes that explicitly go out of their way in canon to NOT show us them isn't going to give more information. they went as far as blurring Mike out of the bg in the van scene. Finn coming in to clear up what was actually going on in his head won't happen until the show officially decides to go there on screen

actors will never give away more than canon tells you since they're not allowed to give spoilers

rule of thumb: if a character does smth and it's ominously left unaddressed in the show, the actor will either lie about it or play it off as unimportant in an interview until it's revealed in canon. you'll only get a genuine answer for what was going on if the scene was inconsequential to the plot. like "what did x actually think about that annoying guy they met in the mall" etc.

and how Mike felt about/thought about Will, his best friend, confessing his feelings in code, which was left unclear and purposefully confusing to the audience, is the BIGGEST spoiler territory you could possibly move into right now

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[locusfandomtime]

okay so with all the hermitcraft muppet stuff… i’m thinking… hermitcraft The Muppets (2011) au… it works beautifully hear me out…

y/n is an autistic person who is OBSESSED with hermitcraft. however by this point, hermitcraft has been disbanded for years. they visit the season 9 world - now under the ownership of some corporation - and accidentally overhear evil xisuma’s plans to purchase the original hermitcraft worlds and destroy them, and the hermits would be unable to stop him, unless they buy the world first for an even higher amount of money than ex is offering. y/n refuses to let this happen and tracks down xisuma, explaining the situation. xisuma doesn’t want to have all the things he worked on with his friends destroyed, so decides, in order to raise the money needed to stop ex, all the hermits must reunite and hold a twitch subathon.

starting with joe hills, y/n and xisuma track down the hermits and ask them to join, via montage. they’ve all moved on and have new jobs. hypno is doing some modded stuff, tango is an overworked game dev, doc is a tomato farmer, gem is a serial killer, mumbo is biking around europe, grian is procrastinating, cleo is a fashion director, zedaph is a gameshow host, etc etc. they all agree to help, with varying degrees of hesitance or eagerness

finally, they track down etho. he is now working for a big name company designing redstone machines full time. despite their best efforts, etho refuses to help, satisfied with his current job and lacking any motivation for hermitcraft projects. everyone is discouraged with etho not joining the project, especially bdubs. however gem calls etho washed up and then etho suddenly decides to join them to prove his worthiness

they have a day to try and build as many minigames and cool builds as possible. several “celebrity guests” show up for the event, including scott and martyn, and wilbur soot, because he’s enamoured with grian. the stream starts, and they try to do competitions and play games, however, the helsmits are there and are trying to sabotage the event. y/n has been questioning this entire time what type of player they are - redstoner, builder, etc - failing to succeed in any of those categories, however, after a heartful talk with joe hills, accepts that there are talents not recognised by the minecraft community at large but are still admirable, and they do a dramatic poetry reading together.

in the end, evil xisuma, refusing to accept defeat, cuts out the power to stop the stream 23 hours and 59 minutes in - a minute short of the time goal. the hermits are at first devastated but then remember that as with any stream like this, they already reached the monetary goal 5 minutes in. in fact, they reached double the goal the moment grian talked, and five times the goal the second etho was in frame. zedaph puts on his wormman costume and talks to ex, who reveals he has only been so focused on destroying hermitcraft because it made him sad to see the hermits celebrated but his favourite hermit of all - wormman - ignored. wormman explains that its okay, because of his nature of being a superhero, he needs to stay out of the limelight to best protect his identity, but he appreciates ex’s dedication to him. the other helsmits run away, plotting their revenge. a new season of hermitcraft is announced, and y/n is unanimously voted to be part of it. gem kills someone. scar proposes to grian. the crowd goes wild. everyone claps. the shot zooms out, revealing the entire thing to have been playing on a computer monitor. cut to zloyxp, pixlriffs, and lyarrah sitting in front of it, furiously taking notes for the first recap in many years

[wildmelon]

dnd actually rewired my brain and i love it so much i used to have such a hard time focusing on lore but it changed my whole perspective on how much more fun it is to create characters with an in-depth understanding of their circumstances

[brionysea]

if mike was straight, stranger things would've ended after season 2

[fictionadventurer]

The Heir of Redclyffe is teaching me that what Little Women really needed was for the March sisters to have a clever, witty, sharp-tongued, disabled brother who was BFFs with Laurie.

[sonknuxadow]

they werent lying that knuckles series barely has knuckles in it

[tennessoui]

look............it was gonna be time and tide and i PROMISE i started working on that too this weekend, but somehow.....they wanted therapy

[panvani]

I actually finished Monster a few days ago but I will state my feelings on it for posterity's sake: I think Monster, while composed of a number of well written and evocative vignettes, ultimately fails to execute its overall emotional arc well. If the story had been explicitly framed episodically with an overarching B-plot connecting these episodes, I might feel more positively towards it, but the fact that it must nominally develop its "main plot" each chapter while devoting most of its screen time to tangentially related stock characters was extremely frustrating. None of the twists or reveals actually felt consequential because information about the main plot is fed to you so painstakingly and in a way that's so repetitive that its conclusion is largely predictable and almost anticlimactic.

Monster ultimately does not do a very good job of developing any of its main cast. Its story and characters warp around Tenma, who is just not very interesting. I was frankly just fed up with him and the unilateral adoration that every character holds for him by the end of the story. Nina was extremely underdeveloped for the character she should have been and supposedly was within the story and any pathos that could have been elicited by her was neutered by first having her be barely present for the vast majority of the story, and second by also relegating her into being a Guy Who Just Loves Tenma. Eva was probably the closest any character had to a real character arc and her writing was just so absurdly misogynistic for nearly the entire story I couldn't enjoy any time she was on screen. Johan should have been an interesting character, but the manga got so long and drawn out that by the end I was just fed up with him.

The story overall was weirdly saccharine in a way that felt almost childish in contrast to its intended tone, and while that's not in itself a bad thing, its attempts to portray humanity as Overall Good felt simplistic and often cheap. It kinda goes hand in hand with how horribly it attempts to address WWII. "Well, The Nazis Felt Really Bad About It" and "If You Think About It, Japanese People Were The Real Victims" are not, uh. Themes that show a willingness to contend with complex morality or any real belief in human goodness aside from superficial self-reassurance. Also Urasawa Naoki is insanely insanely insanely afraid of sex.

Ultimately I think Monster would have been way, way better if it had just been shorter and had treated its main plot in any reasonable manner. It had a lot of interesting, evocative moments, and a lot of the ideas of the main plot could have been really good to chew on if the main plot hadn't lost momentum long before it was actually wrapped up. Nina and Johan are given very interesting treatment on occasion, and I have been thinking about their characters and relationship quite a bit since finishing Monster, but the plot was so bogged down in the Various Extraneous Dipshits and the need to conform every aspect of Nina's character around Tenma that there's no actual interesting conclusion to be drawn from them.

I think on an arc-by-arc level, Monster is quite well written, and it has a few really strong moments. It just makes such poor use of its format overall that it sours the whole experience.

[hundredowls]

silly oc doodle..... ballroom yuri