#the dumpster fire on the characters made me worried about this arc

[bettycreeper]

Is there hope for Bughead ever again, you think?

Yikes, my dude. I know it’s bad out there when my ask box gets hit up, because flat out this never happens. I’m not going to lie to you. It’s been a lot of trash. I full on made the final gif in this set orange, because season 5 was the dying embers of a dumpster fire. It’s more insulting & utterly infuriating to know there WAS an actual reunion arc in place that they just…stopped, in one episode. We all saw it. 🙃

Sorry not sorry. Jughead fucking Jones of “Oh, I'm always hungry, yeah. In times of crisis, some people lose their appetite. But me, mine increases tenfold,” fame could not EAT because he was so worried about Betty in episode 16 & then went, “naaaaah. She good. Thank you , next,” in 18 when her sister died. In the court of public bullshit this is at the tippy top of the stack. (As you can see, I MIGHT have some remaining anger over everything. Very possible.)

I’m going to guess your question is specifically related to all the “teases” for 6x01 that have come out? & how Betty is supes chill about J*bitha! J*bitha move in together! Everyone is fiiiiine about B*rchie! In fact, they’re going to have a demon baby & it’s totes normal! Everything is as it should be! Ima let Vanessa & Lili help out with this one actually, because only in an “alternate dimension” or “a different universe” would any of that happen. & If a show needs to take characters to a different reality, where they aren’t wholly themselves, to even try & play at some dynamics working, it’s pretty clear it’s because they don’t work in the real one. Straight up, they’re not going to work in this one either. In five years of this show, nothing has ever been described this wholesome & idyllic. NOTHING. I’d place money on rolling in at episode start with everything being what appears to be a dreamland, until WHOOPS. It fucks around & we all find out the town’s actually more Cursed™ than it usually is... & how that transfers to these pairings. Welcome to Rivervale, where everyone is at best only slightly out of character, but our eyes & ears will seemingly burn for so much of it.

This is all a really long way of saying, Yes. I definitely have hope for Bughead. Betty Cooper almost got strangled to death & sprinted over to save Jughead, because he’s STILL her priority. Jughead Jones gave up on life in the (Rat King’s) tunnel until he saw the visage of Betty, & seeing her gave him the will to get up & get out. The actual gasp that left my mouth at their Gazing in 17. Hoooo. Look, in order to keep Betty & Jughead apart now or even talking again, they’ve literally made them into different characters. I feel like that speaks volumes, no?

[saby-chan]

Why the ATLA comics fail when it comes to Zuko and his family

To whom ever took their time to actually stop and read this post, thank you in advance for not skipping my post and willing to stay and read my humble opinion! I hope I won’t disappoint you!

As a relatively newcomer to the ATLA fanbase since 2020, I’ve come across a lot of interesting debates, comments and rants about the show, characters and fandom in general, but nothing has captivated me as much as the dumpster-on-fire that are the ATLA comics, more specifically: The Promise and The Search. 

On one hand we have the hardcore fans who want them to be animated or serialized into the Netflix live action, praising the comics for the new views and subject matters they’ve brought into the show’s lore, while on the other hand we have the furious Azula fandom who is really angry for the fact that best girl didn’t get the redemption arc she rightfully deserved so much after the painful event that was the Last Agni Kai and the even more angry fans of the Urzai ship (yeah, the people who actually ship Zuko’s parents unironically) who hated the retconning of the show’s cannon since the comics basically took a huge fat dump on what was previously established as official cannon, when the Search entered the scene, but between these two sides, who has the more valid point? In the end, are the comics good cannon or bad written fanfiction?

Well... Here are my two cents on this matter since I myself happen to be an Azula and Zuko fan and had huge expectations from these comics (since I wanted more from my fave hot-headed fiery siblings duo) but ended up disappointed: the comics are indeed a huge mess and actually bad written fanfiction when it comes to Zuko and his family! Don’t click off yet, because I actually documented the reasons why exactly the comics fail in this area:

1. The author of these comics is not part of the BryKe duo

Yes, I would like to start with the fact that if you actually take a second to look up who in the heck took the time to write these two books, you won’t find Bryan, nor Mike, but a fellow man named Gene Yang. This is important because while the wiki of both The Promise and The Search state BryKe as the creators, that doesn’t mean that they were the actual minds behind these comics, but rather because ATLA is their “baby” and these comics involve their characters, over which they have copyright. Mr. Yang here is the actual brain behind the plot, as the main writer, which explains why we find huuuuge inconsistencies between the show lore and the comics, especially Zuko wise.

My main issue with Mr. Yang isn’t that he isn’t BryKe specifically, but because he did an unforgivable mistake in his writing process: He projected himself into Zuko’s character, based on the relationship Zuko had with his father. This is a documented fact from an interview in which he explains that he sees himself and his dad’s relationship into Zuko and Ozai and used that when writing their interactions and built Zuko’s character in the comics. And this is wrong because when you have an already very developed and complex character such as Zuko, you can’t just come in and be like “Oh, I was an angsty teen just like him in my teenage years, fighting with my dad and whatnot, so he must have the same thought process as me!”. NO! This is bad fanfiction writer behavior! Zuko has his own personality and philosophy, which he developed over the course of 3 seasons and is not defined by only 1 unfortunate aspect of his past, so you can’t just base his whole mindset and actions off of your own personal experience just because you had the same daddy issues he had!

2. The whole “Promise that you will kill me if I turn out like my dad!” nonsense in The Promise

Reason number 2 why these comics fail and go under the category of “bad fanfiction” is because they fail to convey the core essence of the source material. The whole point of Zuko’s redemption was that he realized the wrongdoings of his ancestors and his own mistakes. He outgrew his desire of gaining his father’s acknowledgement in favor of choosing his own destiny. Having him worry that he’ll turn into his father is utter nonsense and feels like poor angsty drama material for the sake of angst. At this point in time, Zuko has overcame that obstacle in his life a long time ago and should be at the level where he himself is the “Uncle Iroh” for other people and in no way someone concerned of becoming their own worst enemy!

Not only that, but the whole point of Aang’s journey and the story of the show as a whole was to teach us, the viewers, the importance of forgiveness, empathy and love in life. Aang didn’t spare Ozai, aka “the ultimate evil” just to flex in front of his pals or because he is a “ 12 y/o vegan pacifist monk kid”, but because he knew that killing someone, no matter of what they did or wanted to do, wouldn’t restore balance into the Universe, on the contrary, him killing the villain would have meant perpetuating the “endless cycle of hate” that plagued the world. So having Aang promise to kill his best friend in case “they turned into an evil maniac like their dad” contradicts Aang’s whole character and it’s a nonsense that throws into the trash what we’ve learnt throughout the entire TV series.

3. Azula deserved (and was supposed) to have a redemption ark

This might still be pure speculation, but I count it as a documented reason because I’ve heard quite a few people saying that there should’ve been a book 4 in the show, aka “Book 4: Air”, and no, it wasn’t The Search, but actually Zuko and Azula’s journey as Zuko helps his younger sister heal her broken mind by being her very own “Uncle Iroh”. Sure, they prolly were going to end up looking for Ursa, but the journey should’ve ended with them actually being happy and a family again and not the bs we got in The Search where a still very unstable Azula runs away and becomes the “Next Joker”! The only problem is that M. Night had to pop up and curse the world with his movie, which forced BryKe to delay the project (and eventually abandoned it in favor of Korra).

All in all, either if BryKe had this preplanned or not, it made sense for Azula to get a redemption ark, she deserved it because she was just a broken 14 y/o child! If Katara’s mom’s murderer deserved to be forgiven, so did this poor child who had no fault for what happened to her since she had a dysfunctional family! What Gene Yang did in his poorly written fanfiction was to just antagonize a broken child, turning her into a monster for the sake of friggin angst!

4. The Search is the worst of the two, being flat af character wise

And finally, getting to the point that I personally find the most annoying about these comics: The Search. This one... This one is a mess on a hella lot many levels, and just to list a few: characters are flat as fudge, being either black as vanta black (like Ozai and Azula) or pure white like Gene’s Gary Stue OC, Mr Ikem (or how I like to call him, IKEA man) and his ‘victim’ rendition of Ursa, Azula gets to suffer more for no reason (see reason number 3 to why I find this as a no no), Ursa’s whole character sucks ass (man, I could write a whole thesis on why Yang’s version of her is terrible and doesn’t match the strong woman we got in the show) and Zuko does morally wrong stuff (my man literally used his unstable sister to bribe their dad into spitting info about Ursa... Show Zuko would never do that!;-;)

Oh boy, as a person who’s seen a ton of anime and other media and read many books, I can’t begin on how much I despise this type of writing: flat characters are the worst!

 ATLA characters in the show are nothing close to being flat! What I mean by that is that none of them fall perfectly into pure white (aka goodest of good characters with no imperfections) or vanta black (aka lowest and darkest twisted monsters out there), each of them are various shades of grey (like Aang who is a very light grey because despite being a very kind and nice character, he still isn’t a “perfect hero” since he ran away from his duties, practiced tax fraud with Toph, had insecurities and even threatened to kill people on ocassions like with the sand benders who took Appa) and this is a good choice because that prevents them from becoming what’s globally known as Mary Sues and Gary Stues (aka those either “perfect” characters with no flaws and/or unlimited power, or the twisted monsters full of flaws).

And the other reason why many other people hate The Search: it literally negates previously established cannon. And here comes my short essay on why this comic fails Zuko’s family (since we’ve already talked enough about Zuko himself).

In cannon and even interviews with BryKe, it was clearly stated that Zuko’s family was “once happy”. Where is this “once happy” family in The Search? All I see is pain, deception, lies and betrayal, nothing close to anything that resembles happiness. Okay, some of you might come in and say that “It’s because it was never the case! It was only lies and Zuko trying to convince himself that he didn’t live in hell forever!” and here is WHERE YOU WERE ALL WRONG! And why? Because, my dear fella, where were depicted the flashbacks of Zuko’s “happy family” in The Beach? Ember Island. And what do we know and had been even quoted in the show?  "Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you." (direct quote from the show). Exactly, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t hide your true self when you are on the Ember Island, best example being Azula, who’s impenetrable though shell cracked and revealed the true vulnerable child that was underneath. If Azula couldn’t resist the “spell of the island”, no one can. So this means that Zuko’s family was indeed happy once and yes, Ozai wasn’t always the douchebag we got to know in Season 3 (I have a whole nother essay on my theories regarding what could be his real past story and why he’s actually the “Zuko” of his generation, based on stuff I gathered from old wiki entries and character analyses I made, but that’s for another time, lemme know if ya’ll are interested).

And what I guess is the biggest proof why The Search did this family’s past trash is comics Ursa herself. My dude, if this woman were indeed the victim of years of endless abuse and never loved her husband, I guarantee you that she would’ve been closer to what we saw in Todoroki’s mom from BNHA and Zuko would’ve gotten that scar or even worse long before the Agni Kai, not from his “daddy dearest”, but from “mommy dearest” herself, because no sane woman would be soo affectionate and attached to a child that’s the perfect copy of their abuser, sepecially appearance wise (again see Todoroki’s mom’s case from BNHA because the stories are really similar) and in no way would’ve she been willing to sacrifice her life for said child’s sake. With this ocassion, I remind ya’ll folks that according to the ancient ATLA cannon wikis on Nick’s site, Ozai was designed with Zuko’s appearance in mind, being meant to be like a “grown up scarless version” of Zuko. So yeah, remember this with a grain of salt that whenever you simp over grown up Zuko, you involuntary simp for Ozai too.

So yeah, I guess this kinda concludes my “not so short” rant about why the comics fail and are bad fanfiction. Lemme hear your thoughts in the comments and if you agree, feel free to leave a like and even reblog.

Bye bye and remember that Momo is the true strongest character of the show!

 Saby out.

[putonmyfavoriteshow]

I finished s1 of Violetta and here are my hot takes on the characters after 80 episodes:

Tomás - Worst character, good riddance. They try to make him the “nice guy” but he’s so often the opposite. He treats all the girls poorly and is just so immature and dumb. And at his best is just dull - no real charisma.

León - I have a soft spot for the guy, and I do root for Leonetta. I thought he was a really good bf to Vilu, but he really needed to reign in the jealousy and competitiveness with Tomás. I worry for how they develop his character bc he has potential but unless your name is Manuel I don’t trust main DCLA love interests. I’m bummed this is the end of piano man León since I hear he switches to guitar. Still, I’m excited for more songs because Jorge has one of my fave voices in the show.

Andrés - He’s so dumb but man does he make me laugh.

Maxi - This boy is a mess but is very lovable. His style is really iconic. Sometimes his love life was too much of a dumpster fire for me but he and Naty made a very cute couple. Unfortunately, they also have a lot of problems - Ludmi being the biggest lol

Naty - Soft, angel baby who deserves the world; top tier character; would die for. I’m glad she found love with Maxi but my preferred ship is probably Luty if Ludmi would only treat her how she deserves. I also need her to finally shine in performances. She kept getting parts that ended up being replaced by Vilu or thwarted by Ludmi! Don’t tease me show!

Luca - He sure was there lol, though I did enjoy his relationship with Fran - he’s a good big bro even if he’s not always showing it in the best way. His voice was a nice surprise.

Bracco - My tall boy! I will miss this cute man and his silly bear metaphors.

Napo - Bracco’s short bf! I’ll miss him being the only one with full access to brain cells. Always standing up for people and what was right. His brotp with Naty is highly underrated. He went from competing with her to be Ludmi’s assistant to sticking up for her against Ludmi :’)

Fede - He was a very weird and confusing character. I get he was against lying which is a good thing but he was super annoying about it lol. Far different from Matteo tho which was interesting to see from Ruggero. I hope when he returns I like him more. I wish he never had a crush on Vilu bc their friendship was really sweet. Intrigued how Fedemilla will become a thing

Vilu - I really thought I wouldn’t like her but she’s really a sweetheart, a bit indecisive and foolish at times but only in a very normal teenager way. I think she handles her father well because tbh he’s usually in the wrong. And even to her love interests, she stands her ground quite a bit which I appreciate. I think the show treats her too much like a goddess but she herself is humble and kind. Also her voice really is all the show hypes it up to be. I really love it.

Fran - My favorite from the beginning, and her character arc through the season was my favorite - that final speech to Vilu said it all about how unimportant Tomás really is in the grand schemes of things. Another voice I never get tired of hearing. I think she really goes above and beyond for her loved ones and deserved some love in return. I also adore her friendship with Vilu. I can’t help but ship them bc they just scream soulmates (I could make a whole other post).

Cami - She’s really all over the place this season. I did feel bad for her on some occasions and understand her desire to prove herself, but a lot of times she just comes off as an incessant complainer. I hope she improves or they just write better stories for her that showcase her flaws in a way that helps her overcome them. I love Franletta but it’s a shame that Fran/Vilu gradually become closer making her an obvious third wheel. So I’m excited that she and Ludmi/Naty will get closer later on.

Broadway - I almost forgot to include him which says a lot about his character unfortunately.

Ludmilla - She’s completely over the top and looney which can be entertaining but I’m looking forward to some real character development from her. I know most of that happens in s3 so will be excited when that happens. She needs to admit that Naty is more than just her assistant. Shes far too conceited atm but I think Naty means a lot more to her than she lets on.

Germán - OMG get help!

Angie - I have mixed feelings. I love her love for Vilu. She and Pablo are great. Germangie is just a whole mess and she handles it poorly and I agree with Pablo most of the time regarding her lying problem.

Ramallo - The only man on this show with rights

Olga - Extra in the best ways - however I do think she really should be more respectful of Ramallo’s personal space

Jade - GIVE THIS WOMAN AN EMMY. She always delivers. Also I think genuinely could have some proper development if they allowed for it.

Mati - Parkour! I love his crazy zany physical comedy. Both he and Jade are just an amazing comedic duo.

Pablo - I still can’t believe this is the same guy that’s Nina’s dad. He’s reminds of a good version of Mr.Shue lol. He’s a great head of the studio and I love how he unites everyone. I wish he and Angie stood a real chance but he accepts that shes in love with German even when she won’t and it makes me emotional. Except he can be too jealous at times and lash out at her unfairly.

Beto - What a lovable klutz and even tho I hate Tomás, the way he mentored him and took him under his wing was absolute preciousness.

Gregorio - A highly entertaining antagonist. Another outstanding comedic performer. And the true range this actor has from this role to Rey in Soy Luna.

S2 here I come - please give me good new characters and don’t destroy the ones I love and improve on ones who need it 🙏🏼 Amen

[allisoooon]

Klaus, Addiction, and CodeBendency Part Nine: What About the Future?

Moving forward into season three, I think Klaus’ season two arc will unlock a lot of positive changes! It may get ugly first—it will almost definitely get ugly first—but languishing as a dry drunk in early season two left him in a place where he’d plateaued, and it wasn’t a good plateau to be stuck on.

The Ben we’re familiar with has passed on (which is why this post is mostly about Klaus) and as much as we wish Sparrow Ben were a replacement goldfish, he’s going to come with his own history and his own set of issues.  He won’t give a shit about his Umbrella siblings.  And if anyone’s going to take that hard, it’s going to be Klaus (but let’s be real, they’ll all take it hard).

Still, ultimately, it’s an exciting development for Klaus as a character.  He and Ben treated each other poorly for a long time, figuring they’d always make up eventually—only now, there are no more second chances.  The mistakes Klaus made with Ben are mistakes he will have to live with for the rest of his life.  And with so many things Klaus is going to have to live with for the rest of his life, he may collapse under the weight of them all.

 Credit: I could not find the maker of this gif.  If it’s yours, let me know. 

All the Hargreeves siblings have had difficulty keeping themselves upright without a strong-willed person in their lives taking most of the weight.  It makes me think of what a local said when I went to Germany and she was talking about the end of soviet socialism in Berlin, how there were so many people who went decades without having to worry about taking care of themselves that when the Iron Curtain fell, they had no idea what to do. That’s what’s going on here.

How do you think they keep attracting Reginald-substitutes?  And by that I don’t mean they act like Reginald, I mean they take Reginald’s place as the person who gives them meaning and direction in life without actually fulfilling any emotional needs they have.  Luther has Jack Ruby for a short time, during the only time in his life when he doesn’t have his dad.  Diego attached himself to Patch, an opinionated woman who is a lot less attracted to him than he is to her, who clearly has different stakes in their relationship than he does.  When he loses her, he immediately goes for a woman who is actively violent to him (and I love Lila, but she has no idea what a healthy expression of affection looks like).  Allison had Claire, who is a small child and therefore incapable of providing Allison with an emotional crutch—and when she didn’t, Allison mind-controlled her to turn her into a daughter who made her feel better about herself (but she’s been becoming independent ever since).  Five morphed himself into his own Reginald-substitute, which has made him the most independent of the family, but he’s never learned any kinder way of treating anyone since his distant Academy days, not even himself.  Vanya’s eventual foray out of self-isolation led her straight to Leonard, who was controlling even when he was somewhat kind (she, too, has done well becoming independent since then).

Klaus and Ben have been each other’s Reginald-substitute since they walked away from Reginald however long after Ben’s death.  As a dumpster fire of a person, Klaus gave Ben a project to work on, a person he could help, while Klaus got someone who kept him putting one foot in front of the other even when he didn’t listen.  And now, Klaus has no Reginald-substitute propping him up.

This in itself isn’t a good thing, because the first thing Klaus will want to do is find someone to fill that void, and who he finds next may not be as interested in his well-being as Ben was.  The absolute most terrifying thing when you’re facing this situation is realizing that the person you’re trying to replace (Reginald, in this case) is obsolete in your life, as toxic and wretchedly habitual as the substances you became addicted to.  Reginald is heroin, Ben is methadone, and now Klaus has three options: find another abuser, find another codependent, or learn how to be independent.  Independence is his only route to having healthy relationships, and trust me when I say learning to be independent as an adult survivor of narcissistic abuse is the scariest thing he will ever do, especially if his struggles include emotional dysregulation (which would make sense, given how desperately he avoids negative feelings; he probably has CPTSD, a type of PTSD that comes from repeated trauma such as abuse, but even without, the bullshit he went through during his teens in particular would have cut down on his time to develop healthy emotion regulation).

But he will also have his family there with him, and they know what this is like.  Luther, in fact, is no further along his journey than Klaus is, thanks to having his eyes opened so recently.  That at least would give him emotional support if he was ready for it.

Thing is, I don’t think he’s there yet.  I think this will get way worse before it gets better.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Klaus started using drugs again.  He got sober and, for a time, he felt better. His addictive behavior transferred to the worship he got from his cult, but it was still a better life than he had with the drugs.  The second he decides his life is back to a shitty enough point that he may as well start using again, he’ll start using again, and that might be very soon.  He’s already relapsed with alcohol, and hey, stupid Ben left him behind and isn’t here to nag at him about it, so why not get high to stick it to the one person he thought he could always count on? Wouldn’t it be nice to get high without the nagging?

Often what comes with something like this is also an increase in…well, we may want to brace ourselves for Klaus becoming even more of an asshole.  This isn’t because he’s a bad person or less complex than before.  It’s just a way of pushing people away. Still, if that’s where he goes, I hope it’s done tastefully and sensitively so it doesn’t look like they’re painting all addicts as bad people.  I think the main trick will be keeping him vulnerable.

If he does start using drugs again, that doesn’t mean the last three years didn’t happen for him—it means the next step in his journey is going to hurt.  But the lessons learned from grave mistakes are ones that stick with us longer.  Hitting rock bottom often lands people on a road to true recovery—one that will take the rest of his life and have many setbacks, but actually gives him a chance to be happy.

Whatever form his arc takes, the loss of his emotional support ghost means being left alone with those things he has been running from, and that shit is ugly.

As for Ben, the original Ben finally gets to rest.  With regard to his time post-death, he said, “It’s all been gravy,” and I think there are younger people who aren’t sure what that phrase means; gravy is good stuff, but it’s a garnish, not a meal.  Pouring more and more on doesn’t add substance.  Ben is telling Vanya that he accepted long ago that his life was over, and that his years with Klaus since then have been a bonus he’s grateful for, but they’re not life.  What he and Klaus had was never going to be sustainable and he was always going to have to move on one day.  His Sparrow Academy doppelganger will probably be gradually taken back into the fold the way Lila was, and if that happens, he and Klaus may actually stand a chance at having a healthy friendship one day.  The metaphor here is that Ben moved on—lovingly detached—and now he and Klaus have a chance to start over.  Ben Prime’s passing gave them a new start.  Not his death—he was already dead.  His detachment.

It's sad, and Klaus is clearly devastated after the cold open in 2.10, but their relationship hurt to watch when you knew what was going on.  There was so much love there, but there was also pain.  Klaus finding the rest of their family and embracing them meant it was okay for Ben to go, and I think he believed, in the end, that Klaus would be okay without him.

And he won’t be.  Not at first.  But he will be.  Maybe.

  That’s it for this giant-ass meta series.  Thank you for reading.  Once again, exactly 0% of this post is meant as advice, diagnosis, or anything else besides character analysis.  If you are suffering, please check out the links in the master post.

<-- Previous     Master Post

[writing-with-olive]

A starting place for self-editing your novel

I wrote this in a reblog to one of @boy-who-can-fly​‘s posts, but as I couldn’t add any tags to that that would make it findable to more than just my followers, I figured I’d make the same content in an original post because YAY TAGS!

Without further ado...

1) Take a break.

Some authors have suggested taking a break for six or so weeks, but I find anything longer than three makes me too distanced from my story, and I have to work a lot harder to get back into my protagonist’s head. During this break, don’t so much as look at your story. Instead, focus on something else. Maybe growing your author platform, planning or developing another wip, or researching the publishing industry if publishing is the end goal for your book (this goes for both traditional and self pub). The point of this is that without some distance, it’s going to be a lot harder to see larger developmental flaws.

(this is a very long post, so the rest of the steps are below the break)

2) The first read-through.

After your break has ended, and you’ve got to be a little stern with yourself not to extend it farther than what you set, or else you’ll never return to it, do a readthrough. This means either just reading it off you’re computer or kindle, or going to somewhere like staples and getting it printed and spiral bound (this costs money, but I found it helpful down the line). Two rules: 1) no editing. 2) look at the first rule. This read-through is going to help give you a general sense of what is and isn’t working in your book; the problems you notice here are likely going to be the biggest ones. (if you want, you can combine this step with step three, but I found it more helpful to keep them seperate)

3) Outline.

It doesn’t matter whether you outlined before, or whether you decided to pants it. By the time you get to editing, you need to have an outline that’s reflective of what you actually put on the page. Go through your story, chapter by chapter, and for each new scene write down

what is your character’s goal in this scene

what is standing in their way

what is the outcome of the scene.

This list should not go into depth; one short sentece per point, MAX. That being said, make sure to keep things specific, so “MC wants to convice X to go with them to Y.” is going to be a lot more useful to you later on than “MC tries to convince them to go.” This outline is going to help you objectively look at your story structure, as you can see a lot more of what’s happening at once, without being quite so overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the words you wrote. Yes, this step can be a bit tedious, but it is so, so worth it.

4) Sort out what you need to fix, aka start making a game plan for your edits.

Now that you’ve read through your wip at least once through, and probably twice, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you need to fix. The key here is that right now, you want to be fixing on the global edits - the things that span beyond just a single scene or chapter. The reason why is that you don’t want to be spending hours perfecting a scene that you’re just going to need to cut later because it doesn’t advance the plot.

In a new document or spreadsheet (whatever you think will work better for you, I liked using a google doc), write issues you see with:

Each of your main cast (regarding character development, motivations voice, etc)

Setting/s (consistancy, realism for your world)

General worldbuilding (consistancy, things poorly explained/set up)

Main plot (following a given plot structure, building tension, etc)

Each subplot (how it intertwines with the main plot, plot structure, building tension, etc)

Other major things you noticed during your readthroughs

These things tend to be larger scope, and generally are worth addressing first.

5) Picking your edit.

Look at the list of edits, and see which one is going to cause the most ripples through your story. This is going to be the first thing you look at to fix. If there are more than one edits that will all have major impacts on the story, think about which edit would make the other ones easier.

For example, in my wip, Project Toxin, my plot was, well, a trainwreck and a dumpster fire’s love child. But my characterization for my MC was also a wreck. Still, getting the overall plot more in order would make it easier for me to edit my MC, so I chose plot first.

6) Make a game plan for your edit.

Before diving in and ripping through your first draft, come up with a game plan. Brainstorm possible solutions to the edit you’ve chosen, and look at what ripples it would cause. You want to make sure that what route you take isn’t going to upset something major or crucial to your story. Most likely whatever solution you choose will cause some other upsets, so just make sure to think through what makes most sense for your story.

For example, when working on my story, I was fixing plot first. Figuring out my game plan meant looking at my scene list and moving things around/adding/cutting content until I had a plot that was much more satisfactory, and that was, in my mind, not a wreck.

Possible game plans for different types of edits:

1. Plot:

Look at your scene list. What helps to advance the plot? What is dragging the pacing. Are there any elements that you are adding or cutting in your overall story that need to be accounted for? With this in mind, cross out scenes that you want to cut, move scenes around that need to come in a different order, add scenes that need to be added, and mark scenes that need to be combined into one.

2. Characters:

For each of your characters, look at their character development. It’s going to be hard to make them come to life better on the page unless you’ve got a grasp of who they are, even if you didn’t plan them out originally. If you have not, consider listing in a spreadsheet or google doc what their backstory is, what their goals are, why they want those goals, and what a few of their strengths and weaknesses are. Also think about their voice: what words do they use more often? Sentence structures? What do they sound like when they’re talking? Stuff like that. If your character is inconsistant, pick one version of them that you want to follow (knowing that they will likely change over the course of the story), and look at what parts of them you will need to change to accomodate that.

3. Setting/Worldbuilding:

I’ve put these together here as they’re somewhat similar. For poorly explained aspects of worldbuilding, look at where you might add in little details so you can better set that foundation (this is not usually a global edit). If things are inconsistant, look at what makes the most sense for your story, and like what we talked about with characters, alter the rest to accomodate that.

7) Making edits.

This is where you really get to dig in and really move things around. Using the edit you’ve picked and the game plan you’ve developed, go through scene by scene and make the changes. I strongly recommend having a seperate doc from your rough draft to store your second draft in. Currently, my process is to have both open at the same time, and if a scene is already fine, I’ll just copy/paste it over. At least for me, however, it’s usually not, and I’ll either make tweaks to fix it up, or, more often at this early stage, I’ll rewrite it. As an added bonus, I also find that rewriting it makes my prose a lot stronger, since I’ve grown so much as a writer since I originally wrote the scene.

Since you know your story better, you may find other elements that you want to change are improving as you edit. If not though, don’t worry - they’ll get their own editing pass.

8) Repeat steps 5-7

You made a list of edits you needed to make back in step four. Now, follow steps 5-7 to make all of those edits and changes.

9) Repeat steps 2-8

Two steps telling you to repeat in a row? Yes. The deal now is that you want to make sure you’ve cleaned up any global edits before moving on to anything smaller. If you’ve been thourough thus far, this will be a very fast step. If not, think of this step as a safety net. There may have been ripples that you didn’t notice earlier on, and it’s a good thing you’re catching them now.

10) Chapter edits

At this point, we’ve cleaned up all the big edits. Now we’re going to look at each chapter. Within each chapter, there needs to be a mini-arc. A beginning, middle, and end. This is the time to really focus on that. Also focus on things like tightening up prose, combining or compressing paragraphs, making sure you’ve adequately set the scene, etc. If you’re over the word count limit regarding your genre, also focus on cutting a certain number of words from each chapter to put your story back within those limits.

11) The little things

This is about combing through your wip to find all of the little errors that have made their way through edits. Typos, weird or incorrect grammar, useless adverbs, things like that. At this point, everything is on a more superficial level.

Beta Readers

Given that this has gotten quite long, I’m not going to go in depth about beta readers here, but around step 10/11, you’re going to start recruiting beta readers (you’re going to want to try and have multiple rounds of somewhere around 10 betas each, which is why having a good author platform is useful: recruiting is easier). Between each round, you’re going to look at their feedback and make the necessary edits. After several rounds of beta readers, you’re going to look it over a few more times, and then if you’re going the traditional publishing route, you’re going to query agents. If you’re going the self-pub route you’re going to look to hire a professional editor. If you’re not looking to publish, this may be the end of the line.

Good luck editing!

[thelastofgala]

I started The Last of Us, Pt. 2 last night, and here are my first impressions, musings on parallelism, Naturalism, Ellie’s characterization, Joel’s characterization, the “presence” of Riley, gameplay, story development, and more:

***SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT***

Starting with Joel. I always imagined The Last of Us 2 would begin at the end of Joel’s journey, though I will say that I did not expect to pick up so close to the end of the first game. I thought they would start us somewhere COMPLETELY out of context. Like I was prepared for much deeper flashback. In this way, I really felt like I was playing a sequel, which is not a bad thing. I just had no idea how they were going to frame this. The compelling thing about starting with Joel is that it immediately sets up parallels between Joel and Sarah, the character we start with in The Last of Us. There’s no way this was not a pointed decision. Just like it was with Sarah, Joel is our point of reference in a new, strange world. His point of view in this new world is all that we know. We don’t know what the new special world contains, and we don’t know grown-up Ellie at all. Plus, old fans will have missed him. It is a comfort to be Joel, and like a daughter protected by her father, a false and short-lived comfort. We are also now thinking of Joel as, like Sarah, someone who is in danger, whose agency is compromised, who, for whatever reason, is weakened this time around, and who may not survive the story. 

I will say, too, that I really loved that after the 4-years-later cut, Joel is held off-screen. He and Tommy are out on a patrol. They are out there, in danger, and that sort of restraint is really effective. We are ALWAYS looking for Joel, just like we were in the run-up to the release, because he is the only person we truly know in this strange, new world. ND knows and takes advantage of this.

There are many parallels between Joel and Riley. Both Joel and Riley sneak up on Ellie during their first interaction. They’re even wearing similar colors. Both Joel and Riley lied to Ellie in the previous story, and both betrayed her as an act of self-preservation. In Left Behind, Ellie is somewhat chilly toward Riley in the beginning, even as her younger, more optimistic self, just as Ellie is chilly toward Joel in the beginning of The Last of Us 2. Still, you can tell through Ellie’s dialogue with Dina that she and Joel are knitted together—he defended her against the bigoted bartender, and she appreciates this even if she doesn’t outright say it. They share taste in movies and have plans to watch a movie together soon. I haven’t interacted with Joel in the current timeline, but I do know that in Left Behind, Riley has to earn back Ellie’s trust and take measures to reenter her good graces, and that this is a large part of their relationship arc. I also know that, by the time they reconcile, it proves to be too late. The world will not let them have what they want, and nothing is simple. All of these parallels worry me a lot, as Left Behind, while still driven by a strong undercurrent of love (it is a love story, interwoven with Ellie’s desperate search for medical supplies in a bid to save Joel’s life), is a much bleaker, sadder story than The Last of Us, and it has a tragic ending.

Joel's conversation with Tommy feels important. I was very glad to hear Tommy say that he would have made the same choice, in terms of saving Ellie or letting her die for the possibility of a cure. It shows that Tommy is more like Joel than perhaps we knew. Plus, Maria will have taught him something about love and commitment, as the notion of saving the one you love above all else should make more sense to him now that he has foregone the youthful idealism of the Fireflies in order to focus on the practical wisdom of family. As a parent, I understand Joel’s decision to save Ellie at the end of The Last of Us and know I would have done the same. I also understand why Joel lied, even though I think it was the wrong choice. Hearing him confide all of this in Tommy was cathartic. It was also very characteristic of Joel to respond that Ellie “didn’t say nothing otherwise” when Tommy asks if she believed him. In all of his denial, Joel chooses to believe what is conveniently in front of him, even if he knows it’s untrue. Also, I couldn’t tell, but was that a Firefly logo on that guitar he’s shining up? Maybe I hallucinated that. But if it is, I do wonder where he got it.

Ellie’s character is much more deadpan and ruminative in young adulthood. She seems tired, and a little lacking in self-esteem and sort of immediately defeated by what happened during the experience with Joel. When Joel sang, we could see her return to that place, just a glimmer, and her response—that it “didn’t suck”—shows how she still shields her heart with sarcasm, something Dina points out to her later on (“Did I ruin your punchline?”). Joel has been broken down by the events of The Last of Us and now bears his soul to her with his music, unabashed and dedicated to her, and Ellie is now the stoic one, unshakable, sealed inside a heavy, protective armor that seems impossible to pierce. I look forward to getting to know Ellie as a young adult and, ultimately, crying a lot. She is artistic and honest and still a little soft underneath. You can tell by her early interactions with Dina especially that she can still blush, and she can still come undone.

I love the snowball fight lol. I am always so frustrated when these big environment games, like Red Dead 2, Dragon Age, etc., don’t have any kids running around. Why don’t these stories pay attention to kids? Kids exist. They are an important part of almost any open world or quasi open world environment. I love the presence of kids in The Last of Us 2, because the loss of childhood innocence is an important theme for Ellie as a character. It’s also clear we’re trying to set up the edenic innocence of Jackson. It is childhood, in a way, and just like childhood, it will come to inevitable corruption. The scene, too, reminded me of Ellie and Riley on their teen dream adventure, romping through the Halloween store at the mall, trying on masks and talking to the magic eight ball.

I’m really pleased by all the parallels with Left Behind and Ellie’s portion of the journey in The Last of Us. Winter was her season, and that’s where we’re starting now. The horseback riding, the blizzard, and all the blood in the snow bring flashbacks of Ellie hunting on the woods, Ellie alone in the frozen mall, David, and the Lakeside Resort, all of which layer the current moment with a lot of emotional tension for the player.

The opening is, I think, sprawling. I’m having fun but there’s this sense that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of the story. Like Joel in the first game, Ellie is also big-timing me a little and I feel far away from her. I know this will change soon, and I’ll warm up to her, but for now, like Joel, we’re all being held at arm’s length. I actually like the POV shifts we’ve gotten so far and the multiple POVs is something I predicted a while ago, based on ND’s tendencies in the first game. Ppl are going to give The Last of Us 2 shit for being too cinematic but tbh it sometimes feels more like a playable novel than a traditional video game. We’re on a cable car headed straight into disaster and there’s nothing we can do. In this way the game is using the medium itself to perpetuate its Naturalistic themes. We play and we play, and we fight and we fight, but the environment entertains no interest in our struggle and the outcome will always be the same. There is no free will in The Last of Us.

On that note, the gameplay so far is, I think, pretty fun. I have played a lot of stealth games and am always looking for ways the genre is reinventing itself. Like Sekiro and Tomb Raider, The Last of Us 2 is increasing the verticality of the map with rope climbing and scaling up obstacles (though I do miss using Joel’s immense upper body strength to move those dumpsters around lol). In a stealth game I want creativity and problem solving to be central to the gameplay. I don’t want to be magically handed tools and weapons on a constant basis, to meet every individual need. I want to be forced into resourcefulness, and I don’t want to enter a shoot-out unless I absolutely have to. That said, I’m nearly to the tower checkpoint with Dina, and I’ve only fired my gun twice. The dodge/melee mechanic is neat, but more than anything, having real, actionable help from an AI enables stealth kills even in zones crawling with enemies. On that note, I am playing with a headset, and I’m glad I am, because I find the sounds of the goddam clickers to be all-encompassing this time around and a LOT bigger and scarier than they were in The Last of Us. Holy shit. They’re absolutely terrifying. I can only imagine the horror to come lol.

Now, finally, Abby: I don’t have much to offer on this yet. Abby is not who I thought she’d be. I’ll just say it. Still, the melee battle with her and the runners in the woods was AWESOME. For me, the most fun I’ve had yet, because it was completely different than anything from The Last of Us. Playing her, however, I will say, filled me with foreboding. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to help her. She seems beyond desperate and while deeply sympathetic, she is a new character and her loyalties are not mine...so far. I could be very wrong, and please don’t correct me if I am, but I get the sense she might be a Firefly, or somehow associated with Marlene, and she is looking for Joel, in vengeance. Her group was small and rogue, and they seemed new to the area. All I know is that ND is creating a moral dilemma here, and as to what will become of this, the jury is still out completely.

One small personal criticism, take it or leave it: I don’t personally love that the kiss with Dina and scene with Joel defending Ellie was kept off-stage in the game and left to the trailer. We could have started at the dance. That would have taught us everything we need to know about Ellie, Dina, Jesse, and Joel and Ellie’s relationship state. This is my only criticism of the story so far. From a writer’s perspective, it’s just inefficient and clumsy to try and cover all that in expositional dialogue, taking into consideration that many casual players will not have seen all the trailers. Even still, it’s not hurting my experience in any way. Just an observation and maybe a bit of personal opinion on the fact that perhaps the choice to reveal so much scene in pre-release trailers might be a great way to build hype but might not be the most efficient choice in telling the actual story. My two cents!

In the end, I’m overall super excited and can’t wait to keep playing. These are just my own personal thoughts, and I’ll be back with more thoughts soon!! PLEASE NO SPOILERS OR SPOILERY SUGGESTIONS IN THE REPLIES!! I am NOT privy to the leaks and I do NOT want to know what’s coming. Thank you!! ^_^ 

[whateverthedragonswant]

Thank you for researching & chronologically mapping the dumpster fire of GOT & APN. I think GOT made a strategic mistake that hurt them. They increasingly built their story & PR around Dany. Instead of openly showing her increasing darkness, they refused to lose the GA viewership by calling a spade a spade outright as seasons went on, robbing the GA of the full weight and meaning of her arc. They softened her death by making others justify her mass murder! Undercutting the moral or her story.

Aww thank you so much for checking it out, Anon! You are too kind. :)

I absolutely agree with you about what happened with Dany. They really banked on her for ratings and PR like you said. And the story...I remember watching season 8 live and being like “Are you kidding me? Why can’t I see anyone else’s story this season? What happened to Jon, to Tyrion, to Jaime -- what happened?!!?” Lol I was so mad at the time but once it was over and I eventually looked back, I understood what they were doing and you’re right -- big strategic mistake. Like Jon for example, I still would love to know what happened there. You can’t just remove his POV completely and not have a sound narrative reason for it. I still shake my head at how badly that all went.

Exactly. They had buried it so deeply that while some of the signs were there, they were ultimately hidden in the framing of the story so to speak, so that most of the GA went “wait, WHAT?” when she did eventually go dark. The clues were present but unless you were really looking for it, unless you looked at it through a different filter or dug a little deeper, you most likely wouldn’t see it. Instead, all they saw was the Breaker of Chains, the Khaleesi part of her story. And as a rule, most GA tend to be casual viewers of a show who generally accept the main story at face value. You’re so right, the show really botched it. And then on top of it, to have a character like Jon (Jon Snow of all people!) sitting there trying to justify a massacre, to defend her, the same guy who went against Stannis to kill Mance mercifully so he wouldn’t burn to death...that was just horrific. And like you said, that really diminished the very important moral of her story.

I do think for the jail cell scene between Jon and Tyrion, particularly the part “do you think the words of our houses are stamped on us at birth? then I’d be fire and blood, too!” shows that Jon is more talking about himself in that moment and he’s defensive and traumatized by what just happened and he’s worried -- but that was just what it was, a moment. And then he launched into defending Dany and the show changed him into the audience mouthpiece, all within seconds. That scene overall was just horrible and I’m curious if that’s one of the changed scenes, that they added in when they changed up the ending scene for Dany. Because speaking from the narrative perspective, that just didn’t make sense, in addition to not making sense for the characters.

Sorry, I’m going off on a tangent again (I have to stop doing that lol). You’re 100% right, they really robbed the GA when it came to Dany’s story line. And then they robbed them again by stealing away Jon’s character and then Tyrion’s. Like there are some things I do appreciate about the show, that I did enjoy, but this part wasn’t one of them. It was horrible any way you slice it.

Thank you again for the ask and for checking out that post, Anon. :) <3

[frumfrumfroo]

Do you think Reylo could still be vindicated as a ship in a few years (and make people question why the backlash existed/make it acceptable to like in general) or do you think it might get swept under the rug as one of the terrible choices TROS made? That’s the thing that worries me the most, that Bendemption and Reylo being the only halfway-decent things in a sea of horrible decisions and retcons will make people lump in Bendemption and Reylo with those horrible decisions and retcons

Reylo and Bendemption were the only thing that worked and the only thing in this dumpster fire worth the film they were printed on, which evoked appropriate emotion. The professional critics continue to point both arcs out as the best things about the ST and they have the most popular support. They are the only fulfilled promises and the only thing tying the trilogy together at all. No one whose opinion is worth listening to is going to say the only somewhat successful parts of the film were what dragged it down, they’re just going to talk about poor execution.

If anything is remembered about this in 20 years besides ‘lol what a clusterfuck’, it’s going to be the squandered potential of not committing fully to the only two real ideas they ever had and not giving them an ending.

But yes, I still think there will be a Reylossance. There already is. And there’s a huge amount of ‘just woke up’ Ben fans who now realise what kind of character he is and that it’s okay to love him. I’m seeing a lot of the exact reaction I expected, just in the context of ‘but wtf??? now I see how it should have ended and why didn’t it??’ instead of in the context of ‘now that it ended perfectly I totally saw it all along’.

Will someone with two braincells to rub together greenlight an epic fantasy monster romance redemption story because of this? idk. Probably not unless it’s based on a book or some other existing property. Executives have reached fractal cowardice. We’ll probably see a surge in lower profile things, though, for sure. Might create a wave.

[tsukuyomi-chan]

Do you think that Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS deserve more (episodes) ? Well, there are things that left unresolved in the anime, don't you agree? What do you think about Gallop Studios doing a VRAINS sequel animation? What do you think about VRAINS manga?

(shame on me for forgetting I have an inbox and not noticing this ask until now)

Do you think that Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS deserve more (episodes) ?

The thing about VRAINS is you can definitely tell season 3 was rushed.  I made a joke about this a while back in discord but Vrains really does love having its minor character’s development happen off-screen and then just referenced later on like “hey that definitely happened, don’t worry, that did get resolved!”.  This includes but is not limited to:

Ema and Blood Shepard’s family issues being like “hey we talked off-screen and we’re cool now”, and then immediately getting shafted after this

Go Onizuka showing up like “yeah after I lost to Playmaker I realized the error of my ways, and completely changed so now I’m good again”, and then immediately getting shafted after this

Aoi and Miyu’s reunion, with the writers forcing Miyu to be Aoi’s whole motivation in season 2, and then once that was over immediately brushing it away again like “yup everything’s resolved here too no need to think about it anymore”.  Aoi still got a bit of a role although that’s more because she is the “heroine” of Vrains despite her minimal involvement, rather than any actual character moments for her.

Kusanagi-Fucking-Jin (yes I’m still mad about the Lightning thing find my other long vrains rant thing to discover whyyyyyyy)

If Vrains did get more episodes maybe they could’ve resolved some of this onscreen.  Season 3 doesn’t care about anyone whose name isn’t Yusaku, Takeru, Ryoken, or Ai (and kind of Roboppi).

Well, there are things that left unresolved in the anime, don't you agree?

The anime did at least try to resolve things, but most of it happened off screen.  At the end of the series you can say “the characters are in a better place now” confidently (unlike Arc-V’s dumpster fire of an ending).  The things unresolved are mostly little things that the writers brushed aside and were like “forget about it we’re not dealing with it!” and they’re not as glaring.  Like I’m not as mad at the unresolved things than I was with Arc-V at least.

I guess the biggest unresolved thing that bothers me is what SOL Tech will be doing from now on.  Sure let’s just sweep all of SOL Tech’s big in charge people out of the picture and stick Akira there and say “done!”, ignore that whole Androids thing now that that plot point is done, like what the fuck is this company?  They made it a big deal but it never was a big enough deal in the show to go anywhere with it.

What do you think about Gallop Studios doing a VRAINS sequel animation? 

Lol like that’d ever happen.  If we’re lucky we’ll get another BBT-style movie where we’ll get to see Yusaku for 5 minutes, be like “YAY!”, Ai will be there and alive just so fans get that confirmation (MANY MIXED FEELINGS ON THAT) and then it’s back into the void where Yusaku will join his previous protags.

What do you think about VRAINS manga? 

I am surprised the Vrains manga hasn’t become a thing, when every series beforehand has gotten one.  There was that rumor a while ago but nothing ever became of it.  Although considering what happened in the Arc-V manga this might be for the best.

[calliecat93]

It’s been a long and chaotic hiatus period folks, but at least we’re here. RWBY Volume 7. There’s been a lot of hype in the leadup to this. New outfits. New setting. New characters. Old characters making long-awaited comebacks. There is so much to be excited about this season, and the absolutely insane opening only added more fuel to the fire. I’ve done a review/analysis on the opening already, which if you’d like to check that out, you can find it here. 

But for now, after nearly ten months of waiting, it’s finally time. Review season is in full swing. So why wait any more than we already have? Let’s kick the Volume 7 Reviews off with Chapter One, The Greatest Kingdom. Because of course, that would be the title of an Atlas-centric chapter. Of course.

Overview

We begin exactly where we left off before. RWBYJNRQOM have reached Atlas… but Ironwood’s fleet is armed and ready as though expecting an attack. Everyone is taken aback by this, especially Weiss. This causes complications. With Atlas this high alert, if they dock in an unauthorized ship, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Weiss also worries that if that happens, they may very well return her to her family, and to her father. But she then remembers that since they’re now back in Atlas’ range, she can contact Winter. Thus, Maria steers the ship downward, towards the city of Mantle.

We get our first glimpse of the former capital, and it’s telling. The location has a New York kind of vibe. It’s big and industrial but also run down. One reason for that may be because of the number of troops and drones in the city. They’re making people afraid or rebellious, even children as we see two throw a rock at a drone. But even more telling is that the holo-screens have Ironwood talking, claiming that this is all for their own safety. Everyone is unnerved by this, and worst? Winter is also spewing out the propaganda, shocking Weiss. Due to this, the plan is to ditch the ship and join the masses in Mantle.

Thus, the ship is parked… somewhere. We never see where. But the gang walks through the city, and get an even better look at how rundown that it is. Thre’s political posters around, namely featuring some kind of pale blonde-haired figure. We also see some headlines highlighting events like the Embargo, the discovery of a dead journalist, and damage to the border. Drones are going all around and take photos of Yang, which earns a kick from her and then it gets run over. Oops. We even see graffiti that says “Show Your Teeth”. Best guess is that that’s the White Fang’s doing. Life looks awful in Mantle, and Blake expresses this out loud. This earns her getting told off by two drunkards, who go off about Atlas being great and all that kind of stuff that we’ve heard before. But when one starts to make racist Faunus remarks at Blake, Weiss responds by gravity Glyphing into a dumpster. This attracts security attention, but it was worth it.

Maria knows where they can go, and she takes them to some kind of clinic. This is where she had intended to go in order to get her eyes adjusted. We, therefore, meet the man who runs the place. An elderly, wheel-chair bound man named Pietro. He is a well-known scientist who has made various advances for Atlas and Ironwood, but he volunteers in Mantle to get away from the stuffy atmosphere and to help the people below. The gang has questions about Atlas, so Pietro explains how Ironwood’s paranoia has gone into overload. Not just because of the Fall, but because of how badly his forces were hacked and made Atlas look like both terrorists and buffoons. But we do find out that they still don’t know who hacked their systems, but they /do/ suspect that it may very well be one of their own. With everyone blaming Atlas for the Fall of Beacon, the council is so scared that they’re just doing what Ironwood says. So needless to say, Atlas is in utter chaos and isn’t as safe as our heroes previously thought.

Pietro begins to talk about Mantle’s representatives taking action… until he recognizes Weiss. Yang tries to get things back on topic, only for Pietro to recognize her arm. He sounds… kind of offended that she painted it, haha! But he soon recognizes Team RWBY, having heard of them from his daughter. Who is his daughter? Well before Ruby can find out, a warning siren goes off. A group of wolf-like Grimm that I believe are called Sabers are attacking, so our heroes fight back. It’s a pretty good action sequence, full of a lot of high-paced energy and an awesome guitar riff in the background. Poor Blake’s sword is still broken, so she’s forced to stick to the gun mode. Fortunately, our heroes are ripping the Grimm apart with ease… but they ultimately don’t defeat the Grimm themselves.

A series of lasers blast away the remaining Grimm. We see a figure flying up above. A very… familiar looking person. Green color-scheme… red hair… a pink bow… freckles… wait… the figure lands, and we get to see them in full. Ruby’s eyes widen in shock as, for the first time since the Fall of Beacon, she sees Penny Polendina. 

You read right folks, Penny is back! Pietro tells her to say hi to her friends and… she recognizes them! She recognizes Ruby! She flies right into Ruby to hug her! That probably gave Ruby a concussion, but eh she’ll live. But only one thing matters right now: PENNY! PENNY IS BACK!!! SHE’S ALIVE!!! WHOO~!!!

As it turns out, Pietro is Penny’s father/creator. After Amity Arena was brought back to Atlas, they were able to recover Penny’s core and Pietro was able to rebuild her and even better. She is now the official protector of Mantle. Penny is excited to catch back up with Ruby… but another siren goes off, and she has to go off. Everyone has questions, but fortunately, Pietro is more than happy to answer them. So successful Grimm fight, they made it to Mantle, and they found a friendly face. Two friendly faces! Sure we had the rough patch with Ironwood’s forces and his propaganda, but hey! So far things are going pretty well!

Well, let’s ruin that!

The gang is suddenly captured and bound down by a group of blue and white-clad soldiers. This is a security force known as Ace-Ops. Qrow argues that he’s a licensed Huntsman and was doing his job, but Ace-Ops take their weapons and, even worst, the lamp. Pietro questions the meaning of this, and their leader named Clover Ebi reveals the list of charges. The unauthorized ship, disobeying commands from Control, and fighting Grimm despite all but one of them being unlicensed. As such, they’re being arrested and taken to Atlas. The episode ends with everyone loaded up into the back of a police van with Qrow hating himself for jinxing everything up. Stupid Bad Luck Semblance.

Review

So this was a bit shorter than the previous couple of premieres, but really? That’s not a problem whatsoever. This premiere was really good! Not the best, but certianly does its job and does it well. We get to see Mantle after so many years, get to finally meet Professor Polendina, and we get a big surprise in the return of Penny. We get a fun action scene as well, which is always nice. And it has a solid ending in everyone getting arrested… well okay, that sucks for them, but it was an appropriate place to end.

Before we go into more detailed stuff though… let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. That being Qrow’s new voice. For those unaware, Vic Mignogna was fired and I don’t feel like going into it any more than I’ve already had to. But long story short; Vic did a lot of gross, horrible stuff and he deserved to be kicked out. As such, voice actor Jason Liebrecht was cast to take over, and so far… I think that he’s good! It was a tad bit spotty, but he’s still new so I’m not expecting perfection. But it still feels like Qrow and the voice honestly sounds like a cleaner, healthier version of Vic’s Qrow. Which if Qrow starts to sober himself up, it will fit very well. So yeah, I am perfectly happy with Jason’s rendition and I am looking forward to hearing more of him going forward~

Okay, got that out of the way. So let talk about good stuff now!

Mantle looks amazing. IIRC, Miles and Kerry said that Mantle and Atlas are based on different periods of America’s evolution. Mantle represents the Industrial Era, in particular New York, and it certianly feels that way. It’s a big city, but it’s not happy. The place looks run-down and dirty, there’s tons of unrest, and they have to watch as Atlas stands above them in all of its glory. It was meant to be a symbol of hope, but now? It just represents the oppression of Mantle and how Atlas stands superior to them. One of the most telling scenes is when we see a wagon of miners pass by. All of them are covered in soot and just look sick and miserable. It paints a very harsh picture, and it’s only going to become all the harsher as we learn more in the future.

But there is a bright spot. We FINALLY get to meet Pietro. He’s as I expected, a kind old-man, if a bit scatter-brained and forgetful. He very much fits the image of a Gepetto-inspired character. Though him being wheelchair-bound and his frequent coughing certianly has me concerned for him… and I have a very bad idea about his final fate by the time that this arc is over. Still, we get a very clear image of his character and there’s a lot of Easter Eggs in his office. Like the whale statue on his shelf, another allusion to Pinocchio. It’s that attention to detail that makes me appreciate CRWBY so much. Also fun fact, his voice actor is David Fennoy. Which this isn’t his first time working on RWBY. The other time? As Dr. Merlot, the antagonist of RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Who, if you don’t know, was a mad scientist… so great casting gag there CRWBY!

But speaking of Pinocchio… 

Well everyone, we knew that it was coming, but we weren’t ready. Yes, indeed, Penny is back. So… there’s been some debate over her re-introduction. While everyone is happy to have her back, some have questioned the under-whelming execution and lack of reaction from Ruby. Now I will admit that it is more subdued than I was expecting, but Ruby? I don’t at all get her so-called ‘lack of reaction’. You can see how wide her eyes are and how stunned she is, but it quickly evolves into over-whelming joy. Not every reaction has to be tearfully breaking down, guys. Ruby processed it quickly and was just overjoyed. Then after the tackle-glomp, you can hear her struggling to find the words to say as she starts to ask what happened since she thought that Penny was dead for at least a year. So no, Ruby’s reaction was perfectly IC for her and he DID have a reaction.

But yeah, Penny is back! But unlike what we all assumed, she has her memory! I was confused on how since we saw the Nevermore stomp on her remains… but considering that the area was sent back to Atlas, I can buy that they dug around enough to find the core and repair any damage that it had. I admit her return is a lot less dramatic than I thought it would be… but I really have no issue with it. For one, there’s plenty of things with her that can be touched on later. How she felt about dying. Her status as Mantle’s protector. What’s happened with her since the Fall. Plus after everything that’s happened, I think that we deserved this one break regarding Penny and her having her memory still. So yeah, maybe the execution could have had a bit more substance, but I really have no problem with it. Penny is back, and that’s all that matters.

Thre is a lot of good setup here. We have Ironwood’s paranoia on full display as well as the results towards Mantle due to it. We get a look at the mindsets of people like the kids throwing rocks at drones and the drunkards shitting on Blake for her comments about Mantle. But we also have Weiss Glyphing the one guy, which while it was oh so deserved, she did cause a fuss due to it when Blake was trying to deal with the matter peacefully and had even previously stopped Ruby when she was about to argue back. It’s good to see Weiss not dealing with any racist garbage thrown at Blake, but it was not the best way to deal with it when Blake had it under control, and that may very well be something that we see touched on more and more with the plot as a whole. Not just regarding Faunus racism, but regarding the conflict of Mantle vs Atlas.

We have the propaganda being spewed in Mantle not just by Ironwood but also from WInter. Something that Weiss is clearly unhappy about, and something that may cause friction down the line. We have the Ace-Ops, who going by the opening is going to play a major part in the volume. Which funny how they showed up to arrest the gang… but none of the vast amounts of security forces were around to stop the Grimm. Sure Penny was there and she is officially Mantles protector, but a good chunk of the Grimm were stopped by our heroes. So much for looking out for Mantle’s safety, huh Ironwood? Clover doesn’t even listen to Qrow or ask to see his license for proof of it… okay yeah, Qrow would still be arrested for the unauthorized ship, but still. There are so many small things that show us exactly how oppressed the people of Mantle are, and we’re probably going to see even more of that unrest and protest as we go on. Especially with this Robyn Hill character that we see is running for Council, and against an Atlesian tycoon. And I have a good guess at who that tycoon may be…

Chapter Two Predictions

Introducing a new section to the reviews! Which I will also add to the Red vs Blue reviews when that starts up again (2020, hurry the heck up!). But yeah, I’m gonna start doing predictions and see how well I do… or more likely, how badly I do. It’s all for fun though, so keep that in mind.

So the gang has been arrested and is going up to Atlas. So we’ll probably get to see that and get to compare it to the worn-down Mantle. We see in the trailer that Ruby and Ironwood are talking, so chances are Ironwood will recognize them and hear them out. If we’re lucky, he may have gotten the letter that Qrow sent as well. Now whether hell license the kids or not I’m not sure, but he clearly is going to allow them to work with Ace-Ops (likely under his strict rules) so it could be that or he’ll mark it as Community Service to make up for the charges against them. I can also see him deciding to take Oscar under his wing both for his own safety due to Ozpin, and/or to properly train the kid since even with Oz’s muscle memory, he needs all that he can get. After that, the gang is able to get their new gear, get some haircuts, etc. Only one IDK what’s going to happen to is Qrow… but he’s likely gonna do whatever the Hell he wants or Ironwood’s gonna give him the harder jobs. But we’ll find out soon enough.

Episode Stats

Favorite Character: Pietro and Penny Polendina Favorite Scene: RWBYJNORQ vs The Grimm Least Favorite Scene: The intro before they went into Mantle since it was just re-establishment exposition. Favorite Voice Actor: Taylor McNee (Penny Polendina) Favorite Animation: Either the Weis and Ren combo on the Grim or Ruby slaying the Grimm. Final Ranking: 8.5/10

Final Thoughts

We are off to a very good start! We get to see Mantle and understand exactly the state that it, as well as Atlas, are in. We get a nice action sequence. We get a lot of setup for things later, like the propaganda and introduction fo the Ace-Ops. But most of all, we have Pietro finally appearing and, of course, the return of Penny. Not my favorite premiere, but it did its job and was a very satisfying watch. So I say job well-done CRWBY! It sure as Hell makes me excited for what’s ahead!

[badsithnocookie]

bitter question asks

tagged by the lovely @buffkreia. tagging anyone who wants to i guess. you. yes, you, personally. answer these questions now. (or don’t. it’s up to you.)

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

satele/marr (wat). anyone/marr. anyone/malgus.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

vette+sw. any variant on teacher+student (sw/jaesa, jc/nadia, etc). (jk/kira is... borderline, since kira is more a peer than a student, whereas jaesa/nadia/ashara are very much students of the player character, with ds!jaesa being not just a student but an abused one at that).

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

hell yes. i once unfollowed someone (who is since long deactivated) for posting “tivva and her old moff cutesy headcanons”. what the fuck, fandom. 

i also make a habit of unfollowing people who do Shit that i complain about on the regular (fascism/wh-te s-premcy rhetoric apologetics, ab-se shippers, etc). (though i am more picky about who i follow than i used to be. for a lot of people though it’s nothing personal, i am just a Weirdo who likes to read their entire dash, so i keep the number of blogs i follow low. but if we interact on anything resembling the regular i probably have a nose at your bagel anyway)

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

as above most/any variant on teacher/student.

jk/scourge. i’ve seen it done ICly exactly once. most of the time scourge is rewritten as a noble romantic knight in edgy armour and not the manipulative borderline-stalker that he is. i hate the pairing for the shitty characterisation that usually accompanies it and i hate the pairing for the abusive relationship it would be were he IC. there is no winning move here except not to play.

corso/smuggler. i get the feeling that most people into this pairing like corso as they want him to be, not corso as he is. or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part, idk.

doc/quinn. this pairing is peak White Fujoshi and i hate it. i hate the examples where it’s doc repeatedly hitting on an increasingly uncomfortable quinn, because haha sexually harassing someone is both hilarious and hot am i right. i hate the examples where it’s quinn seducing doc for intel on the resistance (protip: that’s rape!). i hate it i hate it i hate it if i never see it again it will be too soon

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

f!sw/almost anyone male, as a result of the endless shitty revenge adultery abuse fics that are all over quinn fandom. not all f!/sw/anyone male fics/ships fall into this category, but most of them seem to, especially /theron and /pierce.

(something something why is it that the majority of people who write f!sw/men of colour only do so in order to generate manpain for a white dude, huh)

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

nope.

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

pugging EV/KP

Have you received anon hate? What about?

until i switched off anon, yes. it was fifty percent “you say mean things about quinn and that makes you an awful person” and fifty percent “you say nice things about quinn and that makes you an awful person”. proof that no matter what i do, i will never make The People happy. conclusion: do whatever the fuck i want

Most disliked character(s)? Why?

scourge. because i have an irrational dislike of people who manipulative borderline stalkers, who threaten to kidnap the children of others so they can be “raised correctly” into an abusive reactionary religious order.

Most disliked arc? Why?

republic makeb is where logic and my will to live go to die.

kotet is equal parts ‘empire apologia’, ‘vaylin torture porn’, and ‘excuses to be violent towards koth’. appo hates.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

koth vortena. both for his intrinsic qualities as a character and because of the endlessly terrible way he is treated by the fanbase and th devs both. if i had a penny for every “but he said valk was good to zakuul” i would never have to worry about my income again.

jaric kaedan. he’s great i love him. grumpy, arguably less than ls, but passoinately dedicated to the jedi and the republic. hates scourge on sight. badassed the Dread Masters into submission. pushes for the jedi to take action in a war targeted at wiping them out instead of hiding behind the republic. he’s just *chef’s kiss*

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

the jc story. imp makeb.

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

major anri exists only to put a likeable face on the empire. she and brax are incredibly deliberate (not to mention hamfisted) attempts to Humanise(tm) a genocidal imperialistic fascist regime and to attempt to play on the guilt of players/characters who take the saboteur route. sadly what bioware seem to fail to realise is that i traded my ability to feel sorry for the empire for a magic bean. it was completely worth it.

Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

swtor fandom is a dumpster fire. racism, misogyny, fascism apologia, ablism, we got it all, folks. in that respect it is not abnormal for fandoms but this is neither an excuse nor a selling point.

it is also not welcoming in the slightest if you take issue with any of the above.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show/game?

the old method of unlocking travel waypoints was way more immersive (even if it was a colossal pain in the ass). exploring the depths of belsavis for the first time was awe inspiring - seeking out ancient forgotten tech to dig into secrets locked away for untold millenia.

yes, it was a huge pain in the ass, especially if you were on your nth alt. i’d be fine with some system (maybe legacy based) where waypoints/speeder points for a planet are unlocked once you’ve completed the planetary story for the first time (or something). there is so much content in the game that just gets missed by first time players because bioware want to rush them through to the very end and it sucks.

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

invent a time machine, arrange for the firing of those who okayed kotfe and its shitty story that glorified a repeat abuser and its shitty gameplay and its total lack of repeatable group content in an mmo. make the writers produce something that a. actually stayed true to the themes of star wars and b. didn’t glorify an abusive genocidal shitlord like valkoriate.

then find myself some lottery numbers and set up a fund for giving out money to people who are reduced to begging on social media for medical bills.

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

shipping drama worst drama

What is the purest ship in the fandom?

vette/spewie

What are your thoughts on crack ships?

crackships which require you to ignore or worse betray a character’s personality (satele/marr, quinn/elara) - kill on sight

everything else - whatever

Popular character you hate?

darth marr. he is so overrated i don’t even know what to say. he has no personality, nothing. he didn’t even have a unique va in vanilla. he’s a shitty empty space that empire fandom hyped up up and away because he memes well and i loathe him.

Unpopular character you love?

i’m pretty sure this i a repeat of that question up there where i enthused about jaric kaedan

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

join me in hell

Most shippable character?

eva kaayz. everyone needs a cute bisexual mirialan in their life.

Least shippable character?

darth marr. valkoriate. skadge.

[maxgrayarchived]

All About Antagonists

Short on time? Scroll to the bottom to just see the highlights!

Despite having one of the most important roles in the story, the antagonist is the most often forgotten about character. They’re often supremely underdeveloped, and the easiest to turn into a cliché, but having a strong antagonist is vital to having a strong story.

It’s important to note the difference between an antagonist and a villain. As @jennamoreci put it, “the villain of a story is also the antagonist, but the antagonist isn’t necessarily a villain.” The difference is that villains are most often classified as “evil.”

Since I don’t often write villains, this post will be targeted towards antagonists, although I’m sure some of these tips will work for villains as well.

To put it simply, the purpose of an antagonist is to drive the conflict, therefore the antagonist and protagonist need to have goals that directly oppose one another. Your characters need to believe only one side can get what they want.

Every strong bad guy has an arc, just as a strong protagonist would. In @thewritersguardianangel‘s post about antagonists, they give the profound advice to “think of your antagonist as a character who has already completed their character arc and reached a negative end.”

Your protagonist’s book should serve as your antagonist’s sequel, in a way; Brand new character arc and brand new motivations. Just as your protagonist changes and grows, so should your antagonist.

Similarly, plan them just as you would a POV character. They need to be just as complex and developed as any other character. They are more than just your bad guy.

What made them this way? Why? Do they want to be this way? Do they even know they’re in the wrong? Are they in the wrong? What wouldn’t they do, no matter what? What are their attributes and flaws? Why? Why? Why?

You need to perfectly understand your antagonist, even if no one else does.

Every antagonist is the protagonist of their own story. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it really is solid advice. They need a reason for what they do, and not only do the readers need to know why, they need to believe it.

No more “bad guys do things because they want to.” Sometimes they don’t. The “why” is the most important part of developing any character, and you should always be thinking about it. 

Your antagonist needs to be good at what they do. This connects back to them having an arc- If they don’t develop along with the protagonist, your protagonist will grow out of them and all the tension you worked so hard on will just fizzle out.

At the very least, your bad guy should always be just as capable as your protagonist, and sometimes they should win. Make it as difficult as possible for your MC. If your MC is winning every battle, what’s the point? Readers need to believe that them running into each other is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.

Additionally, your readers should relate to them. That’s actually my favourite part of writing “bad guys,” and why I almost never write villains; I love making it questionable on rather the antagonist is actually doing anything wrong- Although you don’t have to take it that far.

Nobody is all one thing. Nobody is all bad, and nobody just comes out like that. Go back to all those “why”s you took note of, and use them.

Antagonists can serve as a great reminder to watch who you are. Not every antagonist wants to be the bad guy- Many don’t. So when we see ourselves in these people, these people being taken over by their flaws, it reminds us to keep ourselves in check.

Finally, prove it. This basically boils down to show, don’t tell. Remember when I said the antagonist drives the conflict? That’s a verb. Which means they actually have to do stuff.

Don’t worry, I’m mostly making fun of myself.

My plotlines very often follow less tangible things, like mental illness and human flaws, so I pretty much always forget to even add any human antagonists.

(Hint: That’s why I’m writing this post)

If you have that same problem, make a conscious effort during the outlining phase to keep the antagonist moving and driving the conflict, and remember, at the end of the day, nothing gets worse without a human adding to the dumpster fire.

So that’s what I’ve got on antagonists! Be sure to link me to your favourite posts and advice on antagonists, I’d love to see them. If you found this helpful, reblogs are always appreciated, and you can learn more about me here.

Stay proud.

-max

[corybaboonmatthews]

I heard somewhere that Ochako and Monoma will have some sort of interaction since Monoma and Ochako could relate for jealousy and Monoma is the only one who sees through Ochako's plan in the Sports Festival. What do you think?

Okay, I’m starting with this ask, only because I have theories concerning Uraraka’s upcoming fight, and it basically equates to one giant dumpster fire lol. And I just want to start with this, so that I can get my thoughts out. Basically, I think this arc will finally lead to Uraraka dealing with her feelings for Deku. There are several factors that lead me to believe this. One, Hori revived the jealousy Uraraka arc and reminded viewers of Uraraka’s feelings for Deku. Two, Mina is on her team and Mina is one of 3 characters that has called Uraraka out on her feelings. Three, they’re up against Shinsou, who can now mimic other people’s voices. Four, Mina made a comment about All Might x Midnight dating, which is to remind viewers that Mina likes to gossip about boys and romance. And it’s also to parallel that time when she called Uraraka out on her feelings for either Deku or Iida (as Mina wasn’t sure who Uraraka had a crush on). So I feel like we’re likely, finally, going to get Uraraka dealing with her feelings for Deku. I can also see Mineta’s perviness being used as a tool, as well as Monoma’s lack of a filter. Basically, Deku’s team vs Monoma’s team equates to one giant dumpster fire. There’s no way things aren’t going to be chaotic af. There are a few possible outcomes that I can think of for Uraraka: 1. Shinsou will either mimic Uraraka’s voice or Deku’s and that will lead to shit going down. 2. Mina will bring up Uraraka’s feelings.3. Uraraka’s feelings will get in the way and she will be responsible for her team’s loss, which will result in her dealing with her feelings.4. We’ll get more jealous Uraraka but nothing will be resolved. She’ll also be sidelined.5. Shinsou will take control of Deku, he’ll have a vision about OFA again and he’ll lose his shit and Uraraka will be worried about him. I can also see this leading to one of my favorite tropes and I am truly horrified lol :’) The trope I am referring to is when a character loses control - like Sasuke with the curse mark - and the love interest hugs him in order to bring him back to reality. It’s been done in Naruto, Inuyasha, Assassination Classroom, Seraph of the End and Fruits Basket. It’s a popular trope and it’s one of my favorites and if it’s used on Izu*cha, I will die a bit inside, before rage quitting, tbh. Anyways, I personally think that Uraraka’s feelings will finally be dealt with, one way or another. The possible outcomes are: Uraraka finally moving past her feelings, this whole pinning over Deku arc continuing, Izu*cha happening or getting some sort of promise of a future or Deku turning her down to focus on becoming the number one hero, after having a talk with All Might (or perhaps he’ll turn her down due to his OFA visions, based on some need to protect her, even though he feels the same way) or, it’ll slowly lead to Deku falling for her in return. The only option I like is option number 1: Uraraka finally moving past her feelings for Deku and getting over him. As their relationship has become toxic and one sided. So yeah, these are my theories concerning Uraraka’s upcoming battle. And if her feelings aren’t dealt with in this arc, then honestly, I think this whole jealousy thing will go on until the end :/

[lia-nikiforov]

Fall 2017 Anime Watchlist

Blablabla school is kicking my butt blablabla I shouldn’t even be doing this blablabla THERE’S A LOT OF GOOD ANIME THIS SEASON

So naturally I’m gonna go back to my worst to best format for this list. Get the trash out first

Dropped

Dies Irae: Aren’t these villains named after actual historical Nazis who were directly involved with orchestrating the holocaust soooo cooooool , so interesting, such tortured profound souls that--- ugh, I just threw up in my mouth a little. I don’t care if the Nazis are the villains, making them into complex, appealing characters is unacceptable, less so given the times we live in.

(get it, it’s a real nazi getting punched in the face, aren’t you glad you follow me so I can provide you this quality content)

Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de aru: Yuusha no Sho: Because I wasn’t a big fan of the first season, I thought this might make for decent hate-watch, but it’s just not bad enough to warrant it. It’s also criminally boring. And because part of what made the original so bad was the ending, and this being a prequel we already know how it ends, there’s no point to it imho. I enjoy screaming at the void about shows I find stupid, but this one isn’t even worth the time. Ballroom is all the hatewatch material I’ll ever need

Black Clover: I could say a lot about this show’s egregious lack of uniqueness and originality, or how poorly executed the whole thing is, but really the only thing you need to know about this and why it’s an insufferable watch is:

THE!!!! PROTAGONIST !!!!!NEVER!!!!! STOPS!!!!! YELLING!!!!!! 

Inuyashiki: My first problema with this show is the main dude is supposed to be 58 years old but he looks older than most 65+. It’s a dumb little thing, but it completely breaks my suspense of disbelief. Other than that, the writing is just so viscerally hateful it’s extremely uncomfortable to watch. What I’d understood from the synopsis was that the aliens had accidentally merged the old man and the young dude into a single robot body, but the way it is presented  -with the old guy as the hero and the young guy as the villain- the moral of the story seems to be basically “millennials are killing the diamond industry”, or, in terms of a more well-known -though perhaps too easy- meme:

Urahara: I really wanted to like this show and support these young female creators in an industry that tends to not give them any opportunities. It’s not like it’s bad at all, nor is it offensive, it’s just really boring. The visuals are adorable, but the characters feel completely unreal –three high school girls run their own shop in Harajuku?-, especially pigtail girl who delivers every line like she was trying super hard to sound like an ojousama archetype. The show is completely committed to its Harajuku kawaii culture aesthetic and attitude, which is commendable but also something that honestly make me a little uncomfortable for no particular reason. I also feel extremely robbed off actual transformation sequences in this magical girl show. In a less busy season I might hold on to see where this went, but as it is, I’d rather wait and see how it ends and then decide if I should spend time on it.

Utter trash that I’m still gonna watch because I hate myself or something

Ousama Game: I think it’s important to make a distinction between hate-watch and irony-watch. Hatewatch is something you do with a show that’s terrible and probably offensive, but it never touches so-bad-it’s-good territory.  You can pick the show apart for all of  its flaws, be it an ill-conceived plot, poor characterization, or, you know, being grossly mysoginistic. Examples of shows I’ve hatewatched include KADO, Sailor Moon Crystal and Super Lovers. An Irony-watch is a show that pretty much everyone can agree is a dumpster fire, and it succeeds so much in its terribleness it’s histerical. Hand Shakers and Neo Yokio are prime examples of quality irony-watch material. And so is Ousama Game. It’s not even worth pointing out its flaws because there’s just nowhere to start, there is not a single thing this show does right and it’s hysterical. Of course it has the squick factor of having some gross fetish with people’s tongues lolling out and their faces getting ridiculously contracted in gross fashion when they die, but other than that, it takes itself so seriously and mixed with its 2006 low budget aesthetic the whole thing is madly hilarious.

Welcome to the Ballroom: This is my choice for hatewatch show of the seaon. After the disgusting dung that was episode 15, I’ve lost all hopes of the show ever getting “better” as was repeatedly promised by fans of the manga once the queen lord and savior Chinatsu appeared. Lo and behold, Chinatsu’s character arc is to learn to be more “feminine” and to let herself be “controlled” by Tatara. Throw in some casual homophobia just for good measure. I really have to wonder why the mangaka set out to write a manga about a sport that necessarily requires a man and a woman in partnership if she hates women so much and can’t treat them as anything above second-class citizens-

(srsly show, why do you hate women so much)

Sengoku Night Blood: It’s been a while since we got a dumbass Sengoku bishonen show that wasn’t aggressively boring. This one though, still challenges my tolerance limits for being dumbass ridiculous with its premise of vampire/werewolf Sengoku daimyo. The costumes and character designs are super ridiculous yet strangely non-distinctive. I have a hard time figuring out who is who because most lack their historical counterparts most notable features, and there’s a lot of same-face-iness everywhere. The show is clearly not afraid of embracing its otoge origins, the “love event” moments are terribly transparent. I just wish either the female character was completely erased or that the guys would stop treating her so badly. I know she’s useless, but I don’t understand why the show has dudes saying things such as “it’s really bothersome that you’re here” and frame them as if they were suuuuper romantic.

(lmfao there are no gifs for this one, maybe I’m the only sucker watching it)

Juuni Taisen: To be honest I was ready to drop this one after confirming it was gonna be more Nisio Isin fake philosophical bullshit that is actually just otaku fanservice. Instead I got schlocky ultra violence garbage and it’s actually kinda fun? Look, I’m gonna come clean, I’m just watching it for the necromancer chip’n-dale rabbit with high heels and a huge fluffy tail, but if that’s not a good reason to watch a show, none is.

Not bad, but not quite good

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryoukou: This was another one that wasn’t quite on my radar before the season began, I only checked it out because it got excellent reviews. It’s actually surprisingly charming, although the pacing is slow, the muted color palette can be tiring and nothing really seems to be happening. I honestly struggled to stay awake during episode 2. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with the show, I’m considering dropping it because I’m just watching too much stuff and don’t have time, but I’ll wait for episode 3 to make my final decision (I’ll probably watch it Monday)

Shokoku no Altair: After the really good Sultan arc, apparently we had to go through another speed course on how to acquire new members for the party. I’m pretty much resigned to this not being the epic historical drama Arslan also failed to be, but it’s still sad to see this one getting the crappy production values while Inuyashiki is a lavishly animated production about bitter old men hating youngsters. Anyway, as long as further arcs can replicate the level of excitement and intrigue of the sultanlu arc, I’ll be looking forward to it and how Mahmut’s story unfolds. 

Fate/Apocrypha: You can tell how trashy the summer season was that Fate, which was one of my favorite shows of the season, is barely in the middle of the pack of this crowded Fall season. It’s also worth noting that I’ve lost a lot of the goodwill I’d mustered for the show after the writers remembered Palurdo-kun was supposed to be the protagonist, so now that he’s taken the center stage (and become Astolfo’s Master, which is a travesty, Astolfo deserves so much better than satisfying otaku’s otokonoko fetiches orz) I find myself rolling my eyes more often than not. Still hope to get cool fights out of this one and more Astolfo and Mordred.

GARO Vanishing Line: MAPPA brings us a new iteration of the GARO franchise, this time with a modern setting that throws back to ultra macho 80s anime OVAs aesthetic –I wouldn’t know, never watched those-. The hero is a buff uber muscular dude that literally prays at women’s boobs and Zaruba is a giant motorcycle that thinks women stink. The production values are impressive, both fight scenes are incredibly cinematic and exciting. The hypermasculinity borders on the hilarious, but I wish it could do away with the sexist humor, which luckily hasn’t been abundant enough to be insufferable. It’s a little soon to judge because they’re barely introducing us to the characters, but I’m still hoping this won’t devolve into shit territory like Crimson Moon did.

Kino no Tabi: Full disclosure, I only watched the first season of Kino a few months ago, so I have it very fresh in my memory. Since I didn’t know that this new season was more a soft reboot rather than a sequel, I thought I needed to watch the first one to check this one out. Turns out it wasn’t necessary, but I’m still glad I did it because the first season is fantastic. Which is why I’m a little concerned about this one, because the reinterpretation of the Colisseum story was… not good. It rushed through the story and made Kino look like a psychopath. The first episode was good so I’m crossing my fingers that this won’t turn into a horrible mess, but so far I’m feeling cautious and worried. But even if this one turns out to be a good reboot, I’d 100% recommend you check out the original.

Anime is in Fact Good

Classicaloid: Another show that came back with a different director and that I worry will struggle to replicate what made the first season special. There are some tonal things that make the change very evident, but so far it has overall been pretty great nonetheless, Classicaloid insane business as usual. I must say “New character appears claiming to be X’s relative, X believes it and starts treating N better to the detriment of the established cast” is a trope I’m not too fond of, but I’m willing to give them some time purely because they have a Hippopotamus that can do Musik. Honestly watching anime makes one write the weirdest of sentences.

Hoozuki no Reitetsu. Something comedy shows have in their favor is that if they come back, even after a long time, it feels like they never left. Hoozuki’s the same old Hoozuki and it’s a load of fun. I’ve loved both episodes so far, I can’t even pick a favorite skit of the ones we’ve had so far because all of them were so good. There’s not really a lot to say, if you liked the first season you’ll like this one. As usual it’s only detriment is you may miss some of the jokes if you’re not familiar with Japanese folklore, but there’s a lot of fun to be had nonetheless. 

Recovery of an MMO Junkie: Honestly, I’m very quick to judge a book by its cover, or in this case, an anime by its title. In this case, I promptly dismissed this as yet another otaku oriented harem videogame fantasy or whatever without even reading the synopsis. Then I heard the positive reactions to it and decided to give it a shot and boy was I pleasantly surprised! Not only does it feature a woman in her thirties as a protagonist –which is insanely rare! But it also focuses on delightfully adorable romance that breaches the barriers of gender. And honestly, there’s that scene in episode two in which Moriko sends a text and then horrified realizes it’s 2:00 am and feels super ashamed about it and it was so relatable I was 100% sold.

Best of the season

(don’t mind the order, I’ve loved all of these equally

Kujira no Kora wa Sajou ni Utau: So I may have misunderstood what this was about. I rarely read plot synopsis, so for some reason –I guess at first I thought the title was Kujira wa Sora- I thought there would be flying whales. There aren’t, but that’s definitely not a detriment to this incredible fantasy dystopian world. The color palette and the watercolor texture of the backgrounds gives it a magical atmosphere that is just a delight to watch. Although there’s a lot of exposition, none has felt like a forced infodump. The pacing is overall fantastic, and although the characters are a mystery for the most part, they’re already very endearing. This season is ripe with enchanting fantasy worlds and I’m really hyped about it. 

Houseki no Kuni: I was concerned about the CG designs on this one, but they work surprisingly well! The plot is still a bit unclear, but they’ve done a really good job in building the characters through their relationships to one another. Even though we don’t know a lot about them, I felt a lot of empathy for Cinnabar and Diamond and Bort, and Phos is a pretty nice point of view character to follow around. I’m definitely intrigued by the concept, and the execution has been great so far.

Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond: I hadn’t realized how much I missed this show until I watched the first episode of this new season. The loss of Rie Matsumoto’s wonderful directorial vision is very noticeable in the straightforwardness of the storytelling, but otherwise the show is surprisingly still a load of bombastic fun with endearing characters and fascinating world building. I particularly liked the hospital episode. I’m not sure where this story is going, but I’m excited to go along for the ride.

The Ancient Magus Bride: It’s important to note that the first episode has a lot of questionable material (please, can Elias never ever call Chise a puppy ever again), but I have to commend a great production when I see it. Readers of the manga assure that the questionable content will be contextualized later on, so I’m hopeful, because I’m already really sold on this show and I really don’t want it to be gross. It’s hard to explain or describe, but it just has this fantasy magical charm and a beautiful production that got me hooked from start to finish. It has been hyped to hell and back and so far it has lived up to my expectations. I think, apart from the lovely production values, the characters feel very real and deep from start to finish. It’s hard to explain why I feel so drawn to this show that should have so many red alarms ringing in my head, but I can’t help feel completely charmed by it

How am I gonna survive such a busy season with so much homework? Will I die trying? Will Ballroom ever stop hating women and gay people? Stay tuned to find out! And let me know which shows you’re watching this season!

[kyanitedragon]

Gonna try to answer these with no spoilers!

❤️: Power is Best Girl! She's very funny and entertaining, and I enjoy just how different she is from your typical supporting female character.

💔: Himeno really squicks me out with her whole coming-onto-teenagers thing. I really wish it was at least handled more seriously in the manga, if not taken out entirely. It ruins her whole character for me, which is a shame because otherwise she's really neat!

💕: Platonic Denji and Power! They're so cute, and I'm so happy that they stayed platonic the entire manga!

📖: The Bomb Girl arc is my favorite arc! I really enjoyed Reze as a character and her relationship with Denji, and Beam and Aki & Angel also had some great moments!

🚫: Not really, since I tend to stay away from the toxic sides of all fandoms.

📺: I really wish we got an actual trailer instead of a pre-animated trailer, as well as a release date, but I'm still really excited! I don't think we have anything to worry about, and I'm sure it'll be a good adaptation!

👺: Bomb Girl was able to do a lot with her powers! From detatching and exploding any part of her body, to forming her limbs into various explosives.

👤: I'd probably be a human with a Devil friend, like Denji and Pochita at the very beginning

🫀: My top favorite scene would probably have to be the dumpster scene with Power and Denji because of how cute yet bittersweet it was.

As for quotes, it's this scene in the Eternity Devil arc:

✏️: It's in my top 3, next to Tokyo Ghoul and Noragami!

🧠: I actually technically read it when it first came out. Chapter 1 came out right after Tokyo Ghoul had ending, and the whole TG fandom was looking for a new manga and tried out Chainsaw Man. I kept up for several weeks and enjoyed the start, but I slowly lost interest during the slow pace of the Bat Devil Arc. Then I didn't read it for a few years until I decided to catch up. With much more story to get to, I ended up liking and appreciating the story a lot more than when I first tried it.

📚: Since CSM, I've read a chapter or two of Fire Punch and intend to finish it one day, and I've read most of his one-shots, like "Yogen no Nayuta" and "Niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga ita", which is named after a japanese tongue twister.

🌼: To have the level of determination that Denji does, as well as his unique but effective approach to problems

💭: I hope to see Quanxi make some appearances, Reze to show up and go to school with Denji, and lots of cute found family content with single dad Denji, Nayuta, and their cat and dogs.

🖤: I think that other anime female characters are prettier than Makima is. Even in Chainsaw Man, I think Quanxi and Reze are prettier than she is, so I don't quite get the extreme level of simping for her

🤍: ALL OF THEM. Denji and Aki especially, but even Makima herself deserved better than what she became

🤡: The Himeno scenes with Denji and underage Aki were pretty uncomfortable and the comedic framing made it worse

💲: I'm more than content with the two we got. Aki would be fun to complete the family, and Makima's design would be really neat to have a figure of. And matching Reze and Quanxi figures with their respective hybrid forms to match the Denji nendroid would be awesome too!

📈: I'm pretty excited! I generally prefer watching to reading so I'm glad that people who may not like to or be able to easily read manga will get to experience the story, especially since the adaptation seems like it'll be faithful and well-animated. I'm totally going to force my anime-only friends to watch it when it airs! On the flip side, I'm certain the fanbase is going to be terrible, but like always I'll be sticking to the non-toxic sides

🌹: It's not really important to me in a personal way, but I appreciate and really enjoy all the symbolism and depth to the story, and I can't wait to see how much further it goes in Part 2. My favorite symbolism in the story is probably the Country Mouse vs City Mouse symbolism, because it was compared to so many characters as well as mice themselves.

👀: The running joke with Kobeni's car is hilarious, and I'll never get over just how fitting it is for Kobeni's character

chainsaw man ask game!

❤️: who is your favorite character? why?

💔: is there any character you dislike? why?

💕: do you have any ships? if so, what made you start shipping them together?

📖: do you have a favorite chapter or arc?

🚫: is there anything you dislike about the fandom?

📺: how do you feel about the upcoming anime?

👺: which devil do you think has the best power(s)?

👤: in the csm universe, do you think you would be a human devil hunter, fiend, devil, or hybrid?

🫀: which is your most memorable scene or quote?

✏️: do you rank chainsaw man among one of your favorite mangas? why or why not?

🧠: do you remember why or when you started chainsaw man?

📚: have you read any of fujimoto's other works?

🌼: is there any character you admire or aspire to be?

💭: what do you think about chainsaw man pt. 2? do you have any expectations, hopes, fears, etc?

🖤: do you find any character overrated?

🤍: do you think any character deserved better?

🤡: is there any chapter/arc/character/etc you wish was handled differently? alternatively, do you have any complicated feelings about something in the manga?

💲: is there any character you really wish was a nendoroid? or if your character is already a nendoroid, do you plan on getting them?

📈: how do you feel about the manga's increased popularity? are you dreading or excited for the influx of new fans thanks to the upcoming anime?

🌹: is chainsaw man's symbolism important to you? if so, are there any specific symbolic elements that you think about a lot?

👀: share your favorite csm meme!

💌: (free space to talk about anything in the manga!)

[hexalene]

:V

So I dunno if anyone would like care But the manga does actually have an in canon explaination for Naruto's last minute “healing” abilities and Sasuke's sudden proficiency with the Rinnegan in those final battles. There's also some decent evidence for why the Senju don't have the mokuton and even why Naruto can't use it, though he could have if he wasn't a jinchuuriki. but its a whole thing and I'll probably make the post for me if nothing else. But ANYWAY I started thinking about it with those “Sakura has the Mokuton” posts…which I don't hate/dislike really but I feel like kinda misses a point about Tsunade and Sakura that was half-assedly made (so I don't blame anyone for not seeing it, or disagreeing with me) and would have been made a lot better if Sakura hadn't been so unpopular while the manga was running cause like…shonen jump sucks guys. Like it really sucks. I don't think it's a coincidence that two of the Big Three wiffled around boring fight scenes for eons before farting out an epilogue bathed in bad haircuts and heteronormative/undeveloped “families” before the creators jumped ship to just leave (bleach) or wash his hands of the property (naruto). Honestly. Cause like

Kishimoto once said that jump made him do the chuunin exams, when he'd planned on having Naruto travel around and learn stuff about the world and likely meet ppl and get ready to be a kage…I bet this is why some of the villages are so hinted and developed, cause it's likely the story was gonna GO to these places. But jump wanks hard over TOURNAMENTS and fights and anyway the chuunin exam was p awesome, so…it did work out there. The war arc….not so much. Better people than me have broken down that tho so I'm gonna talk about the thing I wanna talk about which is Tsunade and Sakura. So like…in the fight with Madara, we find out that Hashirama was OP as fuck, and could HEAL WITHOUT HANDSIGNS OMG (Madara like…drools over this srsly) and Tsunade doesn't lol about that, or Madara’s reverence, so it's clear that was like A Big Deal back in the day. And Hashirama is like…the god of god shinobi. That…is one fuckoff huge shadow to live under?? Like how do you top that? He healed, had an amazing “bloodline” ability, went up against all the bijuu like NBD, and ~changed the world~. We never learn about Tsunade's parents and honestly…I think it's because they never crawl out from Hashirama’s shadow…this is a total headcanon admittedly, but I don't think they died early, since that'd likely be a part of her trauma. But anyway. With Madara, Tsunade is like “I couldn't do what my grandfather did, so I made my OWN DAMN WAY.” And whips up the yin seal. And I hate that this came SO LATE into canon and not before because that's a COOL THING?

Like Tsunade couldn't be Hashirama so she became the Greatest Medic of All Time….thats a HELL of a way to break out of Hashirama’s shadow. And like…people will remember Hashirama as a legend but I like to think that Tsunade is more tangible as an idol for people, idk.

She made that yin seal, and I feel like she probably laid the foundation for all modern medical ninjutsu, and probably was a seal master in her own right. I wish we'd gotten more about Tsunade other than her trauma, she's fucking awesome?? The only actual Sannin, let's be real cause orochimaru is a shit and Jiraiya is a dumpster fire. But this whole shindig is supposedly about Sakura, cause I had a point about her and her character:

Sakura is like The Official Normal on the team who is always worried about being in Naruto and Sasuke's shadows and can't catch up and like…every time she's like “watch me guys I got this, I've caught up” *proceeds to fail and need help*

I was always like “IF YOU HAVE TO SAY IT THEN YOU HAVENT OKAY?? STOP WORRYING AND FIND YOUR OWN THING AND BE YOUR OWN PERSON”

Team 7 like Failed dude…I love the cute genin days but it was a failure and of all of them Sakura clings the fuck out of those days and like Never moves on (I don't think Naruto—still hated by the village and scared of rejection and ignorant about everything and living alone in a shitty apartment—or Sasuke—stewing in the hatred and lies from his brother and working for a kage who ORDERED THE MASSACRE OF HIS FAMILY….i mean even Kakashi, guilty about everything and unfulfilled and depressed...yeah they may have some fond memories but they probably aren't scrambling to go back, you know?) I legit believe her Sasuke obsession is in no small part fueled by a desire to go back to idyllic childhood days where the world wasn't complicated and the future looked bright…Sakura FLAT OUT says this in her last “”””confession””””” to Sasuke before the VOTE2 fight.

She's like those people who peaked in high school and never stop telling you how they were prom queen once and god Kaytlyyn I get it prom was a thing that mattered to you. It's why she acts so childish around Sasuke and why they'll never be a real couple She just Devolves back to being a 13 year old again and tbh I ship SNS hardcore but I DO THINK Sasuke could have loved her if she'd actually let herself grow up and act like a grown woman around him…a poke is not better than a kiss holy fuck. I CRINGE my asshole inside out whenever I see that panel where Sasuke denies her the kiss but TBH??? I would too?? If this THIRTY YEAR OLD WOMAN comes up and “tee hee”s and stares up her lashes and points her toes in like a little girl?? And then doesn't like…communicate?

THE issue that started Gaiden? SO GLAD THE SS FAMILY GOT THAT FIGURED OUT

Nor does she go for a kiss goodbye on the cheek? Or a hug? Or SAY anything? Or give him a return date to come back or we need to rethink this if only for our emotionally needy daughter? Like a Sane Person in an adult relationship?? Some wife?? She should be able to do these basic ass things without acting like a preteen?? Seriously y'all go find a thirty something year old woman and picture them acting like Sakura did in that scene…so infantilizing. I wouldn't kiss her either, damn. And we see like no sign she acts any other way with him. SASUKE DOESNT KNOW HER. And because Sakura can't act like an adult with him, she's never gotten to really know him either??? So infuriating but this isn't supposed to be anti-SS, and I mean it cause I DO THINK Sakura was supposed to do something in this story and didn't cause we needed new genin for child soldiering. I THINK SAKURA COULD HAVE ENDED THE CHILD SOLDIER PRACTICE. We see in her shinden novel that she and Ino are establishing clinics for kids and orphans and like…assessing their mental health, and then we hear like nothing of that but that might have been her revolutionary idea outside of Naruto and Sasuke's shadow cause she does it cause she sees how fucked in the head her teammates are and she had a healthy childhood and look what that did for her. DUDE she deals with SAI her best friend can walk into people's MINDS whyyyyyy???? did Sakura not get to revolutionize medicine again with mental health care?? Helping shinobi cope with trauma, proving that neglect, abandonment, trauma and war is ruining kids and contributing to the cycles of violence?? Tsunade learned to fix bodies and Sakura mastered that so why not let her discover how to help people fix their minds…and change the system that way. Look I get that this is speculation and headcanon, but it feels like that's the groundwork tentatively laid? Sakura growing up and leaving her idyllic childhood behind and changing the system with her more balanced and objective view on things since SHE had a normal childhood (in context, okay) Anyway I could spiral into like 10 different rants from this and I probably will at some point but whatever Hey tumblr I'm hexalene I'm late to the fandom and I have a lot of useless opinions