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sometipsygnostalgic · 6 years ago

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Suicide and the Homestuck Epilogues

I don’t really want to make a super long post at this time. Turns out, I did so anyway! I don’t have too much to express on this topic that you might not have already figured out for yourself. But I feel like what there is to discuss about suicide in the epilogue is important, so it’ll do well to get this off my chest.

One of the most serious themes in the epilogue, explored THOROUGHLY in Candy, is about the Will to Live. The will to move on with your life and see the next day. This is disguised as a metaphysical battle with non-canonicity and irrelevance, but multiple characters in the epilogue have metaphorical and literal battles with their own hopelessness. Characters on the cliff-edge of suicide.

These depictions of the characters caused an extreme reaction in the fans reading the story. It can be incredibly distressing to read something from perspective of a suicidal character, especially if you’ve been fighting that battle yourself. However it can be therapeutic if you read a story about someone actually discovering a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dim. A fictional depiction that hits so hard, ending with a candle of hope, can flip a switch in your mind.

Let’s get into the nitty gritty of how Homestuck both failed and succeeded at giving a light at the end of the tunnel.

Skip to the end if you don’t want to read the whole thing - I’ve done a TL;DR.

So there are five characters I would like to touch upon:

Dirk Tavros (jr) John Terezi Dave

All of these characters warrant discussion in the context of hopefulness and hopelessness.

Dirk:

Dirk is the first character I want to get over with. Dirk’s an example of homestuck giving a hopeless ending to a character.

Despite Canon!Dirk’s struggles with his self worth, with the ideas that he’ll become a bad person, getting a nice enough resolution when he met Dave, epilogue!Dirk has lost that battle against himself due to means entirely out of his control. Because of how close the square root of Dirk is with “bad”, in the form of his prescratch self’s carelessnes and his offshoot connections to Doc Scratch, Dirk’s cursed with the inevitability of becoming that evil ultimate self no matter how hard he tries to be a good person.

Dirk is not entirely evil. He’s lost his humanity but still clings to some memory. I’m pretty sure he kills John??? But he wouldn’t kill Dave, and I don’t think - no matter what he does to him - that Dirk would ever kill jake.

Now, CANDY!Dirk. Candy!Dirk sees no point existing in a world where he cannot maintain canon relevance and seize the narrative. It would also be dangerous for him to continue existing in the world.

But the way Dirk’s friends see his suicide, the way this is played out in Candy if you’re isolated from his shenanigans in Meat, is a very significant depiction of people struggling with a friend who killed themselves.

There’s the critical failure from Meat in retroactively making this look like one of the best things Dirk could’ve done. Even if his friends led shitty lives, they led their own lives. But his friends in Candy don’t see it that way, and it wouldn’t be that way if Dirk didn’t become his ultself. As far as they believe. he maybe saw himself as a hopeless case and died.

Because of Dirk’s death Dave in particular is dealing with a lot of feelings. He’d known Dirk as a better version of his really nasty bro-dad. Because of Dirk’s death, Dave feels deprived of his friend and family member, he feels like if Dirk had been alive he’d have taught him about love.

I found this touching. Knowing how suicide impacts others can greatly affect a decision. Even Dirk, who was distant from all his friends and whose suicide protected them from his influence, ended up being missed for all the good things he could’ve given the world.

So, all in all: Dirk’s relationship with suicide is depressing. It was better depicted in the comic, which had a hopeful resolution. This epilogue shits all over that. There’s still some important messages however, in that Dirk being alive would’ve given everyone very different lives, some ways for the better, some ways for the worse. Dirk’s existence is not meaningless.

Talking of meaningless existence, let’s move on to....

Tavros:

Nope, not John yet. John’s going to take a lot of thinking. Let’s deal with baby Tavros.

Tavros is not a depiction of a suicidal character. He is however a key player in the “hopelessness” of the Candy timeline. John sees Tavros, and his father Jake, as in a hopeless situation. Tavros and Jake’s changing situation influence’s Johns thoughts on his timeline at the end.

Tavros is born into a world that is not canon, into one of the worst households imaginable where all the cards were held against him from the start. His name is fucking Tavros. That’s immediately dooming him to a life of being treaded on. Tavros lives with his mother, the domineering Jane Crocker, and her fuckclown, and while the other kids - Harry Anderson, Vriska - live spoilt happy childhoods, Tavros is never allowed to be a child expressing his individuality. What is his personality? It’s pretty much being a bit smart and doing exactly what he’s told.

Tavros reminds me of a more muted Gohan in the Dragonball Z universe, if Goku was a fragile human dweeb instead of a saiyan and ChiChi became Space Hitler. If Gohan never got those tastes of freedom when fighting against the Saiyans, then he’d have no capacity to stand up to his mother.

John fantasizes about helping him, and Tavros catches onto that fleeting fantasy, but it ends in disaster as Jade tries to reason with John that there’s no way he can keep Tavros safe, then John gets into a fit of rage and nearly injures him as well as all the other kids in the room. Tavros becomes scared of John.

There’s something here about John seeing himself in little Tavvy. They’re nothing alike personality wise, but Tavros is John’s full blooded brother, and what he might have become like had he been brought up in a dysfunctional home.

At the end of the story, after years of this treatment has led to Tavros becoming a very passive boy who has an obsession with faygo, Jake finally makes the decision to leave his wife and go live with John. Even though Tavros is 15 and his personality or lack thereof is mostly realised, he’s given this spark of hope that maybe he will develop a bit of individuality. After all, John sees him as one of the most important, devastating consequences of the timeline, and somebody that he must help out.

It is fitting that Tavros finds a record player at the end and put on some fun music, a self-expression of sorts.

Right okay, time to get into the meaty part.

John and Terezi

There are some parts of these characters that I want to write about in isolation, but their relationship is the major distinguisher between their internal battles and, say, Dirk’s internal battle. John and Terezi are examples of two suicidal characters who interact with each other. The interactions between them cannot be isolated from their suicidal subtext, because they influence each other’s outlook on the world and their futures.

I’m having difficulty, however, figuring out how to structure this part. There’s too much beef to get into if I’m going to discuss their histories. So let’s try to make it brief:

Terezi’s Context: Terezi has history as a character with suicidal subtext, especially in the Pre-Retcon universe. She was overwrought with guilt and grief, became alienated from her all friends, spent all of her time either in the dreambubbles looking for vriska or unhealthily warrowing in her orrows in her abusive relationship with Gamzee. She then goes on what appears to be a suicide attack against Gamzee, wanting him to fight back.... until he does, at which point she tries to break free, indicating a will to live in there somewhere. In the pre-retcon Terezi finds herself having both a “hopeless” and a “hopeful” resolution. She dies by her own knife, under Aranea’s influence - yes, Terezi stabbing herself with the other half of the cane sword is ironic on like 12 levels - but in watching everybody else die, ABSOLUTELY REFUSES to fade away. Terezi is filled with determination, and will not rest until she sees to it that John’s on his way to fix everything. After this though she backs into her depression again. One of these Terezis tries to use her powers and does not see the effect. Even though she must’ve known there’d be a timeline where the effect hasnt happened yet she loses all self esteem and tells John to go leave her to die. The other Terezi, in seeing John return, is filled with a glimmer of faith and sends John off to follow her instructions. I’m pretty sure the depressed didn’t die. The one who died in the chalk outline however walks sadly in paradox space, seemingly hopeless now her story’s ended, before reuniting with Vriska. POST retcon Terezi has a plethora of self esteem issues, many of which were exposed by the knowledge of the pre retcon existing. In the body of A6A6I5 she’s chasing the idea that the other her had “figured out” all those self esteem issues, which we know to be false, and Terezi cannot connect with others properly despite being so good at reading them. This lack of strong connections and lack of self esteem makes her feel a bit empty inside. After remembering the pre retcon then seeing the vision of herself and Vriska reunite, Terezi decides to chase after Vriska, refusing to let her die against Lord English. But because of Furthest Ring shenanigans, she can’t find her.

So Terezi ends Homestuck as a character with... not a whole lot of light in the tunnel, but there’s something there. That something takes the form of

1. The hope that she’ll find Vriska some day 2. Her friendship with John, a growing connection with somebody other than Vriska.

John Context:

You know what? There isn’t a fucking lot! John throughout the majority of homestuck, completely opposite to Terezi and pretty much every other character, has NO SUICIDAL SUBTEXT WHATSOEVER. Hooray, no 500 word expository essay! It’s not until the CREDITS where John looks miserable.

...John in the credits, now living on a peaceful new planet after focusing for 3 years on his sburb adventure, feels completely lost. Where his family and friends have met with the alternate versions of their parents, Dad Crocker isn’t actually John’s family, so that relationship doesn’t work as a surrogate for his lost dad. John doesn’t know why he feels so empty inside and depressed, when his friends are trying to make him so happy. But as soon as he starts recieving messages from Caliborn you get an indication that John WANTS conflict. He wants to serve a purpose. And the prologue of the epilogue (ha!) supports this.

He’s captivated by Rose’s discussion of “canon”. Since he’s tied to canon, he feels some responsibility for preserving it. But Rose and Roxy’s reactions imply that John is about to go on a suicide mission. John laments that he’s spent so much time being depressed when he could’ve been enjoying life instead. This implies here that John wasn’t suicidally depressed at this stage, and he starts to lament how he hasn’t put his life back on track.

So John, at this stage in the prologue, is a depiction of a hopeful AND hopeless character. However the hopelessness does not derive, yet, from any lack of will to live. It’s lamenting how he has so little time left. This lament is still related to the discussion of suicide. John thinking of how much he’d miss out on if he left the world and died. So, altogether, John in the prologue is someone who has a light in the tunnel that someone else might sniff out. But that light might still shine on some readers who relate.

CANDY:

This is Terezi’s chronological start, and the “meat” of John’s suicidal subtext.

As soon as John splits the world into Candy and decides to enjoy his life on Earth C, he begins trying to appreciate the world and get a taste of all the things that he thought he was going to lose out on had the suicide mission started. However, things seem “off” to him. He thinks Roxy is not in-character, Jade’s fucked up Davekat, Jane’s becoming a nazi, GAMZEE’S HERE which is an IMMEDIATE red flag, and everything is starting to go off the rails. John wonders if this is all his fault. He sees everyone on earth C as not being themselves, as being almost like “NPCs”. They don’t have the same reactions to stuff as him. They don’t have the same feelings. Except for ONE person - Terezi, who is isolated from all these shenanigans and is the perfect venting post, giving John grounded feedback that he agrees with based on his previous knowledge of the kids. This is not yet an interaction between two obviously suicidally depressed characters, but the idea of the world being “fabricated” and people acting “fake” is already here, and THIS is something a lot of people who have struggled with depression may be troubled by. The fuel to John’s theory is his position in an actual fictional world where the events are not canon, but even so, it’s still something real people go through.

I think it’s worth pointing out that John and TZ are going off completely different time scales, emphasizing the disassociation they have with the timeline. John only feels grounded while talking to Terezi, who is stuck in the past. Terezi is seeing her friends grow up into crazy-ass adults without her.

John’s depression escalates dramatically when he has a go at everyone on his son’s birthday party and nearly hurts the kids, then he felt like everybody hated him. This scene was powerful, but was also just like something out of a DBZ fic I read where everyone forgot Gohan’s birthday, he upset baby Goten (the only person who he felt unconditionally loved by), and then he goes to blow himself up somewhere. Yes, THAT scale of melodrama. And John wants to float up into space, to leave the earth, maybe freeze up there. He is now suicidally depressed. He feels awful. It’s only going to get worse for the time being.

After that point John turns to Terezi again and we find out she’s the same fucking way. Her journey to find Vriska, which looked to us at first to be cautiously optimistic. is a bit of a suicide mission itself. She does not intend to come back if she can’t complete the mission, even to pick up new supplies. Terezi is starving to death but she refused to return because she sees Earth C as a false paradise, a fake recreation of Alterna where everything is a bit too perfect and the people are too happy and she feels lost when she left the only route to happiness she can see behind in Sburb. Turns out Remem8er didn’t so much give her a new perspective as it doubled the dependency she had on Vriska.

John and Terezi connect with each other because of how they both see themselves as empty, and Earth C as empty, and John tries to appeal to Terezi’s need for friendship. He tries to get her to see the light side of living. But because he has hard time seeing it, he can’t express it. He tries to help her get over vriska, by saying she deserves better companionship. This DOES plant a seed in Terezi’s mind, the idea that she’s wasted her life looking for someone who has been a shitlord to her.

To an extent, they have been enabling each other’s depression. Seeing each other as the only “real” characters and discussing that idea, John going into how he thinks “everybody is already dead”, Terezi confirming other characters are acting strange and expressing how she hates the new world so much she’d rather die than return empty-handed, they’re lighting the fire to their own negativity. John’s in panic mode about losing the one outlet he has. And if anything’s made Terezi feel alienated from Earth it’s seeing how it is turning out.... But there’s not a lot John can do about this, because yknow, she feels the same way in Meat.

This interaction between two suicidal characters has a positive and negative representation of dealing with those thoughts. John’s begging Terezi to come back and forget about Vriska, which is a good thing, but Terezi’s too stubborn. She won’t budge. John has to traumatically read what may as well be her suicide message to him, further cementing his own issues. Bear in mind - because of her predicament, he has has been sidetracked from talking to her about his argument, and probably thinks he’s been a moron for venting to her about all of this while she’s been slowly dying in space. Altogether I’d say this conversation veers towards absolute hopelessness, at least for those who have read Candy first and haven’t been spoiled on what happens to Terezi next.

The next scene’s also retroactively hilarious, but that doesn’t stop it from being powerfully depressive. John find the car with her “”””””blood”””””” and freaks out.

In losing Terezi, who he saw as his one outlet to canon, John loses all of his composure. He is completely incapable of holding himself together any more.

Remember that DBZ fic I mentioned earlier where Gohan runs off and blows himself up with a suicidal tantrum? Yeah. It was a lot like this, but with rocks flying everywhere.

John at this stage is at rock fucking bottom. He’s completely hopeless.

Then 10 years pass. He’s been so depressed his wife and kid have left him. But... he’s still around. Dave at one point thinks John’s going to kill himself, directly addressing this subtext, but John was actually talking to Karkat. Karkat’s position as a revolutionary leader, Dave’s caring for him, and John’s presence at Jade’s wedding to Dave despite having thrown a mega-tantrum that made him think they’d hate him forever, all of these things are........ starting to contradict John’s idea that the world is full of empty heartless people who don’t feel things. John has not been rejected by everybody.

He accepts Terezi’s gone, and rips her picture into tiny pieces, letting them drift in the wind. This is the start of John’s progress away from his suicidal depression.

He bumps into Vriska, has a go at her about Terezi, then Vriska does.. THAT with Gamzee. Gamzee’s death does restore some peace in the hearts of the viewers, at least. Not entirely relevant but I felt it was positive. John’s been calling Vriska Jr shitty for all this time too, but she and Harry are alright characters who feel real enough to us as the reader. It’s now that we may be starting to question whether he was correct in writing off the world as his own bad fanfic. We’re questioning whether John is justified in hating Candyland as much as he does. If people care for him, if Karkat’s going to become Jesus, and if it birthed these two losers, then... is it so terrible? Maybe there’s hope?

He bumps into Rose who thanks him for everything he’s done. Rose is SO IMPORTANT here because she was the one who planted the idea he was in a fake world to begin with, and now she’s telling him even though it’s not canon, she feels happier than ever COULD in the canon world. John’s wishy washy on this. When he talks to Rose he feels optimistic, but when he gets back to his house, he’s thinking about how she just confirmed nothing matters at all.

At his house, he has a couple of surprise intruders. Turns out Jake discovered free will. John has some real talk with him. And while he’s at first negative, Jake’s infectious mood and the opportunity to give Tavros the life he deserves gives John that little push of motivation he needs to go speak to Roxy.

His chat with Roxy is the climax of Candy!John’s arc. She gives us, for the first time, a third-person perspective of depressed John. We see him how she sees him, a sad little man who appears to be blaming outside forces for problems that he isn’t willing to confront himself.

She TEARS DOWN his perception that the world is fake. She explains why she may have seemed fake and why he was a fucking fool for thinking so. She says she doesn’t CARE whether it’s canon or not, because she knows a bit of how it would’ve gone down, and it would not have been good for John or Rose. Roxy throws a great big surprise on us as the reader - she’s been dealing with gender dysphoria the whole time and overcompensating for it! Holy fuck!!! Our minds have just been blown!!!!

So the audience, and John, who have for this whole time been feeding into this depressing idea that the world is fake and it’s probably better for John to be dead than in this fake life, that everything is terrible.... Roxy’s rant makes us do one of the most amazing double-takes I’ve seen a story throw.

John..... sees light for the first time in years. He decides to take the step to work on his relationship with his family.

And then it ends.

All of this - Rose, the wedding, the kids, Jake and Tavros, Roxy - The way these make us revise our perspective on John’s depression is one of the most hopeful representations I have ever seen in media. An AMAZING turnaround for a suicidal character. They made us hyper-invested in all the bad things John’s feeling, taking advantage of our awareness he’s correct in thinking it’s fake. Taking advantage of all the nasty thought that may have crossed in our minds about the world not being real, about people acting not real, the little cells we build ourselves into...... and opening the door to a wide world with people who have had a lot going on that we’ve been blinding ourselves to.

Roxy going into how we have our whole lives ahead of us and countless years to fuck up, to discover new things, breaking down how John and Terezi think that because they hadn’t figured things out as young people they were never going to be happy....

Candy!John is an overwhelming success. Fucking KUDOS to the writers for this representation. But to get there, you have to slog through the entire thing. And there is a risk that maybe you relate to his depression, but not to how he saw through his depression. That would be for yourself to confront. For me personally, I honestly feel that this has given me a refreshing outlook. It makes me so happy to be writing about John’s turnaround after all of this analysis of his depression.

...Okay, fun’s over. Now to the depressing ending. The point where the epilogue kind of fucked up.

MEAT:

It’d be unfair for me to make you read through this with the bias that Meat is an entirely depressing resolution for two characters struggling with suicidal depression. There’s much that Meat gets right with John and Terezi. I think, however, it trips at the finish line. But how badly it tripped depends on whether you think the comic falls into the trap of suicidal depression, or just about subverts it

Let’s get into it!

John for the start of Meat is contemplating how he’s just launched himself into a bit of a suicide mission. Roxy and Calliope walk away without giving him a hug, which is... upsetting. Not sure why, if they knew he was going to die??? Legitimately makes me angry that this happened. But going back to the point - John is isolated in his fate. He does not have any friends he knows to back him up. He’s leaving the fake fake Earth C for good. John leaves notes behind for his friends. These will never be read.

Ouch. Off to a rough start already. This has the makings of an angst fic by itself.

When he’s fighting Lord English with all these other versions of his friends, he’s actually having a bit of fun. But all his friends die and you get the impression he’s very very doomed. And he gets bitten by the tooth, etc. Oh and Davepeta performs a suicide attack! Holy fuck, forgot about that! But there’s no suicidal subtext, Davepeta’s just being a martyr, so nothing interesting to dissect here.

AFTER the fight with Lord English: John just floats in space. He’s seemingly hopeless. He does not take any action to help himself, having sensed he’s got nothing to back to. But PART of this is the influence of Dirk Strider, planting thoughts in his head. Dirk wants John to stay there, until he finds Terezi. But John does challenge the depressing thoughts Dirk’s putting into his head:

Dirk’s relationship with John and Terezi’s depression has increased importance in the end chapters, but for now, it looks like he’s trying to get them to reunite. Is Dirk actually feeding their emotional dependence on each other? Even though we know they still have that dependence isolated from his influence, I get the impression he’s trying to make things unhealthy.

Either way, John has no willpower to go ANYWHERE until he finds her. John for these two chapters is drifting aimlessly, hopelessly. He’s signing himself off for martyr death.

Terezi finding John has equal meaning - she was willing to die until she bumped into him.

A mixed interpretation so far of the suicidal depression. They were both waiting to die, but the way John was going to die was so abstract that it doesn’t feel as impactful as when he was depressed in Candyland. I think this would’ve had a weaker impact on the viewership. But the moment he finds Terezi, it becomes a hopeful interpretation, and remains that way for the next few chapters.

On Meat 28 and Meat 31, they spend these chapters dealing with their suicidal depression, in particularly Terezi’s. She’s directly confronting all of those emotions, with a person she cares about that she thought she’d never see again. Terezi is still incapable of letting go. She’s still starving to death out here and refuses to return, but... she doesn’t want John to leave either. She wants him to stay. Terezi is being very foolish here, and it’s unknown how much the decision to stay escalated John’s death. It’s notable that John would rather stay here with her than go back to Earth for backup or healing, or drag her back kicking and screaming.

They’re still on the edge. They’re at what we assume to be their low point and don’t think anything matters, and they have little self preservation... but because they care about each other, John gets motivation to go back to Earth with Terezi, and she becomes concerned about his failing health.

John continues trying to get through to Terezi and convince her to go back. The below conversations takes place:

John sees hope in Terezi, because she gave him hope when he thought nothing could get worse. He values the hardass attitude she brings to the table, kicking everybody else back into gear. John thinks several times through the epilogue that if Terezi was on Earth, she would’ve stopped everyone from falling apart.

I think this is relevant because the scene in GAME OVER itself is an example of the characters finding shining hope and determination even when the narrative forces have taken a hard dump on them. It’s an important reminder here when John and Terezi are deciding whether they want to live or not.

And here’s my favourite part of the entire conversation:

John has now given TWO examples of Terezi fighting on when she just wanted to give up. And the relationship this has with the reader is Terezi’s acts of self preservation are indicators that maybe she does want to live? If she wanted to die, why would she eat fucking shaving cream--- okay maybe yes most people who want to die would try that, but in this situation she’s crazy and thinks it tastes like cream.

Because John’s giving Terezi reasons to live, she gives him an opportunity to live by performing some haphazard surgery and removing the tooth embedded in his body.

Following this, they realise their connection to each other, and consummate their relationship... in the back of his dads car.

Hooray, you cry! Terezi and John have found reasons to live - they care about each other, and as each wants the other to live, they want to survive so as not to disappoint. They’re able to connect with each other in ways they can’t connect with other characters.

AT THIS STAGE, this has an... optimistic outlook. Terezi letting go of Vriska is very very important. But you might be noticing she’s latching onto John. If it was left like this, and they went back to earth and fell in love or whatever, it might have been a happy enough resolution for two depressed characters. Not as RAW as Candy!John, but Terezi’s been through enough already that it might have been as impactful. And John’s finally getting what he wanted all throughout Candy. Cliche... but happy days. If they could’ve overcome their depression it, would’ve been fine.

.....

And then Meat 35 happens.

Soon as Dirk takes the narrative back he decides to start killing John with LE poison inside his body. John fucking dies in the middle of a love confession.

Oof!!! Well there goes any hope for John’s depression arc. But at least he was happy and canon when he died. It wasn’t as deep as Candy’s anyway, and we were expecting it. John’s death does NOT feel like a suicide, because he wants to live. So Meat!John is a mixed result for a suicidally depressed character; someone who was suicidal, but then found the will to live, and then had his life tragically taken from him.

Terezi though, Terezi who I wrote a 500 word paragraph INTRODUCING the context of her suicidal depression story, is now left with absolutely nothing. Because she had done a rebound away from dependency on Vriska, and now latched onto John, Terezi doesn’t know what she’s doing on earth. Her perspective hasn’t changed and she still thinks it’s very fake. She feels like all of her friends are embroiled in social dynamics and petty fights that exclude her. She feels like she can’t confide in anyone about the traumatic shit that she’s been through, including John’s death.

At least, that is how Dirk wants her to feel.

Terezi has a history of challenging the narrative. She rewrote the timeline with the retcons, but before then, Terezi’s spoken to people who have tried to write narrative prompts in her head. In this act of defiance, Terezi calls out Dirk for being full of shit when he tries to go into how depressed she’s feeling.

This challenge, though weak because we know Dirk’s right on the money, ends up turning this confrontation from a fully depressing one into dark comedy, not ENTIRELY unlike the scene in Candy where John’s crying over her... stains. Because Homestuck is dealing with a hopeless case, it can’t just END it like that. Terezi, despite feeling that way, refuses to allow herself to be seen as completely hopeless and gets mad at the author for reading into her like that. This is getting metatextual but the self-awareness in this conversation is an important reminder to the reader that this ultimately a story, and maybe Terezi isn’t as hopeless as Dirk’s making her out to be.

Of course, Dirk tells her that she can put an act on her whole life, and never be happy. Terezi... agrees with him, insofar as we know. Despite her challenge, she gives up on living with the Earth kids, joining the villain to create a new sburb session.

Terezi’s conversation with Roxy was dysmally depressing. However, Roxy was thinking about her and trying to get through to her. Roxy seeing through Terezi’s feelings makes me think if she’d stayed on Earth, they would’ve become friends of some kind? That would’ve been a light at the end of the tunnel. If Terezi had showed Roxy that John had died, that’d have been a massive step. But Terezi chooses isolation, leaving the planet for a new, more canonically relevant adventure.

This scene does make it seem utterly hopeless for Terezi, especially when Callie says later that while John may theoretically be revived, he will never be relevant again. So while Terezi continues to be relevant, she’ll be isolated from the TWO people she cares about most.

...There’s a flicker of hope there though. If you read Candy, there’s a scene where Vriska tries to send Terezi a sort of apology love confession. And we see Terezi recieving the messages for this!!!! But, she doesn’t read them onscreen. We don’t SEE her become aware that Vriska’s alive. And “seeing” is important. Terezi in the Epilogue is also doing some goofy shit. While life on the Dirkship is probably depressing as fuck, she’s trying to eat Metal Candy for shits and giggle despite Rose challenging her. Terezi’s personality defiantly shines through, when John dies, when Dirk wants to make her grovel, and when she’s on a ship with Robot Rose. The comic can take everything from her, but it can’t take away her goofiness. Terezi continues to live in defiance of the comic.

BACK TO HOW THIS RELATES TO DEPRESSIVE SUICIDE, How do I rate Terezi’s arc? Both in the epilogue, and across homestuck?

I get the impression the reason other characters have been able to move on from this stuff while Terezi gets dragged back into hopelessness is because of meta reasons. She’s the dark comedy, and one of the most continuously relevant characters. If things calmed down for her maybe she would be a less interesting or funny character. She’s cursed by her own relevance. Like Vriska, and John! Except instead of dying or being sucked into a new world she just continues being a bitter protagonist. But.... what Terezi’s story brings to the discussion on suicidal depression is hopelessness. The sparks of hope and self awareness presented at the end are good to remind the reader this is just a silly story, but there’s not too much light for her at any stage. Getting continuously trodden down, throwing away her own chances of happiness. Not being able to get over anything. Therefore, Homestuck fails to bring a light at the end of the tunnel for Terezi Pyrope, even after all of these years of going into this theme. Even if she has hope from Vriska, there’s the issue that she’s chasing after John like she was chasing after Vriska. Terezi’s fallen into the trap of being a character who goes around in circles with her depression arc. If you were personally invested in her getting better, you might be hurt by her presentation. The story tries to mitigate this by giving Terezi enough self awareness to poke fun at her own situation, and stop it from feeling too much like a melodramatic dragonball z angstfic like John’s. After all, Terezi would rather be tragicomic than plain tragic.

Holy fuck, this is long!!!!!! Thanks Terezi!

DAVE:

To cap off this post I wanted to do a character that did not have a direct depiction of depressive suicide, but still related back to suicidal themes and did, ultimately, kind of kill himself. Dave in the Candy timeline.

Dave goes through a lot of shit in his timeline. He’s in a terribad relationship with Jade at the start, and all of his attempts to seek advice on his own sexuality are met with opposition by... fate itself. John’s not very useful. Dirk KILLS himself.

Things go from bad to worse for Dave. He loses Karkat for good, when Karkat gets outraged at everyone for letting Jane’s bullshit slide.

Dave... does not appear suicidally depressed following this. But he is a very repressed man. And years in the future when Obama comes to offer him the choice of accepting his ultimate self form, leaving EVERYTHING behind? He takes it without a second thought. Dave is so miserable that he doesn’t give a fuck if he does, because he gets to become an awesome robot with awesome powers and memories. In the Meat! postscript, he abandons the Candy!planet to go fight the relevant fight in the new session Dirks’ overtaking.

Because of how detached this suicide is from the suicidal depictions of Dirk, John, and Terezi, it’s not easy to analyse. But I think that this would count as a mixed representation. JUST like Terezi, Dave has given up on his new world and decided to go run away for adventures elsewhere. JUST like Dirk, Dave’s let go of his individuality. UNLIKE both of them, he’s with the good guys, he has enough individuality to still be himself, he has ALLLLLLLL of the self confidence... for now, and he is already making new friends.

Unfortunately because most people IRL can’t merge their minds with epic robots, things for regular ol Candy Dave appear to have been so awful he gave it all up just like that for Obama. If it wasn’t so absurd, it would probably be depressing, and I think a lot of Dave fans who read a more depressed interpretation of his character might see this as a failure on the part of Hussie to depict light at the end of the tunnel.

Now we’re at the end of this stupidly long essay, let’s do a TL;DR:

DIRK: Hopeless depiction of character dealing with suicidal depression, when their depiction was previously more hopeful

CANDY!JOHN: Excellent representation of character overcoming suicidal depression, best in the comic by far

MEAT!JOHNL: Weak representation of character dealing with suicidal depression

TEREZI: Semi hopeless representation of character dealing with suicidal depression

CANDY!DAVE: WH4T

TAVROS: Not depressed, but symbolic of Candy’s hopeful outlook

EPILOGUE

Oh, sorry, I mean “Conclusion”. Except we can’t really call it that either. Oh you meant the ESSAY? Okay!!! Right.

The epilogue’s depiction of sucidial depression is mostly upsetting. It’s negative, with a not very hopeful outlook.

But what bits of there ARE end up being very powerful, in particular Candy!John who is the focus of this theme.

However, Terezi - the COMIC’s focus character for sucidal depression - does not get a good enough deal at the end to be seen as having much hope. The story tries to mitigate this with self awareness that it is, in fact, a story.

It does this MORE with Dirk, and Dave too. Dirk is hyper aware of his status as a fictional character. Although he kills himself, it’s not much of a suicide when he’s doing it to consolidate his influence elsewhere.

But Dirk’s depiction as a supervillain shits on a previous arc he had, where he thought he’d be better off dead than alive because he might become bad one day. Dirk was getting over this. Then the epilogue makes it look like Dirk would’ve been better off dead!!! He lost all of his individuality.

So, Dirk is the most critical failure of this theme. Terezi is a big failure but as always she’d be salvagable if there was more content. Candy!John is an overwhelming success. Tavros is a part of John’s success. Dave is in a weird place. I’d call him a failure though.

The lesson to be learnt here is that.... even though the end did some GREAT things, like Candy!John, it’s advisable to distance yourself from relating too hard to characters going through suicidal depression. If they are like Dirk or Terezi you might be feeling depressed yourself at the end.

It’s not up to the author to live up to the reader’s vision of how something should end. In this case Hussie gave hopeless endings to characters. But if you’re consuming media responsibly, you make sure you are not too sensitive to negative depictions like this, which while relatable are still the fictional musings of some dude.

It’s not fair to ask Hussie to give everyone a happy ending, if that’s not his artistic vision. We can criticise it artistically all we want, but we can’t call it unethical, not unless he’s deliberately aiming to hurt people. And despite everything, I don’t think he ever has been.

What do you think? Do you believe the epilogue team wrote a good representation of characters coming to terms with depressive suicide, or suicidal tendencies?

#homestuck #dirk strider #dave strider #terezi pyrope #john egbert #johnrezi #suicide cw

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duhragonball · 7 years ago

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I feel like I haven't as active lately, although I guess that's a matter of perspective. Work's had me busier than normal, and my sleep schedule's all fouled up from that. Right now my goal is to spend all day writing, and since there's no new episode of Dragon Ball Super to talk about, I'm gonna discuss the four Star Wars novels I re-read.

I'm a big fan of the Sith. My favorite characters in the Star Wars movies are all Sith Lords, followed by Luke, Chewbacca, Lobot, and Wat Tambor. None of that Dark Jedi crap, or whatever Kylo Ren is supposed to be. I get genuinely irritated whenever I see Sith fanart that includes Asajj Ventress, because even though I like Ventress, but she's no Sith and she never will be.

Consequently, I never had any use for the "Star Wars Expanded Universe" unless it delved into Sith lore. This didn't happen a lot, since the Sith were key players in the movies, and there were stricter editorial controls on how they could be used in the books, comics, cartoons, edible underwear, etc. The Sith would appear in a lot of other media works, but generally they didn't introduce a lot of backstory like the Prequel Trilogy did.

Fortunately, they did publish some novels in the late 2000's that scratched my itch. The Darth Bane trilogy expanded on the life of a Sith Lord mentioned very briefly in the novelization of "The Phantom Menace". In the movie, the Jedi Council initially believe "the Sith have been extinct for a millennium". When they learn otherwise, Yoda notes that there are always two Sith at a time, "no more, no less". The novelization connects these two ideas by establishing that there were once many Sith Lords in the galaxy, until a visionary named Darth Bane reformed the order by establishing the "Rule of Two". While the rest of the Sith were driven to "extinction", Bane and his apprentice, Darth Zannah, continued their order in secret, and the Sith in the movies are the inheritors of their efforts.

For a lot of years, this was all anyone really knew about Darth Bane. In 2001, there was a short story entitled "Bane of the Sith", and Dark Horse Comics published a miniseries entitled "Jedi vs. Sith", which depicted the climactic battle that saw the destruction of the old Sith order. Darth Bane was a minor player in the story. He stayed out of the fighting mostly because he had no respect for the Sith leaders, and so while they were all getting killed in the final act, he was recruiting a child to join his new order. Mostly, though, these stories simply illustrated the same basic points made in the Phantom Menace novel.

Published in 2006, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction went further than that by assembling these stories into a Bane-centric story. The author, Drew Karpyshyn, detailed the entire early life of the character, from his early adulthood as a miner, to a brief career as a sergeant in the Sith's army, to his training in the Sith Academy on Korriban, to his disillusionment with the Sith status quo. While the events of "Jedi vs. Sith" are used in the novel, Karpyshyn added the twist that Bane was secretly engineering the Sith defeat.

It's a really good read, because it does a great job establishing an anti-hero as a protagonist. Bane is one evil dude, but he also has a refreshing sincerity and pragmatism about him. He's grateful for the opportunity to learn at the Sith Academy, but when he realizes the Order's shortcomings, he refuses to compromise. His colleagues think he's wasting his time consulting old scrolls written by the ancient Sith Masters, but if you've watched the movies, you know Bane's way works, at least for a thousand years longer than the system he replaced. As cruel and malicious as Bane is, you can still root for him as a man with a vision. His opponents can't see past the ends of their noses, and that makes them more frustrating than the atrocities they commit on the battlefield.

The two sequels, Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil, mostly focus on Bane as he pioneers his new order. He trains Zannah to be his apprentice, works to accumulate as many old Sith records as possible, and tries to become as powerful as he can while Zannah tries to decide when and how to kill him and take over. Re-reading these, I realized they weren't quite as good as they were the first time, mainly because Darth Zannah doesn't have a whole lot going on. She basically agrees with all of Bane's teachings, so there's not as much conflict between them as there was between Bane and his teachers. When I finished the last book, I really wanted a sequel about Darth Zannah or her eventual successor, Darth Cognus, but now I'm not so sure it would have been worth the trouble. Bane had a messianic quality about him because he altered the course of history. He changed the game, while Zannah and Cognus were just following the trail he had already blazed for them.

This sort of brings me to the fouth book I read, Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. Published in 2012, Plagueis was sort of a spiritual successor to the Bane trilogy, as it also attempts to expand lore introduced in the Prequel Trilogy. This time, the story focuses on the "Sith legend" Palpatine shared with Anakin in Episode III. In the movie, Plagueis was used as a way to suggest that the Sith possessed the means for Anakin to save his wife from dying, and Palpatine deliberately crafts the tale to imply that Plagueis was a somewhat decent fellow who only used his dark side power to protect "the ones he cared about".

The book exposes that idea as a distortion of the truth. The only things Darth Plagueis "cares about" in the novel is himself, and his menagerie of test subjects used for his bizarre experiments. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, since Palpatine always twists the truth to suit his purposes. Besides, Darth Plagueis wouldn't be much of a Sith Lord if he didn't put himself ahead of the rest of the universe. The problem is that it's not enough to build a novel around. The key aspect of Darth Vader, for example, is that he really was a tragic, conflicted villain. He really did get into the Sith game because he had loved ones he wanted to protect, and he was brought down by this noble quality. It's that extra complexity that allows Vader to star in six whole movies.

Plagueis--at least the version provided by Luceno--has no such redeeming quality. He's just an asshole who doesn't want to die, which isn't particularly innovative as motivations go. Several other Sith Lords in the Expanded Universe pursued the same goal. The only hook to Plagueis is that he might have actually succeeded, except we already know he didn't succeed because Palpatine told Anakin that he was killed by his apprentice. So most of the book feels like an exercise in futility. Plagueis spends the entire book working on plans and projects which will be abandoned or perfected by his more charismatic sucessors. In the end, he manages to survive all the way into the events of "The Phantom Menace", which is a pretty brazen retcon, but it serves to demonstrate how he's outlived his usefulness. Even if he can cheat death, he no longer has a place among the living. He's reduced to a bit player in his own story, but Plagueis himself never really catches on to this, and it's kind of dull watching him meander through the second half of the book without a clue.

I struggled with this book the first time I read it, because Luceno seemed determined to namedrop every fictional name, place, species, or event that he could cram into the story. It sort of suits the concept of the Sith as clandestine power brokers with a hand in everything that happens, but the Sith in the movies never had to go to such lengths to get that idea across. The second read-through just confirmed my original complaint. Much of the book is an extended callback to other, unrelated EU stories. If Darth Maul hurts his arm in a comic book, you better believe Luceno mentions it in the Darth Plagueis novel, even though it has nothing to do with the plot.

The reason I'm discussing all of this on a Dragon Ball blog is because when I re-read these books, it reminded me just how much of an influence they had over the fanfic I've been writing for the past couple of years. Like the Bane and Plagueis novels, I'm trying to expand a handful of lines from one episode of DBZ into a fully realized character. In particular, I always took some cues from the way Darth Bane was a forgotten figure from a thousand years ago, but he still managed to leave a lasting legacy. And I liked how Bane was a transformative figure to the Sith, but his peers rejected him as a heretic and a fool. It nicely mirrors the way the Jedi of the prequel era failed to recognize what they were dealing with in Anakin Skywalker.

Both orders sort of adopted this mediocratic system. The Sith of Bane's early years were basically warlords, fixated on glory and honor more than the underlying principle of the dark side of the Force. They thought having lots of Sith Lords working together made them stronger, but it only encouraged individual weakness. They embraced passions, but without any overriding sense of purpose. So they'd kill and conquer and make love but they weren't really fufilling their true goals. The Jedi of Anakin Skywalker's career were obsessed with micromanaging the Force. They'd take custody of Force-sensitive beings at birth, forbid any and all attachment to the physical world, and basically do whatever they could to suppress emotionalism. This was all meant to prevent any resurgence of dark side practitioners, except this only exacerbated the problem. The Jedi never wiped out the Sith to begin with, so trying to prevent a revival of their kind was pointless. The sterile, unfeeling nature of their order probably did more harm than good.

In the same vein, I've been trying to establish the Ancient Super Saiyans as similarly transformative figures, since Goku was clearly a repudiation of all the Saiyan culture Raditz boasted about when the Saiyan race was first introduced. Like the Jedi, the Saiyans tested their people's potential from birth, and showed little tolerance for dissent or new ideas. Like the ancient Sith, the Saiyans were constantly undermining their own efforts with their infighting. A strong leader could force them to work together, but only up to a certain point. More critically, that strong leader couldn't risk letting anyone else rising to his level, which means that his political survival would necessarily be at odds with the natural evolution of his people.

I haven't really delved into this in my story yet, but I'm getting closer to it, which I guess is why I'm trying to get the idea sorted out in my head. What I've been driving at this whole time is to establish a Super Saiyan who's clearly beyond her people, but they're too stuck in their ways to appreciate it. Lord Kaan was skeptical and somewhat afraid of Darth Bane, but he couldn't really get rid of him either. Mace Windu didn't trust Anakin Skywalker, but he couldn't really do anything about it.

And that may be what's been holding me back with Luffa's conflict with the Saiyans. I need them to be able to do something about her, but that flies in the face of the analogy I've just drawn. Unlike Darth Bane, Luffa has to fizzle out, and get lost in the dustbin of history. Whatever she's trying to sell to the Saiyan people, it won't get accepted until Goku brings it back a thousand years later.

On second thought, that isn't so unlike Darth Bane after all. Something that stuck with me on my second reading was the opening scene of the Path of Destruction. Before Bane joined the Sith, he was a cortosis miner basically living out the lyrics to "Sixteen Tons". To offset his enormous debt, he would try to hustle people at card games, using his nascent Force powers to manipulate their emotions. In the book, this backfires, because he manages to win a large pot one night, but he inadvertently drives one of his opponents into a murderous rage. Bane has to kill him in self-defense, and since the dead man was in the Republic Navy, he's forced to leave the planet and join the Sith military to avoid arrest.

So while Bane had the skill and patience to win the game, he never got to collect his prize. Even if he had collected, the money would have just gone to his creditors, so it would have made no difference. At first, it seems like his joining the Sith is a sign of success and greatness, but it really isn't, at least not for him personally. Bane founded a Sith Order that went on to take over the galaxy, but Bane himself never lived to see it. For all the work he put into it, he still ended up dying on some backwater planet, which would have been his fate if he had stayed in the mines. Similarly, Darth Plagueis was trying to bend fate to his will, only for fate to bend back in turn. Even if he had accepted his obsolesence, he would have been no better off.

I suppose this is the point to being an idealist. None of these characters were planning to enjoy a peaceful retirement. They weren't even trying to accomplish great things in their lifetime. They were just following their beliefs as far as they could possibly go with them. The final outcome was irrelevant.

#/#//#///#////#/////#writing #luffa #star wars #this feels like something i should be posting to livejournal but i ain't goin' back #i figure if you stuck with the blog for six months of jojo you can handle a little star wars eu commentary #join us next week as i discuss the intracacies of early 1980's happy meal ads #no i'm kidding #or am i?#you never can tell

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suzume42 · 8 years ago

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Give me an AU and I’ll give you 5+ headcanons for it

I LIVE! Sorry for the long absence, but I’m back in the game again, hopefully. And here we are on the 5+ again! @bluebeirry requested Broly x Trunks, pregnancy and with their blessing, I’m writing it as mpreg. Sort of influenced by DBZ Abridged.

1) It happens in the future, where Broly now lives with Future Trunks and Future Bulma. Originally Future Trunks had thought to take Broly back to the future with him as a way to help preserve the peace of the past, but they’d grown closer together during the time it took for past Bulma to upgrade and expand his time machine. So when they go to the future together, it’s as a couple and they settle into a steady enough routine trying to repair and rebuild as they can. Everything goes fine for about a year, then Trunks seems to catch a bug that won’t go away. He’s tired all the time, has trouble eating, can’t seem to stand certain smells anymore, and most horrifying (to Broly), he starts routinely throwing up, typically in the mornings but also after smelling certain scents. Broly’s terrified because Saiyans never vomit, not unless they’re either deathly ill or through some other form of outside interference, like certain kinds of poison. 2) Bulma has a suspicion but doesn’t voice it. How...how could it be that? She’s trying to both gather fuel for the time machine as well as work up her courage to go back to the past herself to try and get help when Trunks actually comes up with a solution: What about Future Nappa? Surely he had to still be around, right? So she gets to work on trying to contact him and finally manages it. He’s still in America, in the ruins of California but he comes flying over at her request after getting his affairs in order. The first thing he does when he arrives is go to greet them, but once he catches a whiff of Trunks, Nappa hops back and congratulates them from a short distance, his stance that of someone trying to show they are no threat. Trunks and Bulma are confused until they realize that Broly is standing very protectively by Trunks’ side with his teeth bared in a silent snarl and his tail moving in an aggravated motion, and visibly ready to move in front of Trunks if he needs to. But...congratulations? 3) Nappa, after they get Broly calmed down and reassured that the other Saiyan isn’t a threat, clarifies it for them: Trunks is pregnant. Something seems to click for Broly but Bulma and Trunks are still so confused, so Nappa winds up having to give them essentially the Saiyan Sex Talk. Basically some male Saiyans can get pregnant and Trunks just happens to be one of those, either naturally or through some quirk of his being a half-Saiyan. Broly must have already realized it instinctively, hence his protective stance. Bulma winds up inviting Nappa to stay with them for a while and he does; he’s a good house guest and explains a lot to them. Like some of Broly’s recently strange behavior, which is basically him establishing and maintaining a territory both to mark it as his own as well as to ensure a safe area for Trunks and their child. As well as stockpiling, which Bulma had been wondering about when Broly started to bring back several large dinosaurs and other large meat animals, but hey, who was going to turn down food in this world? Especially with two Saiyan stomachs to fill (even if both Trunks and Broly are comparatively light eaters to other Saiyans)! 4) He leaves after a week, but sets up a communication link with Bulma if they need to get in touch with him again. And...well, life goes on and they get ready for the incoming baby. Trunks and Broly have a few fights on what Trunks can and can’t do, which, uh, winds up with Broly spending a few cold nights on the couch, but they eventually settle on a system that seems to work. And now that they know he’s pregnant, so much seems obvious now, like Trunks’ hoarding of sheets and blankets and pillows (to create a legit nest with) and even more especially Trunks’ recent obsession with drinking some unusual brand of strawberry-kiwi soda that he somehow keeps finding whenever they go out to shop and/or forage. Broly tried it once and....it really wasn’t to his taste....nope. Though they do wind up with another fight (really more Trunks just yelling at Broly) when Bulma repairs some of the Capsule Corps’ medical tech enough to give Trunks a full check up and it reveals that he’s carrying twins. Broly looks pole-axed for days when Trunks tells him and Nappa thought Bulma was joking when she told him; he’s the one to clarify to her that twins are rather rare for Saiyans and so are often taken for a lucky omen. 5) They do have some trouble at points but the biggest issue was with some bandits that tried to raid their home. The bandits had heard about the stockpile of food, both through people seeing Broly carrying his kills back to their home and from all the trading he and Bulma had been doing to get other necessary items. It....it doesn’t end well for them....not at all and Trunks has to spend hours calming Broly down afterwards. Bulma immediately gets to work on rebuilding and strengthening the old defense system that used to be in place at her home, before the androids. It’s not much compared to a Saiyan’s might, but it clearly gives everyone some extra peace of mind once it comes online. Though now more cautious, they continue to focus on getting things ready for the incoming babies. Bulma’s the one to notice Trunks growing his hair out and is curious about it until one day she walks in on him and Broly snuggled together on the couch for a nap, with Broly’s tail holding gently onto Trunks’ now elbow length loose braid and it clicks. She says nothing about it but does go out of her way to get him more hair ties and the like. 6) They’d wondered about the length of the pregnancy. Saiyans only carry for about seven months, but humans carry for nine and Bulma only carried Trunks for about eight months. So they were wary when seven months passed and were more or less ready when Trunks’ water broke about two weeks later. He goes through about fourteen hours of hard labor before finally the twins are born. Broly and Bulma help Trunks through it, even if in Broly’s case it mostly meant letting Trunks nearly break his hand and yell at him a lot. But finally the twins are born and everything starts to settle down. It’s a pair of girls; they both have full heads of dark purple shaggy hair and soft, fluffy dark purple tails.When they open their eyes, it’s show they have the same shade of crystal blue as Trunks and Bulma; Bulma cracks an admittedly lame joke about the Briefs’ genes being strong, but it gets a laugh from Trunks and a smile from Broly so she counts it as a win. The older girl is named Beryl and the younger girl is called Plumeria; Berry and Plum for short. 7) Broly’s not too good with them at first, overly jumpy at their cries and clearly nervous about holding them but he soon settles into place and becomes a dedicated father. Nappa is later named an honorary Uncle, to his obvious joy, and he’s clearly set on spoiling the girls. 8) Zamasu and Goku Black stand no chance. Absolutely not a one.

#broly x trunks #broly/trunks #broly x princess trunks #mpreg #tw: vomit #long post #Broly #Broly the Legendary Super Saiyan #future trunks #bulma #future bulma #5 headcanons #i had too much fun wit this

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comic-movieheroesranked · 7 years ago

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Cinematic Comic Characters Ranked! (Year 2009) Part Three

It’s rough coming right after a fantastic year of movies (2008) but 2009 did pretty well for itself. Terminator Salvation is our only sequel and we also get an X-Men spinoff with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Kids favorite shows come out with Astro Boy, Dragonball: Evolution, and G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, and we got a couple of thrillers with Whiteout and Surrogates. We also get the debut of the controversial Watchmen! Let’s get started with numbers #40-21!

*SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL HIGHLIGHTED MOVIES ABOVE*

40. President Stone/Peacekeeper (Astro Boy)

"Declare war! This is gonna get me re-elected."

How did this guy even get elected in the first place? He's an idiot who thought the only way to stay in power was through violent technology. It's his arrogance that gets Toby killed and it's his arrogance that puts the whole city in danger when he still decides to use the red core energy. He ends up getting absorbed by the Peacekeeper and starts a city-wide battle with Astro that only ends when Astro sacrifices himself and connects the two cores. Stone is then arrested by his own men and taken away.

39. Delfy (Whiteout)

"They don't make them like that anymore."

Delfy was just a regular pilot who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. He's the one who first discovers Weiss's body out on the ice and contacts Carrie. Afterwards, she makes him her personal pilot as she sets up an investigation. This new job ends up nearly killing him twice: Once when he gets buried under fifty feet of snow with the others inside the Russian plane, and another when Haden breaks out and stabs him. He recovers and ends up bonding with Pryce and Carrie for six months until the winter is over.

38. Abel Shaz/Breaker (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"Is that Double Bubble?"

Although he isn't the only brains on the team, if anyone needs advice on technology, Breaker is your guy. I will always enjoy the member of the squad who understand gadgets like no one else can yet doesn't truly understand most jokes that said. With the nanobite warheads being the most dangerous pieces of technology known to man, Breaker comes in handy in helping the team stop Cobra from bringing whole cities down.

37. Agent Zero (X-Men Origins: The Wolverine)

"It's funny how innocent people tend to die around you!"

For some reason Wolverine and Agent Zero DID NOT get along with each other. Everyone would be joking along with everyone else then all of a sudden they're both threatening to kill each other. The years after Logan leaves Stryker's team doesn't cool off the tension because those two are ready to pop off again when they reunite. It's a pointless rivalry though because we all knew Logan would come out on top, and it's not because he's the main character either. I mean, yeah, Zero is really good when it comes to shooting bullets and jumping over high fences but bullets don't do anything to Wolverine especially once he gets the adamantium in his skeleton. So when the two clash, Agent Zero ends up exploding in a helicopter and Logan...remains unharmed.

36. Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre (Watchmen)

"I don't hate him because he gave me you."

The original Silk Spectre and one of the few remaining heroes alive from the Minutemen. Sally Jupiter is retired now and totally missing the game, so much that she trains her daughter to be the next Silk Spectre. She reminds me so much of those pageant moms that now live through their daughter's lives to fill young again. Although I'd really like to know why, it's never really explained, only assumed, why Sally goes back to sleep with The Comedian, who tried to rape her previously. The result of their one night stand is Laurie, who ends up coming to terms with it by the time she finds out and confronts Sally about it.

35. Chi-Chi (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Just because my name is Chi-Chi doesn't mean I'm an idiot."

I liked Chi-Chi and I'm pretty sure the only reason why they didn't have her in the movie more was because they knew I'd rank her higher than Goku if they did. I mean if I were in the group hunting Dragon Balls I would have totally added her in once I saw her fighting skills but it never happens. Instead we just see her every time we need someone to flirt with Goku.

34. Maggie Greer (Surrogates)

"It's better this way."

Maggie is Greer's wife and together they lost a son before surrogates became globally used. This causes her to mourn in a unique way where she locks herself in her own room and just lives her life through her surrogate. Even though she cares for Greer, she ignores the distance between them instead for the new fun life she has as a surrogate. When the surrogates are destroyed, she almost kills herself but ends up connecting with her husband again in their child's old room.

33. Dr. Bill Tenma (Astro Boy)

"You're still my son."

It took me a very long time to like Tenma, and I was starting to believe that he was a lost caused until he pulled through in the end. First he completely ignores Toby when he was alive, treating him like a unbothered teacher would a student instead of a father, then goes into a huge depression after he dies. Because of this, he creates Astro, a robot version of Toby but then completely abandons him shortly after and then aids President Stone in capturing him and shutting him down. It isn't until after he removes the core from Astro that he finally accepts him as his son, returning the core and bringing him back to life.

32. Goku (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Kamehameha!"

With Dragon Ball being a Japanese anime I was glad that there was a lot of Japanese influence in the movie. The setting, the background actors, even some of the core cast but you know who wasn't? GOKU! Like I don't understand the reasoning as to why they thought casting a white guy as Goku would be a great idea when Grandpa Gohan was clearly Asian! But besides that, Goku was lame! He wasn't exciting to watch, which is a huge shame because I loved the watching the show with my older brother when I was little.

31. Bulma (Dragonball: Evolution)

"Everybody has a price."

Bulma was my favorite in the movie. I loved the guns, loved how she handled herself with the boys, and loved all her cool technology that basically was the reason they got around (her compact motorcycle) and found the Dragon Balls (Her D.P.E.). Her interest with Yamcha was fun and flirty and when it came down to business she was ready to help any way she can. She definitely should have been Asian, but at least her character wasn't as bad as Goku's.

30. William Stryker (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"Welcome to the war."

Our mutant-hating government official is back and now we get to see how his connection with Logan came to be. On a mission to create the strongest mutant weapon for the government, Stryker creates a team of mutants, including Logan and Victor, to hunt down adamantium. When this costs the lives of innocents, Logan's out, which is bad business for Stryker since Logan's he key to his secret weapon. He creates an elaborate plan, staging the death of Logan's girlfriend, Kayla, and pinning him against Victor to bring him back so he can put the adamantium inside him and successfully create, Weapon X. Of course, everyone that's a mutant figures out he's playing them all and his plans go down the drain with the death of Weapon XI. His adamantium bullets are what cause Logan to lose his memories and they're eventually what kill Kayla, but not before she can control his mind and send him away for good...at least until he turns up again.

29. Cora (Astro Boy)

"Didn't your nanny-bots teach you not to sneak up on people?"

Cora accidentally ran away from Metro City to the surface world where she becomes a sort of leader to the orphan kids Hamegg takes care of. She's the first one to discover Astro and quickly befriends him and he proves he's a kind person. She's the only one who feels betrayed when it's revealed he's actually a robot, but she quickly gets over it and helps him save Metro City from President Stone. After everything is done, she's even able to reunite with her parents.

28. Edward Blake/The Comedian (Watchmen)

"This is a joke. This is all a joke."

The biggest asshole in this movie BY FAR. Like even though everyone had their faults and definitely weren't saints, The Comedian was straight up a bully working for the government. In his worst moments, he beats the shit out of citizens protesting, attempts to rape the original Silk Spectre, and ends up murdering a Vietnamese woman carrying his child! For some reason he suddenly cares about being a father when he wants to get to know his other daughter, Laurie, but ends up just drinking his life away until Adrian shows up to murder him. Even though he dies in the beginning of the movie, his bad punchline of a life haunts everyone throughout the film.

27. Wade Wilson/Deadpool/Weapon XI (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"You whip out a couple of swords at your ex-girlfriend's wedding, they will never, ever forget it."

Wade Wilson is very conflicting because even though he's missing his signature costume, he was absolutely spot on when he worked on Stryker's team. He's deadly with the sword, has the same healing abilities as Logan, and will never shut his mouth. Then things got weird. Somehow Stryker is able to gain control over Deadpool and turn him into everything he's not by giving him powers of previous mutants Victor has either killed or kidnapped. Mouth sewn shut, Deadpool becomes Weapon XI and is such a threat it takes both Wolverine and Sabretooth to take him down.

26. Kate Connor (Terminator Salvation)

"I'm a doctor, not an engineer."

I don't know why, but I kind of expected Kate to have a bigger role? Not that being one of the only doctors in the resistance isn't important, because it is, but I always thought she would be like what Barnes was, a second in command. Still, she was fiercely loyal to her husband and was his support when he needed her. He especially needed her towards the end of the film, as it was her hands that operated on him to save his life.

25. Dr. Lionel Carter (Surrogates)

"My son's death will not have been in vain. Not if it heals mankind."

Lionel Carter created surrogates because he wanted people with disabilities, like himself, to live a better life then his partners and company took it to a global scale and by 2017, ninety-eight percent of the world population used a surrogate for basic every day activities. After his son dies for being mistaken for him, Lionle decides enough is enough. Using all his resources he gets a hold of the weapon that killed his son to return the favor to the man responsible. He also creates the ultimate virus that will destroy all the surrogates and kill everyone attached to them. Thinking his plan will never fail, Lionel takes a cyanide pill before seeing his plan come to life.

24. Dr. John Fury (Whiteout)

"I never meant for anyone to get hurt, but Haden got greedy."

I'm not gonna lie, I felt some type of way when it was revealed Doc was working with Haden to smuggle the diamonds. He probably had the closest relationship with Carrie and their personal conversations were some of my favorite scenes in the movie so when it turns out he was working with Haden, the guy who cause Carrie to lose two of her fingers, I was shocked. I guess the silver lining is that once he was caught he didn't fight it. He explained why he did it then walked outside to the deadly snow storm, killing himself.

23. Ana Lewis/The Baroness (G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra)

"Do it. You already killed me once."

I'm so glad it was revealed that Ana was being brainwashed to act as The Baroness the whole time because I just could not accept her willingly participating in the death of millions all because Duke disappeared after her brother's death. No one is that dramatic. Still, as The Baroness she was a force to be reckoned with. She killed all of the men in Duke and Ripcord's old unit, gave Scarlett her first fight, and she helped nearly destroy Paris. Good thing for the Joe's that Duke's gorgeous puppy-dog face broke her out of her mind control and she was able to free him and help stop her evil brother once and for all.

22. Dr. Elefun (Astro Boy)

"Everybody has their destiny, Toby."

Out of all the older males in the film, I truly believe that Dr. Elefun cared the most about Astro. He never saw him as just a robot that can be used for his own personal gain (President Stone, Hamegg) and he definitely didn't think he was a mistake that needed to be destroyed (Dr. Tenma). He really took his time to get to know and bond with Astro, who was still trying to come to terms with himself. I think in the future Elefun will morph into a huge father figure to Astro.

21. Remy Lebeau/Gambit (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

"You miss me?"

Gambit has been the mutant everyone wanted to see on the big screen ever since the first X-Men came out. He's always nearly made it in the previous films but was cut out at the last minute. Well now he's here and he was a little bit of a let down. He wasn't horrible but he had such a minor role. He's a mutant that escapes Stryker's island before going back to his thief lifestyle in New Orleans. His fight with Logan was cool because we saw his signature staff and kinetically charged deck of cards, but after that he just remains in the background. He takes Logan to the island then is the first one to talk to him after he loses his memory, going his own way shortly after.

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