#piss me off so bad how they create a cool version of the character and do nothing with it

[swervesfirstblaster]

tfes writers cooked a whole meal with arcee in one ep and never delivered the same meal again the maximum they do now is put her in the background shooting stuff and "dying" WASTE OF SUCH A COOL CHARACTER HOLY HELL

[running-with-the-feels]

okay, yall, the existence of MK1 is pissing me off again, not bc it's bad necessarily, bc it does introduce a lot of interesting concepts and character dynamics, but bc I don't think there was really a need for another re-boot and NRS imploding their continuity (again) makes it really hard to get invested in their characters bc I know they're just gonna get reset after a handful of games that don't even really give them satisfying character arcs and it annoys me that MK11 was used pretty much solely to set that up rather than paying off the character arcs and conflicts I was invested in (like the revenants)

That being said, here are my ideas fr what MK11 could have been that didn't end in a reboot

Another tournament, Havik is the main antagonist of the MKX blood ties comics and all he wands is endless and eternal chaos so have him declare Mortal Kombat between Earthrealm and Chaosrealm. This lets us see the kombat kids face what their parents did and also lets us see how characters react to the idea of another thousand year war. Bc Havik is Havik, you can even have him get impatient and do a rule change like Shao Khan did if you want to avoid having to carry that story into the next game. Plus, Kuai Liang, Takeda, and Hanzo have beef (and some trauma) related to Havik so you can play around with that. You can use this to bring back a lot of old characters too, and even add some new ones (not Kronika she was annoying and pointless and could have been replaced by a necklace without really affecting the story all that much, she's only just Barely not whatever the non sexy version of a sexy lamp is)

Or, if you're really attached to the idea of characters interacting with their past selves (Fair, its a really cool idea) Have the elder gods sense some looming threat on the horizon and declare a trial for Earthrrealm's defenders to ensure that they are ready. Maybe Raiden protests, bc the trial used to train champions until he saw too many die to it so he abandoned it which gives us a reason to like him. But the the defenders have to go through various challenges, one of which is facing down and coming to terms with their past selves, which lets us see this concept used more and with more characters (which is good, bc it was a Good Idea!) and creates the interesting possibility of having a trial ending as well as a tower ending so you can have other characters who aren't in story mode do this too. To add stakes, you could have the gods offer a boon (heh) to whoever completes the trial where they will do them one favor, so then you can have Hanzo want to resurrect his family and clan, Kuai Liang want to resurrect his brother and then they work together to do it only to find out that the boon only goes to whoever completed the trial first so they fight about it, each trying to offer it to the other out of guilt, which helps solidify how close the two are now and how far their friendship has become

Or, if you really wanna do timeline fuckery, just have a handful of characters get tossed into another timeline bc of the revenants and need to find their way home. You can have them meet their alt selves and you can introduce new concepts and character dynamics, without destroying the ones we know and love as the characters will eventually go home in the end. You could even have the characters get tossed into different timelines, so Subscorp in one, Cageblade in another, the kombat kids somewhere else, and watch them each navigate that and try to find one another to get home. Maybe each timeline has a piece of whatever artifact sent them to the different timeline and they all need to find the pieces and their alt selves either help or hinder.

DARK RAIDEN, why go through all the effort to set that up (especially when it makes So Much Sense for his character) only to do nothing with it? Have the amulet corrupt him beyond what the defenders can tolerate so they all make a plan in secret to recover something that will fix him and then trap him so they can use it on him, maybe leading to the revenants getting fixed and revived or even just allying with Earthrealm temporarily in order to get revenge on the god. Then, once they've fixed Raiden the revenants could try to kill him leading to a battle between them and the defenders.

Or, again, if timeline fuckery is your jam, send a handful of characters back into the past, either to MK9 (which might not work as NRS technically already did that) or before, or hell even mkx. Then you have the characters trying to navigate getting back to their time only to come into conflict bc some of them (Kuai Liang, Hanzo, probs Kung Jin) want to change things so their loved ones live or better choices are made and others (Johnny, Sonya, maybe even Cassie) want to keep them the same so that their lives take the same path, AND you can have them interacting with their past selves in some really interesting ways

Similarly, that same idea, but instead of the present selves getting knocked back to Meet their past selves, they just get tossed back into their past self's bodies with no idea what's going on. So then they're all separated and trying to figure out how they got here and what to do next with each getting different pieces of the puzzle. This lends itself to some really interesting character moments bc can you imagine Kuai Liang waking up in the Old Lin Kuei again? Can you imagine how terrifying and triggering that would be for him? Or Hanzo waking up in the Shirai Ryu before the attack, able to actual save his family (whether he succeeds or not both have interesting potential)? Or Kung Lao at MK9 suddenly remembering dying in the arena (in a truly stupid way like you're telling me Raiden saw SHAO FUCKING KHAN walk up behind the guy who just beat some of his best warriors and is gloating about it and just decided not to say anything? Just assumed the LITERAL TYRANT had innocent intentions? Come on. Either I'm supposed to like Raiden, in which case GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON TOO, or I'm not in which case stop pretending he's a saint.) and being a revenant and having to navigate that?

Idk, this is probably just rambling nonsense but I needed to get the ideas out so here ya go. I might think of more later and add them, so apologies in advance

[infernia-inferno]

One thing that I've noticed recently that's been pissing me off is when people who try to make a part or feature announced for a game before it's finished

I'm talking the "I made Minecraft tales and trails update in a week" shit, the fanmade deltarune chapters that pass themselves off as "Chapter 3" or whatever and the FNF mods of weeks that were leaked or announced

Admittedly the first one in that list doesn't piss me off that much because usually it's just an excuse to speculate on new features and at least the ones I like watching are usually "here's this update but I horribly bastardized it" which I genuinely love

But like

Straight up just making content devs have announced? No parody, no speculation, no nothing?

It rubs me the wrong way

Like, The deltarune example

Imma be honest I'm outside the loop of the fanmade chapters and shit, But I've seen certain characters that advertise themselves as bosses or characters of certain chapters, and I'm dead ass sure they're not the bosses of said chapters, unless there's some really weird aspect of this I'm missing. I think I've seen fangames or fanmade chapters. Toby is hard at work making his game and that's not the character of the chapter. If you're making a fanmade character for a fanmade chapter, or several, then make that clear. Don't just say it's like, chapter 3 or chapter 4 or something. That is something actively in development, and making a fanmade version of it that ends up being completely different is likely going to end up confusing a bunch of people

Now admittedly I might've got some things wrong with that, because again I haven't been paying attention much to that side of the fandom

But the final example pisses me off the most, or at least it did back when I still played it. People making mods of Friday night funkin of announced weeks or announced characters. Like, yeah fanmade stuff is cool, but when you're just straight up taking leaked game assets and creating the week before the devs have time to make it, then that probably feels like a kick in the stomach to the devs because they wanted to make their version as good at it could be before they released it, but you had to go make a version of it regardless of its quality. They're making a whole ass game with whole ass animations and everything, cut them some slack for taking so long to get it right. They shouldn't be punished for taking their time to make their game the best thing it can be.

A lot of the things I said in each of these apply to each other, I'm just listing my scattershot examples

I myself am an aspiring game dev who would sure as hell be pissed off if someone made a fan version of the story I was trying to tell and passed it off as what happens next like in my deltarune example

I'm not talking what ifs or anything by the way, I'm just talking straight up advertising it as what's next

Fan projects are cool but make it clear it's separate or it's own continuity or parody or whatever

Don't call it the next part or just outright make the next part from what's been announced

It's kinda scummy

Also to be clear, this isn't "fan content bad" this is "fan content that tries to make something before the original creator can is bad"

I hope I got my point across to some extent here

You could probably make a similar argument about people trying to compose the rest of a song after hearing a small teaser of it, but that's not my field. If you are a composer though I'm curious how you feel about that. Probably some other similar fields like that as well, like that dude who used an AI to finish someone's picture before they themselves were done with it, although not sure if that's even remotely comparable because that is just unarguably a dick move

[mlobsters]

supernatural s13e3 patience (w. robert berens)

recap including gutter bunny sam, huh. ok. i try to keep in mind too that even if there's a slight glancing reference to something, they'll put a whole ass clip in the recap. when it might just be a reminder that hey, vampires exist. demon blood makes people high. etc

if they bring missouri back to then hurt her, i'm gonna be pissed. i always wished she'd been a recurring character

i guess this is the grown up version of brotherly conflict, instead of lying and hiding things, we're gonna clash over whether jack is inherently evil

SAM Because we need to stay here. We need to help Jack learn how to control his powers. Jody can handle this. DEAN Yeah, maybe she can. Or maybe she ends up dead because you wanted to skip out on her to babysit the antichrist.

trying to remember if we're blaming jack for mom and cas "dying" somehow? lucifer is the responsible party there, crowley if we go back to lucifer being out to begin with. cas for lucifer being out originally and creating jack? anyway, just trying to rationalize dean being upset about mom and cas (and i guess crowley) and taking it out on sam in this way

sweet

MISSOURI He has his reasons. I’ll just stay behind, say my farewells to Dede. DEAN No, I don’t like that at all. MISSOURI You don’t have to like it. You just have to do it. You save my family, you hear me, Dean Winchester? DEAN Yes ma’am. MISSOURI Good. And thank you.

saw the "yes, ma'am" a mile away and was still good to hear. and he kind of folded in on himself looking a lot younger. just makes me sad. reminds me of times long, long since past. also lodging a complaint that she should come with purely for protection purposes

what the flying fuck was that? she just. stuck around to die. and she's dead. so she could be setup for saving her family?? what the FUCK, show. of all the one-off side characters, she was one that stuck with me straight away and you bring her back to immediately, and i mean IMMEDIATELY kill her. bullshit.

"the drama of the gifted child" and the awkward maneuvering in front of the laptop screen so he can miss jack moving. oy. this is just...

JACK Yeah well, Dean sees it. That’s why he says… he said he’d kill me. SAM He what? JACK And maybe he should. Mom said I could be good, that I had the choice to be good, that it was up to me. But she’s dead, because of me. I’ve only been on earth for a few days and I’ve already hurt people. I’ve already done bad things, and no matter how hard I try I can’t… I can’t do the one good, stupid thing you want me to. So I must be evil, like Lucifer.

i think i should have seen the allusion to sam feeling like a freak but we just met jack and this is all so... well. they want him to act like a person with no life experience and so it's all this disconnected childlike situation, but not really getting any sincere feeling emotion off him, also possibly because we just met him! no-win

JACK Sam, why are you being so nice to me? SAM Because I know what it feels like, to feel like you don’t belong. To feel like there’s this darkness inside of you, to be scared of who you are, what you can do. Dean, Cas, my family helped me through that. So now I want to help you, because you’re not evil, Jack.

glad they just said it straight out because i really don't think i was gonna reach this conclusion myself

dean so indignant, jody with the support and "cool it, bro" frown

find it pretty weird they're wedging in this missouri was actually a hunter backstory to make this plot shit work. also have some logistical questions how one feeds on a brain for an extended period of time without killing the brain owner

PATIENCE I talked to my dad. He thinks I should put it away. Dad says we should just get back to normal. Maybe he’s right. DEAN He is. This life, hunting, monsters, there’s no joy in it. There’s nothing but pain, horror and death. So if you get a chance at normal, you take it.

got the mushy music treatment.

JODY Patience, wait. I may be out of line here but you don’t have to listen to him. To either of them if it’s not what you really want. I had a daughter, I guess, Claire, and I asked her to stay in line, to fight who she really was because I thought it would keep her safe. It didn’t work, it never does. Your gift… or maybe you’re right, maybe it’ll go away. But if it doesn’t? You try to force it down to make someone else happy, you will only make yourself miserable. It’s your choice. But if you ever need someone to talk to or someplace to go, my door is always open.

and jody coming back with the realistic and less bitter advice, no more mushy music during this bit

DEAN I told him the truth. See, you think you can use this freak but I know how this ends and it ends bad. SAM I didn’t. DEAN What? SAM I didn’t ‘end bad’. When I was the freak, when I was drinking demon blood. DEAN Come on man, that’s totally different. SAM Was it? Because you could’ve put a bullet in me. Dad told you to put a bullet in me, but you didn’t! You saved me! So help me save him! DEAN You deserved to be saved, he doesn’t! SAM Yes he does, Dean, of course he does! DEAN Look, I know you think that you can use him as some sort of an interdimensional can-opener and that’s fine, but don’t act like you care about him! Because you only care about what he can do for you! So if you want to pretend, that’s fine! But me? I can hardly look at the kid! Because when I do all I see is everybody we’ve lost! SAM Mom chose to take that shot at Lucifer. That is not on Jack! DEAN And what about Cas? SAM What about Cas? DEAN He manipulated him, he made him promises, said, ‘paradise on earth’ and Cas bought it and you know what that got him? It got him dead! Now you might be able to forget about that, but I can’t!

well, thanks for the explainer as to why he blames jack for everything since i clearly couldn't get there myself. i call bullshit on that logic but whatever. dean's upset, he's being mean. there's certainly precedent for that for him too. and i guess we needed something awful enough to get jack to send some interdimensional DM to cas in the big empty

at least my irritation is prompting me to watch the episode faster and shut up more.

[orifu]

ok im just gonna write a bunch of my disorganised thoughts on the new doctor who episode the star beast. enjoy. or dont.

story wise it was very enjoyable. all the characters were written like actual people (cough cough chris chibnall) and i really enjoyed watching it. the twist of the meep being evil was (at least in who circles) pretty well known so having the rose metacrisis twist too was really effective (even though i totally guessed it would happen (shower oracle)).

and before i get into what i didnt like im just going to say im not like siding with the you know twitter users youtube "reviewers" called like The Neckbeard Skeptic or something when it comes to this stuff. i thought the inclusion of rose as a trans character was a really good way to start the new era as a kind of warning to those kinds of people that they really wont enjoy it.

but with the representation came a couple lines which just struck me as.. off. the first was definitely rose basically calling the doctor out for assuming the meep is he/him. and like yeah thats a valid criticism to make. but if i were writing this episode i would absolutely not get the trans person to say that. it comes across as playing into the "did you just assume [the meep's] pronouns??" transphobic stereotype but i think knowing how many people would get mad at this i am fine with the line overall.

the next line was the line "binary binary / nonbinary" bit. i think its a cool callback and another neat way of pissing off the right people but honestly back in s4 that binary binary bit was a really devastating moment as you see the doctor's face and the music kicks in. playing off that moment as like a kind of gag just seems kinda messed up to me.

and the last one was the "male presenting time lord" thing. just seems like a twitterised version of feminism and the messages behind it. feminism is meant to be a deconstruction of gender as a social construct and its effects in society which manifest as eg the patriarchy. feminism is not when you go "you look like a man therefore youre bad". thats not feminism. in s4 this was explained as time lords "lacking that little bit of human" which i think just kinda makes more sense tbh.

i imagine this is kind of what it wouldve been like seeing series 1 back in 2005 and maybe back then jack harkness looked over the top or the whole thing felt in-your-face. maybe 18 years from now ill look back at this and think "wow. i thought that was a lot?" and i really hope so. but for now i just hope this was over the top to get rid of all the bigots before doctor who (2023-) REALLY begins.

anyway enough of the criticisms that make me sound like a 2017 anti sjw. i think donna and rose just being able to "get rid" of the metacrisis by just "letting it go" is honestly kind of stupid. i was expecting a lot more of a destiny plotline across the 3 specials that probably ended in donna about to die forever but only then the metacrisis is stopped or something (and i think the slower metacrisis could have explained this). but nope there it goes done and dusted in the first special. its not the direction i wouldve taken but its fine i suppose. im not the award winning writer here.

next its literally never explained where the doctors sonic comes from. he just kinda. has it. and thats fine i guess stuff happens sometimes but like. why is this sonic completely overpowered? a big criticism of the chibnall era was that the doctor was constantly just scanning stuff and going "hm yep blah blah" and instead of going back to the sonic being an occasional tool, its now able to create screens and forcefields and. what. but fine. whatever.

but now. big question. why does the tardis interior change? it didnt go up in flames or anything like in s5/s11 nor was the doctor feeling a change like in s7/s8. it just changes. but i guess the tardis was feeling like it or whatever. now the real controversial take. i dont really like the new interior. its just completely white. i know the original tardis interiors looked like that but it looks so plain. it looks like they only had that much built when they filmed it and hadnt finished. the lights make me like it more but it just seems kinda gimmicky tbh. im sure itll grow on me over time (or be changed in the ncuti era? pls).

anyway. i still really enjoyed the episode and i cannot wait for wild blue yonder (this has been the mystery episode for like over a year now) and the 2 more specials and 2 more series to come. doctor who is Going Places and id much rather those places be cheesy pronoun stuff than have bigots around the dw community.

if you read all that, you just wasted your time. also i love you

[suffersinfandom]

(This'll be brief because I'm tired, but I didn't want to leave you hanging!)

"I get where fans of color don't want to wade through racist shit once more, but all I can do is repeat, that's not what I was saying... I do, however, see where I made a terrible decision, responding where I did."

I get where you're coming from. We mostly agree, I think -- Ed did do violence, but it wasn't in an uncontrolled way. Dismissing the harm he caused to the crew takes away from what they've gone through and flattens Ed's character; saying he didn't hurt anyone isn't true and takes away from his story.

For what it's worth, I'm sorry that you're catching flak. I think everyone has made a post that they regret; god knows I've posted petty things that should've stayed in drafts (or in my head).

Re: Hornigold, that's totally speculation on my part! The outfit made of sails reminded me of the way mariners would be buried at sea bundled up in sailcloth. Since it's Ed's subconscious creating this version of Hornigold and we know he's grappling with guilt, I thought it'd make sense if Ed had reason to think Hornigold could be dead -- like, maybe his crew mutinied and ditched him on a deserted island. That train of thought and the stated shittiness of Hornigold as a captain are all I'm going off of, though. I wouldn't fight anyone over this interpretation!

"It really does, and I'm sorry if I contributed to that.. I feel like that's a little part of what made me so crazy (also I'm just pedantic) about the posts I'd see claiming Ed never hurt anyone, even though we all watched it happen. After a certain point, it felt like fandom gaslighting, for lack of a better term. There was this underlying threat of "if you don't accept my version, you're the problem"."

You didn't contribute, not to worry! I don't take issue with any of your more recent posts (I skimmed to see a post you were referring to making to get a complete picture), it's all good.

I'm really sorry you've felt that way in the fandom. I don't want anyone to feel gaslit or threatened -- or unsafe, ignored, misinterpreted, or anything else along those lines. I have no idea how to go about making a fandom space safe and fun for everyone.

"So then, how do we do this fandom thing? Do the sides just never interact, or can we find a common ground that isn't riddled with landmines?"

It's easy to say "If everyone is respectful and kind to the people they share fandom with, we'd be able to discuss things we disagree on." But that's not how fandom (or anything else on the internet) works. Even when we have the best of intentions, I think we all have blind spots, biases, and things that just really bother us that see us posting unwisely. We're all going to piss other people off and be pissed off ourselves. I guess we do the best we can and block where we have to?

"Too much to hope that's some of that bad actor posting at work?"

I do think that we get trolls in here sometimes. OFMD is hated by Tumblr at large, so it'd be wild if we haven't had at least a handful of bad actors, right? And every fandom has a few people who take things too far or thrive on stirring things up.

I will say that, by and large, I've had decent interactions with other OFMD folks. I've stepped in it a couple of times since I'm not particularly good at telling if a post is inviting discussion or if it's more of a vent aimed at people who agree completely, but overall? I think the vast majority of the fandom is pretty cool. Heck, I was afraid I'd start something by replying to you initially, but you've been great!

Heyo, @nidmightcookies! This is my response to your reply on Atticus' post over here -- I didn't want to take away from the message of that post or the additions from other POC.

Sidenote: I'm extremely white and have no credentials that make me qualified to talk about race (I'm just a person who reads and tries to listen), and my takes are probably going to show that. That's another reason I didn't want to clutter up the original post with my reply.

In response to this

“Why is it racist to depict Ed as uncontrollably violent?  Because he's not actually depicted that way in the show.”

you talk about Ed baiting the crew to murder him and committing other violent acts. The original point is stating that Ed is not depicted as uncontrollably violent in the show, not claiming that he perpetrated no violence full stop. Yes, Ed does violence. No, he is not uncontrollably violent.

What Ed does is purposeful, not uncontrollable. He doesn’t push Lucius off the ship after he gives up all hope because he’s a violent guy who just does stuff like that, and the mutiny situation in S2E2… as allthinky said in a response, “that’s Ed at the end of his rope,” not him being uncontrollably violent. He’d been working towards suicide ever since he started baiting Low. As a backup plan, he’s been working the crew hard, disregarding their well-being, and being an overall awful boss in an attempt to incite a mutiny. 

Yes, he was “a serious, immediate threat to his crew” by the time he was out of other ideas to make someone take him out. Ed commits acts of violence -- I don’t think I’ve seen anyone claim he doesn’t -- but he always does so with some amount of reason (not necessarily good reasons) and control. 

“Upon reflection, my biggest issue may be with the people who argue that Ed's never been shown to be violent, or that any time he has resorted to violence, he's absolved of blame by the fact that someone was mean to him first. Which... I don't think I've seen you make either of those arguments at any point in the past.”

I’m really glad that you mentioned that OP hadn’t made either of those arguments (that you know of), that was genuinely very cool. As for the rest of it, I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone say that Ed is “never shown to be violent” or that he can always be “absolved of the blame” unless you want to remove all of the nuance from common talking points. 

He is never shown to be more violent than the average pirate and, due to his deep-seated trauma relating to his own capacity for violence, he’s actually on the less violent end of the pirate spectrum. He can’t be absolved of all blame for his actions because he’s a grown man who makes his own choices (and saying otherwise robs him of his agency). What I’ve seen said is that Ed’s actions are informed by things like trauma, abuse, and racism. His actions make sense. They’re not spontaneous violence committed because Ed flies into rages and homicidal spirals out of the blue.

“Not saying we shouldn't consider it [that is, are we “assigning more weight to Ed's violent actions than those of other characters or assuming he's worse than he actually is”], but I mean. If a white character on the show had cut off his employee's toes and fed them to him, shot him in the leg, ordered his death, held a gun on his other subordinates, marooned some/tossed one overboard, threatened to drown the ones that remained... because he was pushed into it, with the same combination of abusive childhood/hostile work environment... would he be equally deserving of that consideration? Would it be an overreaction to call him dangerous?”

Probably, but if everything was the same except Ed Is White Now, his baggage and his relationship with Izzy wouldn’t be exactly the same. Ed's race isn’t inconsequential. We can't really remove race from the story and end up with the same character, y'know?

Also: I do think it’s inappropriate to turn this question back on POC. I don’t think that POC are obligated to reconsider biases against a white character.

“Izzy is crew”

Ed’s relationship to Izzy is not comparable to his relationship with the crew. The crew have done nothing wrong and haven’t behaved antagonistically towards Ed. Izzy and Ed have a complicated, toxic, and difficult relationship (regardless of where you stand on whether or not Izzy’s abusive), therefore any harm caused to Izzy has to be considered differently than harm caused to the rest of the crew.

“Even if we say that he doesn't count, Ed still pushed Lucius off the ship.”

Yes, Ed did do that, but I think that Atticus is talking about Ed’s S2 actions in that point, not what happened in S1. Most (I think all?) meta I’ve read does consider Ed pushing Lucius off the ship an act of violence that Lucius himself did nothing to provoke. 

This might be controversial, but I’d put Ed pushing Lucius overboard on par with, like, a particularly unjust firing in a workplace that isn’t a pirate vessel. When we watch OFMD, we have to adjust our physical violence meters to account for the fact that we’re dealing with an environment that’s full of physical violence.

“Also, emotional abuse directed at the rest of the crew is still abuse”

I don't consider Ed emotionally abusive. He works the crew hard. He’s a terrible boss who doesn’t give his employees vacation days or paid time off and then throws them a sad pizza party. That sucks, it’s not okay, and his final death spiral in S2E2 is terrible and he never should have involved the crew in that. 

Abuse is a pattern of behavior that’s meant to control people. Not all harm is abuse. When I say that Ed isn't abusive, I'm not saying that he didn't hurt people.

“So... I was raised by a physically and psychologically abusive parent. I get that Ed's been hurt, is still hurting, and why. The "why" doesn't matter for the question of "did he or didn't he", though. It may or may not be his fault, he may or may not have done it because he felt unsafe. The point is, his actions did hurt people.”

Same, friend, and I'm sorry you went through that. (That’s actually one of the reasons I’ve always been wary of Izzy. What he says and does in S1 is too familiar to me, sometimes to a point where I can’t watch certain scenes.) I don’t think anyone’s saying that Ed isn’t hurting anyone, or that all of his actions can be attributed to abuse. If that’s not what you’re getting at here, apologies for misunderstanding.

“His boss that he was trying to control was brown.  Was that a factor in his power play though, or was it because Taika wound up being cast as Blackbeard? Any other (white) actor in the role, would Izzy be as bad for trying to control him? Would the scripts have gone a different way?”

Here’s the thing. In the show we have, Blackbeard is played by a Maori/Jewish man, and this fundamentally alters the character. There are things in the show -- whole episodes, if you want to look at S1E5 and the fancy party guests who treat Ed like exotic entertainment and not a peer -- that wouldn’t be the same if Ed was white. 

And yeah, Ed being brown changes the dynamic between Ed and Izzy. It would still be bad if a white guy was trying to control another white guy, but it wouldn’t be bad on the same level. Same goes if they were both brown. A white man trying to control the behavior of an indigenous man is worse.

“Izzy got permanently disfigured, crippled, and dead, while Ed came out largely unscathed in a physical sense, due to Muppet logic. Not to say one is more deserving than the other, but for a bunch of fans, there's probably a sense of Izzy getting the short end of the stick, to consider.”

That’s fine if some people feel like Izzy got the short end of the stick. It’s fine that some people feel like Izzy’s arc was kinder to him than it should have been. It’s okay to feel whatever! We connect emotionally to different characters and that biases our opinions and meta. That’s not a crime. We just need to be aware of our biases and why they exist.

The thing with OFMD is that Ed is a main character with more background and a story that, at every turn, asks you to sympathize with him. We’re given a look into Ed’s psyche. We understand at least some of his trauma and hurt and why he acts the way he does. Izzy has virtually no backstory and we’re never offered a glimpse into his mind; we don’t know why he’s like that. You can totally like a secondary character (or even an antagonist!) with no real canonical background or mental groundwork. It’s fun to ask why characters do what they do when canon doesn’t offer us any answers, and who doesn’t love a mystery box? 

But with OFMD, it can raise eyebrows when people say their main concern is the suffering of a white man who behaves antagonistically towards a brown man, especially when that brown character is a well-developed lead who also suffers (and suffers at the hands of aforementioned white character). It’s not inherently racist for someone to care more about Izzy than Ed, but it’s also not unreasonable to ask that someone to think about the possibility that subconscious racism could be factoring into their point of view.

“I don't think it's fair discussion to have a rule saying ‘even though you didn't directly call out the brown man, your argument is still racist’... even if it's true in many cases, it effectively means that no criticism of the character can ever be considered valid. If someone wants to argue ‘removing your employee's toes and feeding them to him is abusive behavior’, they can't, because of the unspoken skin colors involved? I don't know what the solution to this is.”

No one is saying that all criticism of a character of color is racist or invalid. As allthinky said in response, we’re saying that “those critiques have to be based on real evidence, and placed in a careful context, so that their actions can be understood as human, and not just the brutality of some brute.”

Criticize, but criticize with evidence and with awareness of the context of the criticized behavior. 

With the Izzy example, you have to consider the context of their relationship and Izzy’s actions throughout S1. Izzy isn’t just an employee: he’s a trusted second-in-command who has been insulting, controlling, and disloyal; he endangered not just Stede but also Ed and the rest of the crew; he told Ed that he was better off dead than acting as he was, and that Izzy's loyalty belongs to the violent worksona that Ed wants to shed. Is Ed being abusive when he’s reacting in response to abuse from his abuser? 

“[T]he show has layers (like an onion). Sometimes the meaning is not entirely surface-level, and everyone has a different level of comprehension. Sometimes obvious things to us aren't obvious to other fans/vice-versa. There's a whole 'nother discussion of media literacy to be had.”

I think that Atticus said it best here: “This is not a subtle show. That's not to say it's a simple one [...]. It's amazingly layered and emotional responses by characters are often extremely complex. However, when the show is trying to tell you something, it's not subtle and it never tries to hide it.”

There are a lot of things in OFMD that are subjective and open to interpretation, and those things are fun to discuss even when we have different takes. There are also a lot of things that are very clear. When people try to subvert the messages and ideas that OFMD is conveying loudly and openly, other fans get suspicious and wonder if the folks doing the subverting have an agenda, a bias, or just misunderstand what the show is saying.

I hope that reply was sufficient!

[thevindicativevordan]

Why isn't Nightwing a bigger deal? He has all of Batman's skills and Superman's faith in humanity and is arguably the most beloved hero in the DCU, but most people seem to know him either as the leader of the N̶o̶t̶ ̶J̶L̶ Teen Ttians or just Robin.

Thank you for asking me about Nightwing, I've been wanting to write a piece about him for a while now. The short version is that everyone who claims Dick becoming Nightwing was him "moving out of Batman's shadow and becoming his own man" is completely wrong.

Dick Grayson is a fantastic character, someone who saved Bruce Wayne in-universe both by forcing Batman to grow up a bit, and the countless times he saved Batman's life as his partner whether as Robin or Nightwing. Dick saved Batman in the real world as well, hard to believe but Batman was actually in danger of being cancelled due to poor sales early on. Enter Robin, a young daredevil audience stand in the creators hoped would get kids interested in reading Batman. And it worked! Sales on Batman doubled once Robin showed up which is crazy to think about, but Dick Grayson has always been a popular character. Cartoons like Teen Titans, Batman: The Animated Series, and The Batman only helped grow his audience.

Character-wise, Dick Grayson really does fill a number of crucial roles in the DCU. For Batman, Dick is proof that Batman is a positive force. Meeting Batman helped change Dick for the better, helped him heal after his parents died. With Dick, Batman can take comfort in knowing that yes, he has made a difference in the world for at least one orphan boy, which is all he wanted when he lost his parents himself. To the wider DCU, Dick is a friendly face who convinces others that Batman is competent and not a complete asshole. He took this kid in, trained him to be one of the best heroes the DCU has seen, and did it all out of the kindness of his heart. That someone like Dick can confront the evils of Gotham and not break means there's still hope for that city. As Robin, Dick has led the Titans and is an icon in his own right as The Sidekick, the original, the one every other Robin is built around copying or contrasting. The one all other superhero sidekicks are drawing on as a basis. As Robin Dick Grayson is very much on Batman's level.

Just not as Nightwing. As Nightwing, Dick has been a second rate Daredevil which means he's a third rate Batman (fully prepared to get hate for this but I've read and enjoyed the Miller and Bendis DD runs so I feel entitled to my opinion). A typical Nightwing run tends to go like this: Moving to Bludhaven (which is Gotham... but WORSE!), Dick Grayson usually enrolls in a pointless job we don't care about in order to provide some meaningless soap opera drama that doesn't go anywhere. Patrolling the city as Nightwing, he fights a variety of bad guys who are usually rather lame and unthreatening, with his big bad being a Kingpin knockoff called Blockbuster. Villains are fought, long running plotlines are set up, then everything is abandoned because it's Batfamily event time, and Dick has to run back to Gotham in order to play sidekick again. Usually his involvement is completely superfluous and it would've been better if the writer had gotten to opt out. By the time we finally get back to Nightwing's solo plotlines, the audience has usually ceased to care and the run gets cut short.

That's how Nightwing has been since the New 52 at least. Anyone who thinks that's "becoming their own man" is out of their mind. Dick is so thoroughly in Batman's shadow that he got shot in the head and spent a longer time as "Ric" which everyone fucking hated and sold like shit, than he did as Agent Grayson which was extremely well-received. Reiterating: Ric went on longer than Grayson because of a fucking Batman plotpoint Tom King wanted where Bruce was sad and cut off from the Batfamily because of Dick getting shot. Not just calling out King either, how many times was Kyle Higgins Nightwing run derailed because of Scott Snyder's crossovers? Or how about that entire run getting dumped to the side because Johns wanted to out Dick during Forever Evil, a Justice League/Lex Luthor story? DC has repeatedly made their contempt for Nightwing clear, he's Batman's sidekick still in their eyes, and he serves whatever story role the Batman writer wants.

Hell his best stories tend to have been the ones where he's not Nightwing. He was Robin in a good chunk of the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans run. Morrison really showcased his depth as a character when they wrote him as Batman, their time with Dick under the cowl was actually one of the first Batman runs I ever read, and no Nightwing run has ever matched it in terms of quality in my humble opinion. Scott Snyder's work with DickBats also was a high point for the character, showing Dick as competent and examining his relationship with Gotham and the Gordons. King and Seeley gave him one of the best comic runs with Grayson, a series where he wasn't even a "superhero" technically! When it comes to actual pre-New 52 Nightwing runs that are highly recommended where he *is* Nightwing, there's Chuck Dixon and uhhhhhhh... Tomasi's brief run before Dick became Batman? It's not exactly an overwhelming list.

Look there has been good work done with Nightwing, I'm not claiming there hasn't been. Tim Seeley wrote a great run with Nightwing Rebirth. Seeley fleshed out Dick's Rogues Gallery with cool new ones like Raptor, he brought back old foes like Dr. Hurt (why oh why couldn't you have brought back Flamingo too?), he gave Dick's world some character it solely needed. Bludhaven under Seeley is pretty much the only time I've really felt like it lived up to being Dick's city.

The problem with fictional cities is you have to put in the work to give them the character of real cities. You have to make the cities feel like characters in their own right. Gotham is the best example of this, it's a character all it's own, one that tells you a lot about Batman and his cast. In contrast Bludhaven is usually one of the worst. Any place that wants to claim to be worse than the city that is built over the gate to hell and gets wrecked every other month by the Arkham freaks has to really put in the work to compete. Simply put, Bludhaven typically fails utterly. There's nothing about it that makes you really buy it's worse than Gotham, I mean does anyone really think Nightwing's Rogues wouldn't get their lunches eaten by Batman's? No, no one genuinely buys that. When Bludhaven claims to be worse, it just comes across as tryhard, an attribute that does end up telling you about Nightwing in unintentional ways.

So Seeley didn't do that. Instead he created a city built for a hero like Dick Grayson. Someone who is bright and flashy, but does have an element of darkness to him. Someone who loves the spotlight, but often uses it to obscure. Seeley turned Bludhaven into Las Vegas, and that was the fucking best concept for Bludhaven I have ever seen, it makes so much sense. Las Vegas is the "Entertainment Capital of the World" and isn't that the perfect city for a hero who got their start working in the circus? Isn't the aesthetics of the gleaming casinos, the glamorous sex appeal of the performers, and the spectacle of the shows, all being used to cover up the seediness of mob bosses meeting backstage perfect for Nightwing? It's so utterly unlike New York City, yet Las Vegas is still dangerous, it's got a crime culture all it's own. Seeley used it to great effect, as did Humphries during his brief run, and I will always be pissed that DC didn't continue to use it. That should have stuck around and been the definitive look for Bludhaven.

How Seeley's take on Bludhaven was treated feels like a small scale version of how Nightwing in general gets treated. Whenever creators pitched ideas for him, if editorial thought there was potential to break big, they asked for those ideas to be repurposed for Batman instead. Anything big or good gets repurposed for Batman or tossed to the side so Nightwing can go back to his default: having irrelevant adventures in a city that is supposedly worse than Gotham but can't live up to it. Just like how Nightwing is supposedly better than Batman but never gets to show it. Goddamn it's so frustrating seeing his potential get wasted like that.

The Nightwing book should be one of DC's most ambitious books in terms of storytelling. You can go from traditional superhero stories, to romantic soap opera, to spy stories, to crime noir, to horror, to cosmic adventures, and ALL of them would fit because Nightwing is someone who has a foot in both Gotham and Metropolis. He's got friends everywhere on every team, and has been a hero longer than most Leaguers have at this point. No reason DC should still be afraid to let him loose and insisting on hewing close to what Dixon established almost over 30 years ago is only holding him back. At the very least get him some better Rogues, why the hell didn't he get to keep Professor Pyg? That's Dick's villain not Bruce's! Bullshit that they didn't let Dick keep him. Hopefully Flamingo comes back, with a slight revamp I think he'd make a great reoccurring Nightwing Rogue.

Luckily it does look somewhat like Nightwing fans have reason to be optimistic. While Taylor isn't to my taste, DC clearly views him as a "big" writer, and that they put him on Nightwing says a lot. Taylor has been selling well so far, so hopefully he gets to tell his story, hilarious that even he lampshaded having to write Dick running over to Gotham for another tie-in after Taylor's big opening arc was all about Dick committing himself and his money to Bludhaven. Scott Snyder is apparently working on a Black Label Nightwing book which will explore how he's a different detective than Bruce. The Gotham Knights video game has him as one of the main stars, and while Titans is... controversial, it's one of the most popular streaming shows and Dick is the main character. There's a lot of content coming that features him in the starring role, and that will only help his star rise further.

For the first time in, well, ever it feels like DC may be serious about elevating him. Time will tell if it pays off, but I for one choose to be optimistic that the 2020s will be a turning point for Dick Grayson where Nightwing becomes hugely popular in his own right. Not just as Batman's sidekick.

[lesvegas]

The Rat Pack Lexicon, or Frankenspeak

In the 1960's the Rat Pack created their own language. It was a mixture of slang and cool terms that helped make them undisputably the ‘kings of cool’ in their heyday in Las Vegas.

Decided to paste the whole glossary from here just so we can have it on tumblr. Under a readmore because it’s long as hell. Original post (some definitions were cut off).

18 Karat All the way, full-out: "An 18 karat idiot."

Baby Used as an exclamation as well as a term of endearment.

Bag A person's particular interest; as in "singing's my bag"  

Barn Burner A very stylish, classy woman  

Beard A male friend who acts as a "cover"; usually for extramarital affairs  

Beetle A girl who dresses in flashy clothes  

Big-Leaguer A resourceful man who can handle any situation

  Big Casino Death  

Bird The male or female genitalia; standard greeting: "How's your bird"?

  Bombsville Any kind of failure in life; see ville

Broad Affectionate term for a girl or woman with sex appeal

Bum A person who is despised, most frequently linked to people in the media

Bunter A man who fails in almost everything he does; the opposite of gasser

Cash Out Leave, as in "Cash me out of this party" = "I'm leaving."

Charley What the rat-packers called one another  

Charlies Admiring word for a woman's breasts

Chick A young and invariably pretty girl

Clam-Bake A party or get-together.

Clyde A word used to cover a multitude of personal observations; e.g., "I don't like her clyde" means "I don't like her voice", etc.  

Coo-Coo! See crazy  

Cool A term of admiration for a person or place. An alternative word meaning the same thing is crazy.

Crazy A term of admiration for a personal, place, or thing; similar to cool.

Creep A man who is disliked for any reason

Croaker A derogatory term for a doctor.

Crumb A person it is impossible to respect

Dame A generally derogatory term for a probably unattractive woman

Dig A term of appreciation; e.g., "I dig that broad."

Dimmer Eyes (as in "I gotta see the croaker about my bad dimmers.")

"Drop it, charley" Change the conversation; see "good night, all”

Duke Tip  

  Dying An exaggerated term to mean slightly upset; e.g. "I'm dying"

End A word to signify that someone or something is the very best; "the living end"

Endsville Total failure; similar to bombsville; see ville

Fink A person who cannot be relied upon or trusted, especially someone in the media; a crumb  

First Base The start of something, usually applied in terms of failure when someone has failed to reach it.

Fracture To make laugh; as in "that fractures me"

Gas A great situation; as in "that set was a gas"

Gasoline Alcohol

Gasser A highly admired person; the end!

Gofer Someone who performs menial jobs and tasks; "go for drinks"

Good Night All A term of invective used to change the subject of conversation

Groove A term of admiration or approval; as in "in the groove"

Harvey A person who acts in a stupid or naive fashion; sometimes shortened to "Harv"

Hacked Angry; as in "he's hacked off"

Hello! A cry of surprise to no one in particular when a beautiful woman is seen

Hey-Hey Indulging in anything of a sexual nature with a woman.

Hunker A jack-of-all-trades; see gopher

Jokes An actor's lines in a screenplay

Let's Lose Charley A term used among intimates who want to get rid of a bore in their company  

Little Hey-Hey Romance; a little action with a broad

Locked-up As in "all locked-up," a term for a forthcoming date or engagement, private or public  

Loser Anyone who has made a mess of their life, drinks too much, makes the wrong enemies, etc.

Mish-Mash Similar to loser, but refers specifically to a woman who is messed up

Mothery Terrific; wild and wicked

Mouse Usually a small, very feminine girl who invites being cuddled

Nowhere A term of failure as in "he's nowhere."

  Odds Used in connection with important decisions, as in "the odds aren't right," meaning it's a no go

Original Loser A person without talent; sometimes more fully expressed as "He is the original Major Bowes Amateur Hour loser  

Pallie Dean's nickname for everyone, whether a lifelong friend or a bellhop  

Platinum Having a big heart, generous. "You're platinum, pussycat!"

Player A man who is a gambler by nature, makes friends easily, and never gives up trying

Punks Any undesirables, in particular criminals, gangsters, or mobsters

Quin Derisive term for a woman who is an easy pick-up

  Rain As in "I think it's going to rain" indicating that it is time to leave a dull gathering or party  

Ring-a-Ding A term of approval, as in "What a ring-a-ding broad!"

Sam Used in the same way as Charley for a person whose name has been forgotten, most often applied to females

Scam To cheat at gambling, as in "Hey, what's the scam?"

Scramsville To run off

Sharp A person who dresses well and with style

Smashed A word used to describe someone who is drunk. On occasions it has been replaced with "pissed."

Solid Definite, reliable. (Note: this was also used by Linc in "The Mod Squad.")

Square A person of limited character, not unlike a harvey.

Swing v. To hang out and drink, smoke, sing, generally get real loose.

Ta-Ta Goodbye

Tomato As in "a ripe tomato" a woman ready for seduction or even marriage.

Twirl A girl who loves dancing

Ville A suffix used to indicate changes in any given situation; see endsville, splitsville, etc

Witchdoctor Member of the clergy.

Wow-ee Wow Wow Figured importantly in the Rat Pack lexicon for a while in the late 50s and early 60s. It was an expression of glee, joyful anticipation and a euphemism for lubricious fun.

The following examples are a fictitious sample of Frank in conversation using his infamous lexicon:

The English version

The bartender gives me another drink. The gathering is dull, with a surfeit of ugly women and men unworthy of respect and an insufficient number of attractive ladies and easy-going fellows. I spot an untrustworthy-looking man over by the jukebox making overtures to a woman. He fancies himself an impressive fellow, flirting with this woman who is more than just another sweet thing to cuddle with. In fact, she is extraordinary. I am awestruck by her beauty.

Now the would-be Romeo is leaning closer, pressing his romantic attack. So I cast my gaze in her direction. She gazes back: A confident connection is made. She crosses the room, stands beside me, orders a drink, tells a joke that I find quite amusing, then says she found her previous companion uninteresting. I like her and believe the reverse is also true. I sense the party is on its last legs and say so. We leave.

The Frank version

The barkeep fills me up with gas. The joint ain't hopping; it's no clambake, brother - too many dames and crumbs, not enough broads and players. I spot a fink over by the jukebox making the moves. He thinks he's a big-leaguer, scamming on a chick who - hello! - is more than a mouse. An 18-karat barn-burner, boy- the end. Ring a ding!

Now the big-leaguer's leaning closer, feeding her a line, but she's not biting. It's bombsville. He's nowhere; he knows it, and so do I. So I shoot the broad a come-hither look, and she shoots back: Solid. She crosses the room, sidles up next to me, gasses up, tells a joke that fractures me and says the big-leaguer was a Harve. I dig her, and she digs me. "I think it's going to rain," I say. And just like that, we're scramsville.

[musclesandhammering]

Heya! So some things I wanted to say 😀

First of all, Thank You for your anti-Sylvie posts, I need more of those and they make me happier. I couldnt figure why Loki series felt off from ep 3 and these anti-Slyvie posts helped in that.

Yk, when she was first introduced, I was put off by her ugly blonde hair (no hate to Sophia tho) but I wanted to give her a chance cause she might have been the Enchantress.

But then it all went downhill faster than you could say 'Yikes'. And then the entire series became about her. Her motives, her trauma, her everything. I was excited to see our Loki explored but the series let us down. Horribly.

I got pissed at the fact that Kate Herron put her Fem!OC. Like are you kidding me?! There is a fucking reason why it is MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE not Y/N Reader insert universe!!

Also, what I noticed in Loki was (and a lot of others might have also seen this) that why did Loki turn into a noob all of a sudden from ep 1 to ep 2?! Like in my opinion, seeing those videos would have shaken him up but not do a 180° turn on his character in a span of what? 3-4 hours? Bro, what kind of crack were they smoking while writing the script?

(Okay, this got long 😅)

We’ve been talking a bit since you sent this ask, but I’m gonna answer it anyway cause I like ranting lol.

I think I was one of the few people that got excited when I first saw the behind the scenes pics with Sophia, because I thought she was going to be Amora. And!!! I’ve wanted Amora in the mcu for SO LONG!!! And then I thought she might also be a different version of the enchantress (like Sylvie Lushton in the comics) and maybe that’d be cool cause she’d play basically the same role, right? Or even if she was Lady Loki (which I was kinda iffy on cause I didn’t like the blonde either lol) lol that would’ve been ok because then they’d have to address his gender fluidity!

But somehow they managed to bypass all of that, and create a mash-up of all those characters that somehow had none of the positive traits of any of them. She doesn’t act like Amora at all, and doesn’t have any of Amora’s lore. She doesn’t have any of Sylvie Lushton’s lore, either. And she also doesn’t further the genderfluid thing, because she’s a completely different version of him despite being the same person (which is so needlessly confusing oh my god). I just…. How did they manage to screw up this bad??

And then on top of the fact that her character just failed fundamentally, there’s also the issue with her completely overtaking the entire plot, stealing time that could’ve been spent on Loki’s characterisation and instead using it to explain her backstory, turning loki into an ooc mess that cared about nothing besides the girl he fell in love with after meeting her 3 days ago……. I’m just very irritated with her.

I wanted so bad to like her despite her characterisation, but I honestly don’t even care for the sibling dynamic fics about them, cause I just dislike her that much lol.

And honestly it wasn’t even after the time theatre thing that he changed so drastically. He was standing on a rock trying to subjugate like 3 random Mongolians for literally no reason like 2 minutes into episode 1, which… What?

There are definitely a lot of positive things about the series (I kinda wanna do a post on that, just as a little breather) but, man, there are a lot of negative things.

[gryficowa]

In Poland, pop culture is strange, and I have lived in this country since I was born, well, at least women in short hair in movies and series are everyday life, worse with gay characters in movies who are like a couch of life from the musical Beetlejuice (It's about characteristic behavior)

A common theme in Polish romantic comedies (Apart from stalking and such absurd situations that even I, as a person with a phase on the musical Beetlejuice, do not understand) is a gay friend who is a fashion expert and other crap (Alexa from a certain browser game), okay, I don't mind a gay man like fashion, but the problem is that in Polish films this theme is even abused (which means that the creators see homosexuals in this way, in the sense of gays, as women in a man's body, I cannot explain it, because you have to see it to understand it)

For some reason my country fell in love with this genre too much and probably every other movie is of this genre (Apart from Vega's films, whose films are a massacre, because instead of focusing on characters, it tries to create controversy, okay, for some it can be strong but it gets boring over time, and the characters swear more than I do when my laptop turns off when I play minecraft)

We seem to have series like " Świat według Kiepskich" but many episodes from this show didn't age very well, an example would be the episode where Ferdinand and his son found some kind of helmet (Or a cap, I don't remember) that makes them invisible, at some point he breaks down, but the father about I don't know it and you know what I want to do? Harass random women on the bus… it got really bad old plus is he gets beaten up but that doesn't change the fact he molested women on the bus

The only good show is "Miodowe lata" which may be licensed from some old American series, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a good series (The creators of The Flintstones were based on the series that was just licensed by the Polish version, there was something with copyright, but who cares?)

Whereas the memic has become "Klan"

because of how this series was bad (Looking logically, he was also ableistic, because one of the characters is a boy with Down syndrome and what's wrong with him is … I don't know how to comment on it, okay? His character has become a meme, because the creators gave a lot of action with his character, backstage it was not interesting with this actor, he believed that what is happening on stage is his real life and he is too concerned about the death of a character on the show, in the sense that he thought the person who acted died)

And probably in the series "M jak miłość" character died by driving into cardboard boxes (Kind of an aneurysm, but well, it really looked like driving into cardboard boxes killed her) and that also became a meme

Usually memes become Polish para-documents, because they are so bad that the very fact of creating such something is something unusual, it's like watching "The Room", but in the form of a series with different characters, they even created furras once, the problem is that they were running in pajamas (You know, pajamas with animal features) and there dude said, that it has an animal element (?), this episode is comedy gold, the beginning seems like a typical episode of a para-document, and suddenly my father makes a strange noise and says that he always had an animal element in him, I greet the furras who read this and they have the following: What?

Polish cabarets are only interested in boomers, so I will not mention them, but a Polish TV station has become memical (Yes, it's about this station with a trans-species deer), when you start to listen to it, you feel as if you are sitting in a different reality, then after just such a departure in what is said there, that only those on foil caps are equal in this (Or the historical sewers after midnight)

There are also some celebrities and politicians (Including the president, who is as you see it, yes, it's about Duda, he pissed me off with the text "LGBT is not people, it's ideology", which made me become more interested in politics, because even with little knowledge, I knew that what he was saying was not very cool)

Let's not forget about the Pope (known as "Yellow Mouth" in Poland), who became a caricature of himself (In the sense, people loved him so much that the young generation started to meme it to piss off boomers, now these memes are seriously absurd, sometimes they have pedophile humor, on the Polish version of FB, in the sense of some person from Poland, fed up with "Politically Correct FB" created a page called ablicia, guess who the most was there, yeah popes got funny in its stupidity, the page that was supposed to be the new FB was taken over by an army of popes, they didn't play in any comedy) and some time ago, the minister of education announced that that will increase the number of classes on this particular pope, I can already imagine what memes from the alpha generation will arise

In Poland, there is a cult of the number 2137, the Pope died at this time, and seriously, it is so trivial that it's ridiculous, that's why this number is used in the form of a joke (Like 69 or 666)

[ichika27]

Mairimashita! Iruma-kun s2 ep21

Last episode for this season!

It’s strange we’re only getting 21. It feels like an awkward number to end on since many other anime that goes on for 20+ episodes have at least 24-26. Oh well, s3 has been announced so it’s all good I guess.

It's still the Apocalypse (the last day of it) and Iruma is trying to finish all of his homework which seem to be going well. He had a lot to do due to homework being doubled.

Why was homework doubled? It's the consequence of a past action...

It was due to the bet from back at the Walter Park arc! They remembered about it (I kinda forgot about it, honestly, since so many things happened since then).

Grandpa Sullivan is the one to choose the winners and decided it was all of them making them all both the winners and losers of the bet. With this, both the prize and punishments applied - they were treated to an expensive meal but they also have to deal with a ton of homework. Kalego-sensei is pissed he had to pay for everyone’s food but was very happy to tell them that they will be suffering for the rest of the apocalypse.

Iruma worked hard and got through all the homework though.

This Apocalypse Iruma had: gone on vacation with his friends, went on a sleepover at a friend's house, and went on a date... so naturally, this time around he's spending time with family!

He and Grandpa are gonna go buy school supplies. I kinda missed when me and my family did that back in the day. I always found shopping for school supplies fun.

Due to the season's earlier events, Iruma has gotten pretty popular it seems so Grandpa gives him anti-recognition glasses for a disguise. Ain’t the boy cute? I dunno why but with anime characters, glasses actually either add or subtract from how good or bad their appearance is.

Haha this reminds me, there’s this anime called “Castle Town Dandelion” and the MC is a girl who hates standing out and in one episode, her sister gave her glasses that could allegedly do the same thing Iruma’s glasses here could. It doesn’t work like that and everyone just acted as if it does to make her feel better. Akane needed this version lol.

They're headed to Magical Street to go shopping! A new area has been introduced to both us and Iruma.

This is apparently where shops, parks and also teacher's dorms are located. I’m wondering why the teacher’s dorms are here when back in the episodes where Iruma joined the student council, it seems he and the student council members were staying over at school. Why isn’t the dorm for faculty members at school, too then? Weird.

Iruma's Grandpa is pretty popular, too. People crowded around him as soon as they saw him but doesn't recognize Iruma due to the glasses. Makes me wonder why Grandpa didn't wear ones himself lol.

Grandpa Sullivan isn’t just popular as he’s well-liked, too.

First, clothes shopping! Iruma tried on a coat as they need some for the upcoming winter. Grandpa decides these were good and takes an entire rack. Damn they're rich lol. He tells Iruma to just wear a different one everyday.

They're buying accessories next and Opera suggest that Iruma buy a collar for his familiar which is Kalego-sensei lol. Iruma knew it would not end well if he actually did that and declines. Opera is disappointed by this... they really want to mess with Kalego, huh?

I think it’s funny but I also pity Kalego-sensei. Having to deal with his senpai’s antics long after graduating. The nightmare of many former students.

Next they're buying books! God this makes me miss going to book fairs.

Grandpa tells the staff at the desk what books he wanted and each one he lists off automatically flies down next to him (pretty cool). Grandpa explains that Iruma would need a lot of books to learn more spells. They talked about the spell Fractal (which Iruma used to princess carry Ameri last episode) and Grandpa tells him that with enough practice, Iruma could also use it to be able to fly. Grandpa takes this chance to show-off to Iruma by using it to take down a shoplifter. Everyone in the store is amazed but Iruma's praise is the one Grandpa cares about the most.

They continue shopping for stuff. This was funny cause the way Grandpa said the lollipop's name reminded me of how Doraemon introduces the items from his pocket. Also, does this mean that lollipop has no expiration date?

The day ends with the two having a talk (Opera went and got the carriage). Iruma says he had a lot of fun at school which made his Grandpa happy knowing Iruma has gotten used to living here. Grandpa tells him that the new semester would be even more eventful than this one and showed him a poster of what I assume would be the festivals the other fans have been mentioning.

In the middle of their talk, Iruma suddenly asks Grandpa about how to become a Demon King (likely cause he overheard some people wondering aloud why Sullivan, a powerful demon, didn't want to take the job despite being qualified for it).

Grandpa is surprised and speechless for a moment but then becomes happy and says if Iruma is asking cause he wanted to be Demon King then Grandpa will support him. Iruma explains he’s just curious.

Flashback! It seems Grandpa used to work for the former Demon King, Delkiller.

Too bad his face is covered. I’m curious to know what he looked like when he was younger.

Oooh... we finally see him - the infamous Delkiller that's been talked about for a long time. His face isn't completely properly shown for now, I guess but he’s shown to be pretty huge. He seems lazy but he also takes pride in the Demon World he's created. The flashback ends here though.

His hair color reminds me somewhat of Evil Cycle! Iruma’s hair color...

We get a bit of lore info from Grandpa about Demon Kings.

Grandpa explains about the 13 Crowns - representatives of the Demon World who help govern it - and that to become a Demon King, one must possess the trust of every single one since they'd be the one to rule the Demon World.

He also explains the role and power of the Demon King - their word is law and they are the Demon World itself. Demons will do as they commanded. The Demon World is a reflection of whoever ruled it and right now, the Demon World is a fun place because Delkiller-sama was a fun person.

Grandpa explains that with all these in mind, he doesn't know if he'd even get the role someday if he wanted it or if he ever did, if he'd be worthy of it. It’s such a big thing after all.

If he did become the Demon King though, he says he'd do this: make the Demon World "Iruma"-themed lol. Seriously though, he says he'd support Iruma if he'd become the Demon King and would like to see what kind of world Iruma would create.

These statements are very ironic considering who would end up being future Demon King haha.

While Iruma said he didn’t want to become Demon King, he did end up thinking about it. What if he did become the Demon King?

Hmm... for someone who isn’t interested, he looked like he was thinking deeply about it.

They get back home and later that night, Iruma checked the stuff Granpa bought him.

Iruma finally gets a hold of the Demon King Prophecy! We've heard about the prophecy before but Iruma probably hasn't yet until now. After listing the stuff about the future king, there’s a shot of Iruma’s hand with his ring haha. Upon reading this, Iruma thought more about it: What kind of world would it become if he were to become the Demon King?

You’re not the only one wondering Iruma. I’m sure the rest of the fandom is wondering that, too.

The new semester begins! The entire Abnormal class is told that they now have to attain Dalet (4) rank before their second year begins as it's the minimum they'd need to graduate - failure results in them losing the Royal One classroom!

--

Not gonna lie, the shopping part of the episode reminded me of the scenes at the beginning of the firsts Harry Potter movies with them shopping at Diagon Alley. It’s fun and I got to see more of the Demon World. I wonder if they’d show us other places in the Demon World in the next season.

Grandpa happily doting on Iruma made me think that maybe it’d have been better for him if he had gotten to adopt Iruma as a child. Iruma is already a teenager and so their time they could spend together wouldn’t be as long or as often since Iruma had friends and busy with school. On the other hand, Iruma gained a lot of experiences in his crappy life before getting here and it did help him become the person he is. I guess the problem here is that he’s human and he probably ages faster than everyone else. :P

Like I mentioned before, it feels weird we only got 21 episodes this time. I was hoping there’d be another arc before the end of the season. There’s already a season 3 announcement and for next year, I think, so its all good. It might feel like a long time but I thought the same back when season 1 ended and now the finale for season 2 had just aired. Time flies fast.

I just wanna point out that in the last scene at the classroom when they were being told about the rank raising they gotta do, Agares is shown with his eyes visible. I’m glad they never put that mask back to cover his face cause he looks good haha. Glad they kept this detail.

Well, thank you for reading this and the other posts, too if you did. I guess we’d have to wait for season 3 now. I’m glad this show is popular enough to gain another season so fast. :)

[agentnico]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) Review

It all started with Sonic’s teeth. Ever since fans successfully bullied a studio into reanimating their titular hedgehog character after the abomination shown in the first trailer, fans realised that rallying together (on Twitter) can make a difference. So you’d think it would mean we could all come together to restore world peace and get rid of racism, injustice, poverty, war and negativity of all kind? Nope, nope it does not. But at least we get a better version of a bad DC movie that came out in 2017. I mean, baby steps I guess.

Plot: Fuelled by his restored faith in humanity and inspired by Superman's selfless act, Bruce Wayne enlists newfound ally Diana Prince to face an even greater threat. Together, Batman and Wonder Woman work quickly to recruit a team to stand against this newly awakened enemy. Despite the formation of an unprecedented league of heroes -- Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and the Flash -- it may be too late to save the planet from an assault of catastrophic proportions.

I recall my younger simpler self in 2017 at the early age of 20 soon to be 21, sitting down and watching the new Justice League film with zero to no expectations, as by that point the DC Extended Universe was a trainwreck and was a franchise that was literally falling apart before out unblinking red hay fever filled eyes. However, after watching Justice League I was baffled at the fact that I still managed to be disappointed after having zero expectations! With zero expectations this film took me into the minuses, and we all know I’m not great at mathematics so boy are we in the danger zone when we hit the minuses! Looking back at my review of the film back then, I used extreme yet fitting comments like “generic”, “predictable” “messy” and plain “dogsh*t”. Which is what it was. 2017′s Justice League is exactly how I’d imagine a dog’s poop would look if it was turned into an abstract film! It was truly abysmal. After that I thought I’d never have to talk about this film again. How wrong I was. But, in a rare turn of tables, I am glad that I was wrong...

A little history lesson first. Alright, settle down kids, settle down.... Rob, put the paper plane down, do not throw it, I said DON’T THROW IT! NO! Stop! Stupid child!! Headteacher’s office right now! Also, say hi to your mother for me, okay? I’m having brunch with her on Saturday and you better not be there as you should be doing your homework watching the 4 hour cut of Justice League and questioning your life choices!! Anyway, now let’s have ourselves a history lesson. The topic is - What In The Flying Fudge Happened Behind-The-Scenes Of Justice League For DUMMIES: Condensed Edition. A really condensed version as honestly none of us have the attention span to read loads and I’m probably losing the vast majority of you due to this overlong rambling session. So anyway, to the last couple of readers left, here we go! Following the success of Man of Steel, Warner Bros. gave Zack Snyder the reigns to oversee and create a DC cinematic universe to rival the success of Marvel. And so came Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, which turned out to be a bit of a hodgepodge, receiving mixed to negative reviews and though was a box office success, earned diminishing results to what Warner Bros. originally anticipated. However, by the time Batman V Superman released, Zack Snyder was already hard at work on the big superhero team up film Justice League (which was meant to set up many characters and future films for the DCEU) with a lot of filming already underway, so Warner Bros. couldn’t particularly pump the breaks on it by that point, even though they evidently lost trust in the Snyder formula. To be honest, at that point I too lost trust in Snyder’s vision and the DCEU as a whole, but my opinion doesn’t class for a single dime, whilst the opinions of Warner Bros. executives make millions, so there aren’t any hard feelings on my behalf for them not enquiring on my thoughts. Anyway, midway through production Zack Snyder was hit with a family tragedy with his daughter committing suicide, so Snyder naturally had to depart the project to be with his family during this grieving time. Warner Bros. had the option to pause production and await for Snyder’s return, or progress at their own accord. Naturally they decided to do their own thing cause they are a business and want that dollar dollar bill baby!! So they hired Joss Whedon who was riding fresh off the success of two Avengers movies and obviously had experience in cinematic universes and such, to rework the Justice League movie by condensing it into a 2 hour film (from the over 4 hour material that Snyder shot) and reshoot scenes to fit the smaller runtime. So you cannot particularly blame Whedon for taking out so many great scenes as he had a contract to fulfil with Warner Bros, but then you look at the many forced jokes and unnecessary reshot scenes and you realise how self-indulgent Joss Whedon was during filming, as he basically was spitting on everything Snyder did and was trying to do his own thing. Low and behold, the mess that is the 2017 movie is created, where its the visions and creative minds of two director with evidently different styles clashing and not really mixing well at all, and as such we have a messy movie that doesn’t really make sense and is a bit of a middle finger to DC fans and honestly everyone and all. Also, there was that little aspect of Henry Cavill’s deformed upper lip due to the fact that during reshoots he had a moustache that he’d grown and was contractually obligated to have for his Mission Impossible role, so the visual effects team had to digitally remove it in post production and the result is, well, see for yourself...

Yes, they made the dashing handsome my-sexuality-questioning Henry Cavill look stupid, and that is UNFORGIVABLE. Funny, yes, very funny but unforgivable!! So for this and many other reasons the 2017 film turned out horribly. Then after that many months later, Zack Snyder and cast and crew members began teasing of this mythical version of the movie that was befit of Snyder’s original vision. You see, apparently before he left the project, Snyder actually filmed everything he wanted and it was only awaiting to be reworked with visual effects and edited properly, but then Whedon came in with his scissors and cut everything mercilessly with a cheeky grin and his ginger beard. Speaking of his ginger beard, is Joss Whedon Irish? Or has Irish roots? Honestly, I would Google it, but wait, I don’t think I really care. So anyway, Snyder still had all of his filmed scenes saved on his ridiculously oversized hard drive just waiting to be looked at again. This is where the fandom did its magic by creating a Twitter hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut and began spam posting for Warner Bros. to let Zack Snyder release what he originally intended to. Honestly, who would have thunk it, but this actually worked!! Warner Bros. allowed this, and not only that, but gave Snyder an additional $70 million to finish up the visual effects as well as to film a couple of additional sequences and gave it the prestigious honour to debut it on HBO Max, so as to boost the subscriber rating on Warner Bros. new streaming service. And here we are.

Honestly, I thought seeing this Director’s Cut of sorts wouldn’t bring much to the table as I didn’t believe that a film that was so broken had originally been in any way good. After finishing this 4 hour Snyder vision I must admit though that I was pleasantly surprised. Completely baffled by the studio and Joss Whedon, but really happy for Zack Snyder. The guy was fighting for it and finally was able to accomplish and bring out his true original vision, and though Zack Snyder’s Justice League has its flaws, its so much better than what we got in 2017, and in fact is a soaring science fiction sci-fi epic that literally feels epic!! It takes time establishing the characters and every single plot point as well as building out this rich mythology of this world of the DC Extended Universe, and so as you move into the second half of the film, there’s a feeling of pay off. You actually care about the characters and understand the plot points and it doesn’t feel rushed. Its truly astounding that there are producers out there who thought it was a good idea to get rid of all of that and instead bring out whatever the heck Joss Whedon did with the 2017 version. Look, I quite enjoy Joss Whedon’s work, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel to Cabin in the Woods and his work on Marvel, the guy obviously has a talent, but also he obviously does not belong to the dark and brooding style of DC. Zack Snyder on the other hand, though makes his mistakes, truly embraces the epic feel of the DC material. And it seems once you give Snyder enough time and space, he can actually bring out something like this:

The main characters are all given so much more to do, or at least those that got side-lined in the 2017 version are given more to do here. One of my complaints with the original was how pointless the League turns out to be. Basically in the theatrical version the main team all end up being useless and only once Superman shows up he saves everyone’s asses and literally does EVERYTHING. Might as well have called the film Man of Steel 2 (feat. Justice League). However in this new version, every main character serves a purpose. Well most of them do at least. Cyborg and Flash are much more compelling characters with more layers and backstory, and in fact are a prime reason to defeating the great evil in the end. You now understand why Cyborg actor Ray Fisher was pissed at Joss Whedon, as the guy literally got rid of his best stuff. Superman strikes a cool black suit and is still powerful, however as the finale shows, he isn’t all-powerful and does need the help of the rest of the team. Wonder Woman gets a lot more to do in this theatrical cut, and in fact this is probably Gal Gadot’s best performance as Wonder Woman and she really shows herself as a powerful female superhero! Aquaman’s role stays largely unchanged, however to be honest Jason Momoa’s character was one of the only ones who didn’t suffer in the theatrical cut. That’s unsurprising seeing as Jason Momoa is such a naturally cool dude! A big panda that is friendly in real life, but when necessary can turn into a roaring bear. To be honest, the only League member that ends up a bit pointless is actually Batman. He still serves a purpose in the film in that he’s the one who assembles the team, but otherwise the rest of the group is so overpowered compared to him that in the end you do kind of think that he doesn’t really belong there. Still, Ben Affleck is great in the role and it’s a shame we won’t see much of him past Flashpoint film that will be released in the next few years.

There are a lot of characters in this film and one can still say the movie is overstuffed, but also seeing as the movie was originally intended to spring board the DCEU properly, all these teases are actually welcome. There are an abundance of cameos, and to be honest so many characters are so well cast that you do end up wishing that Snyder was given the opportunity to make his entire Justice League planned trilogy, but nevertheless at least we have this. There are truly an abundance of cool appearances here, from the menacing villain Darkseid (played by Ray Porter) to Willem Dafoe doing what Dafoe does best, only in this case underwater and I’m certain that’s gonna span many comparison memes with The Lighthouse. Joe Morton as Cyborg’s dad is given a lot more to do here and in fact is pivotal towards building up Cyborg into the important character that he is. There’s also a cameo from Jared Leto’s Joker, who in some ways redeems himself after his appearance in Suicide Squad. Also, we need to talk about Steppenwolf, who’s the main baddie in this film. In the theatrical cut the guy was the most generic one-note villain who also looked like a PS2 character. It was honestly embarrassing the way he was animated. Luckily in this version he’s been put through enough Skyrim mods to looks much more intimidating and is also given a better motivation. As we find out, the reason he does what he does is because he wants to go home. He’s been banished and he simply wants to earn his place back home, so it’s actually kind of sweet. Steppenwolf is a sweetie. I mean, yeah, he wants to destroy half of the world to fulfil his dream, but hey, haven’t we all taken something extreme measures to get what we want?

The film is far from perfect though. At the end of the day, the movie is just about a guy hunting down a bunch of magical boxes. That was the premise of the theatrical cut and its the same here too. Yes, there is more substance and gravitas to the proceedings, but at the end of the day the story doesn’t really surprise much. And with the entire thing running at 4 hours, it is definitely too long and there is the element where there is simply too much in this thing. Also visually, though the movie has plenty of gorgeous shots and Zack Snyder’s signature slow motion sequences are on full display here, there are still many sequences where the CGI and green screen are super obvious and look really fake. That being said there’s still so much visual goodness in this, and also I have to mention Junkie XL’s new music score that does reiterate the epic feel of this movie, in comparison to Danny Elfman’s weak uninspiring notes in the theatrical cut.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is a massive surprise and completely changes the perception of what we saw in the original 2017 theatrical cut. It’s a sprawling massive adventure that’s a dream come true for any comic book fan. It shows how vital film editing is, and how important it is to have a cohesive plan when making a movie. Gone too are the silly forced jokes, and though there is still some humour here, it feels more grounded and fit of the setting and scenario. This is Snyder’s vision through and through, and though at times it is clunky, it overall is incredible to behold, as it’s this one guy’s mind and his love for the DC lore. It’s a credible achievement, and I’m actually sentimentally happy for Snyder that he finally managed to complete this. He even during the credits dedicates this to his daughter Autumn that passed away, and I found that to be truly bittersweet. Justice has indeed been served.

Overall score: 7/10

[skrivarmelodi]

Now AOT is over...

So, I read the final chapter of Attack On Titan and there are a lot of thoughts and feelings. But overall I'm pleased with the whole story and the ending. I trusted Isayama and he didn't disappoint me.

There are certain things I'd like to go into detail about Levi, Ymir, Mikasa, Eren etc and certain moments during the story.

So if anyone cares here we go. (warning, this got long and contains spoilers for chapter 139 and obviouisly the whole story!)

First, Ymir Fritz, Eren, and Mikasa.

The more we got to know Ymir, the more we knew about her circumstances and how it all started, the more I asked myself, why she doesn’t simply stop all of the misery, if she can and, obviously, has the power to do so (chapter 122).

I thought, perhaps, because she loves King Fritz so much, after all, she sacrificed herself in order to protect him (which I didn’t like at all, because he was a shitty person). But then I wasn't sure if Isayama would use 'love' in such a way. He did and it's nothing new but it's something we can all understand. Love is good, but it can also be something bad, something toxic, and Ymir was most likely a slave of her own feelings because she didn't know better. Her life was miserable until she got the power to become a Titan and gave birth to the daughters of the king. But as you can see, at the beginning of chapter 122 she watches a couple getting married and that was what she wanted too. To be loved. This was the love she knew and the love she protected and believed that was true love (most likely) because she didn't know a different kind of love.

When Eren told her, that she can decide and asked her to give him the power he needs, it didn’t sit well with me. I guess because I never connected Eren to have any romantic feelings (though I guessed so much when it comes to Mikasa and he simply wanted to be cool or something). But AOT in itself doesn’t display love in the way we usually see, that became very clear to me with each new chapter. And love is not the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about AOT.

Now about Eren.

Oh boy, look at that. When Eren slowly became the villain I liked the idea but at the same time I was questioning it. It simply made no sense to me why he would want to kill everyone and yet care so deeply about his friends. Also, Isayama is not that sort of person to let his characters act out of character. Whatever the characters I agreed with it because that was how Isayama created them. That's why, when it came out that Eren was able to see the past, present, and future, I thought he probably saw a way to stop all of this and protect his friends. Isayama played us good, when Eren was rude towards Mikasa and Armin and then the rumbling came, but I constantly thought 'No, there must be more to it'. And yeah, Eren saw a possible future because everything was unclear to him and he grabbed that chance and took it.

Remember in the first season, when Eren, Levi, and Levi's squad were fighting against the female titan and that Eren has to decide what he should do and what not? That he has to accept the consequences? Yeah, Eren did that and he knew it was bad but it was the way he believed in and saw, even if it meant to kill 80% of humanity (what the...) and sacrifice his own life. I don't see Eren as a hero nor as a villain. But he definitely acted on his own free will and accepted the consequences.

Now about Mikasa.

Well, I'll be honest, I was never a fan of Mikasa. I didn't like how she was solely focused on Eren and didn't seem to have her own goals that were not connected to Eren. I simply didn't like that and Eren wasn't my favourite either, but I love their development. The moment I started to feel sorry for her was when Eren said he hated her. You see, I get it, I understand why Mikasa is the way she is and I'm simply no fan of this 'I do everything for you, fuck everyone else' especially not in a world like AOT, I also understand the Ackermann Bond (I ship Eruri after all). So I was really pissed at Eren to stomp on her feelings like that because, no matter how much I like or dislike a person, you don't treat them the way Eren did (also toward Armin). From that moment on, I enjoyed her development and when she cut off Eren's head I was sad and happy for her.

So, in many ways, Mikasa is like Ymir, or rather, Ymir is like Mikasa, but on a whole different level. Mikasa, who devoted herself to Eren, just like Ymir did to King Fritz, saw that what he was doing was wrong and she decided to stop him. She loves him still, of course, but she was able to do what Ymir couldn't and she did it for the greater good. Because there is more than Eren, there are more people who deserve to live. I did like that and also that her action was the eye-opener for Ymir. It doesn't change the way Mikasa feels about Eren, and that's okay, but she was willing to kill the person she loves more than anything because it was the right thing to do. Ymir simply couldn't do what Mikasa did because she didn't know better.

About Levi, Erwin's death, Armin saving humanity, Berthold wasn't supposed to die, and just some thoughts about AOT in general.

Now, I do ship Levi and Erwin together and I was sure Levi would die and meet Erwin in the afterlife and then Isayama would out them (haha). But I'm just happy that Levi survived and is now the adopted uncle of Gabi and Falco. He's my favorite character and a lot of things would have ended badly without him. For me, he and Erwin and their squad represented not only a strong force and saviours but also how you probably have to be in order to survive/handle a world like AOT.

So I was shocked, at first, when Levi saw Erwin and the others because I thought he would die, but when the tear ran down his cheek, I could feel how everything fell of his shoulders. Levi never cried, never had time to mourn his comrades because he understood the world they were living in and that he needed to keep on moving. I never considered him as someone cold because he clearly wasn't. But he also never cried and seeing that... finally. And I'm sure he cried some more after everything. I thought he would cry (he was close to though and perhaps did when he was alone) when Erwin died because that fucking broke him.

Their relationship fascinated me even before I started to ship them but it broke my fucking heart when Erwin died too.

And here we come to the part about Armin and Bertholg.

I was so pissed that Armin survived and even more when things just became worse. I thought, in AOT, you can't solve everything through talking. It worked during certain critical moments, yes, but it simply isn't the main key for everything when it comes to the world of AOT.

So, I never understood why Armin had to survive and not Erwin and it became more and more confusing for me as the story continued because Armin, clearly, is not Erwin and he doesn't have what Erwin has. I don't know if things would have been better with Erwin being in charge, but he would have definitely done something while Armin didn't know what to do. Sure, he is younger than Erwin, doesn't have the experience as Erwin does and in his core he is very different, and that's totally fine. Armin is fine the way he is, but during the story. I constantly found myself thinking: 'With Erwin and his mind, we wouldn't be in such a situation'. I once read somewhere that Levi and Erwin are too smart to be fooled by, for example, Yelena. I can't help but agree.

And today, when I read the final chapter and Eren said 'Berthold wasn't supposed to die on that day' and also, that he couldn't see the past and future as separated paths but everything at once I thought, that this is Isayama giving us his version but there are also many many other ways this story could go. Which is, for me, such a sweet and grateful message. We are free to choose our path (fanfiction/fanart etc) and to create a different story, but this AOT version is his version and how he imagined it, or rather, how Eren saw one possible happy end.

I'm still certain with Erwin around things would have been different, better even, but I understand Eren too. I guess, he didn't only choose Armin because he knew things would have a happy ending for his friends. He also choose Armin because of personal feelings. I wonder what would have happened if Berthold survived, was there also a happy end but without Armin? And perhaps without the rumbling? I think it's nice that Isayama did this and that he, basically, points at a different way but it's up to us.

Now, the rumbling is over and so is the power of the titans and in such a world, someone like Armin is the right person to be in. Now it's all about talking, having a proper conversation, creating relationships through words. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Erwin would have been able to do that as well, but Armin is much more diplomatic than Erwin because he doesn't want to fight or kill, it's really the last option for him. Erwin on the other hand wouldn't hesitate, and someone like him was important for the world before the rumbling was over.

Now some general thoughts about AOT now that it's over.

Okay, so, I watched tons of Anime when I was a teenager and the best thing for me was Death Note. But after Death Note I found nothing that really interested me and a lot of weird stuff. I don't know, it simply wasn't for me. However, I continued reading my yaoi Mangas and even studied Japanese for a year. Then, I did hear about Attack on Titan but I was so used to shitty Anime that I thought it would be shitty too (the next best thing I found was Yuri on Ice). However, a friend of mine gave me the first season and I thought, well, why not. I was so wrong and through AOT I found my way back to Anime.

It's not just the story, not just the art-style I like, it's Isayama and his brain I enjoy so much. I'm a very logical person and I like it when stories and things make sense and are connected from the beginning till the end and when it never feels forced but natural, true, loyal to the characters and the world they created. I don't know how he does it but I'm so grateful for AOT and that he decided to share this amazing story with us (even though it was fucking painful and my poor Levi). It's really been a while for me to find a story that caught me like Death Note did many years ago.

So, ありがとう、Isayama-San!

But I'd love to know more about the Ackermans and Levi and perhaps we'll get a book like Answers etc later. That would be great.

[itcamefromthetoybox]

The Battling Busboy

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” Marvel Studios’ latest super hero film, just hit theaters, and with it came some great new toys! And this being a toy review blog… I’m sure you can gather where I’m going with this. We’re gonna review some toys! Now, last week, we did something a little different and reviewed a two-pack instead of one toy. Well, we’re doing it again! So let’s take a look at the “Shang-Chi vs. Death Dealer” set.

As of this writing, I haven’t seen the movie yet. With the COVID Delta variant on shelves and my health held together by little more than coffee and a desire to own tiny plastic things, I don’t feel super-duper about going to theaters any time soon. This means I don’t know much about these characters from the movies, especially since I’m avoiding spoilers, and everything I do know is from the comics.

In the comics, Shang-Chi was originally the son of famous literary villain Fu Manchu, and was created back when Marvel had the rights to the Fu-Manchu books and was looking to cash in on the kung-fu craze of the 70’s. Hell, the comic that eventually became Shang-Chi was originally going to be an adaptation of a show called “Kung-Fu.” Despite his dad being so obviously evil that it was cartoonish, Shang-Chi didn’t realize his dad was the bad guy until he was sent to kill Fu Manchu’s enemies from the book, at which point, Shang-Chi realized, “oh crap, my dad’s evil!” Later books would retcon out Fu Manchu, because he was literally the original racist stereotype for Chinese master villains, and replace him with… pretty much the same thing but with a new name, because Marvel was fine with the racism but had lost the book rights and didn’t want to get sued. The movies, however, were like, “yeah, racism and borderline copy right violations might cut into our profit margins.” So they made Shang-Chi’s father an updated version of Iron Man’s comic book arch foe The Mandarin. Shang-Chi has popped up throughout the years as an Avenger, a recurring friend of Spider-Man, the dude everyone who needs to learn martial arts goes to, and whenever there’s a massive crowd shot of heroes. He’s also had several one-shots, short stories, and mini series, all of which is not bad for a guy who has no super powers.

His enemy in this two-pack, his father’s henchman Death Dealer, was someone who I initially knew nothing about. But, it’s 2021 and Wikipedia is a thing, so that got fixed fast. In the comics, Death Dealer was a former member of British intelligence agency MI-6, who was also a spy for Shang-Chi’s father. Upon being discovered, he fled and was given a pretty great costume and sent to fight Shang-Chi, who he actually managed to capture. Shang-Chi managed to eventually escape and later fought Death Dealer at his dad’s base in China, where he actually killed the villain by burning him to death. Because fire is usually the answer to whatever problems you may face.

Now that we all know who the hell these people are, let’s talk toys! For the Shang-Chi movie, Marvel’s released a bunch of toys. Shocking, I know. There’s the highly articulated Marvel Legends line, aimed at collectors, two figures for the Marvel Titan Heroes line of simplified 12-inch figures, and a small line of 6-inch figures with different features, in addition to toy accessories and a toy dragon that looks awesome. The set we’re looking at is from the main toy line, where most of the figures have different gimmicks. In this case, Shang-Chi has the power to roundhouse kick anyone who pisses him off, and Death Dealer has the ability to get roundhouse kicked in the face, because the toy budget meant only one figure in this set got to do something cool.

When Shang-Chi does it, it looks cool. When I do it, my pants rip.

Both figures in this set look really great. Excellent sculpting, wonderful detailing, they just look really good. Since it’s his movie, we’ll talk about Shang-Chi first, though. His articulation is all around his shoulders and legs. He’s also got a ball jointed head, but the sculpting means he can’t look up, so not entirely sure why they didn’t just use a swivel joint here. He’s got no knee or elbow articulation, which is a shame, but that’s because this figure is all about his gimmick, which we’ll get to in a second.

Finally, a toy for all my stock photo needs.

First, I do want to talk about an issue I have with this figure. His hair feels like a more rubbery plastic than the rest of his head, which makes for a weird sensation to touch. I know that’s a minor complaint, but it really bothers me, especially since I also grabbed the other Shang-Chi in this line, and he doesn’t have this issue. I don’t know if it’s a weird quirk of the plastic used for this toy’s head or if the hair’s a separate piece that was attached, or what, but it does bother me and might bug anyone with a sensory issue you might want to give this to, so keep that in mind.

The quality of this picture matches how I feel when I touch the toy’s hair.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the gimmick. The way it works is that there is a spring-loaded swivel in Shang-Chi’s right thigh, directly next to his crotch. You raise his left leg into a kick position, turn his body on the swivel, and let go. There’s a button on the back of his right leg that’s meant to hold him in place until you’re ready for him to kick, but it doesn’t do that great a job holding him and also requires you to constantly hold it in to make use of it.

You must grip the handsome man’s strong, powerful thighs.

As for Death Dealer, like I said before, he is very well-detailed. I was delighted by that. His articulation, on the other hand, isn’t exactly stellar. He has excellent shoulders and a ball joint head, but the sculpting prevents him from looking up and he has no elbows. His legs have articulation, but it is really limited by his costume’s robes, which block the legs from moving too much, and he has no knees. His right hand has a dagger molded into it and his left hand is sculpted into a grabbing gesture, so he also can’t hold anything. He’s definitely the weaker figure in the set and is clearly here just so Shang-Chi can kick him in the face.

Who needs good leg articulation when you have an outfit like this?

Who exactly is this set for? Well, clearly, it’s for the kids. It has a fun gimmick with simple figures that are fun for kids to play with and have no accessories that can be lost. The packaging also has no screens or windows, so the figures come in the open, meaning kids can touch them in the stores. The set goes for about $15, which does feel like a fair price. Just keep in mind what I said about Death Dealer’s articulation and Shang-Chi’s hair. That’s all I have to say, so I’m signing off and wishing you happy toy hunting!

[violexides]

The DreamSMP Explained (By Someone Who Has Never Watched Any DreamSMP Stream)

cracks knuckles. okay, fucking FINALLY doing this. ahem. 

Couple things to preface with, will keep this brief. 

This isn’t entirely blind. One of my best friends has helped out in places, just because I wanted to hit on everything (accurate or not), and I know mutuals/friends who post and write about DreamSMP (though how much of that is AU or canon-typical, I can’t say. I can’t tell). I’ve never seen a single stream, but I’ve seen a few clips. So, my understanding is a bit more than the title may imply, but still not a lot. Sorry.

Also, this will be very, very long (near 2k words). All under the cut, will TW this with themes of abuse, death, manipulation, unreality, hallucinations, and me having an abrasive sense of humor where I revel in the glee of calling these guys European twinks. Though, speaking of. This is ALL about the actual characters, not the people. I don’t know anything about most of these actual streamers, so, no hate to them. In fact, I think they’re pretty cool for having come up with a… somewhat coherent… narrative, all through using Minecraft as a medium. Anyway.

Sigh. Without further ado, 

So. There’s this place. Made by Philza, AKA God, AKA one of like six different gods. Philza, born from the womb acting like someone’s 43 year old uncle, has three kids. Wilbur, Tommy, and Tubbo. There are other people here, with some scattered ancestry that raises some questions, but I don’t really care who fucked an Enderman and had an 8’0 tall kid (Ranboo DNI).

There are also places! Sometimes! On a good day, there are actual, intact locations. We’ve got hits like “The Badlands”, which I think was taken from about three different dystopian novels I read in third grade, “El Rapids” (Quackity, Subpoena (autocorrect wins this round), and Karl made this one), “Pogtopia”, no comment on this one, and “L’Manberg”, which Wilbur made. 

Only one of these is going to be important.

So, might be a good time to say this: I don’t know what the inciting incident of DreamSMP is? I don’t know what was the catalyst for all this shit, but I’m going to take a guess and say Wilbur blowing up L’Manberg had something to do with it.

… That’s going to be a pattern, by the way. Just. Stick with me here. 

So, Wilbur is an older child who read the Hamlet parts in literature class and can only cope by ripping down the very creations he has and taking the entire world down with him to hell. Which is to say, he throws a pity party after Jschlatt (some bitch who abused Quackity, that’s another trend, yippee) wins an election and decides to blow up the fucking kingdom and kill Jschlatt.

Little does Wilbur know, the devil may work fast, but Jschlatt getting a fucking stroke and dying out of nowhere works faster. 

I’m not kidding. He gets a stroke, he dies, and Tubbo takes over. I’ve tried to puzzle out the government structure of DreamSMP for a while and have drawn zero conclusions. In any case, Wilbur also tells Philza, his… father…, to kill him. And Philza fucking does? For some reason, like, holy shit.

Anyway. Wilbur is now a ghost. So is Jschlatt. The… life system, on this server, is really strange and I don’t know how to fully explain it. Just know that nothing has permanence here. 

I’m going to throw this out here because I don’t know when it’s relevant, but I wrote down something about Karl being in a place called the In Between. I don’t know how the hell he got there or what the hell he’s doing. This might be where the discs are? I can’t explain the discs. I… think they are fighting over the discs? Don’t know why, Wilbur makes music himself, I feel like you have enough to go around.

(Stream Saline Solution it reminds me of my best friend only if you want okay thx)

L’Manberg gets blown up again. This time, Techno did it. He did it just after giving this speech about Theseus, which, jokes aside-- the writing of DreamSMP is actually really good. That was all done on improv, and I did watch an animatic with some of the audio from it, and damn. I’m a whore for metaphor and I love this for him.

This happens, and Ranboo and Tommy decide to do a little hehe and burn down George’s house. Who is George? Good question: a king. Of what? Good question: call me the antithesis of a Ranboo kinnie and get me some discs because I hear no answers.

Dream gets pissed off by this (who gave him authority, I don’t know) and builds a wall. He for some reason decides that if Tommy, and only Tommy, breaks some rules, the wall will stay up forever. So, naturally, Tommy immediately yells at him, and Tubbo gets pissed (what happened to the whole, who are you without me, yourself, thing?). Dream exiles him, which is bad enough, but then Dream burns down his house, so now he’s double exiled.

Dream kins Julius Caesar but Julius Caesar does not kin Dream and I think that’s important. 

(It had to be important enough for me to literally go back and edit this in, for no reason, because I think I’m really fucking hilarious.) 

Techno takes in Tommy and shows him his super secret cave of evil, which Tommy promptly screams at. Philza and Ranboo visit sometimes, but mostly Tommy just sits there. Dream says “fuck you” to Techno, but Techno decides to wage war on L’Manberg, so Quackity and co. come over to try and kill Techno, but Techno kills Quackity with a pickaxe, but Quackity has three lives for some reason, and then Dream blames Ranboo for blowing something up for literally zero reason, and can you tell how tired I am.

Ranboo sees a smiley face in his notebook and zones the fuck out while Dream tries to kill… Tommy? No, Tubbo. No, fuck, no it was Tommy. I don’t know why people suddenly care about it n- NO, NO IT WAS TUBBO, he is TRYING to kill TUBBO. 

I hate Europeans. 

Ahem. Dream goes to jail, but he has books in jail, which is a horrible idea. Everyone knows that if you give a war criminal some novels he’ll accidentally haunt someone else’s dreams and launch psychological warfare with the prison guard, Sam, who has zero idea what he’s doing because he probably didn’t sign up for this.

Also, I’m gonna say this here because I don’t know when it will fit in. There’s this place. Called… the Egg. Now, I don’t know what goes on in the Egg. I don’t know what the Egg is. I don’t know who decided to name all these fucking things, because I think the Egg is just a box made of bedrock. I think Ranboo hallucinates about it, but Ranboo hallucinates about everything so I’m not really sure. I’m going to call it here and say that this is probably a bad sign.

People are trying to talk to Dream. First BadBoyHalo, who gives Ranboo this little note from Dream with a smiley face. Or maybe that was SapNap. Either way, Ranboo hallucinates seeing Dream, and then actually sees Dream but he thinks he’s hallucinating? I don’t know. 

Then we get Tommy. Basically he kind of comes in here and Sam, being a good prison guard, allows Dream to beat Tommy to death and then revive him (don’t ask about the revivals just pretend it makes sense please). He tells Tommy he’s also going to revive Wilbur which Tommy isn’t a big fan of, considering that Wilbur, uh. Vague hand gestures. You get the schtick. Hopefully. I don’t know.

Anyway. Uh. Quackity loses his shit, also.

As in he talks to Jschlatt, the ghost of his abusive husband. Makes a deal-- if Quackity here loses, he revives Jschlatt. I don’t know what the winning conditions are, but, thankfully, they don’t matter because Quackity loses damn near instantly. 

So he goes to Dream and Sam gives him really powerful gear for no reason. Dream is a bit terrified by this situation, and Quackity is like “give me the fucking book”, and then we never find out what happens because Quackity ends up covered in blood about to blow up El Rapids. I hadn’t expected to mark Quackity off on the demolitionist bingo, but hey, all’s fair I guess. My next bets are on Tubbo or whichever bitch became god of the sea. 

(I also made a joke to my friend about me kinning Quackity (the character not the streamer could you fucking imagine), to which they said “you’d torture someone for information”? So. I guess Dream, uh. Hm. That explains why Quackity was bloodied. Uh. Oops. Don’t know why he’s playing Poker, though.)

So, for my sanity, as we come to a close, I’m going to start listing lore details that I don’t know nearly enough about but are probably important. Just… bullet point them. Might be a bit tacky of me but I have shit to do, dammit. By that I mean, I don’t have shit to do, but I’ve had this doc open for literally 1-2 weeks and I just want to be freed.

List Of Other Shit That Happened:

Ranboo started an arg, so there’s a character named Z now. Can’t believe the kid I knew in middle school who didn’t know where the Middle East  was made it into the dreamSMP omg! 

Tubbo did something immoral, and we still don’t know who his dad is. By we, I mean me. 

Eret exists. That’s all I’ve got for this one. They’re important. Probably.

Karl hallucinated six versions of himself and left the In Between to go to hell. (Lil Nas X girlboss gaslight gatekeep in this motherfucker!!!)

Ranboo and Tubbo got married because taxes exist </3

More on this last point: they opened a hotel, despite Tubbo being a king, and Tommy got mad at them for getting engaged without his permission. But Tommy was literally dead when they had the wedding so I’m not exactly sure what he was expecting. Either way, he’s fine with it now.

Kids getting adopted oh shit oh fuck. Also, mpreg is canotical. Make this what you will. 

DreamXD is a god now. I don’t know who DreamXD is. I don’t think anybody else does either.

I’m like 60% sure George is dead. 

I’m like 60% sure Philza is immortal.

Going through my ‘notes’ to make sure I didn’t miss anything and I’m just getting more confused, so I think I’m going to call it here. Props to everyone in the dreamSMP for creating kickass lore, I would not summarize any of it ever again if you held me at fucking gunpoint, and thanks to my mutuals/friends for letting me ask a lot of really stupid questions as I try to puzzle this out. And also, another thanks to you all for reading this. I hope to God this was funny. 

I really, really, really fucking hope that Tumblr doesn’t cut this off for a long character count. This is longer than some of my fucking oneshots. My God. This was so fun, don’t get me wrong, but I also want a hit of a candy cigarette. Make it two, actually. Or three. All at once. 

Anyway. Drink some water, stay safe, and remember that statistically speaking, 100% of people with a name starting with “T” need to put down the Greek mythology books and learn about the ethics behind pyromania. Goodbye, Theseus. 

[thepaininurneck]

I am so fucking tired, so allow me to ramble about my favorite thing about Promare ( at the current moment, this is subject to change ): How eerily similar Kray and Lio are to each other.

Admittedly this is going to be one of those posts where I spend my time rambling about it just for some motherfucker on this website to tell me they already knew that, but fuck you, I post Promare when I think Promare and right now I’m thinking about how cool it is, that both of them are actually really similar ( and how the fandom acts like they’re on totally different scales, and also how unfair the Kray hate on Tumblr is ).

Anyways

I wanna start off with the obvious - that Kray and Lio are the only two Burnish that can fly during the movie. In the English script, ( thanks babe @karkalicious769 for telling me about this ), there’s a scene where Lio divebombs a Freeze Force ship and scares the piss out of Vulcan, establishing that Burnish flight isn’t a thing anyone knows about, and in the film Lio is the only one to do it until the ending, with Kray. Kray chooses to make himself wings, and then make a hawk noise like some sort of furry, and Lio goes for a more refined, jet like flight ( and does a little fancy twirl, which is so cute, I just - ). But these two are the only Burnish that can fly, and it isn’t unrealistic to guess that they might be the only Burnish ever that could fly.

The similarities continue, though. During their blowups ( Lio’s “Kakusei” scene, and Kray’s meltdown, both of which I’ll be referring to as their “Pure” forms from here on ), both of them take on a similar appearance and the front details of their hair - Kray’s three spikes, and Lio’s side fringe - become white horns, which I thought was pretty cool. But they both succumb to their Promare in their ‘Pure’ forms, unleashing and letting their desires rule the scene. Kray’s is fueled by a desperate need to finish what he’s started, or in better terms, to save humanity, while Lio’s is to save the Burnish. Their motives are similar, and respectable even. They’re both a cornered dog, taking the first avenue of escape offered to them.

This is a subtle theme throughout the movie, I’ve noticed, and Galo plays into it nicely - as Galo’s relationship with Lio grows stronger, his relationship with Kray deteriorates, up until the final scenes of the movie - which are Kray trying to outright kill Galo, and Lio saving him. Along with this, again their motives throughout the film are similar ( wanting to save humanity/wanting to save the Burnish ), and a lot of their behavior is similar.

Along with this, I kind of want to touch on Kray’s character as a whole. I think he’s honestly the best one, because he’s so interesting. He has layers and layers and layers of character to read into and discuss, but he’s very often boiled down to a generic villain when he is so, so much more. I don’t even really think he’s a true villain - my “cornered dog” analogy from earlier applies to him throughout the whole movie. He was born likely during the GWB, grew up in the turbulent time between that and the movie, and at around 18-24 he blew up and was saddled with a reputation of being a savior. He singlehandedly took on the fate of humanity when he killed Deus, or at least, he believed he did, and he acted out on it. He’s comparable to Thanos in Avengers - he has a good motive, he’s just going about it the wrong way.

Even though, honestly, his plan was solid. If you replaced the imperfect pods with the perfected version, I’m sure a lot of people would change their minds from “this is horrible” to “this is a necessary sacrifice to make sure humanity lives on”. And Kray put everything he had into preparing for this - ensuring they had ways to terraform and build safely, creating a pocket city for the passengers during the trip ( both of these were destroyed during the fight with Lio de Galon, but hey, sacrifices ).

And this is the biggest piece of evidence I have in my little tangent here - at the end of the movie, when Kray says “That was uncalled for”/“This wasn’t how it was supposed to end”, he’s smiling. Despite everything he did, and experienced, every person he killed or sacrificed - he’s happy they found a way to save the earth. He’s relieved the weight of the world is off his shoulders, even if it means losing everything. This one scene is so important to his character, because he is totally vulnerable, exposed, and now he’s free. Free of the weight, free of the Promare - and humanity lives on. I think this is the only reason I will never bitch about the ending of Promare, because this one moment, this little detail, is so good and solid.

Kray isn’t a good person and what he did was bad, but fuck, he’s such a good character. And the writers did so well, connecting him and Lio. I will be adding onto this because there’s details I forgot, because I’m exhausted while writing this, but I really, really love the characters in this movie.