#really though it was probably just a retcon

[eltheabberation]

tokyo ghoul theory

Okay, so we all know that Shuu’s hair somehow changed colour sometime between tg and tg:re. and after YEARS of meticulous study, I have finally determined why

It was a retcon.

NO WAIT THERES MORE I SWEAR

So, Shuu’s hair went from purple to blue right? so let’s think about this.

Shuu (now) has blue hair, likes food, and speaks french. And you know who ELSE has blue hair, likes food, and speaks french?

That’s right, Saiko Yonebayashi.

So, as Ishida would never change a character’s design without reason, this change MUST be to showcase his connection to Saiko. and think about it, we never see Saiko’s father, and Saiko has a naturally higher affinity with her kagune than the other Quinxes. So, it would make sense that she was part ghoul, or in this case, part Tsukiyama.

So, anyway, that’s my theory. Saiko is a Tsukiyama :>

EXCEPT IM NOT DONE

You see, whenever we see Saiko speaking french, it’s to one person in particular.

Haise Sasaki. And look at what she’s calling him. “Maman” is actually the French word for “mother.” Now, why would Saiko be calling Haise her mother?

Well, as close readers will notice, Haise Sasaki is actually Ken Kaneki, aka the object of Shuu Tsukiyama’s affections. and remember what I said earlier about Saiko’s father?

So, I propose that Saiko is not just a Tsukiyama, but ACTUALLY the lovechild of Kaneki and Tsukiyama. But how could she exist? Kaneki and Tsukiyama only met 2 years prior, and Saiko is 20 years old. Well, I have a theory for that as well.

So, let’s go back to the start. Tsukiyama’s hair changed colour sometime between tg and tg:re. Well, I retract my earlier statement that this was retcon. Because I believe that it was ACTUALLY caused by an anomaly in the spacetime continuum. An anomaly named Saiko Yonebayashi. Saiko was transported to the main timeline from an alternate universe, shuffling things around in the process, INCLUDING Tsukiyama’s hair colour.

But how, you may ask? Well, this panel reveals it all

You see, while to most viewers, it would simply look like she is being unhelpful, she is actually attempting to convey who she is and her origins to her father. This "Saiko power" is likely what allowed her the ability to cross through dimensions, and its limitations are still unknown. Further research on this topic is required.

Now, why she came to the main timeline, I do not know. As Wegener spent his life trying to find the mechanisms for continental drift, I may never be able to truly discover the motivations of the elusive Saiko Yonebayashi. Which is why I'm going to clone myself so, unlike Wegener, when my theory is proven correct, I'll actually be around to see it

[aroaceleovaldez]

do you think they borrow each other’s rogue names after they die

also as a rogue name for thalia, blue bolt? (blue eyes, ‘bolt from the blue’ being an idiom for unexpected and important news, and also meaning a lighting bolt far from the parent storm (this being because a charge of electricity was so strong that it wandered away from the parent storm)

blue bolt felt so deviantart oc-coded but hell yeah that’s the fun part

oh absolutely i think rogues would name themselves after each other. Even besides just adopting each other's names when one of them dies, but also like trading names. Best friend rogue duo whose rogue names are just each other's real names.

tbh Thalia and Luke would have deviantart oc-coded rogue names lol. Blue Bolt is definitely a cool fitting one! I was joking in the TA discord yesterday that Luke might lightheartedly call Thalia "Green Day" or "Hot Topic" just to tease her.

Still dunno what Thalia might call Luke though 🤔 Cause he's already a little jaded of the gods to begin with so he'd probably try to lean away from directly Hermes-related nicknames? But he's super emo so he'd probably try for something dramatic and edgy. And Thalia would probably tease him about it as much as he teases her.

[deus-ex-mona]

funniest “blink and you miss it” running gag (to me) is the fact that aizo can’t do the moonwalk (and they keep. bringing. it. up.)

[creepy-crowleys]

⚰️ - Someone they lost (not necessarily dead)

OC's Background Relationships Ask Game

((Besides her family's death completely changing the trajectory of her life? :p

Her son. His presence made a significant impact on her life, and losing him was a deep wound she's still dealing with the effects of.

Crowley never had any ideas about having a family of her own. Her parents and brother died early enough that she didn't remember them, she was still pretty convinced about everything Rose told her about how they'd appalled at what became of her and that she was an embarrassment to their legacy. She still believed a lot of what Rose had told her about how broken and wrong she was, that she'd been lucky that Rose had been willing to take her in and no one else would ever have wanted something like her.

(Sorry this one's like a mile long)

She was still with Dulcinea at the time too, still trying to navigate the culture of sex, drugs, and power of the Illuminati and adjust to the horrors that she was going to be living with.

She was still struggling with self-harming in various form, suicidal, and wrestling with the possibilities that the Bees made a mistake, that she really was hallucinating the whole thing, or if this would really be her forever - unless and until someone found some way to kill her and make it stick.

To be chosen despite all of her mess was life-changing for her. She really wanted to live up to what her son thought he saw in her.

Crowley can't have children, for childhood injury-related reasons. It would be a gamble they wouldn't be likely to win - and the Buzzing only complicate matters. She doesn't know how far they would go in protecting her and a potential child, or what effects exposure to them or the abnormal amounts of anima in her body might have.

But. It was nice.

He was an older teen - I think there was, like, an eight year difference between them? Less than ten. And he was significantly older than her in terms of lived experience for his own plot reasons. She tried to respect that.

I don't know what exactly went wrong between them. One day things seemed to be fine, and suddenly they all just fell apart. I wasn't included in the decision, I just had to deal with the mess.

Crowley struggled a lot. She works for openly evil people, if in a slightly more benevolent department. There's a lot of blood on her hands, and a lot of guilt and shame in so much of what she does. She wanted to do better, and she tried, but the stress of who she wanted to be, who she needed to be, what other people saw in her - however well-meaning or not - was destroying her.

Her son too. He hadn't known her long when apparently attached himself to her, like he was only seeing what he wanted from her instead of the person she really was. It scared her. She wanted to live up to his expectations if mostly because she was afraid the next person he attached himself to might not be so kind.

She spiraled harder for a while. Friends and family's insistence that she was a Good Person chafed at her just wanting to be seen as A Person, warts and all. It culminated in desperate attempts to 'fix herself or die trying (she wouldn't really mind the dying)' and self-sabotage and self-destruction, and eventually catching herself and buckling down and getting the help she needed.

Things broke down over a deal she made with a demon to call him off from harassing a friend. Five favors, his call as to what they were, her only terms were that she not be used to harm anyone she knew. She got a finite amount of refusals to any give task for free. It went about as badly wrong as can be probably expected.

She and her son had an argument about it not long after things had mostly settled. She believed - and still does - that the deal was still worth taking. She made her choices by what she thought would work best for everyone, and what she thought she could live with after. And then she tried to disengage.

Her son's other family that he'd chosen more recently started in then, on the dash. She was abusive and undeserving of being a parent. She relied on him too much. Didn't she know he was a child? Her own upbringing and uncertainty was no excuse. She should be killed for what she did to him.

And his silence was deafening.

She had a lot of respect for his other parent, y'know? And no one would believe anything she said to defend herself. Nobody else seemed to disagree either. So she backed down.

His other parent chewed her out later for disowning him too and making him cry.

There was an attempt to fix things a bit later. But somehow, mysteriously, her son was the only person who had ever interacted with her to not realize she was acting out of character while affected by a magic anon, and then was so terrified of her afterwards - despite them never interacting in the duration - that he couldn't bear to so much as be in a room alone with her.

I gave up. There wasn't any value in salvaging a relationship like that. Certainly not when son's mun expected me to have Crowley grovel to regain his trust.

Crowley's terrified of the idea of having a family. The breakdown reinforced all of her fears about her loved ones only ever having so much patience for her issues. That if she doesn't keep herself together and perform normal, she'll be abandoned or have her weaknesses used against her. She doesn't like being cared for lest she inch closer to the invisible line where she's resented for relying on people too much (oh but if she doesn't let them help then she's being a bad friend/partner/whatever for not trusting them! Friends and families are supposed to rely on each other, you know? What a saccharine lie.).

She Knows she'll lose her child again if she ever has one. She's already marked, and anything even a hair off of perfection will be failure. No one will give her another chance. Trying to do the right thing will be the wrong thing, but if she does the other thing, then that's wrong too.

And the silence from everyone was so loud. No one defended her. No one checked on her after. No one's ever said privately that what happened was wrong.

So the only other option was that she deserved every bit of it. Maybe she still does. Would she have any cause to stop them if they still wanted her dead, or would that be just like an abuser to try to get away with it?

She's afraid of disappointing Sheer if the circumstances ever come to it and she gets their child taken away. She's afraid of visiting Nata and getting her in trouble for still associating with her. Do Nata's partners know what she is? Would they want her around their family if they did?

Part of her still wants it. She misses the good parts. She likes being able to care for people. But she isn't ready to face having her heart broken like that all over again.))

[raiiny-bay]

thinking about it & genuinely i don't think i could have picked a better name for kel if i tried. that guy is a kelly through & through

[wp100]

maybe there should be a term that's like a sister term to 'plot armour', called 'plot power'

because how the hell did sylvanas even have the power to take the helm of domination off of bolvars head. 'plot power'. She can't die, and she has to be more powerful than the goddamned Lich King. So she took his helmet and disenchanted it right in front of him. IN FRONT OF US

[kissingarthurclaus]

WAIT I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THE WHOLE ASS SEPARATION ARC THAT I JOKINGLY CALL THE DIVORCE ARC 😭😭😭

[demilypyro]

So I reread Gwenpool Strikes Back and I think I actually like her "616 mutant origin" more now than I did before. Because I didn't fully get what they were doing before.

The inciting incident that starts the miniseries is Gwenpool discovering a new ability. It isn't very well explained in the moment, but it boils down to this: she can imagine things happening before or in-between the panels of the story, and if she then "flashes back" to them in her thoughts, they will retroactively become real events that really happened.

The best way to explain this is using the battle royale she organizes in issue 3: she imagines having set this up off-screen, and it became retroactively true. She initially didn't have a prize in mind, but just has to imagine that Tony Stark donated a bunch of money to be a cash prize, and suddenly it's like that happened. It became true retroactively. She seems to be able to just decide things happened off-screen, and the universe will agree.

As far as abilities go, this is absolutely King Crimson levels of convoluted, and this definitely makes Gwenpool a ridiculously powerful character, but for the purpose of the story, sure, let's say she can do that now.

Now, as we all know, at the end of the miniseries, Gwenpool has a conversation with Ms. Marvel. Kamala doesn't believe Gwen's claims that the Marvel universe is a comic book, and suggests an alternate theory: she may actually just be a mutant with amnesia.

We the audience know this is not true, and so does Gwen. She IS from the real world, and Kamala simply can't comprehend Gwen's perspective on her universe.

But what matters here is that while listening to Kamala's theory, Gwen imagined it. While unintentional, she used her power. She had a "flashback." Which made it real. Retroactively real.

Entirely by accident, there are now two truths:

Gwenpool is from the real world, and is a normal person

Gwenpool is from the Marvel universe, and is a mutant

Though this wasn't Gwen's intention, these statements are now both equally, irreversibly true, and always have been. And so, the Krakoan gate opens. The universe now considers her a mutant.

It's not just that she was accepting Kamala's version of events. She WASN'T a mutant. But now she is. Her powers changed the past. She accidentally retconned herself into being a mutant. Gwen and the audience both know that her 616 mutant origin didn't really happen, but as far as the universe is concerned, it did. Her power made it true.

I feel like they could have done a better job explaining this, but they probably didn't have all the pages in the world to spend on exposition. Either way, I like GSB more now that I properly understand what they were going for.

[autistickaitovocaloid]

I get why they made lightning yellow in totk however I do miss when it was green. I love how eerie everything looked because of it.

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on Sonic 3!

On December 10th, 2018, I was on the last day of a trip to Milwaukee. The night before, I'd attended the wedding of one of my best friends, Jake, who I've known since high school. Even though half of us were sick the whole trip, it was a great time. Derek had asked the wedding DJ to play "One Week" as the first request of the night, and proceeded to lip sync the entire song on the dance floor. On that cold winter morning in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home, Derek and I groggily checked Twitter on our phones and saw the shocking news: Paramount had teased the design for Sonic from their upcoming live action film. Even in silhouette, the shape of his face and the realistic curvature of his limbs made him look like a grotesque little homunculus. This movie was going to suck.

Six years later, I've now seen the third entry in what's become a hugely successful Sonic film franchise. It features Keanu Reeves as the voice of Shadow the Hedgehog in a fairly faithful adaptation of his story from Sonic Adventure 2. At the time of writing, it currently sits at a whopping 86% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, vying for the title of the best-reviewed theatrically released video game movie of all time. Critics are saying nice things about the emotional journey of Shadow the Hedgehog. Never in a million years did I think I'd see this day.

I, too, have now seen this movie, and... yeah, it's pretty good.

I'm gonna get deep into spoilers here, so I'll just say up front that I liked the movie. It feels like just about the best possible execution of this version of Sonic. But that's also damning it with faint praise, depending on who you ask.

If you're a fan of the games who didn't like the second movie, you probably won't get much out of this one, either, unless you just really love Shadow so much that nothing else in the movie matters to you. It doesn't reinvent the wheel for this film series. It's still got a heaping helping of broad comedy, cheap pop culture references, bad one-liners, and characterization that diverges greatly from the source material. This is not high art, nor is it a direct adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2. If you're the kind of person who hates this portrayal of Sonic and Eggman, or a lore nerd who'll hate that they let Shadow do Chaos Control without an Emerald, then just don't bother with this.

On the other hand, if you did enjoy the last movie, then you'll probably have a fun time here, too. Shadow is very cool. The action is the best it's ever been. There's a bit more focus on characters from the games, and less on human characters invented for the movies—with the exception of Agent Stone, who's in this a lot because everyone likes him. There's a lot of SA2 fanservice. They even play "Live and Learn." It's a fun time! Be sure to stick around through the end credits.

And now, to dig deeper, let's get into the spoilers! I'm gonna jump around a lot and talk about different aspects of the movie, spoiling everything along the way.

Shadow and his reams of lore

Here's the main thing you came for: Shadow is great in this! They really did him justice. Keanu Reeves is extremely solid in the role. He can be a bit flat as an actor sometimes, but I think he did well here. He can be tough and menacing, but he can also be earnest and emotionally vulnerable. Good casting call. Excited at the prospect of seeing more of him in the future.

Really, as a Sonic Lore Nerd I'm most interested in discussing the changes they made to Shadow's backstory. I'm sure there will be many fans upset with the changes, but for the sake of streamlining a complicated backstory that was subject to a bunch of retcons and multiple layers of amnesia and fitting it into a 110-minute movie, I think they generally made smart choices.

For one, Gerald didn't create Shadow using Black Arms DNA, because Gerald didn't create Shadow at all! Instead, Shadow arrived on Earth inside a meteor, and Gerald was merely the prominent GUN scientist who studied him after he was captured. (That meteor does have very strong Black Arms vibes, though, so I wouldn't rule out the possibility of them exploring that stuff in the future.) This simplifies things a lot and allows Shadow to be a direct foil for Sonic, kind of a version of our hero who was treated as a lab rat and lost the only human he considered family instead of finding happiness like Sonic has. Then later Shadow hurts Tom and Sonic wants revenge, and it mirrors Shadow's feelings about Maria, and after they fight they can empathize with each other over this, Shadow sees the error of his ways and helps save the world, yada yada yada. You get it. People predicted 95% of this movie's plot from the trailers, but it's effective.

Likewise, all of the stuff about creating Shadow as the ultimate life form who's immune to all disease to cure Maria's illness is completely cut out. Shadow's still called the ultimate life form, but he's treated as more of an energy source than a genetic research project here, playing off of the stuff about Eggman wanting to harness Sonic's natural Chaos Energy in the movies. The original intent behind the ultimate life form project was always hard to explain in the games and doesn't even come up that much, so I don't blame them for cutting it.

Because Gerald isn't doing genetic experiments and creating artificial life, the Biolizard also doesn't exist. It does, however, appear in an old monster movie Shadow and Maria watch in a montage, with Shadow later commenting that he worries he's a monster like the one he saw in the movie. That's a clever way to include it, I think.

The ARK sort of exists. There was no space colony back in the '70s, all of the events of Shadow's flashbacks just took place at a secret GUN base on Earth. Fair enough for a version of the story ostensibly set in the real world. The big space laser in the third act of the film is obviously supposed to evoke the ARK, but it's referred to as simply the Eclipse Cannon. It's still not a full-blown space colony, just a weapon of mass destruction Gerald designed for GUN in exchange for his release (while also secretly planning to use it to blow up the planet in an act of revenge). I am, however, pleased to report that the Eclipse Cannon still has a giant Eggman face on it.

And as for Maria: I like her in this! She's obviously not going to get a ton of screentime, and she's always going to be a very straightforward character, but she's more playful and lively here. She teases Shadow for being grumpy and plays with him a lot. She feels less like this perfect embodiment of everything good and pure in the world and more like an actual kid. She's still not a complex character, but it works.

And the most important question: do they show a child getting shot and killed by the military? The answer is almost. In the flashback, GUN soldiers chase Maria, Shadow, and Gerald and ready their guns, but the young Commander Walters (who's in his 20s rather than being a kid) grabs them and tries to stop them from firing on a child. In the chaos, a soldier fires, missing Maria but hitting a generator that then blows up and kills Maria. So, y'know, close enough I suppose.

So, yes, many of the details change here, but they captured the gist of Shadow's story from SA2. The emotional core is there. I will say, though, I almost feel like Shadow isn't in this movie as much as I thought he'd be? I think he's used effectively in all of his scenes, and they make room for his backstory, and BOY does he get to kick ass in his fights, but for much of the middle part of the movie he's overshadowed by Ivo and Gerald. Though this might be a compromise to leave more screentime for...

Tails and Knuckles

I'm relieved to report that Tails and Knuckles both get a good amount of cool stuff to do in this! They don't feel like an afterthought.

I was worried that Tails in particular would completely fall by the wayside, since even his debut movie didn't entirely know what to do with him. But he's good here. He pretty much just feels like the Tails from the games at this point, especially since they dropped that fawning admiration he had for Sonic with that running gag of him going "Only Sonic the Hedgehog could do that!" He often chimes in as the one who wants Team Sonic to stick together when Sonic and Knuckles bicker. He particularly gets to shine in the Mission Impossible-inspired heist sequence at the GUN headquarters in London that serves as the climax of the second act, which feels like it was tailor made to let him shine as the tech guy of the team. He also gets several opportunities to swoop in and catch someone for a save in an action scene. He's good in this!

Knuckles is... fine. He's definitely fallen into the role of the comic relief dumb bruiser since joining the good guys, but he's at least a little better than he was in his own streaming show. The jokes lean more into him just being really brash about his strength and skill, rather than him being this archaic warrior who doesn't understand anything about the modern world. He also gets a few more serious bits in the back third of the movie where he gets to shine a little more, so overall it evens out to him being fine. They could've done way worse.

As for the relevance of the Knuckles show: Knuckles is now said to be the guardian of the Master Emerald, like in the games, though with no Angel Island this amounts to him hiding it somewhere for safekeeping. It's eventually revealed that he just gave it to Wade, who gets exactly one scene (sorry, Wade-heads) for a joke about him using the Master Emerald as a hockey puck. So, the miniseries explained why Knuckles has a connection with Wade. That's it! Also I think Knuckles might use the Flames of Disaster a bit in fights, but they never called the technique out by name, so I never really thought about it. So, yeah, the six-episode streaming miniseries about Wade bowling has zero meaningful relevance to the Shadow movie. Who could have seen this coming?

Miscellaneous humans

For that matter, the human supporting cast is MASSIVELY downplayed in this one. Tom and Maddie are there for two key sequences (the beginning of the movie and the GUN HQ heist), but otherwise they disappear for long stretches of the movie. They don't go to Japan in act I, nor do they go to space in act III, and there's no subplot for them during those periods, either. There's nothing like the wedding subplot in Sonic 2 where they'd constantly cut back to Hawaii for comic relief with the humans and only reveal why this was relevant to the plot near the end. (There's also no random dance battle in Siberia.) If a human character is here, it's because they have something to contribute to the plot right away. Most people will probably consider this an improvement, and I'd certainly say it makes for a much tighter script, though I have to remind everyone that I thought the wedding being a GUN sting operation was such a funny twist that I'm a defender of the Hawaii subplot.

On the subject of Tom, something funny I've noticed is that they've just completely downplayed the fact that Tom and Wade are cops. Tom being a cop never comes up once. Wade being a cop only gets referenced via the fact that he's practicing hockey on the roof of the police station in his one scene, but he's not in uniform or anything. They clearly got the memo that we don't want Sonic to hang out with cops.

Here's something else funny: Rachel and Randall got character posters, but they're actually not in the movie! Not technically, anyway. During the heist sequence at GUN HQ, Tom and Maddie use some gadgets Tails invented to holographically disguise themselves as those other characters. But the real Rachel and Randall never show up in the flesh. It's a very odd way to shoehorn the actors into the movie. (Jojo is also absent. They did not give her Amy's role of being the girl who reminds Shadow of Maria. Instead they just let Sonic have the big heart to heart with Shadow that makes him switch sides.)

You know who IS in this movie? Krysten Ritter. Not as the voice of Rouge, as the fandom once hoped, but as a director for GUN. She gets like three scenes and she feels completely checked out the whole time. Can't say I blame her! She's not really a character, just a plot necessity. Commander Walters dies in Japan but gives Sonic one of two keycards needed to activate the Eclipse Cannon, and then Ritter's character assumes Sonic stole it and labels him a bad guy. So that's why they have to break into GUN HQ in the second act instead of just talking things out with them. Still, I am at least relieved that Sonic doesn't work with GUN for most of the movie.

I gotta be honest: when Walters pulled a credit card-shaped object out of his pocket, I thought he was about to give Sonic another Olive Garden gift card as his final act before dying. Part of me wishes that happened.

The supporting human character in this who really gets to shine is Agent Stone, which I'm sure most fans will agree was the correct choice. There's a LOT of Agent Stone in this. He's good. I don't have much to say about him, but he's fun as usual.

But, of course, the ones who steal the show are Jim Carrey, and his costar Jim Carrey.

The Robotniks

I've gone back and forth on whether or not I can actually see movie Robotnik as Robotnik. I think with this third and final entry in the Jim Carrey Robotnik Trilogy, I've landed on... yeah, that's just Jim Carrey playing a Jim Carrey character. He's absolutely having fun with the role, and I enjoyed watching him, but I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that I'm a millennial who grew up watching Jim Carrey movies. If you didn't like him before, this movie will probably be nails on a chalkboard to you, because now there are two of him.

Ivo's arc here leans very heavily into the fact that he grew up as an orphan and never knew his family, a thing offhandedly mentioned in the first movie that's never been a thing for any other version of the character. Here, he learns that he has a living grandfather who's also a mad scientist, and it feels like a hole in his heart has been filled. It certainly makes sense for a place to take this version of the character, and it fits with the movie's themes of finding and losing family, but the cartoonish, childlike affection Ivo feels towards Gerald and all the scenes of them frolicking and dancing together have basically nothing to do with the characters from the games. He's a fun villain for this movie, but he's overwhelmingly used as comic relief this time rather than as a serious threat. He doesn't particularly feel like Sega's Dr. Ivo Robotnik, the arch nemesis of Sonic the Hedgehog who'd take over the world with an army of robots and a fleet of airships in the span of a day if Sonic wasn't around to stop him. He's a guy who lives in a big crab robot and has some drones. He has more in common with Carrey's depictions of the Grinch or the Riddler or Count Olaf than Dr. Eggman. Though he does, at least, finally get his outfit from the games by the end of the movie. So that's something. And also he's in a fat suit now. They only make jokes at the expense of his weight a little. Hooray...?

Gerald, meanwhile, is... largely the same character as movie Eggman, but older, so they can make jokes about him having saggy flesh and smelling funny and needing dentures. (Also, his voice kind of sounds like Homer Simpson sometimes?) To his credit, Carrey absolutely nails the handful of more serious scenes Gerald gets, whether it's Maria's death or his sinister turn when he reveals that he actually wants to destroy the Earth. But then it's right back to goofs about there being two of the same guy. Even the final battle features a lot of slapstick shenanigans with the two Robotniks fighting each other. I was able to enjoy the absurdity of it all, but if the humor doesn't land for you the dual Jim Carrey schtick is a hell of a lot of the movie. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more Gerald than Shadow in the movie, when you go and tally up their screentime. I was able to enjoy the sheer absurdity of it, but your mileage will vary.

I will, however, say that the split screen stuff they do with the two Carreys is EXTREMELY impressive, from a filmmaking perspective. They were absolutely flexing with their ability to pull the effect off. They don't rely on cheap tricks like cutting a lot, or having shot/reverse shot scenes where you're looking at the back of a body double's head. Instead they have a lot of long takes where the two Robotniks are talking to each other, you can see both of their faces, and they'll even hug and touch each other a lot, and the whole time the conversation maintains a natural pace like it really is two actors playing off of each other. It's really well done. It's an incredibly silly idea, but boy did they commit to it.

Sonic

I've hardly said anything about Sonic himself in all of this. It's his movie, isn't it! Well... I don't know, he's fine.

I feel like movie Sonic is a known quantity at this point, and either you like this take on the character or you don't. There was some speculation early on that this was supposed to be a younger Sonic who would grow into being the character we know from the games and comics, the one who's still got lots of quips but is also kind of aloof and cool, a free spirit who goes where the wind takes him, a figure the other characters look up to. And... no, that didn't happen. Once again he gets more serious as the stakes are raised, and he's totally badass when he goes Super, but the rest of the time he's still a little goober with tons of generic one-liners who learns schmaltzy lessons about the importance of family. He's still constantly going to undercut the tension of most scenes by cracking a pop culture reference that will make the average American parent go "haha I've heard of that." I don't think they're ever gonna change that. I think this just what the writers think Sonic is like.

And, again, for what it is, it's fine. He's a little annoying. You already know how you feel about movie Sonic. This third entry won't change that. But they do, at least, have him say "Talk about low budget flights, no food or movies... I'm outta here!" before jumping out of a helicopter. As my thoughts on the climax will show, I am not immune to fanservice.

The climax

God, the climax is SOOOOO fucking good. It's fantastic. Easily the best action these movies have ever done.

Rather than saving Super Shadow for the team-up with Sonic at the end, they have both of them go Super to fight each other first, and they just go full DBZ with it, fighting across the entire planet. It absolutely rules. I think this is the new coolest fight the two of them have had in anything ever. And then they have to stop the Eclipse Cannon together, and sure, there's no Biolizard. But Gerald DOES release a swarm of GUN Hunter robots, and the ensuing space battle turns into some Gundam shit. It's good! It's so good!!! The movie's flaws kind of melt away for me here when I'm watching Super Shadow take out an army of robots with Chaos Spears on the big screen. What a timeline we're living in.

And yes, they play "Live and Learn." They had to. They knew the assignment. They actually play a slight remix, but it's still got the original vocals, so it's perfectly recognizable. Actually, the tune of the song is used as a leitmotif for Shadow throughout the movie, first introduced via an acoustic guitar version played by Maria, and I really love that. I've been begging these movies to use more music from the games the whole time, and I'm glad they finally did so here. (They also use the traditional level clear jingle early in the film, and Eggman's theme from SA2 is very briefly used as a ringtone.)

... Anyway, uh, meanwhile Eggman, Tails, and Knuckles straight up just kill Gerald to save the world? They unceremoniously knock him into an energy field at the end of their slapstick fight aboard the Eclipse Cannon and he disintegrates like he hit a bugzapper. It's over in an instant. It's not graphic or anything, but it's, like... I didn't expect them to show it, or for it to be such a casual murder! Eggman has one quip about it and then immediately moves on.

Shortly after this, Eggman and Shadow sacrifice themselves to stop the Eclipse Cannon. Shadow's sacrifice doesn't stick, obviously (he's revealed to be alive by the end of the second stinger—pretend to be shocked), but Eggman's probably dead dead. I seriously doubt Jim Carrey's gonna come out of retirement for these movies again. His final moments before the big explosion are also SO dragged out and belabored. He has a dramatic final line like ten times in a row. It really just feels like the series saying goodbye to Carrey. And, again, it feels like a fitting enough end for this Eggman's arc, but it's an odd adaptation of the character from the games.

And so, that's what we're left with. This is far from Sonic Adventure 2: The Movie. It's not that, though there are many, many references made to that game in particular. It's a sequel to the film Sonic the Hedgehog 2 that has a similar tone and style, but Shadow and Gerald are in it, and Shadow gets some really cool fights, and there's a liiiiiittle more focus on stuff from the games than last time, and the script's a little tighter. If that sounds fun to you, you will have fun with this. I know I did. If it doesn't, you're probably better off waiting for them to inevitably do an animated reboot whenever this live action series runs out of steam.

It hasn't quite run out of steam yet, though...

The post-credits scenes, and the future

One of the big questions going into this was: what's next? How do they top a Shadow movie with heavy Sonic Adventure 2 overtones, in terms of hype for the fans? How do you fill Eggman's shoes after Carrey retires, for real this time? There are still more fan favorite rival characters to get through, but how many movies in a row can they introduce a furry foe for Sonic who inevitably turns good and helps him stop a larger threat by the end? And when the hell are we gonna see the girls?

Well, we now have our answer, and it's one I'm cautiously excited for: a whole army of Metal Sonics, and Amy!

Yes, Amy! Finally!! It's an absolute crime that we've gone three whole movies and a streaming miniseries without including the female lead of the series. I've complained about this ad nauseum (and also the fact that they cut Rouge from the story). But at least now they're finally doing something about it.

But now the question is, how will they characterize Amy? Sega's struggled with her for years, and there's a million different directions you can take her. Her one scene here has her smashing a bunch of Metal Sonics and wearing a cloak for the sake of a dramatic reveal, which gives her the vibes of a mysterious, badass action girl. This is, of course, completely different from how Sonic and Amy met in the games. What will her personality be like? She doesn't speak here, so who will they get to play her? Where did she come from? Will she even have a crush on Sonic? All of these have yet to be determined. So, like, I'm hyped to finally see Amy, a character who should've been in the movies from the start, but they could so easily end up playing it safe with an incredibly boring girlboss version of Amy who's no fun at all. We'll have to wait and see.

(My prediction: they're going to try to cast either Zendaya or Ariana as Amy.)

Metal Sonic, likewise, is very exciting, and he looks perfect. He looks just like the design from the games. But the question is: what will they do with this army of Metals? Will they be lead by one main Metal Sonic, perhaps Neo Metal Sonic, who gets to be a proper bad guy? Will they take some cues from Sonic CD, Heroes, and the OVA, or do something completely original? Where did they come from? Were they activated as a failsafe after Eggman died? Did they and Amy come from some sort of bad future, riffing on Sonic CD's time travel? Will they explore the fact that Metal wants to be the one and only Sonic? Or will they just be an army of disposable robot grunts for Sonic and friends to mow down like it's a Dynasty Warriors game, while some other villain takes center stage?

It could go so many different ways, and some prospects are more exciting than others. I mean, the Knuckles show had endless possibilities for what it could do with him, and none of the options on my bingo card were "Pachacamac's ghost tells him to help Wade win a bowling tournament." And while I'm a sicko who thinks it's funny that the Knuckles show is what it is, forgive me for keeping my hype about Amy and Metal Sonic in check here until we learn more.

Regardless of what they do, it'll still be hard to top the hype of Shadow, and it'll be hard to fill Jim Carrey's shoes for general audiences. So despite this clear statement of intent, I have no idea what the future of this film franchise holds. But regardless of what they do, I can say one thing for certain: the kids in my theater were hyped as hell for it. They popped off over Metal Sonic, and they were screaming their heads off with excitement over Amy. I heard a teenage girl on the opposite end of my row of seats say "finally!" over Amy's reveal, verbalizing my exact thoughts. She also said that this movie was "peak," though it diverged from the games, and she hoped they'd do a movie with Silver and Blaze someday.

The kids are gonna be okay.

[stargazinglesbian]

my friend and i were talking abt young justice and we kind of realised that like. young justice is probably one of the smartest hero teams, full stop, maybe THE smartest considering their age.

like tim is pretty well known for being a really good detective, he figured out batman's secret identity and everything, but the others are also really smart and in a vast array of areas.

i'm just gonna go through bart, kon, cassie, anita, cissie and greta because i can't remember much about ray or slobo it's been a while since i read the comics. although if i remember right slobo is like an engineer

bart canonically remembers EVERYTHING he reads, and he did that whole thing where he read every book in the san francisco library in teen titans, and also he's from the fucking future. he's really book smart, even if he might not always be able to apply that stuff to irl situations

kon was both made in a lab and stuffed full of information. he's got lab smarts man!!! a head full of random chemical compositions and punnet squares

cassie and anita don't really have any specific areas that they would specialise in that i can remember. cissie and anita probably BOTH have a fairly good amount of medical knowledge though, like anita saved cassie's life and cissie was competent enough to be sent to space on those like relief mission things. also anita probably knows a fair amount of more magical stuff due to her powers

cissie also got into a fairly good girls private school, and her mother probably trained her in a lot of areas. i'd guess especially that she knows a lot about marketing, legalities around vigilantes, etc, etc

greta would be a really good source of information on magic. after discovering her powers more and figuring out what and who she is i think she'd have taught herself a lot about them, and also just the wider magic of the dc universe.

like all of these guys together, they're actually really well equipped for a lot of stuff. they're just always doing like, space baseball and killing santa claus instead of more serious missions.

i probably got a lot of stuff wrong in this post, like i said it's been a long time since i read the yj comics, and i also referenced a few things from comic series' i've only half finished which might be retconned later on or something. please correct me on literally anything

[kaija-rayne-author]

Do whatever you want, believe whatever you want. And using Veilguard as any sort of source for anything remotely related to canon Lore is just ridiculous. It's so... awful, IMHO, to use it to defend any sort of point.

I'm not certain if this would be considered critical, so I'll put it under a cut. Potentially critical of Veilguard.

Though I'm really just talking about the Lore.

I point out 4 massive retcons in Veilguard that blew my mind and that I see people commonly using as arguing points. And yes, if someone wants to pay me for the time, I can prove all of it with sources.

What little canon Lore they actually used in Veilguard? They twisted beyond recognition.

Just a few examples.

1. The blight is NOT, in fact, (or even in Veilguard) 'everywhere in the Fade'. It has always been contained to the Black City, that floats disconnected from everything else in the Fade. It's why the previously golden city is black ffs! Even in Veilguard, it's really damned obvious that the Fade isn't full of blight. We hop in and out of the Fade throughout the whole damned game like it's a shopping mall.

2. The Fade is not full of demons. Demons are spirits (people) of emotion. What usually twists them into demons is coming through the veil! The only reason there was the big demon in DAI is because it was attached to Coryphyfish. There's probably some, but it's an arguable point that an emotion spirit of, say, anger, or spite is actually a demon. Emotions aren't bad. They wouldn't automatically be demons simply because they reflect a negative emotion.

3. The veil has been canonically choking the life and magic out of Thedas for thousands of years. If the veil didn't come down, there would be no Thedas. This is clearly spelled out in canon. The veil was never meant to be part of the world. At the end of Trespasser, the veil is as holey as my grandmother's doilies. It's not as they tried to depict it in Veilguard, a firm, whole wall holding hordes of demons and the blight of blights back. That's such a bullshit retcon, and I make weird faces every time I try to figure out the mental gymnastics necessary for someone to come up with that idea.

4. It's also a massive retcon that Solas lies. (Sigh. Yes. It really is. No matter what you believe.) He canonically does not. They rewrote his character for DAI so that he doesn't lie because it weakened the character. He was originally written as much more similar to Blackwall. They decided it weakened Solas as a character and made sure he doesn't lie. He obfuscates, misleads, doesn't answer, and is really good at letting people make assumptions or even leading people to make assumptions. Because that is what a Trickster does! But in all of DAI and Trespasser, he does not lie except once. At the Winter Palace when you ask him where he got the experience of court. No. A 'lie of omission' is not a lie by the definition or philosophical understanding of what a lie is. You, as the player, not paying close attention to what he says doesn’t mean he lies either! He is not the 'god of lies'. That's Epler's hate shining through. Throughout 3 games, many dlcs, books, comics, short stories, the Dread Wolf is known as the Trickster. The god of rebellion and sometimes the god of betrayal. He is never once referred to as the god of lies in anything pre-veilguard. It's. Bullshit.

And Solas is an absolutely terrible liar. He stumbles all over himself trying to do it in the winter palace. It's hilarious tbh.

There were more retcons. But I need to go help with dinner.

Just, even if you liked Veilguard, don't use it as a defense in any sort of discussion of Lore. Perhaps listen to us Lore fiends, instead? Because they shat all over the Lore for Veilguard.

Real talk? It makes you look ignorant to anyone who actually has been paying attention to the Lore.

FWIW? I'm not in the best of moods right now. Please think twice, then a third time before responding/reblogging in disagreement. (Unless you're polite and actually have sources I haven't seen. I'm usually willing to have polite discussions or answer questions. I'm also willing to stand corrected if people actually can prove me wrong with sources attached. A 'nuhn unh, Solas lies cause I believe he does', won't get you far with me.) Nor will using anything from DAV to support an argument. I've relegated DAV to the graveyard of not-canon because of the complete disrespect of the Lore.

And I'll just laugh at you if you try to attack me. Internet randos filling my responses with shit doesn't phase me, bother me in the slightest, or make me upset. I find it incredibly, laugh out loud amusing because I've lived through so much more than that in my life.

[whamss]

Rose would be a shitty girlfriend but people really miss the flavor with exploring that when they take it as Rose not liking Kanaya as much as vice versa as opposed to her being painfully into Kanaya but not knowing how to like. Empathize with other people properly and being too self-absorbed to attend to any of Kanaya's needs, or even really notice when her own behavior is hurting her.

I think it's pretty well-established that Rose is super into her. Girl who drank her ass off before their first date bc she was nervous and constantly turmoiled over whether or not Kanaya was going to break up w her and wanting to make things better between them even leading up to her death, only people to say that she doesn't like Kanaya. If Kanaya broke up with Rose she would perish. Lines like "I never even got to tell her I love her" tell us nothing if not that Rose was painfully in love with Kanaya, but could never find it in herself to tell her. Whether this is because she was trying to protect herself on the chance that Kanaya got sick of her shit and decided to break up or because Rose was so out of it constantly she just could never get it out is up to interpretation. But Rose being a shitty girlfriend and her relationship with Kanaya being extremely important to her aren't concepts that are mutually exclusive. If anything I think they play hand in hand.

I also just think people need to give Kanaya more autonomy than they do. Don't get me wrong the power dynamic IS inbalanced. Rose is insane and constantly making mistakes and impulsive decisions and Kanaya is always left picking up the pieces when she does something crazy. Rose hurts Kanaya to an incomparable degree. Kanaya has far more patience for Rose than she probably should, but she isn't a doormat. The entire interaction Kanaya and Rose had on the meteor, where Kanaya flipped out on Rose for drinking right before they were due for a big fight, tells us so much about what their dynamic was leading up to this imo. This is a conversation they've had countless times before, Kanaya's anger is always followed up with some fearful suggestion from Rose that Kanaya is going to break up with her. Kanaya is a girl dealing with a partner deep in the throes of alcoholism, she's painfully compliant, but their interactions both leading up to them getting together and once they do both on the meteor and off of it show that the relationship anxiety is very one-sided. Rose is the only one worried about them breaking up, because she sucks and she knows that. Kanaya cares deeply for Rose but if either of them are going to be cooly cutting things off between them it's her, not Rose.

I love giving rosemary divorce particles, I can never be convinced that two girls who got together That Young could make it work between them without a ton of bumps in the road. I love that Rose is fucked up and self-centered and I like when people acknowledge this, but she DOES love Kanaya. To her own detriment. Kanaya is the one constantly disillusioned by Rose's behavior, the one who's commitment is constantly tested, not the other way around. Wish more people could acknowledge this... Rose loves Kanaya! And Kanaya loves Rose too, I think. But people really wooby her when they try to frame even the likes of pre-retcon rosemary like Kanaya is a nothing but a victim of Rose's vices, and that Rose somehow doesn't actually want to be in a relationship with her.

Pre-retcon rosemary was definitely on track to an untimely break up though. Rose wasn't going to be the one to pull that trigger though

[redbayly]

Zutara Shipping is Canon

Let me explain myself.

I was enjoying an afternoon walk (as I mercifully live in a decent area to go for walks to clear my head) and I started thinking about the Ember Island Players episode when it struck me.

Shipping Zutara is canon.

Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't about if Zutara itself is canon or not (it's totally canon and I will die on my hill of willful self-delusion), but about shipping it.

I'm sure most Zutara shippers still get a little thrill whenever we rewatch the show and our majestic bounty-hunter June, captain of the Zutara ship, calls Katara Zuko's girlfriend.

But, as I said, this is about Ember Island Players.

It never truly occurred to me before that, in canon, Zutara shipping is just a thing. Like, an actual, accepted aspect of the world.

When Puon-Tim wrote "The Boy in the Iceberg," he just outright included a Zutara subplot. And as annoyingly melodramatic as it was, it was still there. He even went out of his way to discredit the idea of Katara and Aang being together. And, even though the play is Fire Nation propaganda (which has since confused me since the wiki says that Puon-Tim is from the Earth Kingdom; though that feels like a retcon), it doesn't seem to show a Zutara romance in a negative way.

And it could've gone in that direction. As propaganda, it would have been only too easy to portray Katara as an evil seductress who corrupted Prince Zuko and convinced him to betray his country. But it doesn't. The Zutara scene is embarrassingly saccharine and schmaltzy, but it's not shown as being bad - except for the episode trying to frame it that way because it hurts Aang's feelings.

And, because of how popular the play seems to be, we can reasonably assume that there were audience members who left the theater as die-hard Zutara fans. Even if they were cheering for Zuko's death - because, y'know, Fire Nation - there weren't any boos at the Zutara scene. Like, some of those folks who cheered Zuko's death also probably regarded Zutara as a tragic love story. There were probably even a few who quietly whispered to each other that they hoped Prince Zuko would run off with Katara and have a happy ending instead of fighting for the throne and dying, as shown in the play.

And with how the war actually ended, Zutara shipping probably only got more popular as Zuko started reforming stuff and being an actually stable ruler as opposed to his psycho dad and sister.

So, with this in mind, Puon-Tim is the ultimate Zutara shipper. Zutara shipping is canon.

I don't really know what else to say.

Any thoughts?

[mismatched-ideas]

Okay. So I don't think this is going to be groundbreaking for anyone, but I need to get the thoughts out of my head.

I, like everyone, loved this so much:

But, it has made me think too hard about Shin's need for attention and validation.

The "you're actually pretty useful" line is obviously a sign that for the first time, at least in a while, someone is praising Shin for his telepathy. I'd be willing to bet we'll get more of that in future chapters.

We know from earlier that at this point, he really dislikes his ability even though when he was younger, he insisted Asakura shouldn't be upset about Shin's powers.

(That said, I think there could be some retconing happening here since I don't think the ages would match up, but Suzuki didn't give a specific timeline for the scenes in the lab flashback, so I could be reading it wrong. It's been 11 years, though, so Asakura also could not have a perfect memory/be condensing things. Regardless....)

My read on him saying "aren't you even happy about it" and "your research isn't stupid" to Asakura is not just because he's always supported his research, but also because now his wanting to reverse it feels like there was something wrong with him. What it seems like he's really saying is "aren't you even happy to have me around" and "I'm not stupid."

He's also a kid who obviously wants attention. Growing up as the only kid in a lab of adult scientists probably had something to do with that. Then, on top of that, there's the alienation because of his telepathy.

I feel like younger Shin, to some extent, didn't really think that a blood relation was the only person who could accept him. More, I think he convinced himself of that after feeling rejected by the people in the lab.

Like, talk about attention seeking behavior. He tries to provoke a reaction from Sakamoto any way he can, even if he fully expects that reaction to be negative. I'm sure in his time away from the lab his alienation and loneliness has only grown given he now has nobody.

But he doesn't get any negative reactions from Sakamoto which, at first, frustrates him. But, that then leads to the greater satisfaction of the positive reaction he receives later.

Before that can happen, though, he finally finds his father. At first, he acts like he doesn't even know who Shin is.

If this panel didn't absolutely crush you, I don't know what to say.

Then Sakamoto rescues him and even though his thoughts reveal he wasn't thinking that was (that said, we know Sakamoto, and seemingly other skilled assassins, can pretty easily hide his thoughts from Shin, so who knows if that was just him trying to remain detached) I think for Shin, it was still a meaningful connection, something he hadn't had in a while.

Now! My point to this is, for me, it really recontextualizes a lot of Shin's actions in the present.

He craves attention and validation. Not just from Sakamoto Taro, either.

When he feels he isn't useful enough, he apologizes.

There are definitely more recent examples of this, too, but I need to stop taking screenshots at some point.

All of this culminates into what I think is even sadder upon second reading, when Sakamoto tries to go to Thailand alone.

He is so hurt by this. But even after Aoi has to help Sakamoto realize he's just scared of losing the people he cares about (again), Shin still feels bad, like he did something wrong.

He's still such a kid, looking for validation from the father/older brother figure he's wanted his whole life.

I could go on about how I think there's something to the idea that being a telepath from such a young age could also mess up someone's ability to judge other people's feelings. After all, outside of people like Sakamoto and Nagumo, Shin has no trouble knowing what the person is feeling.

My final thought is, given all of this, my heart is breaking thinking about Shin first learning Sakamoto has retired and, it seems, disappeared. How much did he know? Did Sakamoto leave any note? He's not the most emotionally developed person (I mean, he had no parents and it seems like he was basically raised to be an assassin, so I don't blame him). Not to mention he would've been wary of creating connection and so, consciously or not, may have downplayed his and Shin's relationship.

Shin would've been 15 or 16 when Sakamoto retired. Can you imagine how that must have felt? I'll just remind you of this:

I'd be willing to bet Shin blamed himself when Sakamoto retired. After all, what did his dad say?

Why did he leave the lab?

And, in the end?

(if you want to see my additions from ch200)

[1000sunnygo]

People get really mad about this, but WHAT IF Corazon is alive?

I know I can really sound delusional after so many time (saw someone saying that if he did were alive, he would reappear in Dressrosa, but I think it would b too on top of the loop. Not Oda style). But WHAT IF!

There is a plothole for him to come back, we all know that. One piece characters don't die so easily. And when Doffy shoot him, what if he shoot the right spots so he brother doesn't die? Just like in One Piece Academy?

(probably failed not sounding delusional but)

So if there's a really tiny chance he's alive somewhere, with little memories maybe, wouldn't be a fun last challenge to Law?

Fight ur not so dead dad and get the One piece?

I think a heart wrenching aspect of Cora's 'uncertain' passing is that Law might've subconsciously waited for Cora during his stay at Swallow. Maybe 'silence' was dispelled because Cora san passed out? Maybe he survived gunshots like the countless wounds he survived before, and he was right about Doffy not having it in him to kill his brother? I've loved this comic for exploring this idea.

What if Cora is alive, though? I can indulge you a bit so people will think twice before calling you out next time 😎

Here's one in courtesy of Japanese YouTuber kayokky-ch. Back in chapter 49 during Baratie arc, the cooks described a customer like this, and it was never addressed afterwards :

Aren't these some wicked coincidences? Red eyes, wine addiction, bursting in flames - all points click.

Add Oda's tendency to keep people alive. Theories write themselves.

We have seen Whitebeard and Ace's fruit re-emerged, but Cora's is yet to return. Oda has a knack to work with old bits of information he spread around, especially with Saul's comfirmed survival, you can speculate other possibilities.

At least, the possibility isn't at 0%, so if Oda wakes up one day and decides Cora's incredible popularity deserves some attention... it'll be controversial but not a complete retcon.

A definitive proof in favor of Cora's death was the mariner's report and the image they attached to it. At least, Sengoku was supposed to know.

Unless you have a case where Cora was clinically dead for some time and then returned to life, and now Sengoku is keeping his survival a secret.

The theory above speculates that he might be "The man marked by flame", and that's why Law was particularly focused on when this mysterious person was brought up. I'm not sure what sort of agenda Cora would have if he returns. What's your theory behind Rosi possibly confronting Law, anon?

Personally, I've come in terms with the fact that Cora has died. Although, It's a shame that Law never got to return his "love you." Since Oda was somewhat involved with One Piece Odyssey, I like to imagine that Law's words to Cora here are checked by Oda himself. I thought they were very sweet.

Thanks for the ask!