#s to her plotting and scheming for something she doesn't actually want that much

[nateserenas]

literally to present the world with a better version of you which could mean facing your future and and forgetting past mistakes or finally settling on a brand new path while they both stare at ticket stubs from a film they saw together (literally they both kept the tickets...) and then they promptly throw away the ticket stubs as though they've just been burnt because they catch themselves doing something terrible - thinking about each other. (literally they both kept the tickets but then absolutely did not think about why they'd kept the tickets, because as if they've reached a point where they'll allow themselves to realise that maybe it's possible for them to enjoy each other's company yet. and then them throwing away the tickets is them being like nope refusing to think about why I kept this it never happened i definitely did not willingly engage in recreational activity with dan humphrey/blair waldorf and then i definitely definitely definitely did not keep the evidence it just didn't happen none of it happened i will not think about it ticket gone means no more thoughts on the matter okay case closed moving on time to go visit serena...)

[starry-blue-echoes]

Okay I had a THOUGHT about Early Bird. Or specifically, what happens after it.

Because Diavolo's still out there, still has his stand arrow/s. And Giorno either doesn't exist, or he's much older than in canon. Possibly even in a position where he can be much more effective in either combatting or infiltrating Passione.

Basically what I'm trying to say is 20-something Giorno Giovanna kinda taking Bucciarati's role as inspirational surrogate parent.

ailing you managed to rummage around my brain and pull out an idea I thought I'd forgotten about

so doing the math, Jotaro would be around 31 in Canon Part 5, and he was 6 in Early Bird Part 3. Giorno was born about 3 years before Canon Part 3, which if we have that be the same here leads to a....... shockingly only 3 year age gap

now, of course there's also room to mess around with when Part 5 happens since if you wanna get really technical, Dio wouldn't have been able to be given the arrows by Enyaba since she wouldn't have been able to buy them off Doppio at this time, but that's a little too gritty for me so let's just shuffle things around instead and just say it all works out by shoving Doppio's trip back a few years

anyways back with Giorno, an old idea I had more or less has Giorno...... with the kiddos as well. I KNOW, THIS IS TECHNICALLY A PRETTY LATE ADDITION TO THE AU BUT HEAR ME OUT:

Dio of course has Jotaro already planned out to be his successor. There's a whole multilayered scheme going on here with loads of irony and revenge and what not, and he doesn't want to give that up. It's just too perfect.

However, Dio has also learned from his mistakes and knows he shouldn't put all his eggs in one basket. After all, given the fact he doesn't have Pucci this time, he is currently without a back up plan

enter: one Haruno Shiobana

this is also where Dio's interactions with the kids get more....... complicated. Because Haruno is the spare so to speak........ but at the same time he's pretty well cared for. Arguably better than the other kids, simply because of the fact he's new. Unlike the other kids, he doesn't need to be convinced of anything. This life and Dio is all he's known, he doesn't need to worry about Haruno trying to escape since....... well, why would he try

not to mention, Haruno's too young to participate in any kind of training, and again he's the spare. He shouldn't have to be trained since if everything goes to plan, he won't be needed as a successor. Maybe he could be a powerful underling one day if his Stand is strong enough, but Jotaro is supposed to be the future leader.

so honestly....... Jotaro's the only one who ever actually interacted with Giorno. He's kept separate from most of the other kids, but of course Dio wanted his heir to meet his possible second. And their interactions were about as interesting as a 3 year old and an ill 6 year old could be.

(who knows, maybe Haruno's mother is here as well? Of course, this does raise the question of whether or not she'd take Haruno with her when she inevitably flees the mansion, but for the sake of the AU let's say she does)

but when they're free.......... this is when things get a bit fun :)

because well....... given their ages, the two honestly don't remember each other super well. Haruno hardly remembers any of his time in the mansion at all, and Jotaro's memories are foggy from time and sickness. Kakyoin might know of Haruno's existence from their talks, but admittedly the toddler's importance wasn't NEARLY as much in his mind as compared to being rescued and getting Jotaro to a hospital

by the time Kakyoin's able to tell Holly and Joseph, Haruno's long gone

Italy I'd imagine isn't too different. Sure there's of course the differing dynamics between Giorno and the team given the fact he's 28 (and now the oldest member of the team by a landslide, Abbacchio being the closest at 21) but plot wise? There's definitely the question of do we play it straight or get creative with it which........ okay let's be real we're most likely gonna go the creative route jrdbvjdrbvs

I'm definitely very interested in how Koichi little quest goes down and how Giorno will deal with his chasing, and ofc how Jotaro will fall into things here

Polnareff definitely will make things interesting, since he's of course very related to Events All Those Years Ago and would likely be aware of the fact that Dio son who went missing that fateful night

there's a lot of room to Get Funky With It :)

also I'm just. Rotating Jotaro and Giorno's childhoods. How the mansion was the best and safest Giorno had ever been, and had he grown up there he honestly probably wouldn't have had that bad of a life, at least in comparison to his mother's neglect and step-father's abuse.

but that being in stark contrast to Jotaro's own experience. How the mansion was literal hell. How he was stolen away from his life and family and very nearly died, scared and alone.

how Dio managed to be Giorno's savior and Jotaro's nightmare

how Holly's rescue was Jotaro's saving grace and the thing that shattered any hope of Giorno's good future

how these two are family, both by blood and by the man who attempted to raise and shape them

[comicaurora]

So, you mentioned on the podcast that you were watching some classic-era Gundam.

For the season(s) you've watched, assuming you're not planning on suddenly taking the plunge and making a Universal Century Detail Diatribe, would you mind sharing your opinion so far? Universal Century can be a bit divisive, but I always enjoy seeing people's opinions on it. I have mixed feelings on some of the decisions made, myself, but in the grand scheme of things I enjoy what I've seen so far. (Especially Unicorn, but that's not really classic era.)

Also, I'd like to reccomend watching (or reading!) Gundam The Origin, since it acts as a really good, pretty, (and in the anime's case, short) prequel series to the original.

It's interesting! I've watched the compilation movies for 1 and 2 and most of 3, and I can't tell if they lost the plot after 1 or if the writers were being really, really scathing in a subtle way.

1 was incredibly blatant about how Amuro is a traumatized kid who got strongarmed into being the gundam pilot and using it to kill people, something that he clearly absolutely hates - and it's pretty overt that the Federation Force is more than willing to mulch up as many child soldiers as they want in order to win. The movies, and I assume the show they're compiled from, go out of their way to show that there are sympathetic young people on both sides of the conflict that just want to be free of this war, and there are also right bastards on both sides that are willing to be very callous with the lives of others. You can, of course, always identify who the compassionate people are by how pretty they are, and all the right bastards by how grotesque they are. It's pretty unsubtle about that being the core of the narrative, and they really twist the knife at certain points, like when Amuro's mother is horrified and ashamed at him self-defense-killing a Zeon soldier that was actively menacing her refugee camp, and Amuro concluding that she doesn't love him and he truly has no family to go back to.

By 2, things have gotten a little confusing, and I'm inclined to assume this is because the compilation movies had to make some cuts that would've made the character arcs flow a little more smoothly. Amuro decides to leave the whole war behind, which makes sense, but he takes the gundam, which doesn't. They introduce this thread that Amuro is extremely attached to the gundam and very proud of his ability to pilot it, and he has an actual breakdown when he learns that other members of the crew are now trained in its operation and can use it just fine, if not quite as skillfully as he can. It seems like there was a bit of a lurch from "Amuro has been unwillingly dragged into this nightmare and is forced to fight again and again despite his extremely obvious PTSD" to "Amuro refuses to let go of the giant robot that tethers him TO this nightmare," and while it's very interesting in the implications, it doesn't exactly flow cleanly. In fact, this is where there seems to be a bit of a shift from "war is bad" to "wow! cool robot." Amuro goes from PTSD-catatonia every time he destroys an enemy mobile suit to counting them during fight scenes, which is kind of a chilling indicator of the mechanized horror he's becoming accustomed to - assuming that was on purpose and not just a broad defanging of the story to do more Cool Robot Fights.

But the thing is, there's this subplot sometime around 2 or 3 involving a bunch of actual toddlers that have been hanging around on the ship - because it started as a refugee vessel escaping the destruction of a colony, so there's a lot of women (who are now conscripted pilots, of course, and shockingly badass for the era it came out in) and children onboard, and they've been stuck on the front lines running from Zeon with almost no ground support because the Federation likes throwing the gundam at things too much to care about a handful of six-year-olds potentially getting mulched. But throughout this little arc, the kids are finally on track to getting rehomed on Earth by the military - something that the kids are unhappy about because they've got a whole Found Family thing going, but Amuro approves of them leaving, saying "little kids shouldn't see people killing each other," which aligns very firmly with how he is a kid who hates all the killing he's stuck in.

Except then the happy ending is that the six-year-olds get to stay on the warship because they recently helped out with bomb disposal and "they've seen things you guys can't imagine, they don't want to leave!" And this is either really losing the plot or absolutely brilliant spiteful writing on the part of the creative team, because as I understand it, executive meddling was pushing them to include newer, flashier, more colorful giant robots (weapons of war and untold suffering that our teen hero has been trapped in by a mechanized war machine that has effectively enslaved him for his talents) to push toys to the exact age demographic of those chipper six-year-olds. It's almost like the teenage child soldiers are turning out to directly face the camera and saying "what's the difference between forcing us onto the front lines and letting these precocious youngsters keep flinging themselves into the crossfire? Gotta sell more gunplas, right?"

So if that was on purpose, I really liked it. If not, it's kinda hearbreaking to see the show gradually start pulling its punches in favor of turning the Oops All Babies warship into a heartwarming found family situation.

Also they started really banging the "newtypes are the plot now" drum in 3 and once everyone started getting psychic powers I kinda lost steam tbh

[roseamongroses]

shuriri college au!

note: im not a stem major so it might be vauge

shuri gets a crush on a girl in one of her labs (riri) and is basically trying to try her damndest to get a chance to talk

problem is riri is booked and busy nd doesn't really get that shuri (or other people tbh) are interested in hanging out so she always ends up dipping to go work on her projects

and like shuri is breaking out her super genius intellect just to get coffee with her but somehow, someway riri finds a way out of directly interacting with her

shuri gets extra tickets to movie she finds out riri's a fan of? riri has already had the tickets purchased for weeks OR she's already found a way to pirate it

shuri tries to get paired up with riri for an assigment? turns out riri has accommodations so she works individually rather then in group projects

shuri's friends think this is funny cause SHURI HERSELF is notorious for dissapearing off the face of the earth to work in the lab so whenever she complains about riri ditching her/ ignoring her they hit her with the "ohhhh???rlly???that must suck???"

at one point shuri even signs up for tutoring. but that only confused riri cause "did u lose a bet or something?why do u need tutoring u have higher grades then me???"

eventually, shuri gets to the point where shes like. fuck it. and just starts hanging out with riri without the elabroate plots + super special planned dates.

beforehand shuri was stuck trying to find ways to stand out and impress riri, but the thing is riri was ALREADY impressed with shuri.

riri just thought shuri was just being nice to her bc she's (mostly...) nice to everyone/ so she didn't want to assume anything

riri's working late hours? shuri brings her coffee, works alongside her. doesn't make a fuss of it. they start walking her back to the dorms after those late nights. in class she starts asking riri questions more, complimenting her, but again, no more schemes.

after awhile, they just kinda...click? like riri doesn't even notice how often she's starting to look forward to seeing shuri. and even starts to believe that maybe shuri is being nice to her because???she enjoys????riri's company????

soon enough riri starts to seek shuri out. excitedly calling shuri whenever she has a new idea, offering to pay for coffee the next time they're working late, staking out the financial aid office, even responding to shuri's texts in a (somewhat) reasonable time frame

when it does click for riri that she might be forming a crush (her attraction is so sporadic that she rarely pays attention to it anymore) she does panic. a bit

not because she hates the idea of dating shuri, but because she doesn't have much experience dating anyone. what if shes misreading the situation and shuri only wants to be friends? what if riri doesn't even know what she wants and just likes the attention???what if she ruins everything because of her inexperience? what if she icks shuri out and never sees her again???

yeah that wasn't a good week for her

[cut to shuri doodling their names in the margins of her notes]

anyways. when riri panics she reverts to bad habits and starts ghosting hard. self sabotage arc :)

at first shuri lets it go cause again she'd be a hypocrite otherwise. but after a certainpoint it really started to hurt her feelings cause damn she knows they aren't dating, but at the very least thought they were friendly? she gets mad, gets moody, but after awhile she gets REALLY concerned cause while riri is flighty she never does it maliciously

so for one last time, shuri does indeed cook up a scheme. said scheme is sneaking into riri's dorm and just asking her straight up if she's okay (she brings food just in case riri is actually mad at her)

and like....riri's so used to keeping her emotions and worries to herself that she isnt used to just...being asked.

so the moment she's hit with the "are u ok" girl just breaks down and spills

(riri does accidentally admit to her crush during this breakdown, but shes also revealing other stuff about herself so shuri decides not to focus on that and to just help her cry it out)

(shuri feeling some conflicted feelings cause on one hand her crush has mutual feelings on the other hand her favorite person is feeling shitty)

[insert cry sleepover sesh]

about a week or so later things have reutrned to...normal....mostly.

thing is now that riri is getting used to her attraction and wanting shuri and wanting a life outside of her lab she gets...bold.

starts slowly returning shuri's playful flirting... being more open with shuri about how she feels

shuri is not used to bold. shuri, princess of wakanda, top of her class, isn't used to being flustered or pursued so seriously, shuri's bbrain turns to mush and will never return.

shuri's friends also think this is funny

ok thats it maybe ill write more ideas later but i got an essay to submit for my final among other tings

[for-the-sake-of-color]

For Mary ann and Jet: 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10

TYSM!!!!! This is for the Edgy/misc OC ask meme [HERE]

Full answers under the Cut

1) What would your oc rather just forget?

Mary Ann: She would probably like to forget the day she realized her and her father were just pawns in her mothers manipulative schemes, and that she would never be able to love herself and carry on fulfilling the expectations of either one of them.

Jet: Would probably like to forget the bits he actually can remember, of the first three days of the first battle of geonosis. Specifically the crater he woke up in dazed and badly wounded, surrounded by what was left of those he considered family, holding the last of them in his arms as they took their last breaths, leaving Jet one of the only survivors of their whole company.

2) What's something about your OC that people wouldn't expect just from looking at them?

Mary Ann: She's a gurlanin shapeshifter who's natural form is a closer to that of a canine marsupial

Jet: Is actually three+ weeks younger than than Kix and is one of the youngest of his own squad despite being their leader.

7) What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

Mary Ann: She was supposed to be even less of a one-off character than Jet is, given she was only originally ever mentioned in passing by a character (jet) who themselves was only a plot device for a single chapter. The second i decided to give her a backstory though, the idea of her being a gurlanin just jumped right out at me and everything else came together from there

Jet: Was only supposed to be a one-off character at a bar (79s) who had briefly gotten some dating advice from my sith OC Nihlus and was reporting back as successful in using that advice. And then I went back to write what led up to that initial conversation and grew to like him SO much that he's technically now the co-lead of the story alongside Nihlus (excluding kix as the siths s/o) and is vitally important to making this story work

8) Would your OC ostensibly be able to get away with murder?

Mary Ann: Yes Absolutely. She's a shapeshifter than can fully dissapear from not just sensors but the force as well. The full range of a gurlanins ability means she can do pretty much whatever she wants whenever she wants as whomever she wants

Jet: Yea, but not because of him. The rest of his chosen family are all far too good as committing and covering up murders that he couldnt turn himself in even if he wanted to cause there just wouldnt be anymore evidence against him by the time he made it down to the holding cell

9) Do you have a specific lyric or quote which you associate with your OC?

Mary Ann: Her character playlist isn't bulky compared to some of my others but I do like It's Time by Imagine Dragons

It's time to begin, isn't it? I get a little bit bigger But then I'll admit I'm just the same as I was Now don't you understand That I'm never changing who I am? This road never looked so lonely This house doesn't burn down slowly To ashes, to ashes

It's related to her leaving her homeworld at 70 to get away from her family and all the expectations to settle down and bear children when she wanted to build an actual life for herself where she's free to live as she wishes

Jet: He actually (go figure) has one of my more fleshed out character playlists, the one which I associate with him most being Chalk Outline by Three Days Grace

You left me here like a chalk outline On the sidewalk waiting for the rain to wash away Wash away You keep coming back to the scene of the crime But the dead can't speak and there's nothing left to say anyway All you left behind Is a chalk outline All you left behind Is a chalk outline

Which is of course related to his deep trauma as a result of losing his batchmates in the hundreds, being one of the first units sent to geonisis, and as a result, how he holds no strong loyalties to the republic which he was raised to venerate and uphold.

10) What's an AU that would be interesting to explore with your OC?

Mary Ann and Jet: oh you have NOOOOO idea how deep I constantly am in the Star Trek AU for Crisis Company where Jet is a Captain of the Intrepid Class ship Venture and Mary Ann is a (post-dominion war) changling, offically the ship Bartender and unofficially the ship counselor. I have soooo much to say about this st au like ALLL the time. Here's (rogue) Captain Jet and his Ship's Main Computer and Tactical War Hologram Nihlus [more here]

[nostalgia-tblr]

last book, current book, next book

tagged by @grassangel

Last Book: Death and the Virgin: Elizabeth, Dudley and the Mysterious Fate of Amy Robsart, by a Tory MP (I DIDN'T KNOW). This one was okay overall but I was confused about who the target audience was supposed to be, and part of that is that most of the book isn't actually about Amy Robsart (RIP) so if she's what you picked it up for you'll have to get through a lot of stuff you already know about the Elizabeth/Leicester pairing, and it seemingly dimisses the murder idea about halfway through (she doesn't die until about page 150 or something) only to suddenly decide "well actually" in the final chapter which is too little too late for me - if I pick up a book that promises SCANDAL and MURDER then I want that to be more prominent. (I suppose this book suffers from what plagues many of those Liz/Rob OTP novels, which is that their SCANDALOUS behaviour mostly just isn't by modern standards. OH MY GOD HE TOUCHED HER HAND?! IN FRONT OF THE SPANISH AMBASSADOR?!?! *FAINTS*)

So I wouldn't really recommend that one, and not just because it was written by a Tory MP (don't worry my copy was secondhand).

Current Book(s): Current paper book is Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II by Paul Doherty, which is full of exciting plot twists that I discussed recently, and the bit I am up to is after Hugh de Spense's been horribly killed but before Edward dies (this is not a spoiler because a) it's in the title of the book and b) this all happened in the 14th century of course he's dead by now), and currently Queen Isabella's shacked up with Roger Mortimer and ruling via her son (which is one of my favourite scheming queen tropes, yay!!) and Edward's in a castle, possibly in poor conditions, and yeah I assume he's about to get murdered and then we'll probably spend a chapter or two discussing whether or not this was Isabella's fault. OH NO, WHO HATH WROUGHT THIS TRAGIC TURN OF EVENTS?

Current Kindle book (main one, as I dip in and out of things a bit) is something about the six wives of Henry VIII by Antonia 'I'm Very Posh BTW' Fraser. Quite enjoying this one despite knowing what's going to happen to all of them. I'm only up to Anne Boleyn though and she's not even queen yet, we're still in The Interminable Divorce Proceedings which I feel is often the hardest part for a writer dealing with The Wives because it involves not much actually happening for ages and everyone gets increasingly depressed about Katherine of Aragon and then as soon as you're past THAT it's time to get depressed about Anne Boleyn. Anyway at the moment it's very awkward because Henry keeps frothing about Leviticus and how he is CURSED BY GOD because sure he has one legitimate child but she's THE WRONG SEX and this sort of thing is the reason Henry is always the least sympathetic character in any fictional version, even when they do a Bitch Anne Boleyn (oh, how edgy!). So there's a good chance I won't get to the end of this one because it's a big book with a complete shit as the 'protagonist' (it's non-fiction but u kno wot I mean) BUT in terms of the writing I'm enjoying it and it's a nice mix of Facts and Commentary so if you want a long book on this topic you could do a lot worse.

Next book(s): for paper book I plan on reading something fairly thin (because ow hand) which has maybe a 90% of being about a dead queen of England, and the next Kindle choice is further away (maybe) and will possibly depend on which Richard III biography is next to get a deep discount on Amazon.

I tag everyone, because why not?

[winwin17]

I hate to say it, but I have to agree on at least a few of these.

I think the Forkle twin thing actually works fine, though I can see how the abrupt reveal feels a little cop-out-ish.

The love interest age gap is literally never something I even thought of. Their ages are close enough. (What's with kids these days that think two or three years apart is icky? It seems much less significant when both parties are in their 20's and beyond.)

I don't think Keefe was meant to be with Biana, but I do think it was obviously meant to be that Biana kinda liked him to start with. I personally think Shannon has been team Sokeefe since almost the beginning, and at this point I don't think anything she says can convince me otherwise. However, that doesn't necessarily mean she was always committed to taking the narrative in that direction for sure. There are some pretty strong hints tho. Anyway, I 100% support Dexiana, so I'm glad Biana doesn't end up with Keefe.

The Vespera thing.... Ow... That was...incredibly sloppy and disappointing in my opinion. She was suuuch a good villain. Even if Gisela stole the show, Vespera still had her own little agenda she was committed to, and I think cutting her out of the picture really robbed us of further insight into her and Gisela's differing ideals and agendas. Vespera was ancient, after all. She'd had years and years to stew over her bitterness and her schemes in prison, and then Gisela just waltzes in with her not-even-pointy-yet ears and somehow her "legacy" whatever is grand and complex enough to overtake everything Vespera had worked for and just throw it all to the side like a sack of rotten potatoes. I don't think that getting rid of Vespera was the best/only solution to keep her out of the way for what Gisela wants. Just because Gisela is two steps ahead of everyone in access to unthinkable power and schemes, that shouldn't mean she can just abbacadabbra an ancient Elf villain off the scene entirely. Majorly disappointing.

Sigh.... I can see why Dex gets relegated to the sidelines, but I don't approve, and I don't think it would mix up the love interest situation if he has more page time.

Please don't get me started on Prentice! I really think there originally had to be more Shannon intended to do with him, but other plots just got so complex she just kinda glossed over everything with this really unsatisfying "oh, sadly somehow he will never get all his memories back." Like, what even?!? Prentice was what EVERYTHING hinged on at the beginning!! The reason he called Swan Song has got to be SO important and nuanced! It all ties in with Sophie's very creation and existence! And yet Sophie gets the ability to heal broken minds just to heal Alden and Fintan?? Like, yeah, those are crucial people, but we were sold the impression that all of it was just so everything could build up to the one grand healing that would change everything. Sorry, but you can't convince me there wasn't supposed to be more with the Prentice plotline.

As far as Marella is concerned, I think she was always supposed to be a crucial character somehow. Especially since her family and her mom's injury has always been shrouded in this suspicious mystery. And since pyrokinesis has always been a big issue through the series, I think the situation with being tutored by Fintan was probably always supposed to come in somehow, or at least something like that. Because Fintan has always been the key pyrokinetic, the Everblaze pyrokinetic, and there's still turmoil and mixed feelings over pyrokinesis being banned, and I think that's going to need to resolve somehow. Even Sophie has never come to an internal resolution as to whether she feels okay about banning something as fundamental as a person's special ability, so it's all still important material.

I'm still unsure about the abilities malfunction, but I think that the Sokeefe confession complication is really more of a byproduct than the reason this issue arises. But the verdict is still out on what the whole issue is about, so....

There are other things I want to know more about that seem abandoned too. The Vacker legacy, for one thing. Fallon Vacker, Luzia Vacker, and other suspicious and ancient characters like that. What do they know? What have they been involved in? How about the Cyrah situation? I feel like there's still some mystery there, too. What about Tiergan? What does he know, and why did he used to sneak off to the Forbidden Cities so much? He's always seemed to have his own little thing going on. And then there's Tinker. Isn't it Goblins she hates? Why? And why is she so isolated? What's her whole backstory? What's with Magnate Leto and his strange emotional reaction when Sophie said "how would you feel if you woke up and found out your wife had died" and he was like "I don't have a wife"? Because there's definitely *some* kind of backstory there, too.

Ugh, I need so many answers, and yet I am afraid I am never going to get them all! 😭

Unpopular opinion: Shannon Messenger makes way too many little plots then abandons them, I'm literally only in it for the sokeefe at this point.

Mr. Forkle was SO meant to die. Shannon just got cold feet and made up a little nonsense explanation out of nowhere.

And love-interest-age-gap was receiving hate? Oh no worries Sophie is actually one year older than we thought she was.

And I'm pretty sure Keefe was meant to be with Biana in the beginning, before Shannon decided to switch to sokeefe and dexiana endgame bc of what the audience wanted. !!NOT THAT I'M COMPLAINING I LOVE SOKEEFE!!

And then oh haha Vespera was the main villain all along! wait no this isn't working, let's just kill her off unsatisfyingly. Same with, like, all of our other villains teehee

dex? who's that? oh haha that guy well we couldn't have him mistaken for a love interest so, yk, *poof*

prentice who--

Omg guys we forgot Marella existed quick make her important

Keefe can sense whether or not Sophie likes him?? Which makes it so that Sophie can't have her cute lil love confession? oh hahaha not anymoreeee (unexplained magic malfunction)

theres more but I forgot and yes this rant was absolutely necessary

[wakkoroni]

Batfam Scripts/Incorrect Quotes: pt 9

This isn't much of an incorrect quote as it is more of headcanon? I have no idea what this is. But it has mini scripts in it?

But I want you guys to hear me out. You guys know the sticky hand thingys?

These bois right here.^

Hear me out-

The Robins used these to collect evidence, the toy is sticky to collect dust or anything really. And it's stretchy so if the substance is dangerous all they have to do is throw it, and the thing they are trying to collect will stick, and then they just stuff it in a bag and call it a day.

But I want y'all to imagine, Batman, not knowing Robin! Dick has the sticky hands in their belt.

I imagine the interaction going a little something like this:

Batman: *looking at the remains of a villain attack and colorful dust everywhere* Robin, collect some dust so we can examine it in the cave

Robin!Dick: *reaching into their belt and unwrapping a sticky hand (because sanitation)* Sure thing B, *slaps the hand in the dust and takes it back and places it in the bag*

Batman: ... Robin, what was that?

Robin: My new toy

Bruce is just so done with his child to even question it because it got the job done. Dick started this (obviously) and passed it on to the other Robins but Jason takes it to a new level and starts smacking people with it, but he does this at first on complete accident,

He was collecting evidence and he hears someone walking behind him and on instinct he uses the first thing in his hand to defend himself (ahem... The sticky hand) and smacks them. Turns out it was Batman. Batman is unamused with a blue sticky hand hanging from his cowl, and Jason finds this hilarious. He will now, anytime he wants Batman's attention, just smack them with a sticky hand.

Batman, everytime is like "Robin... Stop it" but eventually it proves useful when a villain tries to grab Jason and he smacks them with a sticky hand and it baffles them long enough for him to get away or at least fight back. Batman can't say anything to him anymore because it actually helped.

Tim uses the sticky hand like a little gremlin. He uses it the way it's supposed to be used (to gather evidence) but also will smack villains. He will not smack Batman with it because that'll just make him sad because Jason used to do it all the time and now Jason is dead so- no. (I apologize, I don't know much of Robin!Tim to add but if you wanna add, feel free to)

Steph is a MENACE with the sticky hand like she will find reasons to take one and use it. Like oh look this dust looks kinda suspicious... Yeet! She is so chaotic with it. The rouges by now already know of the sticky hand and they aren't scared of it but they know if they see it, they're in trouble. Steph notices it and uses it so whenever she walks into a warehouse she will smack the area around her with the hand, and the rouge is like 0.0. Imagine casually plotting your evil scheme and all you hear is the slap of the toy and because the warehouse is empty it just echos. Sounds terrifying, right?

But also I feel like since she's always using the sticky hand, she will accidentally cross contaminate the evidence

Bruce: Robin why do you have two sticky hands

Steph!Robin: I have one to randomly smack stuff and one that collected the residue of the gas

Bruce, noticing both the hands are the same color: and which one is which

Robin: well this one I've been using to smack everything and this one...*noticing the other hand is clean* um...

Batman: Robin...

Robin: I mean the residue is still on it, it just has like Gotham dirt on it, and other stuff

Batman: *sigh*

Robin: ✌️

Damian would not use them often. He sees them as "childish" and "beneath him" but eventually warms up to the idea but not because it's fun, no, an Al Ghul doesn't do fun, but because it's practical. (He tries to convince his siblings but they all know he finds it fun and it's ok because he's still a child, and children can have fun with sticky hands) [but like also anyone can have fun with the sticky hands, they'll be so time consuming for no reason]

I'm going to go sidetracked for a bit because I just realized another use for the sticky hands, distracting traumatized children. Like Robin saves a child but child is crying... Just give them a clean sticky hand and let them play with it. I'm a genius!

[yabai-korra]

Eris getting some of Nesta's powers and his importance in the future

Y'all I'm 90% sure some of Nesta's power has been transferred to Eris, at first it occurred to me in a sort of "ha, could be" way but I'm pretty certain, hear me out! Also going to touch on the subject of Nesta not losing her powers completely.

The power in the dagger

Nesta Made the dagger and put some of her own power into it, and then Eris got that dagger as a present by Inner Circle, which wasn't really a necessary scene nor plot point unless you read between the lines.

KINGDOM OF ASH SPOILERS AHEAD!

We have seen the exact same thing in Kingdom Ash, Aelin lost all of her power but an ember, but beforehand put it in her sword Goldryn and whooped Maeve's ass, actually head lol, with it. Having power shoot out of her hands and her sword felt pretty much the same so I'm sure Nesta will be equally powerful in the next book! Not only does she have a bit of her power left, three weapons filled with her power, and the Dread Trove. Nesta is still the most powerful character 😎

If Nesta can put some of her power into a weapon, it doesn't seem like a stretch at all for the power in the weapon to get out and into a person.

Eris only pretended to be influenced by Koschei

This one was kinda obvious to me from the moment I read it, no psychoanalyzing needed.

Nesta and her weapons were said to "probably" grant immunity from Koschei's power because they were both Made, and Eris had the dagger while he when he was captured.

Every person that has been possessed by Koschei has been said to have glassy eyes, EVERYONE except Eris!

Eris's soldiers had glassy eyes.

Bellius had glassy eyes.

Cassian had glassy eyes.

Eris is the only "possessed" person to get "accidentally" caught.

Eri's soldiers said nothing, and it was Briallyn who reveal that Bellius and Cassian were possessed.

Out of Cassian, Bellius, Eris, and his soldiers, Eris is undoubtedly the slickest and most cunning one. Comparison between him and Cassian has been dragged throughout the whole book, while Cassin is the muscle, Eris plays mind games and politics.

ERIS IS THE MASTER AT WORD GAMES! How did Cass and Az realize he was possessed and therefore Koschei being there? THROUGH ERIS USING A WORD GAME he knew only Cass and Az will pick up on.

Are y'all trying to tell me that Eris, who supposedly had immunity from the Koschei's power, didn't show the only sign of being possessed which is glassy eyes, had accidentally said something that will let Cass and Az know he's "possessed"?

Golden flames

The word "flame" has been used in 4 different contexts throughout the book

a) actual fire in the fireplace

b) silver flames in Nesta's eyes

c) flames in Lucien's eyes

d) flames in Eris's eyes

We know that Autumn Court's power is fire, both Lucien and Eris were described to have red flames in their eyes, which is completely expected right?

Eris was said to have flame/red flame multiple times, but I'm only allowed ten pics per post, and obviously not gonna put quotes of Nesta's silver flames cause it's literally the title lol.

Then, when Eris was "possessed" and held a dagger to Cassian's chest, it was said that flame rippled from it, and Cass didn't know if it came from the dagger itself or from Eris.

My guess? Both or combined! When Eris received the dagger, he said that it has flame in it, and Eris is said to have had flames in his eyes previously.

Last but not least, AFTER Eris had been "possessed" and AFTER the dagger was returned to the Night Court, ERIS NOT LONGER HAS RED FLAME IN HIS EYES, BUT GOLD.

This was in the penultimate chapter! Aka the chapter before the last. SJM always takes great care to put something important or foreshadowish at the end of each book. The last chapter was obviously Nessian and Archeron sisters, since it was the Nessian book and the three sisters are all finally happy together (plus announcing the next book as Elain's) but chapter before that... about Eris? Interesting.

There was so much about him there I for a second thought the next book is going to be about him lol. So much to unpack in that chapter:

Eris was tortured by his father for information (which I think is the hint for Eris not being possessed).

Eris still insists there are some things about him and Mor that Mor hasn't told the Inner Circle.

He wants to explain something to Mor.

He obviously just wants to be friends with the Inner Circle (but that's a discussion for another post).

Cassian, who hates Eris with burning passion throughout the whole book, says he thinks Eris is a good guy, but is too much of a coward to act like it.

It was hinted that Beron did much worse things to Eris during his life, "The male had been raised with every luxury and privilege - on paper. But who knew what terrors Beron had inflicted upon him? Cassin knew Beron had murdered Lucien's lover. If the High Lord of Autumn had been willing to do that, what wouldn't he do?" If you ever read any SJM serials you would know that this wasn't put here just because, it's always foreshadowing with her.

"Because it doesn't add up. You know what a monster your father is and want to usurp him; you act against him in the best interests of not only the Autumn Court but all of the faerie lands; you risk your life to ally with us... and yet you left her in the woods." - Cassian. Do you see all the material for the future book?

"Eris crossed his arms, then winced. As if whatever injuries lay beneath his immaculate clothes ached." I THINK THIS IS A DESCRIPTION OF NOT ONLY ERIS'S CURRENT SITUATION, BUT HIS WHOLE LIFE. As Cass said, born in luxury, raised by a monster.

Eris is generally very fucked up? Not only was it in this last chapter, but it was stated multiple times that his upbringing really damaged him. When Cassian was surprised by the fact Beron tortured him, Eris responded with: "Get that pitying look off your face. I know what sort of creature my father is. I don't need your sympathy." That is an extremely fucked up way to respond to being tortured by one's father, and implicates he was subjected to similar misery earlier in his life.

"Nesta could see he didn't believe them - that he was so used to twisted politics and scheming of his court that even when the simple, easy truth was offered, he could not see it." Again, very messed up mindset, which in the author's language means writing material.

The last line said to Eris in the book is: "Eris was still their ally. Was willing to be tortured to keep their secrets. And Cassian didn't need to be a courtier to know his next words would slice deep, but it would be a necessary wound. Perhaps it would be enough to push him in the right direction. "You know, Eris, I think you might be a decent male, deep down, trapped in a horrible situation." He looked over his shoulder to find Eris's gaze blazing again. But only pity stirred in his chest, pity for a male who has been born into riches, but had been destitute in every way that truly mattered. In every way Cassian had been blessed - blessings that were now overflowing. So Cassian said; "I grew up surrounded by monsters. I've spent my existence fighting them. And I see you, Eris. You're not one of them. Not even close. I think you might even be a good male. You're just too much of a coward to act like it." This was said by Cassian, whom Eris insulted every time they interacted, who hurt his sister, who wanted to steal his mate, whom Cassian said he wanted to kill or leave to die on so so many occasions, who made Cassian feel stupid and insecure every chance he had, and yet Cass of all people found it in his big good heart to see the good in Eris and try to push him to be good.

And now, his eyes burn with golden flames.

There is so so much to unpack and reveal about Eris's character, and SJM couldn't be more obvious with pointing it out. He is definitely going to play a huge role in the next book(s). With his possible new powers, overthrowing Beron, healing from all the emotional and physical trauma inflicted upon him, revealing a lot of secrets he's been keeping, and finding a way to show his true colors.

Also I think Nesta might be the one to help him with it because she at some point says that she deserves to marry him because "she is just like him", and not only in a way that they both insulted Cassian. They both had/had demanding parents which made them cold and unfeeling, preferring to appear as assholes because they don't want and don't know how to be their true kind selves. I think she would a great friend and the best person to help him deal with everything.

And the way Eris obviously likes her which we've seen when they were dancing. How he saw that she really liked spinning around so he went out of his way to spin her on multiple occasions even though it wasn't in the dance protocol. I'm pretty sure that was his way of getting closer to her because he obviously can't do it with words.

[gascon-en-exil]

A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

[star-light-shadows]

I will acknowledge that Season 1's handling of Samurai!Nya is at fault for putting Nya in that self-sabotaging over-powered-under-utilized situation, (As cool as it was for her to one-up the Ninja, the narrative issues it poses can't be ignored,) but Ninja!Nya is just as much a good idea with bad execution as it is, and I can't help but think Ninja!Nya's flaws majorly outweigh the flaws of the other.

I just don't put nearly as much weight on being one of the out-of-focus Ninja. Sure, consistently being in the team is a nice perk, but like all the Ninja besides Lloyd, she spends the majority of her time as a Ninja just sorta being there. Not really anything interesting going on.

When she still has levels of actual character focus comparable to KAI, I can't exactly feel like her becoming a Ninja was worth the undermining of the prior high-points of her character.

And a disturbingly large amount of the character focus she does get during/post-Season 5 is spent having her hating her new role, feeling it was forced onto her, and wishing she could go back.

As "Major Yikes" inducing as it is, it simply is true. Seasons 5-7 actively go out of their way to portray Nya as at-odds with her new role, and those instances are the last times Nya is truly characterized in a significant way as being independent until Seabound.

No pun intended, but it's a perfect storm of all the worst things the story could have possibly done in their effort to give Nya a new role. And Seabound definitely did not help, in fact, it dialed it up to 11. (And that's even without the frankly obnoxious way she was characterized.)

Sure, Nya wasn't the only one affected by Wojira's waves, but besides the directly connected Ocean, water was only affected by the anomaly when she was nearby. Her elemental powers themselves were indeed acting up. And Yes, actually, it WAS something malicious.

The whole point of the plot of this season is that that is because the element of Water flat out "doesn't belong" to her, It "belongs to Wojira."

Wojira wasn't an outside force abusing the "benevolent" power of the ocean for her gain, (Kalmarr technically was, but Wojira was still a threat without him,) She IS the Ocean. She was the goddess of the Ninjago realm back when it was JUST water, and she's not a kind or benevolent goddess either.

(I don't even want to know how Nya got these powers if they apparently didn't belong to her or why the other of Wojira's elements was given to a headcase who also has a connection to an evil eldritch deity, whose threat of return happened the same season as her getting these powers in the first place. What the actual f█k.)

It's all just too much. It all lines up so well that as awful as it is, it almost seems intentional.

That is my personal problem with the element of Water specifically, albeit I still think it's a bad fit for Nya's personality in the first place. Ideally, Yes, Nya could go with the "Elemental Samurai" route, but I'd still think a more tough and headstrong element would be more fitting.

Me preferring that to her being a Ninja isn't just a matter of aesthetics, (although it is a part, and yes her color-scheme is a mess) it's more so in the fighting style and skillset. More than the outfit, being a Ninja in this universe is about the martial arts, but Season 4 and the Elemental alliance blatantly established that you don't have to fight that specific way to make effective use of elemental powers.

It would've made so much more sense, and kept a lot of what made Nya unique to just keep her fighting style different from the others. Especially with the idea of her making frequent use of self-made gadgets, which would give her a way to consistently make use of her engineering ingenuity without spending half the season off-screen making vehicles.

I do indeed have a lot of problems with Pixal as Samurai X (and really just as a character to begin with,) but I think for now it's just best to leave it at this. What we have feels, to me, like the worst of both worlds for Nya's character, rather than the best of either world.

I'm really hoping with my AU, Elements of Destiny, to be able to make Nya into a fully realized character that lives up to the characterization in Season 1 while also giving her a Ninja role properly from the onset.

A rant all about how Nya's character was ruined.

This summarizes and extends upon a conversation had on this post, by @parachutingkitten

Nya's entire character in Seasons 1-4 was about her being strong on her own merits and independent and being her own person, instead of being what others expect of her or trying to imitate her peers' strengths. She even deliberately turned down the chance to check if she was destined to be the prestigious Green Ninja, because she was happy with being a Samurai instead, cause that was the identity and strength she built for herself.

The uniqueness in her skillset and role on the team was in itself a crucial part of what MADE her character strong and independent. It was a path she chose for herself in contrast to any of the outside influences she had.

Season 5 making Nya a Ninja, especially under Wu's insistence and explicitly against her will, sabotages every part of all of this.

Now She's a shell of her former self with everything that made her character actually interesting either stripped away outright or turned into a bland and weak facsimile. All she has left to give her even a modicum of character depth is some vague sense of independence that is constantly shown-not-told and/or outright undermined.

She rightfully gripes about being forced to be the gray Ninja in seasons 6 and 7, but both seasons then proceed to deliberately undermine her independence, with Season 6 ending with her will being overridden by Jay's and Genie magic, and Season 7 introducing a new Samurai X.(Which I have more to say about later.) Nya's discontent with her situation gets dropped entirely, with Nya effectively resigning to her fate.

From then until all the way in Seabound, there's no pushback against her independent nature to highlight that she IS strong or independent, and nothing else to give her any other character depth. She literally becomes a glorified water fountain that also happens to be married to the electric one.

And then Seabound is somehow even WORSE.

Seabound's ENTIRE plot is literally summarized as "Nya getting screwed over by her powers: The Movie." Powers that she wasn't originally supposed to have, mind you, not just out-of-universe, but as this Season reveals, apparently IN-universe. (I don't even KNOW what that's about.)

The story yet again does an ass job at portraying Nya as independent and then screws her over. Yet even worse than Seasons 6 and 7, because it literally amounts to her being mildly annoyed at her mother's presence and the brain-dead arc-phrase of "I don't like crumbly cookies," culminating in her resigning to her apparent fate yet again and literally sacrificing her sense of self and identity to her elemental powers.

Seabound's ending is frankly one big metaphor for what Season 5 did to her character.

They also, weirdly consistently, screwed Nya's character using Pixal. Prior to Season 8, she was flat as cardboard and yet was undeservedly given the Samurai X mantle. Then the Season 8/Movie redesign traded in Nya's iconic and unique hairstyle for one literally identical to Pixal's. And Pixal even stole Nya's role as the Mechie,(despite already being the techie) a field where she reaches ridiculous heights by the time of Crystalized. (Speaking of which:)

Crystalized puts a cherry on top of this character-assassination sundae by finally separating Nya from that accursed element, and having her even make the choice to take back her Samurai X identity, but then it, despite the main threat of the 2nd chapter literally being the exact situation where Samurai Nya should be MVP, randomly proves pointless and ineffective, forcing Nya to come running back to her elemental powers. (Even worse, for the sake of CRYING FOR HELP.)

It's like she has some kind of toxic relationship with the element of water that fate and the writers are actively pushing and preventing from being severed.

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - The Least Best!

Well, here it is, the second to last article of this project, and it's one that's going to be controversial. I'm sorry, I have to do a worst list along with the best list, but I decided against actually calling it the worst list. Simply put: calling it a worst list implies these episodes were bad. Do not get me wrong, there are episodes I feel qualify for that, but not more than 10 of them. Alas, it has to be done.

I must have some rules for this list, and here they are:

It has to be an episode of DuckTales 2017. No shorts, even if the shorts combined can make up a full episode. I am also not putting in anything from This Duckburg Life, either.

I have to say something good about each of these episodes. Does not have to be the best thing about the episode, but a good thing nonetheless.

This is my opinion and my opinion alone. I am sure there are fans of these episodes, I just disagree with them.

Let's begin with #10, and I can already tell I'm going to lose some people over this, but I am not sorry.

10. Beaks In The Shell!

I did get some flack for giving this a 2 initially, and I did walk back on it simply because there are worse episodes I have given 3s or would have given 3s, but I just did not think of this one as highly as everything else in the third season. I do not hate it, as it has some clever moments here and there, like Louie's shock about GizmoDuck's identity.

She has a great design, and I do like how she's the hacker girl as a counterpart to Fenton. She just seems to do a complete 180. In the last episode she was in, she was not above blinding children in order to keep her job, and now she just wants to leave F.O.W.L. just like that? I do not really buy it, and I never really found her that interesting in execution, at least in the show itself.

Good thing: Out of all the flack I've given this episode, the ending with the character's individual Gizmo suits is top notch. I like how everyone has an ability that either fits them or is a reference to a previous episode.

9. New Gods on the Block!

This is another "not really one of the good ones, but not really one of the bad ones" episode to me. My decision to put this one below "Beaks In The Shell" goes more with me thinking the Gizmo suits were a little more creative, and how I think this episode could have done better with this idea. Plenty of scenes with Storkules and Donald being a little too close, much to the chagrin of the latter.

There is also this plot where Scrooge wants to make a different team, implying that the kids are not good enough. This may have been a misinterpretation on the part of the kids, making this one of those "misunderstanding" episodes, but it is really vague here. It seemed to me that Scrooge really was trying to get a different team that did not involve his family for the most part. I am not going to say him being called out by Della when he's climbing the Titan is not a powerful scene, but I feel like it goes against the series entire arc of family being the best adventure of all. This isn't a Season 1 episode where Scrooge had to learn that, this is in Season 3!

Good thing: It was cool to see this plot expand the pantheon of Greek gods in this series. The DuckTales 2017 version of Hades, their reaction to Zeus being depowered, it’s all good.

8. The Split Sword of Swanstantine!

Unlike Gandra Dee, or any of the Olympians, the Sword of Swanstentine ended up being a major part of the finale. It is a shame that the hunt for that sword is the least best of the three shorts episodes. The first part with Dewey and Webby features the aforementioned child blinding plot that leads to a couple of cool survival scenes and a clever use of the big fight between Black Heron and Scrooge that happens throughout the episode, but is mostly just okay. The second part with Louie and Violet is a little weak, it's a one-idea premise with a character that I felt needed more development, period.

Huey and Lena's part may have been the highlight of the episode, but it only leads to an ending that is a bit predictable as soon as it comes up. Oh no, the villains have the sword! Nah, just kidding, the heroes have it because of a technicality that they certainly did not remember in the finale. I am a little glad they did not remember the sword's ability to not be used by people who have not earned it, actually, but that's not something that pertains to this episode specifically.

Good thing: As mentioned before, Huey and Lena's part is good. It's mitigated by The Duke of Making A Mess never really appearing again, but that is also not something that pertains to this episode specifically.

7. Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake!

The crew of the show have shown their disdain for the original Doofus. They could have just said that Doofus wasn't indicative of the kind of messaging they wanted to show, much like the original Burger Beagle, or the witch doctor stereotype who first summoned the Bombie, but no, their response to a character that was hated in the original was to make an even less likeable villain out of him! He was alright in "Day of the Only Child!", his debut, and I think that might be because he only had a third of the episode rather than more than half. While the ending is good, and there are some funny scenes with some of his other party guests, there's a lot of awkward scenes to work through here.

There is a plot that does not involve Doofus, but it does not do much good. The B-plot is pretty much shoe-horned in here, with no real connection besides involving characters that are not trying to crash the party. It is about Huey learning to step out of his comfort zone, and we know this because he goes into a video game world and having to learn how to step out of something that is outright called a "comfort zone". There just is not a lot to this plot other than some really cheap references. There's certainly nothing on the same level as Dewey Dew-Night, which is what "Day of the Only Child!" gave us. I guess I decided to put this episode in the Honey Bin after all.

Good thing: Glomgold's scheme involving his puppet son is a good Glomgold scene, and this is the episode that gave us Boyd, so I can't hate on it too much.

6. The Rumble for Ragnarok!

When I decided to re-rate Beaks in the Shell to a three, I was also specifically thinking of this episode as one of the worse episodes that I gave a three. This is a problem with having a series as consistently good as DuckTales 2017 is; there's a little to like in almost every episode, and this episode really knows how to handle pro wrestling as a setting while also making it fit in with the universe. I could see something like this happening in the old comics.

However, lots of neat references to pro wrestling can't hide that the way they implemented this plot is just flawed to me. The plot to me seemed to go with the moral that one should follow with what is right even if it does not lead to popularity. It does start well with Scrooge, as the villainous Millionaire Miser, telling Dewey to "embrace the boos" of the people that want the world to end. Then they decide that the crowd doesn't like Jörmungandr anymore because...he was being too harsh on a kid? They did not have a problem with Hecka beating up two kids, but when Jörmungandr ties him up with his tail, that's a heel turn? Conveniently, Dewey did not have to learn anything! I can appreciate that they didn't go with what any other cartoon would do and make a farce out of the form of entertainment, but I can not shake that off.

Good thing: Not only does this episode do a great job with wrestling jokes, it manages to throw in a reference to the original that seamlessly fits in with the wrestling jokes. It's too bad the Shield Maiden didn't get to do much, but it's still a positive.

5. The Richest Duck in the World!

I did say I wanted to only rate episodes, but if I was rating DuckTales 2017's arcs, the Louie one from Season 2 is definitely the lowest. Do not get me wrong, the Louie Inc. arc did have some good episodes, Storkules in Duckburg being a highlight, but it is definitely the least memorable arc in the series, and its finale is the worst of that arc. Sure, it was a big shocking moment in "GlomTales!" that he was able to swindle his own uncle's fortune, especially an uncle as sharp and smart as Scrooge McDuck, but the way this episode follows up on that is to make a hundred jokes about Louie being a lazy billionaire until he learns his lesson in a way that returns everything back to the status quo as soon as the real arc of the season comes back in the last minute of the episode. The finale of the entire show made this even more worthless, and I would rather not get into any more detail than I already had in that review.

I think what really gets me about this is how well Scrooge takes this plot, especially when compared to an episode that is coming up in this very list. I know a part of this is because of the villain of the episode, but there was also a feeling that Scrooge just knew that the status quo was going to come back. That just made this episode's conclusion just that much more foregone. The fact that the Tenderfeet had to show up to remind us that he exists does not make this any better. There is another plot about Della trying to call Penumbra, who is not answering her phone calls for reasons she could not have known. Revealing why she can't before kind of made the conclusion of that plot just that much more foregone. For an episode that comes before a major, major finale, it is so unmemorable to me.

Good thing: When Bradford was talking about "magical defense" in the first episode, I was thinking it was a reference to Magica, but this episode does a great job of retconning that into something less predictable. Retooling the Bombie, a villain with origins that are not necessarily acceptable by today's standards, into something more akin to a force of nature is great.

4. The Depths of Cousin Fethry!

The very first Disgusted Donald I have ever given, and, to be honest, it's because I have learned to raise my standards for this show. Don't get me wrong, this show's version of Fethry Duck had a bit of potential, especially as a sort of mentor to Huey, and the idea of the episode could have went to places, but I just found this episode boring at best. At worst, it just exaggerates Huey to an unimaginably nerdy level, up to licking trees to find out what their resin level is and kissing giant plant monsters. Outside of one particular monster near the end of the episode, that is all this episode has: grossout humor and boredom. As much as I get the joke that Launchpad's journey was just so awesome that it could not have been animated, I still stand by the running gag I made in that review.

Good thing: One good thing about the payoff is the camerawork. The viewer never sees that giant krill "monster" in full. They forgot about that in Moonvasion, though I can see the argument that the Moonvasion would make anything look small.

3. The 87 Cent Solution!

The second Disgusted Donald I have ever given, and also the last. Was I afraid to get the wrath? Well, I am certainly not afraid now, as I rate the episode where Scrooge gets "gold fever" over 87 cents getting stolen from him as the third least best episode. I mean, I get it. Scrooge did not get "gold fever" because he lost money. He lost plenty of money trying to fix his own mistakes. He got "gold fever" because someone outwitted the smartest of the smarties and the sharpest of the sharpies. However, I just couldn't find Scrooge's descent into that madness funny. It's not like the "sea monster ate my ice cream" scene from the original that the reboot decided to mock in a different episode, I just feel sorry for him in a way that just does not fit with the rest of the series.

Having the ending be Mrs. Beakley saying "oh, I would have dealt with those silly manchildren by myself" just felt bizarre compared to the rest of DuckTales 2017's endings. It felt more like an ending to that other reboot. It certainly had that "ugh, men" vibe.

Good thing: One scene that one might think I hated was the dance scene with Glomgold set to DJ Khaled's "All I Do Is Win." Not only is Glomgold the best part about this episode, that scene is among the best Glomgold scenes ever.

2. Terror of the Terra-firmians!

This was the episode I considered giving the first Disgusted Donald to, or in the new ratings terms, a 1 Scrooge, but I decided against it because it just was not as bad as the worst that I have seen before I took on this project. I was sure there was going to be an episode worse than this one, because every cartoon is going to have that one episode that does not measure up. Turns out, this was the one episode. The major plot of this episode is Huey and Webby just bickering over the existence of magical creatures who are clearly causing all of the problems of the episode. All this really leads to is the same ending one gets with the M&Ms Santa commercial, except the build up is not as funny. That's not a good sign when this episode is much longer than a commercial.

They throw in a part with Lena and Mrs. Beakley that ends up becoming a major piece of development for Lena. I'll admit: this was the part that made me not want to give it a Disgusted, but now I realize what happened. Lena's plot does not really interact with the Terra-firmian plot, with only the train crash being the only real interaction. It's like they knew this episode would not amount to much in the overall arc nor would it be particularly funny, so they put in this awesome Lena part. I will not get fooled again.

Good thing: As mentioned before, Lena saving Mrs. Beakley is better than the rest of the episode combined.

I was really hard pressed to consider putting in dishonorable mentions. It was hard enough picking 10 episodes for the actual list.

The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks! - I just never really liked Mark Beaks as a villain. Smartphones may be around for a long time, but YOLO certainly will not.

Raiders of the Doomsday Vault! - The worst of Season 2 is already on this list, so I really stretched to find another episode that was any worse. This is just a case of Della Duck having better episodes than this.

Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks! - In a series that had good season openers, this was decidedly not one of them. Other than introducing Webby 2, er, Violet, it was only good for starting the "Missing Mysteries of Finch" arc.

And now, the absolute least best episode of DuckTales 2017. It's plot important, very much so. It's an episode with Lena in it, usually a bright point of any DuckTales 2017 episode and a very beloved character. It's an episode I felt that was not good at all by DuckTales 2017 standards. That episode is...

1. The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!

I know this is the one with that hugely emotional scene of Lena seeing her best friend die in front of her eyes. Of course, neither Disney nor the overall arc of the series would ever allow that, as this is merely a dream sequence that shows that Lena is afraid of her aunt and what she will do to her new best friend, which clearly hasn't been shown in every one of her last appearances. Clearly, we needed this over-the-top dream sequence to really show the kids that Magica is the bad lady and Lena is the good girl. Everything good this A-plot did was done better in "Jaw$!"; they could have just tacked on this episode's ending to that episode, and it would have worked.

Oh, and the B-plot is the dreaded devil in plain sight plot. Huey, Dewey, and Louie befriend a Tenderfeet, the Tenderfeet turns out to be a jerk who tries to sabotage Louie, Louie gets blamed for it to the point where Huey, the usually sensible one, punches Louie in the arm as apparently bullying the Tenderfeet is the worst action he has ever done, and the cycle repeats. After reviewing a reboot that, despite all of its flaws, never managed to fall into it, I was shocked that DuckTales 2017, the reboot that really could, toyed with the worst plot in any cartoon ever and played it straight. I could see the argument that this is one of the better implementations of the forsaken plot, as Louie is already an untrustworthy person even among his brothers and he does manage to solve the problem in a way that fits with his scheming character, but, I am not sorry, it's still a devil in plain sight. Next. Oh wait, there is no next!

Good thing: At least I can admit that this show doesn't pull any punches. Oh no, I'm not talking about the dream sequence, I'm talking about the ending. At first, I did not really like it, as I thought it was another way for the villain to just snatch everything away at the last minute. However, once we learn more about Lena in the next episode, it makes a lot more sense.

And that's the least best! I really did not want to leave this negativity up for too long without its opposite, so the best list will be up on Wednesday rather than next week. Stay tuned!

← The Shorts (Part 2) 🦆 The Absolute Best! →

[shoujocentral]

Symphogear G- Sequelitis Strikes Again...

So, after watching the first season of Symphogear, finishing it in three days, and being hooked in an instant, naturally I was pumped to get to the next season to see what they would do with the plot, what new characters we'd get to see, how the old characters would be expanded upon, and how much more awesome the fights would get. And... would it be too harsh to say that it basically failed on most of that criteria?

Okay, yeah it would. But still, the reason this review took so long to come out is because I found this season to be a chore to get through. I still had a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but it was a far cry from the excitement and investment I experienced in the first season. Where exactly did Symphogear G go wrong? Well, let's dive into that now.

Once again, this review will be spoiler-free for any who haven't seen the show yet.

Plot:

What is Senshi Zesshou Symphogear G about?

After the events of the first season, Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris along with the DRS are working with the esteemed Dr. Ver to preserve Solomon's Cane, a device that Finé used to summon Noise. However, it is soon revealed that the doctor is evil, and working with a terrorist organization known as Federal Institutes of Sacrist (FIS), and with Solomon's Cane in their possession, they now have control of the Noise.

On top of that, three new Symphogear users appear, only they are working on the side of FIS. The leaders of the three, Maria Cadenzavna Eve, claims to be the new reincarnation of Finé's soul, and she also possesses a dark version of Gungnir, Hibiki's Symphogear. With such a formidable ally, FIS demands that the world's governments relinquish all control to them, lest they unleash the Noise upon them in an all-out assault.

How will our heroes stop this new global threat? And why are a group of Gear users working for the enemy?

At first, I thought the plot had a lot of intrigue and potential. While the first episode didn't grab me by the balls like Season 1 Episode 1 did, I was still interested to learn about the villainous Gear users and how the enemy's nefarious schemes would unfold. Unfortunately, if I could describe the execution of said plot in a single word, it would be "unbalanced."

Basically, the first half of G had great character and plot setup, but I found the fights somewhat lacking. Then, by episode 8, the fights had returned to their usual epicness and badassery, but the plot and characters had taken a turn for the worst.

Whereas Season 1 felt like it was continuous building and building with each episode, stuff just... happens in Symphogear G. Characters motivations are set up, but either forgotten or completely changed halfway through the show. It honestly felt like the writers were making G's story up as they went along.

The issues I had with Season 1's story are present here as well, in that the villain's motivation is incredibly confusing and not made 100% clear until the last couple of episodes. FIS's main goal is to save humanity from the Moon, which will soon crash into the Earth due to the damage it endured from Finé. However, they go about this by... killing people? I understand innocent bloodshed is necessary in most evil "save the world" schemes, but is this really the best way to convince the rest of the world that you're here to help?

Either I'm just really dumb, or Symphogear just isn't very good at explaining things.

Another thing that bothered me about this season was the usage of Swan Songs. In Symphogear G, there's not one, but TWO methods that allow Gear users to sing their Swan Songs without dying. "Tension? Consequences? WhAt ThE hElL aRe ThOsE?!"

However, the worst part about this confused and structurally unbalanced plot is how it affects the character development.

Characters:

I'm going to cover the three lead characters and Miku very briefly (cause there honestly isn't much to talk about) so we can discuss the new characters in more detail.

Remember how I praised Hibiki in Season 1 for being a flat character done right? Well, in G, the writers attempted to give Hibiki somewhat of an arc by having the villains call her a "hypocrite." At first, I was intrigued as to what they meant by this. Then, there was a point where Hibiki went Berserk again, and I figured "Oh, they mean that because she can't control her Gear, she's a danger to the people she's trying to protect!" Nope. Once Hibiki returns to normal, she never goes Berserk again, and her plot becomes about her dealing with the Gungnir fragments slowly killing her from the inside. Soooo... why is she a hypocrite again? An excellent question! ...that's never answered. Weak.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Tsubasa in Season 1, finding her over-the-top EDGE a bit too much for my taste. However, I will give credit that she at least had an arc. In G, she does absolutely nothing. She has no arc, no motivation, and contributes nothing to the plot (thankfully her strict, yet compassionate personality is left untouched). I initially thought she would have some conflict with Maria, given that the two had a bit of a standoff in Episode 1, with Tsubasa angry at Maria for possessing Kanade's Gear. Much like Hibiki's Berserk Mode, though, this conflict was never expanded upon or brought up again, relegating Tsubasa to a glorified background character.

Chris was my favorite character in Season 1, with her fiery tsundere personality and redemption arc. But much like Tsubasa, she suffered the fate of being pushed to the sidelines. Chris started out in a tough spot, transferring into Hibiki and Tsubasa's school and bearing little to no social skills. This new environment throws her for a loop, especially when a group of her classmates try to befriend her. I interpreted this as Chris not only struggling with social anxiety due to her hatred of people in Season 1, but also still harboring some guilt over her actions and not feeling worthy of friendship or care whatsoever. Okay, fair enough.

Well guess what else the writers forgot about?! 🤪

And alas, let's talk about Miku...... Oh my sweet little angel, what have they done to you??? Miku was the heart and soul of Season 1; she was Hibiki's emotional support; her Sun that warmed her whenever she felt dark. In G, she's just useless. The writers, like Hibiki, try to give her an arc (that doesn't start till episode 6...) where she wants to protect Hibiki from the Gungnir killing her. The way the writers execute this promising arc, however, is nothing short of insulting. Long story short, she fails to protect Hibiki in any single way. Instead, Hibiki ends up being the one still protecting her. Good job, Symphogear G.

With all that out of the way, I can FINALLY move onto something more positive. While I may not like what G did with the protagonists, the same cannot be said for the villains. These people are what made this season enjoyable to me.

Maria Candenzavna Eve

Maria is objectively the best character of the season. I really don't see how anyone could argue otherwise. She has a gut-wrenching backstory, a clearly defined motivation, and every action she takes, while not always the most logical, makes sense to how she is feeling at the time.

Maria's sister, Serena, who was also a Gear user, used her Swan Song to save FIS from an out-of-control experiment. Immediately following this, the scientists berated the deceased Serena for destroying something they had put so much work in. Maria was enraged by the idea that they would do this to someone, a child nonetheless, who had just sacrificed her life for them. However, instead of retaliating and seeking revenge on FIS for this, Maria dedicates her actions to protecting human lives so that Serena's sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. And unlike the rest of FIS, she actually goes out of her way to avoid killing anyone! Of course, she eventually learns the hard way that saving everyone may be an impossibility...

Also, she gets one of the most adrenaline-pumping and yet emotional fights, accompanied by her kickass battle song, which is probably my favorite of the entire series now.

Kirika Akatsuki

Hot-blooded, cheerful, and insistent on ending every sentence with "I say!" Kirika is nothing short of a joy to watch. She's a welcome entry in the villain faction, which desperately needed someone lighthearted to counteract the dead sister angst. Of course, this doesn't mean she's is without her own conflicts.

Kirika's main drive is, aside from saving the innocent, protecting her girlfriend best friend Shirabe. She's constantly trying to cheer her up cold-hearted friend and remind her that what they're doing is the right thing. However, this protective instinct leads to a discovery that changes her for the worst, and the rest of the show is her tragic and slow descent into madness, leading to a heartbreaking scene in the final battle that left me going "damn, they went there."

Kirika's Gear is cool enough, but not my favorite. It's mostly just a scthye and boomerangs, making it not much different from Tsubasa's Gear. Or at least, her Gear isn't as impressive as our next antagonist...

Shirabe Tsukuyomi

Cold, distant, but ruthless in combat (beware the quite ones), Shirabe is a great foil to her lover friend Kirika, or "Kiri-chan" as she likes to call her. One could say that Shirabe is an emotionless husk, but as the story plays out we learn that, like most tsunderes, this is merely a mask to hide how much she cares for the people around her. She harbors a deep respect and admiration for Maria and an unbreakable bond with Kirika.

Shirabe bears a strong resentment towards Hibiki, being the one to drill home the fact that she's a "hypocrite" (for reasons I'm still not hugely clear on...). She believes that FIS is the only hope humanity has for survival. Of course, once her idol, Maria, starts to lose sight of this goal, Shirabe becomes conflicted, and starts to question which side is right. I love it when villains don't know which path to take. Such delicious angst! 😬

As much as I love Chris' Gear, Shirabe's may just be my new favorite. Her pigtails transform into mechanical arms with sawblades! She can spawn a giant sawblade to ride around on like a giant wheel! She can turn into a giant robot with sawblades for arms! Y'know, I'm starting to think I like saw-based weapons...

Professor Nastassja

My only complaint about this character is that no one ever made fun of her name.

Prof. Nastassja, or "Mom" as Maria, Kirika and Shirabe call her, is the serious, straightforward thinking mastermind of FIS's operations. She was there when Serena died in front of Maria, and after seeing her determination to protect people, she decided to push Maria towards their ultimate goal of "saving" mankind from the Moon crashing. Thankfully, this woman actually has a head on her shoulders, and comes to realize that killing people probably isn't the best way to save them (who'da thunk?) and thus sets out on a path of redemption. Damn, what's with villains this season realizing that they might be wrong? I love it!

Of course, on the deep end of the villains spectrum, we have the only one who doesn't realize the error of his ways...

Dr. Ver

Just a sample of the many amazing faces this guys makes.

Everyone loves a good psychopath. And oh boy, does this guy really underline the "psycho" part of that word. Constantly laughing manically, making theatrical gestures, spawning Noise with an itchy trigger finger, and declaring loud and proud that HE is the hero of this story. I could watch him for hours.

While Dr. Ver's motivation does stem from FIS's overly convoluted plot, he makes it very clear that he has his own agenda. He may claim he strives for the salvation of humanity, but his actions say otherwise. And that's why he's so great. He doesn't have a complex backstory or a redemption arc. He's just evil through and through and he loves every minute of it. As Alfred once said to Bruce Wayne: "Some men just want to watch the world burn." 😈

Alright, that's all the new characters out of the way. Time to move onto my favorite section before I wrap things up...

Yuri:

The yuri content this season was, like the rest of it, a mixed bag. The best way I can sum it up is that it took one giant leap forward, and another giant leap back.

First and foremost, our star couple of the show: HibiMiku. Or they would be the star of the show if they had more screentime. Yeah, G really did this couple dirty. They don't even hold a conversation together until Episode 6! And then they throw in the whole conflict of Miko wanting to protect Hibiki. I guess the writers were relying on the sentiment they'd built on HibiMiku from the last season, but I feel like the two could've have at least TALKED about Miku not wanting Hibiki to fight before throwing her into the action. There was one scene twowards the end with the two of them that really got me in the feels, but it was hardly enough to make up for the whole lot of nothing we got from the rest of the season.

Second, we have the two that ultimately saved the yuri content in G: KiriShira. They look good together? Check. Complimenting personalities? Check. Emotional support? Check. Each character has their own motivation and arc outside of their relationship? Check. These two are not only absolutely adorable together, but unlike HibiMiku, which is more implied (even though there shouldn't be any doubt they're dating), KiriShira actually gets a love confession! I haven't seen that in a magical girl show since Sailor Moon Crystal when Hotaru confessed to Chibi-Usa! I'll have to see more of these two before I can say for sure, but I might actually prefer KiriShira to HibiMiku at this point. Gonna have to see how the rest of the series plays out!

Conclusion:

Symphogear G is a considerable step down from Season 1 in my opinion. While I absolutely adore the antagonists and love (MOST) of the yuri content we got, the story and protagonists just didn't do it for me this time around, which is a shame considering how much I liked them in Season 1. The fight scenes in the first couple of episodes were less than impressive, which had me nervous, but they thankfully stepped up towards the end, delivering one hell of a climactic finale.

Also, I'm not gonna lie, the final episode got me choked up.

I may have been to hard on this season when I started this review. Despite my numerous issues, I still enjoyed myself throughout and I am looking forward to the next season. I sincerely hope my issues with the plot and protagonists are rectified because I do love this series. What's done well in G is really good, but what fails in G really fails. Oh well, not every season of a franchise can be a masterpiece. I'm just praying that it's all uphill from here. 🙏

Rating: 6/10

Hope you all enjoyed! I'll see you in my review of Symphogear GX, my fellow yuri lovers! ❤️😊❤️

[pathsofoak]

WIP idea: Lively Mercenary

Lively Mercenary: instead of murdering those they are hired to kill, this assassin kidnaps and imprisons their victims. The useless they send on their way with the money earned. The useful they keep far away, safe and sound. Any money that doesn't make it out with their permanent guests they use to keep their double identity hidden from the underground world. Mercenary, fence of viable and reliable information, and most importantly, the most powerful spy in the world. Raised around the globe without any tether to any place in particular, they have only one cause to fight for:

Everyone.

They killed the wrong person once. They killed as ordered, drag them down, drown them in shame, and don't pull the trigger until there is nothing left to salvage.

The trigger, they won't ever pull again. Too young to have been holding one, that is not a burden they'll ever bear again. Regardless. They know exactly what to do to ensure the world's worst enemies die at the hands of those they've wronged most.

More under the cut

I'm thinking this would be a sci-fi /modern sort of thing. I'm not yet set on the character themselves, but they'll be a friend of the people. Morally gray, definitely. The idea is that this person got mixed up in some stuff at a young age that lead them to kill for money. However, the killing had such an impact on them they vowed they'd never do it again, especially when they looked past the money and learned they killed an innocent person who just found out about some huge and important secret that should have been shared.

With no proof of the secret they discovered, they can't share it. Not in the foreseeable future, not yet. So they avenge their victim. They start with the innocent. Someone hires them for a kill. She (I'm not settled on the gender but that just happened) seeks out the innocent. Those that got mixed up with the worst without knowing, those that got in too deep to even bother climbing out. She takes the job. She fakes the deaths. At first she splits the bounty. Enough to move away for whomever they were meant to kill, the rest for her to set up her plan.

When she earns enough credit, money, and reputation, it doesn't take long before she can start what she really meant to do. Use the black lists of the world's worst, and use their own stolen money against them. It takes generations (also something I came up with), but their fortune and power grows. Those they cannot send on their way, either because the victims won't be safe anywhere, or because they are the worst themselves and therefore useful to her cause, she gives a place in her sanctuary (obviously the innocent like it more there than the guilty do).

So I mentioned generations. I like the idea of this being a long-running story. Maybe it starts out somewhere far in the past, but because of the time it takes to actually get that revenge, the amount of people this mercenary would have to hit just grows and grows (they're after terrible rich and powerful people, that's the plot, pretty much). So, this will take years. It's a huge scheme to prepare, and the amount of people affected just keeps growing. Then there is collateral damage. They don't want it. Any of it. Hence the lack of killing. They bring the victims down professionally, personally, etc. Their victims can take care of the rest, if they want to.

I'm creating a vegan fake killer that's what I'm doing. Fuck what has become of me

anyway. They pass the title down to people they've saved or something like that (or it's just one person, I'm not sure yet).

Anyway the point is, some person. Like, just a dude (neutral), finds out this pretty much innocent person got murdered. Funeral and everything. They become a PI just to solve that case. Similarly to our lively mercenary, they start out with smaller fish. Learn, grow, build credit and contacts while slowly working toward their real goal. Catching the killer.

Only, this person isn't dead (if they are, not because of our lovely mercenary, I'm not sure yet. Maybe this happened while this PI was a kid). PI isn't chasing a killer. A kidnapper at worst (okay, sometimes there's some deserved torture involved). Our mercenary isn't used to having their secret discovered by anyone she hasn't been ordered to kill (and thus feels comfortable taking to her sanctuary, which is pretty much a one-way ticket).

It'll likely be a series of some sort, I think.

[x-birdsong-x]

Prev tags No, no it wasn't an act and that's the fucking problem.

Okay, there's two sides to the retcon and I won't speak for the moments of it in S2 so this is messy.

Hester is not allowed to see Gigi and Boone as real family, implies she never cared at all and was pretty damn unbothered when both of them died.

And this is a complete 180.

No, Hester doesn't get her little moments of depth on-screen. She is the last Devil revealed, she is not revealed as the last Devil until TFGS itself.

BUT Every single villain in SQS- yes, even loser *S2 spoiler*- is a sympathetic villain in at the VERY least one way, and they all get their own moments of showing how they genuinely feel about their motives. The closest Hester gets pre-retcon is us knowing that she couldn't bring herself to hurt Boone when Gigi ordered it, (BOYG, indirect, through Gigi herself.) actually one line in TFGS when she's snapping at Munsch, ("And even if the Chanels didn't actually kill any of these people, they perpetuated the system that created me, my brother, Pete, and Gigi.") and avoiding her cage(s) in S2.

Hester canonically tells Gigi she can't bring herself to kill Boone, we know she and Gigi were close, Boone wanted Gigi gone partly because he believed it would be best for Hester too, and he knew Hester would never go through with it, so he entrusted Pete with it instead. She spares Grace multiple times, even before and after Pete made his deal with them not to touch her.

Hester is literally so family-oriented, and it's a crime the retcon tries to erase that.

Her narration could've added so much to her, or TFGS as a whole could've been without so much narration and given us more flashbacks and things like that. We don't know how she felt when Boone told her he'd recruited Pete or when she found out/realized Boone was really dead, which is so unfortunate for her because it could've been so good to have her bring up the fact Boone did not trust HER to go through with his own plans, to the point he trusted Pete- with his life- over her. Something like that that could've gone into her/their relationship with Gigi too.

Hester is caught in the crossfire of the strain between Boone and Gigi, brought on by Gigi pushing him away and resulting in Boone pulling away even further and detaching from Hester herself as it worsens.

Let Hester have emotions!! Stop taking away nuance from a Scream Queens villain!! Stop ignoring the depth of one of the S1 villains especially!! I hate you!!!

I don't keep the retcon canon when writing so I hate saying "my Hester" when talking about how I write her lol I just say non-retcon Hester because that's what she is. Same goes for her playlist when it switches to her songs regarding she, Gigi and Boone etc after Snowcone.

And THEN.

THE OTHER HALF.

The half that paints Hester as the "brain of the Devil team" and "planner of everything."

This is not canon.

Gigi was the planner. Gigi is THE Red Devil. Gigi is the backbone to the entire plot of the show, just as much as Munsch and Sophia's death. Gigi- even after her death- holds the present timeline of this show on puppet strings.

This actually majorly kicks off in Dorkus, only narrowly missing being in Pete's death scene, and it actually starts with Grace.

I can rationalize this one by saying Grace did this out of spite, she and Gigi canonically did not get along, so that's a pretty valid excuse for this one, but when we see her with Wes, and the talk goes to who the last Devil is, she says "Boone and Pete are dead, so there's only one left." when she and the others find Hester, unconscious, with a heel through her eye, Grace's line is "Pete's dead, Boone's dead, who could've done this to her?"

Those are the most explicit first moments of Gigi not being acknowledged as a Devil. And then Hester's narration is... arguably nothing but "That was my idea! So was that! That was my idea also!"

The Palmer flashbacks weirdly try painting the entire Devil scheme as if Hester came up with it. Their training started when they were children. Are you trying to tell me a four-year-old Hester ran up to her mom and plotted what the Devil scheme is?

Gigi's reveal as a Devil IS her giving orders. She sets Grace up to look into Feather the second she sees an opening to get rid of Munsch. The Devil murders HALT DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS whilst Munsch is gone. Pete tells Grace in his death scene that "Gigi was the planner" when he tells her about how he killed Boone.

I know there's more, I actually need to rewatch I've been neglecting SQS a bit lately purely out of being busy.

I'm not even talking about just Gigi here. By TFGS- Hester's narration- aside from that one line between her and Munsch- Boone, Pete, and Gigi pretty much never existed.

A friend of mine was first to point this bit out to me, but it's also weird how, in the exact confrontation with Munsch, they also try to make Hester's hands as clean as they possibly can. She killed Pete, that's acknowledged, and she's pretty consistent in admitting to that one, but it's never acknowledged that she killed Zak (Pizza Guy) too.

I do find that one kinda funny tho because Hester IS canonically the least effective Devil and I find that hilarious

Not counting Gigi's death there because it's intentional that we don't know which Devil that was in Thanksgiving.

Even the fact she sends Chanel, Sadie and Libby to Palmer to see exactly what she, Boone and their mom did isn't acknowledged because of the retcon. Hester canonically sees Chanel and the others as replicas of Bethany, Mandy and Coco. Sending them to Palmer is LITERALLY WORSE THAN DEATH in her eyes. And the fact Chanel, Sadie and Libby end up loving it like Munsch did when Gigi and her kids suffered there for so long is just.

,

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “GlomTales!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Colleen Evanson

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Emmy Cicierega, Ben Holm

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

Scheme-worthy!

The episode begins with Louie looking out the window in the room he has been grounded in in the last episode. Yes, he managed to get a grounding that actually lasts more than an ending of an episode, what a concept. He sees Scrooge and the rest of the family preparing for another adventure that is pretty much 100% out of Scrooge's unwillingness to lose the big bet that he made with Glomgold.

Louie tells himself that while he's grounded, at least he wouldn't be dragged into another dangerous adventure. He then notices the hobo bindles and cans of beans, and realizes exactly what they're going to adventure to a place where there's cherry Pep springs, where the con men sing, where the geysers spit out gold for everyone, and the Hobo King has a Ruby Bindle with Scrooge's name on it. In a reference to the old folk song, they're going to the Big Rock Candy Mountain, and Louie jumps out of the door and says he has to go.

Of course, Louie's mom is not going to let Louie go on the adventure of his dreams, because he's still grounded. Della's not going to be a pushover like she was in the last episode, oh no, she's not everything covered for him as we'll soon see.

Della: You can come out when you learn that no good ever came from cockamamie schemes!

In a masterful transition, we cut to the A plot of the episode, where Glomgold is using a slingshot to try to get into the Junkyard where Ma Beagle and her Beagle Boys live. While he ends up succeeding, he does end up in the hands of Bouncer Beagle.

Glomgold tries to defend his trespassing of the junkyard by saying that he's here because he has a plan to defeat Scrooge and his family. In his words, he's only here to recruit, not as workers, but as family, and family is the greatest scheme of all, according to him. With an evil laugh, we cut to a not-so-familiar title sequence.

Instead of the usual DuckTales theme song, we get his Theme Song Takeover instead. Honestly, I would have been disappointed if they didn't use it; it's great! It starts with him following the blueprint, we get "amazing CGI" that makes him look like some sort of muscleman, and lyrics that can only come from the masterful schemer, like "Scrooge stinks, Scrooge stinks, Scrooge stinks, Scrooge stinks!"

After that, we see that Ma Beagle is not exactly thrilled with working with Glomgold. She thinks he's a moron, and he can never beat Scrooge because he's smarter than the smarties. She also correctly accuses him of only doing this because he wants to win the bet. Kind of an interesting comparison between the two combatants of the bet: both Scrooge and Glomgold only have that on the mind. Of course, Scrooge is just getting more treasure, while Glomgold just wants to wipe out the other guy and his family.

The usual three Beagle Boys chime in to this offer, saying that they need a powerful male figure in their lives, and eventually Ma Beagle accepts the offer. No, not because she feels sorry for Glomgold, but because if Scrooge is defeated, she can get what she wants out of it: the deed to Duckburg. This is going to be a theme.

Meanwhile, Louie tries to sneak out, only to find his new babysitter...

Schedulebot: Punishment time! Punishment time!

Oh no, not Schedulebot! Get back in your own cartoon! Okay, it's actually DT-87, the security robot that also doubles as a video player that has Della trying to teach Louie ethics. Gotta say, Della using a robot that doesn't have a good track record of not becoming evil may not be her best idea. Granted, she wasn't around when this robot was attempting to shoot the kids with steel cutting lasers all those episodes ago, so I cannot exactly blame her for not knowing about it.

Or, maybe she did know, and she doesn't care, as we see that one of the ways DT-87 is keeping Louie into his room is with that said steel cutting laser. Granted, those lasers are different-looking here; they could be just set to stun, but we never find out if that's actually the case.

The next stop is Waddle, where Mark Beaks is busy looking up if he's still the "hottest" and "tallest" of the billionaires. He scoffs at Glomgold's offer to take down Scrooge while being a part of his family because he's too busy raising his rep with his inventions, like his very own cryptocurrency named Beakcoin! Surprisingly, Bitcoin is still relevant, at least from my research. Big Time wants to know where this magical coin is, and Beaks says it's in the cloud.

While the joke this leads to is predictable, I do like the execution, as Bouncer decides to throw Burger out the window to the clouds. Needless to say, he won't be successful, and Beakscoin isn't really the point of this episode anyway.

While Glomgold couldn't get Mark Beaks on his family, Ma Beagle decides to do her own plan based on her manipulation skills. She talks about how Mark Beaks is a loser, anyway, and there's no reason to use technology against Scrooge. Mark Beaks, out of offense for both of those, decides to join in as the Gyro Gearloose of the family.

Oh yeah, Glomgold is trying to get equivalents to all the people in the Manor, or at least the people that are in a photo he is putting faces onto. He has himself as the Scrooge, Ma Beagle as his Mrs. Beakley, the Beagle Boys as his Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and, as mentioned before, Mark Beaks as his Gyro Gearloose. It's neat to know Burger is supposed to be the Huey. I couldn't really tell what Burger's character is supposed to be even now.

Glomgold has to find his Launchpad McQuack, and that turns out to be the legendary Don Karnage. He is completely fine with going after Scrooge's family...or at least just the one member of it that defeated him. He also wants to sing, but I'd imagine they'd want to save the money they would put into such a musical number for the Moonvasion.

Finally, his family is complete, at least according to Glomgold. Unfortunately for him, Don Karnage and Big Time Beagle point out that he’s missing someone: he needs a Webby. Glomgold knows what person that needs to be, and he’s none too happy to get her.

Oh yeah, I kind of forgot to mention what happened to Magica De Spell in her last appearance. I would talk about that, but I'd say the way this episode introduces her is good enough.

We see Magica do this majestic boasting that she is the one that will make the world tremble, while in a void of purple dust clouds. If Dragon Ball Z has taught me anything, if there's dust clouds, that means it's probably not what it seems...

...and it turns out that the times after The Shadow War have not been kind to the wicked not-so-witch, as she's now a birthday magician for Funso’s Fun Zone. Her willingness to take over the world is only mitigated by her manager telling her not to do that.

Glomgold tries his best to not get Magica in his family, not because she would definitely overshadow him in every way...at least, that’s what he wants people to think.

To make a long story short, she agrees to become Glomgold's Webby, all so she can prove that she's Scrooge's worst enemy. Glomgold reluctantly agrees, and they begin the Glomgold-vasion. Also, yes, I like all everyone is dressed for the occasion. One can't see it here, but Mark Beaks's disguise is just a shirt that says "I am 10 years old". Mentally, yes.

Meanwhile, oh no, Louie used his master scheming to get Huey into his room, somehow! At least, that's what Louie wants DT-87 to think, as he tries to do the sibling switcheroo. We never find out if Della could tell the difference between the boys like Donald could in the comics; I’d think she would.

We don’t find out because of one one problem with this scheme: DT-87 knows fully well that Huey is on the adventure of Louie's dreams, as it shows that it's getting a video call from Huey.

Of course, the other kids are having this unbelievably amazing adventure at the Big Rock Candy Mountain's river made entirely of cherry Pep. Emphasis on unbelievable, it's just like that cliche plot where the kids decide to skip school, and the school happened to be doing something cool that day. It's almost like Della is rubbing it in by even allowing Huey to do this.

Eventually, one of Della's videos on ethics leads to her saying that Louie just needs to learn that his schemes are harming his family, and he should just stop. Louie tells himself that those schemes are the only thing he's good at.

Speaking of schemes, the newly formed Glomgold family all show up, using all of their abilities to infiltrate the manor. The manor has cannons, but they're all stopped by Don Karnage's ship. DT-87 tries to stop them, but his lasers are not set to "can do anything to Bouncer before he bashes his head in". Duckworth tries to use his ghostly demon form to scare them off, but Magica uses her ghost-capturing gem to capture him. Wait, I thought she lost her magic! Also, this never gets undone.

Unfortunately, all of this leads to their disappointment when they only see the grounded green one. They get angry at Glomgold for not checking if the others were on vacation, and that his scheme is worthless. I mean, that's what the adventure pretty much was, so I can't exactly say that's wrong. As Glomgold mopes about how his schemes are the only thing he feels he's good at, Louie gets an idea. Oh no, don’t be inspired by him!

We cut to Scrooge's premature celebration of winning the bet, and Zan Owlson congratulates Scrooge, and she can't hide that she would love to not work for that dreadful schemer.

Sadly for her, that dreadful schemer arrives with his family, and we get a shot that is worthy of the promos. This makes this look like the big battle we have all been waiting for. Well, except for that other one that involved those Moon people.

We get that big battle, actually, though it’s a bit late in the episode for it to pay off that much! One highlight is Glomgold and Magica eventually fighting each other, as they both want to beat up Scrooge. Of course, all of these mixed motives aren’t exactly making Glomgold win, much of the chagrin of the one that planned this invasion of Scrooge’s party.

Louie shows up, acting as if he's the big planner of this. His family is none too pleased, especially not Della, who was ready to give Louie a souvenir from the Big Rock Candy Mountain because she felt so sorry for him. Because of course.

Louie tells his plan: he was going to have each of the family members combine their fortunes, and, thanks to that contractual agreement, Glomgold gets to have a combined fortune.

With that combined fortune, this gives Glomgold more money than Scrooge, making him win the bet at the last minute! Oh no, say it ain't so!

Of course, this isn't how it ends. However, in a twist, it doesn't end in the other way either. This is all due to a technicality that goes into Glomgold's history. See, the deal Louie made is that the money is supposed to go to Flintheart Glomgold. However, there's one problem: there's no Flintheart Glomgold. There's a scheming guy who likes to call himself that, but his name is actually Duke Baloney!

Because of the contract they signed, all the money also goes to his partner, and since the partner actually exists, that means the money goes to one Llewellyn Duck. Wait, what?

In the end, Della pretty much instantly forgives Louie at this point due to the plan saving Scrooge McDuck from losing...as long as that money is transferred right back to Scrooge. Yeah, I'm not getting the vibe that he'll actually do that.

How does it stack up?

I liked this episode. Louie's schemes to get out of his time-out were pretty clever, including one I left out of the review. The big star of this episode is Glomgold. While it may not be the big battle, that's because we got another big battle coming up. Yeah, it's good.

Next, we get to see what happens when one becomes the richest duck in the world.

← TimePhoon! 🦆 The Richest Duck In The World! →