#she IS a fantastic villain

[bestworstcase]

I have a question about some of your Salem thoughts

If Salem is 110% certain that she can take down the Gods (assuming that's her goal since we don't actually know), why wouldn't she communicate her plan to Oz? Especially if she truly doesn't want anyone to die like you say. Oz would jump at the bit if Salem said "Hey I want to stop fighting" since that would mean their shadow war would stop. I really don't think Oz likes the Gods either, and even if he's afraid of them, if *Salem* is that confident she can stop them (she's far from an idiot), I'm sure he'd at least hear her out (which would tell Salem a LOT).

If she's that confident and truly doesn't want to fight, why wouldn't she tell Oz her new plan? And why would she kickstart her plan by attacking the kingdoms/Academies? Surely she could find a way to steal the Relics without flat out attacking them (like sending in double agents to take the Maiden powers)? Like... she would've known she'd get people killed, including children and innocent people. Even if she did damage control (which I think is just strategic, why bother going after people if she's focusing on the Relics? She's not gonna waste precious time and resources), she surely knew people would get caught in the crossfire.

Don't get me wrong, I like what you bring to the table!! Your posts are thought provoking and unique. But I can't see Salem being somehow secretly good. I don't think the show is setting her up that way, and I think she's a fantastic villain, so from my own perspective, doing that kind of twist would be a disservice to her character. I don't think she's inhuman or a complete and total monster who should go, but she's definitely not a good person especially if she can't communicate that she supposedly doesn't want people dead. She seems to be an "the ends justify the means" kind of person, and the show I think has stated that that isn't a good mindset i.e. Ironwood.

Sorry, I rambled and completely strayed from my point 😅 I don't mean to be mean if I come across that way. I hope my ask is interesting or thought provoking though :P

my position is that salem is right, not that she’s secretly good—that is an important distinction. i think she sees the gods clearly for what they are, thinks the divine ultimatum repulsive and unjust, wants remnant to be free, and believes that humanity is transcendent over their creators; she also, quite plainly, does not have any compunction about doing whatever it takes to achieve her ends and while i do think she is still fully capable of and driven by love, she is so TERRIFIED of being hurt again and so CERTAIN that no one could ever care for her that when she does care for someone else it comes out in very, very twisted and often cruel ways. she’s not good, she’s not nice, she’s just right.

equally the heroes are good but not right, because they have yet to really grapple with the premise of the divine mandate (that humanity as it exists right now does not deserve to exist) or their own role in upholding it (their immediate goal is survival, but when they envision the ending of this war they imagine salem driven back and the relics squirreled away again in hope of at best everlasting stalemate). the point of structuring the narrative this way is that neither side can get to the proverbial good ending alone; they need to work together, salem’s ends with the heroes’ means.

like. she’s evil. lol. that’s not in question and i think it goes without saying that she is doing evil things so i don’t feel the need to make a “but she’s still evil though” disclaimer every time i try to tease out what’s going on in her head. notice how my reaction to salem razing vale was OH GLINDA LAYS SIEGE TO THE EMERALD CITY, WE’RE REALLY IN IT NOW and not, like, shock or dismay that salem would do such a terrible thing. brgdfjs

(i DO think she has mostly been trying to avoid ozma and not reciprocating the shadow crusade against her prior to about fourteen years ago and that she isn’t about wanton destruction or killing for the sake of it; and in that sense i think she’s not as bad as the general fanon reading. but that comes with the territory of thinking she has actual reasons for doing what she does as opposed to being, like, a genocidal lunatic.)

anyway. to your questions. the short answer is she’s just as scared of oz as he is of her.

“but he’s the good one!”—think about this from her perspective for a minute. set aside your opinion of her and oz, presuppose for the moment that i’m correct on her motivations, and consider what everything ozma’s done in the last few thousand years looks like to her.

she knows that the gods were monsters. she witnessed them slaughtering the whole world and she saw how little it mattered to them after. she was alone for millions of years, and then hated and feared for thousands of years because she didn’t look human. all that suffering because the gods are punishing her for praying to them. yes?

then ozma returns to her, somehow. he doesn’t explain how or why—maybe he tells her he just doesn’t know—but that’s alright. what matters is that he’s here. he asks what happened to her, and she tells him the truth: the gods ended the world. cursed her. killed everyone. she was alone for so long. (maybe not the whole truth: there are things she’s afraid to say, because the gods did it all to punish her, and it’s her fault, and she’s so scared that he’d despise her if he knew everything. the only reason for her to fear ozma would reject her is if she blamed herself. you don’t hide things out of shame if you don’t feel ashamed of them.)

they learn each other again. fall in love all over again. things are finally okay. they fix up her house. they’re happy together. one day ozma tells her that he’s worried about how divided people are. she wants so badly to make him happy; she would move mountains for him. salem herself has no interest in ruling over people as a god—if she did, she wouldn’t have been living alone in a rotting shack in the middle of nowhere—all that enthusiasm is for him. to support what he wants.

they build a following, found a prosperous kingdom, start a family. four children! how long do you think they were married—ten years? twenty? and the whole time, the whole time, ozma was keeping these secrets from her. that the god of light, who’d condemned her to eternal suffering for praying to his brother, who’d shown utter indifference to the deaths of millions, had sent him back to redeem humanity FROM HER SINS, from what SALEM did. that the point of all this is cleansing humankind of her defiance and inviting THAT MONSTER to remnant to judge whether this world deserved to be subjugated under the brothers’ tyranny again or else be put to death.

imagine how she must have felt when ozma finally told her the truth, knowing that the first thing she told him was that the gods ended the last one. imagine the sickening realization that their whole marriage is built on a lie, because she would never, ever, ever have agreed to help him unite the world if she had known what he sought to unite them for, and ozma knew she never would. that he deceived her! manipulated her into serving the will of a god she knows to be a monster!

and even then—even to the very end—she loved him enough to try. she was willing to forgive all of that and figure out a way to move past it together, and the only thing she asked was that he walk away from his task of submitting this world to the judgment of THAT MONSTER. and he wouldn’t do it.

there’s a gap we don’t get to see, in between ozma backing away from her and salem catching him leaving with the girls, but we can infer that ozma walked out of that room and salem didn’t. imagine how she felt. ten years, twenty years, however long it was, and he was lying to her through it all, and he left her with hardly a moment’s hesitation when she refused to help him enact THAT MONSTER’S retribution against herself. because that is, ultimately, what this is all about; humanity is found guilty by association with her.

imagine how she felt. used. worthless. duped. like a fool for ever trusting him. did he ever love her at all, or was that a lie, too?

when she caught him in the hallway later that night, they both attack each other in the same instant. ozma remembers her attacking him first, but their volleys meet in perfect symmetry and right before salem throws her first bolt of magic, her eyes flicker down in surprise as she tracks the motion of his staff (which we see in the previous shot)—salem remembers him attacking her first.

because they were both so tense and scared and angry at each other that they snapped in exactly the same moment.

their battle is so intense they blow up the castle, and when the smoke clears, salem is a pile of ash. ash! he incinerated her! imagine how enraged you have to be to burn someone to ash. that level of fury, of absolute hatred of her, is literally burnt into her memory as the last thing he did to her before she managed to kill him, inextricably twisted around the guilt and unbearable grief she feels for her children.

he’s dedicated all but a handful of his lives since then to getting rid of her. finding a way to destroy her. (how far is he willing to go? what would happen if salem tried to move on, find community and solace somewhere far away from him? would he come after her? would he follow his god’s example and go after the people she cared about to punish her? is she willing to risk that he might?)

do you think salem understands why ozma did any of this? she doesn’t. she doesn’t get the luxury we do of jinn narrating his side of the story and showing us the anguish he felt, wanting so desperately to be with salem but eaten alive by terror of dooming the world for his happiness. she doesn’t know.

all she knows is how he treated her: the secrets, the deception, the manipulation, the immediate and absolute rejection when she told him no, the explosively violent anger at the end, then centuries upon centuries systematically erasing her from history and enforcing her exile whilst searching for the relics he needs to summon his god for the final judgment. which she knows will inevitably end in the annihilation of the whole world and yet more torture for her with no hope of reprieve, because if all of this was not enough to satisfy the god of light’s grudge against her for, again, just praying to his brother, nothing ever will.

salem feels about ozma now the way blake felt about adam. why did he lie to her, why did he use her, why does he keep coming back, why won’t he just LEAVE HER ALONE, hasn’t she suffered enough, hasn’t she been punished enough, when will it be enough—and intertwined with that, she is being EATEN ALIVE by the conviction that no one could ever truly care about her or feel for her or want to help her or think that she deserves help or even just see her as a person, because if ozma—ozma, the one who saved her from her father’s tower, who knew her and loved her before all of this happened—if ozma thought her so worthless that he would rather serve a god who ended the last world and promises to condemn this one too than suffer her to exist at all in this world, why the fuck would anyone else be any different?

thousands of years later, she still flies off the handle when anyone lies to her. (except cinder. but cinder is always the exception, to every rule.) there’s a reason she recruits the kind of people she does—desperate, broken, angry people starving for something she can promise to give them if they make themselves useful to her—and it’s because she does not believe that she can get anything better than strictly transactional relationships with people who have literally nothing and nowhere else to turn. and when she actually cares about someone? she fights herself tooth and claw over it because she desperately doesn’t want to open herself up to more heartbreak. look at how erratic and cruel she is with cinder.

it’s not rational. salem is smart and very, very tactically shrewd but she is making all of her plans and all of her choices from the assumption that she is and will always be alone in this, because she is unlovable, because she is worthless, because she is the reason this world is damned. and she’s terrified of ozma because to her everything he does suggests that his conviction and dedication to the god of light has never wavered. she cannot see his doubt. she cannot see his misery. she cannot see how much he misses her and desperately wants to make amends. all she can see is that he’s zealously guarding the relics and spreading his god’s word and training children to fight and die in the name of keeping her exiled.

why doesn’t ozma just go to her and tell her he wants to make amends? because he’s terrified she’ll never forgive him and terrified that he’ll damn the world to annihilation if he follows his heart. they’re the same. they’re exactly the same.

but this is also what makes it so possible—even easy—for salem to undergo a villain-to-hero arc, because the only thing that needs to happen is a spark of real hope. that someone, anyone, could really care about her. like. the things she says in her soliloquies about the transformative power of hope? “even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change,” and “it’s true that a simple spark can ignite hope, breathe fire into the hearts of the weary…”—that’s her. one small reason to hope. that is all she needs to change.

she doesn’t want to be razing kingdoms to the ground or cutting a bloody path through children to get those relics. she is willing to do it because she truly, genuinely, from the depths of her soul believes that it’s the only way to free herself from the torture she’s been subjected to for millions of years. she’s driven to this by desperation. she won’t keep doing it if she’s given a reason to feel less desperate.

but she does need to be given a reason, first. she’s hemorrhaging. this is why the winnowing of her inner circle and the split between everyone else in vacuo versus salem + cinder + summer in vale is important; Those Two are the ones she cares about—technically we don’t know for sure regarding summer yet, but the level of trust she has for the lieutenant holding beacon is suggestive—and that being reciprocated is what ignites her hope.

[starry-bi-sky]

mmmmmm read a disciple shen yuan/shizun luo binghe fanfic about two days ago where the first chapter was the Immortal Conference arc, and SQQ was the one who had to be pushed into the abyss (he was still the villain) except Luo Binghe was refusing and was like, lowkey losing his mind about SQQ being so close to the edge. SQQ ended up having to be the one to fall in himself because of the system's punishment system. The rest of the fic is leading up to that moment. But like, MMM i've been obsessively thinking about that first chapter for DAYS ever since.

now i've been in svsss for a grand total of *checks watch* a week. but god obsessed with that. I want to write/read a fic where disciple SQQ goes a little nuts down there. Like keep all of the things that make SQQ, SQQ, but just. Throw in a little bit more trauma in there. A little bit of a mental break. Let him go a little nuts as a treat. Just a tad unhinged. I wanna see him go, just a little, "god fuck it, i've tried so hard to change this shitty story's outcome and it feels like everything i've done has been for nothing. I'm going to die in this world no matter what I do, I've been doomed from the start, so might as well die the way I want to." and he just, breaks a little! Under all the stress.

He still retains the traits that makes shen yuan, shen yuan, like his overwhelming kindness. But he's just! yk. A little less patient. Paranoid. Jumpy. Colder. A little more aloof and closed off. A little more Shen Jiu. He's no asshole child abuser, but he was a Number One Hater in his past life and he's leaning into that old habit a little more now.

(On a totally coincidental not-at-all related note, there's not enough SJ-and-SY-are-the-same-people fics out there that i've found. This is totally unrelated...)

The Endless Abyss turns the mind into an over-sharpened blade, and SQQ is both fascinated and perhaps a little excited to explore a place that doesn't have a lot of info on it in the mortal realm, but still terrified out of his mind. And he's no Luo Binghe, he doesn't have the sheer brute strength and power to just bulldoze his way through, so he has to be a lot more sneaky and cunning if he wants to survive.

The fic itself role-swapped LBH and SQQ so that SQQ was the half-demon (which lowkey fucks) and LBH the human, but I'm equally-if-not-more obsessed with the idea that LBH remains the half-heavenly demon and SQQ the human. If only because I keep thinking about SQQ befriending some demons (particularly and specifically a group of succubi) and they grow very attached to this Human Cultivator so through magic plot stuff they create some kind of seal/illusion/talisman that makes SQQ appear as a demon because a human cultivator in the endless abyss may as well be the equivalent of putting a giant neon target on your back.

And iirc Shen Jiu was taught demonic cultivation by that one guy(?? i've only been here a week so im not caught up in ALL of the lore yet) so that could totally happen here.

(On the other end of the realms, poor Shizun Luo Binghe is just. losing his fucking mind over losing his most precious and beloved disciple. About .5 seconds from burning down the peaks himself. somebody sedate him.)

The Endless Abyss sucks and SQQ is having a really terrible time and can feel himself going lowkey mad, but also holy shit look at all this WORLD-BUILDING. look at all this flora and fauna, and oh if he had the equipment for it he'd be writing all of this down. ALL OF IT. He was kinda-sorta-already planning on never leaving the Abyss as some sort of fucked up self-exile and self-preservation thing, but now he might? actually just?? never leave if he can help it, like he lowkey likes it down here.

anyways the next time anyone ever sees SQQ again he's got hair so long its almost touching the ground and he's either in rags and half-feral or he's been completely dolled up by his adoptive succubi sisters and still about three seconds from biting anyone who tries to touch him. (he's also lowkey trying to book it back down to the abyss even if he has desperately missed all of his friends and shizun)

[nobodysdaydreams]

Nathaniel Benedict/Ledroptha Curtain (TMBS) and Count Olaf (ASOUE) are proof that mentally unstable former theater kids with sad backstories make the most entertaining villains, especially when their main adversaries are genius children they lose to every episode. And one of them is canonically a literal toddler/baby.

[the-badger-mole]

Azula stans really need to stop projecting the tough childhoods they had unto her. She is not some helpless little girl who never did anything bad on her own accord. Her fangirls are nothing but toxic terfs who think any criticism for them are sins from the patriarchy, please.

Idk enough Azula apologists to say they are all terfs or not, but I think the larger issue is people aren't comfortable rooting for the bad guy anymore. I, personally blame Wicked. I love the show, and I really liked the book, but it kickstarted this trend of What If stories that make villains more sympathetic. In a lot of cases, they just outright flip who was the villain and who was the hero, which is the least interesting thing you could do in terms of exploring a villain character's motives (glaring daggers at you, Maleficent).

No one is all black or all white. Everyone exists in shades of grey, and that includes villains. There's nothing wrong with exploring the grey areas of villains. Some of the best villains in literature are multi-dimensional. Some of them are even sympathetic, but at the end of the day, they are villains and nothing justifies their destruction. The best recent example I can think of is Killmonger from the Black Panther movie. He wasn't wrong to criticize the exploitation of Africa and the Black Diaspora by the West. He wasn't wrong for thinking that Wakanda should've stepped up and intervened. His anger was absolutely justified, but his methods absolutely were not. As an audience we can both love and empathize with Killmonger but also admit he was the villain.

That is, unfortunately, not how a lot of Azula's staunchest defenders approach her. Instead of allowing themselves to feel empathy for her, even though she is definitely in the wrong and has definitely made decisions on her own accord that show her own moral compass is broken, they have to turn her into a victim of circumstance. I think that is actually a very sexist way to look at Azula, though I don't really think for the most part her defenders are trying to be. Azula made choices she didn't have to. She was a child who was likely abused (albeit in a different way from Zuko). She was also an abuser herself, and very ruthless and cunning in her own right. All those things can be true at the same time, but Azula defenders can't seem to accept that.

Now I could speculate on why this is, and personally, I think it's because of this really annoying trend of needing your fandom opinions to align with your morals. I don't have much to base that on, though. I don't spend a ton of time engaging with a lot of people on the opposite end of the fandom from me, so I haven't heard directly from the more rational Azula defenders on why they think the way they do (the ones I've interacted with have been just...the worst and I didn't care to engage with them for long). Even if I did, who is self aware enough to say "my need to defend this villain is because I don't feel comfortable liking them if they are truly bad"? My opinion is based entirely on the posts that I see on my feed sometimes of mutuals getting asks that accuse them of terrible things because of the characters and tropes they like. Also, on the metas I sometimes see explaining how rather than being the villain, Azula was a broken little thing who had been failed by everyone around her, including her brother- who was a child himself, and her uncle- who couldn't have intervened even if he wanted because Azula wouldn't have ever accepted his help.

I could be right, or I could be way off base, but I think if we're ever going to see a decline in the rabid defenders of characters like Azula, we have to get to a point where we can admit we like bad guys without trying to make them heroes. It's okay to like a character and still want to see them defeated in the end. Or to want to see them win, even if it means that evil has triumphed. It doesn't mean anything about you as a person. It just means that you like a good story.

[vertigoartgore]

1984's Fantastic Four Vol.1 #268 cover by photographer Eliot R. Brown. He talks in details about the making of this cover here :

[arty-cakes]

i finally got around to centaurworld's finale and holy fucking shit??? they can go that hard??

[s10127470]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Categories: F/F, F/M, M/M

Fandoms: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Adventures (Comics)

Relationships: Peter Parker/Mary Jane Watson, Reed Richards/Susan Storm, Ben Grimm/Alicia Masters, Bruce Banner/Betty Ross, James “Logan” Howlett/Raven Darkhölme (past), Carol Danvers/Steve Rogers, Bethany Cabe/Tony Stark, Donald Blake/Ororo Munroe, Hank Pym/Janet Van Dyne, T'Challa/Patricia Walker, Clint Barton/Bobbi Morse, Sam Wilson/Wren Worthington, Elektra Natchios/Natasha Romanov, Bobby Drake/Johnny Storm, Wanda Maximoff/Vision, Flash Thompson/Pietro Maximoff, Jean Grey/Scott Summers, Abigail Brand/Henry McCoy, Emma Frost/Piotr Rasputin, Elizabeth Braddock/Kurt Wagner, Anna-Marie Carlyle/Remy LeBeau, Kitty Pryde/Rikki Barnes, Matt Murdock/Jennifer Walters, Luke Cage/Jessica Jones, Misty Knight/Danny Rand, Cindy Moon/Sophia Sanduval, Clea Strange/Stephen Strange

Characters: Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The Avengers - Character, The X-Men - Character, The Defenders - Character, Doctor Strange, Namor the Sub-Mariner, the silver surfer, She-Hulk - Character, Hellcat, the punisher - Character, Blade, Ghost Rider, Doctor Doom, the mole man, The Thunderbolts - Character, Galactus, The Mandarin, The Sinister Six, Hydra - Character, Loki, The Masters of Evil, The Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy, The Hand - Character, The Skrulls, The Web Warriors, Black Cat - Character, Deadpool, Other Marvel Villains, Other Marvel Characters, Other Marvel Heroes, Venom

Additional Tags: Superheroes, Superhero Adventures, Action/Adventure, Humor, Action, Friendship/Love, Romance, vibes, Genderbent Characters

[witchofthemidlands]

BAD SISTERS || Chopped Liver (+ Saving Grace)

Grace Garvey the woman that you are <3 She should get to kill him again.

[hyperfixation-tangentopia]

Ah ha, I've got a question for you :3

Who's your favorite LMK villain (aside from Macaque)?

Okay fair restriction XD

LBD. Without a doubt. She was my fave next to MK on first watch.

The scenes where someone attacks her and she does nothing but they just stop is chilling. Her scenes with Wukong are FANTASTIC. She's facing someone who's taken her down once and can fight and beat GODS with so much confidence. Her scenes with MK are BETTER. I have a thing for manipulative villains and DAMN the way she gets into MK's head HURTS. I think the only reason I don't like her more is because I'm too emotionally attached to the characters and try to ignore just how TERRIFIED she makes MK. She has ONE SCENE with Red Son and in not even 5 minutes she emotionally drags him through the dirt before PHYSICALLY YEETING HIM.

OH YEAH I HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THAT FREAKING POSSESSION

ALL OF THEM

So first one DBK! It lasted one episode so not much to say about it EXCEPT NO THERE'S A LOT TO SAY ABOUT IT

FROM HOW IT LOOKS LIKE SHE'S AFFECTING HIM BEFORE SHE EVER ESCAPES to HOW SHE EMOTIONALLY DESTROYS RED SON

SORRY SHE HAS TWO SCENES AND WRECKS HIM IN BOTH

Okay and then THE LITTLE GIRL (Bai He? Something like that? Fanonically?) I KNOW SHE GETS 0 CHARACTER BUT TO POSSESS A LITTLE GIRL TRYING TO GET HER CAT? COLD LBD. COLD.

Okay and apparently I can't go one ask without talking about Macaque BUT HER ABILITY TO TAKE A CHARACTER WE'VE ONLY EVER SEEN CONFIDENT AND SMILING TO FREAKING OUT AND IN CHAINS IN SECONDS IS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. DOWN TO ACTIVELY KILLING HIM WITH HER POWERS BECAUSE HE WILL EITHER GET IT DONE OR DIE TRYING. I WILL NEVER GET OVER THAT.

AND THEN THE OBVIOUS. WUKONG. FREAKING. POSSESSED. WUKONG. FROM HER HOLDING HER OWN AGAINST HIM NOT AT HER FULL POWER TO NOT MORE THAN 10 SECONDS OF A FIGHT? HIS COLORS PHYSICALLY DIM WHEN HE'S POSSESSED. AND THE FACT SHE HELD HIM FOR SO LONG DESPITE HIM OBVIOUSLY FIGHTING BACK, WHILE ALSO PICKING AWAY AT MEI AND HER MECH? SPREAD TOO THIN SURE BUT THAT'S STILL ABSOLUTELY POWERFUL.

POSSESSED WUKONG IS PROBABLY THE MOST TERRIFYING THING I'VE EVER SCENE THAT I DON'T TALK ABOUT. FUCKING STONE-COLD (no pun intended). THE THREATS? THE TAKING OUT RED SON IN A SECOND? WITH FISTS IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY?? THE STALKING THROUGH THE SAMADHI FIRE TO GET MEI? THE ICE AND TELEPORTATION? ALSO GETTING WUKONG TO DESTROY NEZHA AND FLING HIMSELF AT MK WITH 0 HESITATION? I CAN'T HANDLE IT.

AND THAT'S SAYING NOTHING ABOUT HIS FINAL FIGHT?? FLINGING WUKONG AT MK, AGAIN, 0 HESITATION, AND THEN DESTROYING MACAQUE AND THROWING HIM ON THE FLOOR, ONCE AGAIN, USUALLY SMILING AND CONFIDENT AS ALL HELL. AND WUKONG ONLY BROKE FREE AT THE LAST SECOND AND HE STILL WASN'T RID OF HER COMPLETELY????

I CAN'T. DEAL. WITH THIS WOMAN.

AND SHE FOUGHT SO GODDAM HARD TO STAY ON HER TRACK, BROKE THROUGH MEI AND WIELED THE SAMADHI FIRE, AND EVEN WHEN SHE WAS DYING SHE WASN'T FUCKING DONE.

WHO WOULD I BE IF I WENT ON THIS RANT WITHOUT MENTIONING IT.

"That pursuit only leads to one thing."

"Uh-huh. To destiny, right?"

*Small, amused smile* "No. To pain."

WHAT. THE. FUCK???

I LOVE THIS WOMAN AND SHE DOES NOT GET ENOUGH CREDIT. SHE MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY DESTROYS MOST OF THE CAST DOWN TO WUKONG HIMSELF, DODGES DEATH MULTIPLE TIMES, NOT EVEN TO MENTION THAT CHILLING SCENE IN THE CELESTIAL REALM, AND EVEN HER DEATH WAS JUST THE FINAL BLOW TO EXPLOSIVES SHE'D BEEN SETTING OFF ALL SEASON.

LADY. BONE. DEMON. NEEDS. MORE. CREDIT.

SHE IS AN AWESOME AND TERRIFYING VILLAIN. NOBODY EVERY DIRECTLY SAYS "SHE'S SO POWERFUL" (THAT I REMEMBER) AND THAT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T NEED TO. EVERYTHING SHE DOES, EVERY MOVE SHE MAKES, EVERY AFFECT SHE SETS OFF, IS TELLING TO HER POWER. NOBODY NEEDS TO STATE IT BECAUSE IS IT SO. PAINFULLY. CLEAR.

THE HOPELESSNESS AND FEAR THE CHARACTERS FEEL GOING UP AGAINST HER? IT DESERVED. IT'S REAL.

Anyway thank you for the opportunity to rant about the character I for some reason have so much trouble getting myself to ramble about. Anyway. I love the monkies so much and they glow in those first three seasons but LBD? LBD ran it.

[inmyjaws]

Skipping around in a circle Mandy Mandy Mandy Mandy Mandy Mandy amandaaaaaaa

[moe-broey]

I'm too lazy to illustrate it (plus I think I'd get too caught up in the process LMFAO) but when drawing/adding personal touches to Lif's design I am channeling Lio Fotia Promare for his armor (ESP the Mad Burnish armor) Lewis Mystery Skulls (less aesthetic similarities reflected but like, kinda similar broad chested body type similar vibes and important heart motifs) (heart motif isn't pictured in this Lewis image but if you've seen the animated music vids you get it) and literally just any 2D animated Disney villain who is Shaped and Dramatic (and has a huge fucking cape or coat -- tbh the specific ones I think about are Maleficent and Cruella just from the dramatic/big cape standpoint, purely aesthetic)

(fuck it after a lot of thinking Hades is a good one too)

[kaybkay8]

I've had it with people saying Lust was a bad villain. Yes she was the first killed, but that doesn't make her a bad villain. She was exceptional at what she did. She was a leader among the homunculus. She was in charge of both gluttony and envy and was clearly highly respected by them. Her death was crucial in showing just how powerful flame alchemy was and showing that homunculus could be killed. She was one of the smartest homunculus. Her biggest flaw was having a ruthless streak. She controlled her anger and prevented envy from getting too carried away. She was an excellent villain and performed her role excellently. She had one of the most dignified death scenes that is a favorite moment for a lot of fans. I just don't get people disrespecting her. Her death was a turning point for the show and I have nothing but appreciation for her

[lilydvoratrelundar]

Watched the 90s matilda the other day and while I enjoyed it and some additions like her casual power use or the first earlier fake-haunting scene are so much fun, overall it was weirdly paced and directed and had so much less dramatic weight than the musical. Its a kids film and I'm not gonna say its bad just because I'm about ten years too old to be the target audience, but so much of it fell flat because of the combination of knowing a better adaptation really well and also not being eight.

[itsdappleagain]

[devotedlystrangewizard]

character hyperfixations suck actually because theyre the only way i can be invested in media but also they will have me going "hey where are they" "i wonder how theyre doing rn" right up until either the character or my interest dies

[cocksuki2]

Hey I finished reading part one of chainsaw man and like I don’t understand why people call it a masterpiece. Like the first half was great and the revelation of makima was great but afterwards it became messy and the plot just disappeared.

Like really? Makima reasoning of fucking everything up is bc she’s a fan of OG chainsaw man? There’s zero background information about the OG chainsaw man other than what makima said in the manga. Characters with the exception of aki,power, angle, denji aren’t even fleshed out and they just died like that. There were no hints that denji power erased devils existence like NOTHING was fleshed out or informative. The ending was so bland ig, like I was expecting some explanation but no, I received nothing. Chainsaw man is only great when it comes to fights, artsyle, and making people uncomfortable, but the plot wasn’t going anywhere and completely erased itself from existence.

Like people was hyping up the manga so much and I agree the hype was worth it until after makima revelation. I’m the type of person who likes good written plots like attack on titan or cliche shouen plots but not boring like jujutsu kaisen. Of all shouen manga I read I feel like chainsaw man is the only one I don’t feel like continuing. I’m in part 2 now and I don’t feel like forcing myself reading it, waiting for something great to happen or waiting for the PLOT to come back.

Anyways I’m just wondering if you can convince me to continue it.

hmmmmmmmmm while i can see what you're saying, i kinda disagree.

chainsaw man part 1 is exactly that... part 1. im under the assumption that the things we're going to learn about denji and the og chainsaw man will continue to develop as the series goes on, but i can see what you're saying about it not feeling fleshed out. but it's also not over yet.

as for csm being a masterpiece, i personally think that that part comes in with the visual storytelling. fujimoto's art is fantastic at indicating tone and power through the positioning of his characters, as well as putting symbolism within the art itself. i think fujimoto's skill shines through in the way he demonstrates denji being manipulated by the people around him, as well as how he goes about telling denji's perception of love, sex, and human connection. it's a manga about manipulation, set in an alternate universe.

imo, chainsaw man really shines when you read between the lines of what's being presented to you at face value. if you're reading the manga at face value... then you're only seeing one aspect of it. it's really clear that fujimoto put a lot of thought into the interactions his characters have in the manga, as well as how he positions them in the frames themselves. i think this is actually ESPECIALLY true for makima and the way she's portrayed.

also, when it comes to fleshing out characters, i agree that some weren’t fully fleshed out but i also kind of look at it as like... some characters are present to push the narrative forward. sometimes they aren’t fleshed out and that’s totally fine. like while i love the violence fiend, i don’t feel like the plot suffered because we didn’t get his backstory or like... a full character arc for him. he’s a side character, sometimes they aren’t fleshed out. i wanted to see more about kobeni, but i think she’ll come back later and we’ll learn more. the story isn’t over yet, so more information about characters is going to keep coming. it makes sense to me that they haven’t laid everything out already... bc that’s the continuation of the plot lol

fact is though, if you didn't like it, then it's probably just not the manga for you and that's totally fine. you don't have to like the story the way i do or even agree with me that it's a masterpiece. it's media, everyone is going to read into it differently. i just happen to think it's worth looking at further than face value because when i read it that way, it completely changed the way i see the manga.

though i am going to say... if you don't like jujutsu kaisen... you probably will not like chainsaw man. they're very similar series and fall into a super similar genre. jjk functions the same way, with its characters and stories having more depth (imo) than just what's being presented at face value. i happen to find jjk to be very interesting and well-written (aside from the way it treats its female characters on occasion) and that's probably why i like chainsaw man as much as i do. i enjoy media analysis and those two series happen to be ones that benefit GREATLY from it and have a lot to unpack.

i think you and i just happen to have differing opinions about the series we enjoy bc while i love aot, i think both jjk and chainsaw man have more coherent plots (though neither of them are finished yet). that's not to say i don't like aot and think it's good, i just think that csm and jjk are better.

anyway, i don't think i can convince you to like or continue csm if you don't already like it 😭😭😭 especially if you don't like jjk (since they're p much the same genre)