#the villain is so far just laughably bad

[darthmaclunkey]

I’m reading a book that, personally, I don’t think is well written at all, and the pacing is so misjudged to be a nuisance, but the plot is just compelling enough for me to hang on, + it’s a library book so I’ve only got it for another 15 days AND I’m not in the habit of dnf’ing books unless they’re really objectionable. so anyway I feel like this

[dark-and-kawaii]

༺ 𝒜 𝒟𝑒𝓋𝒾𝓁 𝒴𝑜𝓊 𝐿𝑜𝓋𝑒 ༻

You never expected a Devil to be your savior, never expected to be cherished by him…

PRT 2 (CLICK HERE) - Fluff - Soft Raphael - Past Talk About Abuse

Gazing outside his balcony, you watched as yet another red storm began to stir throughout Avernus. The wilted trees bend to the will of the fiery winds. The overcast clouding your view of the mountains, and with a deep sigh this dreary day has brought back memories you had thought you’d forgotten. A life full of pain and restrictions… But the devil took you away from it all, and gave you a new life with new meaning.

With a subtle startled expression as you felt your hand graze one of the small buttons on your wrist, you look down with a warm smile as you continue to run your hand along the soft cotton of Raphael’s opulent dress shirt. You nearly had forgotten that on days such as this you quite enjoy stealing his shirts. They always brought you such comfort and joy, who would’ve thought… A devil bringing you such comfort. It’s laughable really. Holding your arm to your lips you can smell the scent of cherries and sulfur, it relaxes your muscles and you can’t help but to thank him aloud to yourself, “Thank you, my devil.”

“For what, pray tell little mouse of mine?”

And just like a tiny mouse, squealing wasn’t the right word for the noise you had just made… But with a tiny cute noise, you hastily turned around on his silken bed to face the devil himself, Raphael… He was always so handsome no matter the form he took, right now though he appeared human. His milk chocolate eyes watching you with interest, his hand resting on his chin. Everything about him was so grandiose and each time you looked him in the eyes your heart would skip a beat.

The Devil wasn’t perfect, he had his flaws just as everyone else did… He also had his own ambitions to rule the 9 hells… But, for whatever reason, those flaws made him even more special to you. Yes, he was the son of Mephistopheles. Yes, he is technically one of the “bad” guys, but… unlike the last villain that had captured you… Raphael was soft with you, treated you as if you were some sort of delicate flower that would break apart if not careful. He had his souls he enjoyed to flail and torture, yet with you it was different… the devil had no need to put you through such horrors. He cherished and protected you like a dragon with its hoard of treasure.

“R-Raphael- I uh-… Thank you… For…”

Just his presence alone made you flustered, it couldn’t be helped.

“It would seem that the cat has caught this little mouse’s tongue.” A small laugh emanated from his chest, “How, precious.”

You grin at his response.

Damn near everyone would disagree with you, but in your eyes, Raphael wasn’t foul, not like Astarion was… This devil you came to know throughout your adventure didn’t hold you by a leash… Didn’t force you down whenever he pleased, or gauge your neck with his teeth to prove a point- Your flushed face reducing to a pale complexion as your hand cups where Astarion left his mark on you. A chill runs down your spine remembering when Astarion the Ascended chained you for days… All because you wanted to run out into the city for some fresh brioche and to say hello to Gale.

Raphael, a devil, son of Mephistopheles… Never chained you nor held you against your will. He let you run out into the real world… Let you do as you pleased. You knew he’d make Korilla follow after you. But it wasn’t due to lack of trust, it was plainly because he wanted to keep you safe and out of the Vampires grasps.

Like a falling feather, you gracefully glide off Raphael’s bed. His shirt on you flowed at the bottom thanks to it being far too big on you making this scene before him look like it was out of a book- and into his chest you fell. Your arms wrapping around him while your cheek pressed against his arm that crossed against his chest.

“What’s better than a devil you do know?” You looked up at him questioning.

“By all means please do enlighten me.” His hand never left his face and his other arm stayed crossed over his chest as you embrace him.

“A devil thats your savior…” -You looked away from him, staring back out the balcony-, “I don’t think you’d ever find a quote like that in a book, but I’m thankful for you, Raphael. Truly. Thank you.” You press your face into him, your lashes fluttering close.

Raphael would never tell you how he waited for your hope to whittled down to the very marrow of despair- how he waited for you to whimper his name between sobs while chained to the vampires personal bed. The Devil would also never admit how it pained him to see such a treasure being handled in such ways, yet he wanted you to call out to him. He’s still a devil after all… So he waited all that year, waited for you to call out his name for help, pleading to sign whatever it is he desired…

“You didn’t belong with such filth.”- you didn’t need to look up to know he was scrunching his face, you could hear it in his voice- “Fine beauty such as yourself belongs in a much more suitable home.” He finally moved his hand from his face to the top of your head. Petting you like some adored pet.

Raphael, from the moment he laid eyes on you, knew he'd make you apart of his plan forever someday. He just didn’t expect you to vanish all of a sudden… The damn vampire had ascended and taken you… All those years you were caged like some sort of animal. Nowhere to go, forced into things you wanted no part of… Living like a rat.

A rarity had shown its face as Raphael peered down at you, you didn’t see it and Raphael could only hope for once that Haarlep didn’t see the concern on his face.

Astarion still walks among the living, and Raphael can’t be everywhere…

[hargreevesrage]

I'm so pissed off about season 4 that I made a whole new Tumblr account to complain about it.

What the fuck was that? I had never seen something so truly ridiculous, senseless and bad, just plain bad. I'm embarrassed to even say I liked the show now. There are so many things wrong with it I can't even begin to list them. From beginning to the end nothing made sense. The only positive thing to come out of it was Klaus and Claire's relationship, and the only interesting idea was the timeline train + Five Cafe, everything else was garbage.

Ben's whole thing. Klaus's regression and sexual abuse being played for laughs. Luther being reduced to a single joke. Lila being butchered to give Five a useless love story. Five being numbed and dumbed down, and also not even actually being Five, because Five would never in a million years do that to his family, his own brother. Diego having to deal with all that shit, being blamed for it for no reason, and it also being played for laughs. Allison not actually dealing with anything, adding no depth to her character, sending her and Ray's story into oblivion. Viktor being virtually non-existent. Villains being wacky with no substance, stupid useless wastes of time like the puke scene, the plot being all over the place, Jennifer, nothing being cohesive at all, no themes being explored like before. The whole ending which threw all of the themes established in previous seasons down the drain. And maybe I'm being picky, but the stupidity of saying Claire, Grace and the twins would still exist without Allison and Diego there to conceive them is so laughable and ends the whole thing on such an absurd note that I still can't believe this is actually what they wrote and went to all that trouble to film and release.

It was like the show had no heart, the season had no center because at its core it was empty. Like an AI generated picture or text. Cold, dead images. No light behind its eyes. Just a bunch of scenes someone put together, with people saying things that mean nothing, in a world that means nothing, to say nothing of importance to no one at all.

The cast did all they could do with what they were given, and I will always be grateful for the love and care they put in their characters since the beginning, but that could only go so far in this case. They were hanging on for dear lives. At least there will always be season 1.

[terraco-07]

I find the posts claiming that Rose and Jade were in character for their current series of actions interesting to say the least. Personally I can't help but see them far and away out of their original characterization, but I'll focus primarily on Rose here. I think it's really easy for us to forget the original comic when looking at subsequent works and forget the foundational information that informs us of who a character is. I'm sorry but less than a thousand pages of Epilogues and HS2 isn't going to tell you as much as 8k and the writers SHOULD be looking at the original and plotting off of that even if they were teens in it. When writing a sequel (Whether canon or not) the original matters! That all said when I look back at Rose on the meteor I see someone who let her nerves and her fear of failure and being alone propel her forward at all times. This girl got so nervous about impressing Kanaya that she was wasted and missed their first date. She's insecure and fearful that Kanaya might break up with her on the meteor as well. The way that scene went down and Kanaya yelling no to me reads as this wasn't the first time Rose has asked that. Regardless you take all of that and you add the fact that candy Rose was talking to John about how happy she was and how much she loved her wife and kid and we go from that to well I knew you'd forgive me and honestly I just wanted to see what would happen while Kanaya is actively going "You do remember you said a kid between those three would be horrible and you didn't like Jade right?" We have no reason to believe that Kanaya is an unreliable narrator here, if anything Rose more than likely is. The idea that Rose just went oh man my good bestie Jade wants me to cheat on my loving wife of over 10 years and went yeah sure anything for my friend is laughably bad I'm sorry. If that's actually a course of action being taken by the writers I genuinely question if we're writing this for a 5th grade reading level. HS2 has at times been a series of flatting characters into their most basic forms and I'm so tired of seeing this parroted by fans who take the most surface level shit and run with it without thinking a little deeper. I feel like I've gone over this before but making Rose into this sort of cold emotionless villain type is so uninspired while we're at it. We're creating problems for her when she had ten other things she could have been shitty for. The knew you'd forgive me line is especially egregious for some shallow anime villain type. I will say Rose is bad at communication I agree with those points, but that ignores the main issue. She's bad at talking about her feelings but she isn't bad at caring about Kanaya's. The idea that she would throw away or risk her relationship EVEN with the visions is kind of insane to me. Her fear of losing Kanaya would overweigh the trust in her powers. I think that Rose like a handful of other characters is just chronically misread and people are excited about an evil plotline but this is so half baked and the idea that she was always like this or this makes sense with her previous characterization is just actually insane to me. Look HS2 fans you can have your new Rose, but that's a different person I think we can all play nice under that assumption.

[cantstoplovingjude]

Underneath the Black Veil: Victor Ch.1

This is from Ikemen Villains EN, Cybird owns everything.

Soft rays of sunshine illuminated the study in the palace.

The aroma of Earl Grey tea and freshly baked scones drizzled with honey wafted through the air.

While I ate, I proofread my report to Her Majesty.

Victor was the one who'd served me the delicious tea and scones, of course. And speaking of Victor...

Victor: "Oh, that Jude. He ripped another shirt of his!"

Victor: "Well, he is very well-acquainted with the edge of a knife, so I suppose it can't be helped."

Victor: "Ah! The buttons are coming off Harrison's jacket! He's so troublesome."

He was cheerfully sewing repairs into the clothes of the Crown members.

Kate: "Haha. I see you're hard at work, Victor."

Victor: "I certainly am! And when Jude sees his neatly repaired clothing. I just know what he'll say."

Jude: "Ya sewed it up for me? Not bad for Queenie's right-hand man. Appreciate it."

Victor: "Heheh, and then I'll get one of his rare smiles! And then Harrison will say..."

Harrison: "You're so considerate, Victor. How about I take you out for lunch sometime?"

Victor: "Heheh, and then we'll finally have a lunch date together! Just imagining it makes my heart race!"

(...I highly doubt either of them will say those things.)

Regardless, I was doing my job as Fairytale Keeper, working once again alongside the ever lively and cheerful queen's aide.

Being with Victor felt comfortable, and honestly it was the place I could relax the most.

The only problem was that his homemade sweets were too delicious, and I ended up eating way too much.

Victor: "Oh, that's right! I was just thinking I needed to alter something of yours as well."

Kate: "What?"

I widened my eyes when Victor snapped his fingers and produced a piece of clothing.

It was a beautiful, jet-black wedding dress.

Kate: "It's lovely!"

Victor: "Isn't it? It's a one-of-a-kind item, so it's not your size just yet."

Kate: "Hang on a second, Victor. I'm not following you here."

Obviously, I had no recollection of buying such a beautiful wedding dress, nor did I have the occasion to wear it.

Victor: "Hm?"

Victor: "Oh! I got ahead of myself there! I'm so silly!"

Victor shrugged and put the wedding dress aside, then gave me a serious look.

Victor: "There have been rumors circulating amongst couples in London about a certain organization called Amour."

Victor: "Supposedly, those who join the organization and get married at their facility can obtain 'eternal love'."

Kate: "This is the first I've heard of it. It sounds like fortune telling or a superstition. It's kind of laughable."

Victor: "Oh, I thought so too. Before the disappearances happened, at least."

Kate: "Disappearances?"

He explained the whole story to me.

Apparently, many couples who went to Amour's church disappeared.

Victor suspected there was something sinister happening, so he and William began to investigate.

The two of them discovered that the leader of Amour was behind it all.

Their theory was the man killed the couples to steal the money they'd been saving for their future together.

(That's horrible.)

I thought it was odd that Victor and William hadn't taken action yet, if they discovered that much so far.

Kate: "Is there any reason no one's condemned them yet?"

Victor: "Well, the leader doesn't usually show his face in public."

Victor: "He only appears at the wedding ceremonies."

(Oh, then that explains the wedding dress.)

Kate: "So in the other words, I'm going to have to pretend to be engaged to someone and infiltrate Amour."

Kate: "And when we have our wedding, the leader will appear and we can condemn him."

Victor: "Precisely! You're always so quick to catch on."

Kate: "So? Who's going to be my fiancé?"

Victor: "Well, as you can see by all these torn clothes, the members of Crown have been quite busy lately."

Victor: "Right now, I'm the only one who can accept the mission."

Victor: "In other words, Miss Kate..."

Victor: "Will you marry me?"

Kate: "Victor..."

Victor: "I, Victor, swear that I shall always protect you. I will never make you feel anxious or sad. So, what do you say?"

The way he looked at me with his eyes that sparkled like jewels made it difficult for me to say no.

Kate: "I'm the Fairytale Keeper after all, so I have no choice but to say yes. Please, let me go with you on this mission."

Victor: "Really?! Thank you, Kate! I'm so happy!"

Seeing how thrilled Victor was made me happy too.

(Come to think of it, this will be my first mission with Victor.)

(Except, wait a minute. If worse comes to worst... can Victor fight?)

He was fully competent with his work and household chores, but I'd never once seen him anything remotely close to combat.

And no matter how many times I tried to imagine it, all I could see was him happily skipping down the hallway.

(Well, that just means I'll have to protect him if anything happens!)

It would be a major incident if anything happened to the queen's aide.

Victor: "Now, let's give into the darkness of our wicked hearts. And also have a blast!"

==========

After we packed our bags, we headed to Amour's church.

Follower: "Welcome to Amour!"

The followers dressed in pure white clothes greeted us at the door.

We told them we'd like to have a wedding, and they all smiled brightly at us.

Follower: "Very well, then. First, we'll conduct a test to see if you two truly love each other."

(A test?)

(I guess I should've expected that, but... now what?)

I anxiously looked over at Victor, who firmly squeezed my hand.

It was like he was telling me it would be all right.

Victor: "Yes, of course. But you know, love is very difficult to prove since you can't see it with the naked eye."

Victor: "Therefore..."

Victor: "If I can make Kate smile in an instant, will you take that as proof that we love each other?"

The follower conferred with each other and then nodded at his suggestion.

Victor: "Thank you so much for being flexible, and for being so generous!"

Victor: "Now, everyone! May I have your attention, please?"

Victor: "I have here an ordinary jacket, but I'm going to shake it and make Kate's favorite flower appear!"

Follower: "...I guess he's doing some kind of magic thick?"

Victor: "Now, watch carefully. I'll shake the jacket and..."

Victor: "Ta-daaa!"

All of a sudden, a white dove flew out of Victor's jacket.

Followers: "Eek!"

Victor: "Whoa! Why doves?!"

Follower: "Open the windows! Quickly, open the windows!"

Kate: "I-I'll help you!"

Everyone quickly opened the windows, and the dove gracefully flew out and up to the sky.

(That startled me!)

Kate: "Heh..."

Victor: "Hm?"

Kate: "Pfft, ahahaha! Another dove?!"

Kate: "I swear, every time your magic tricks fail a dove appears! Ahaha!"

Follower: "Haha... That surprised me! I certainly wasn't expecting a dove."

Victor: "Well, all's well that ends well. She did end up smiling, after all!"

Follower: "A promise is a promise. We shall acknowledge that you two truly love each other."

Victor: "Wow, really? Thanks!"

The followers all chuckled with chagrin as they stood around Victor.

(I was afraid of what would happen if he failed, but he didn't only make me smile... He made everyone else smile too.)

Follower: "Well, then, let's hold the wedding tomorrow morning. Until then, you're free to do as you please."

End Ch.1

[legobiwan]

I find it interesting that king boo and dimentio see luigi as the bigger threat or nuisance in king boos case seems like the most dangerous villains tend to focus more on luigi than mario also what are your thoughts on antasma?

I think King Boo in particular is interesting as he went from having no particular opinion about Luigi (you get the feeling that he would have captured whichever brother had entered the mansion first in LM1) to holding a festering hatred of Luigi by the time we hit the third LM game. You almost get the sense King Boo regarded Luigi as a someone laughable until he actually fought through the entire mansion and beat King Boo. And I think at that point, King Boo just fixated on Luigi as this seemingly cowardly, anxiety-prone, far less famous of the Mario brothers who brought down his ambitions Three Whole Times. By the time we hit LM3 (and I haven't played Dark Moon yet, have only watched some cut scenes for writing purposes), it strikes me that King Boo doesn't give a damn about Mario or Peach or the Toads, only their value in luring Luigi through what I would contend is a drawn-out, premeditated gauntlet of 15-ish levels of ghoulish battle. It's almost like he wants to watch Luigi beat these ghosts who he obviously holds zero regard for, only so he can finally top this nemesis of his and assert his dominance over the ghostly population. Wild stuff.

On the other hand, we have Dimentio, our favorite bastard magic man. Unlike King Boo, the minute Luigi came into his orbit, you get the feeling Dimentio was gunning for him. (Whether or not Dimentio had scouted out Luigi and the gang prior to the Chaos Heart's arrival is up for debate, but it does raise the interesting question of why Luigi was marked to be brainwashed while Peach and Bowser and Mario were left to their own devices. Now, was this the Count's own idea due to what was written in the Dark Prognosticus or was DImentio whispering in his ear? I'm not entirely certain, but by the time Luigi/Mr. L came to Castle Bleck, Dimentio would have been tracking him, to phrase it as Dimentio would, like a bloodhound denied his nightly dinner).

All this is to say, Dimentio was laser-focused on Luigi and worse yet, because Dimentio is a cunning, manipulative asshole, he read all of Luigi's insecurities that got blasted about in his Mr. L form like a child's picture book. For Dimentio, I think, he sees not only a tool but someone who could ultimately be swayed to his side, had he the time. A man of a terrible potential he doesn't even realize, anxiety masking a hundred and one other emotions Luigi either can't or won't recognize. (I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I am 100% convinced Luigi's anxiety is, to a degree, a coping mechanism so he doesn't have to deal with the more complicated, sometimes darker emotions and thoughts whirling around his head).

I have yet to play M&L: Dream Team, but I have seen some takes on Antasma and his relationship with Luigi, who seems play a pivotal role in this game. I'm excited to get to this one (it's one of the next on my list after I finish Thousand Year Door! That and Dark Moon!) so I'll have to report back once I've gotten into it.

But I would say to your assertion that the more dangerous villains are drawn to Luigi -

Let's think about it this way. Mario is a known variable. He's a hero, he's incorruptible, at least according to the stories. His role is to beat the bad guys, to stand in their way, to protect and be the guardian of the moral high ground. The villains want to defeat him.

Luigi, however, is a little more complicated. He shares the same desire to protect as Mario, to be the hero and stand on the moral high ground but...we see the way he acts in the Paper Mario series, the overblown language, the way he wants to be included, the way the Toads treat him, the way he's referred to so often as number two, the way his anxiety is out in the open. Luigi presents as someone a lot more malleable than Mario is, as someone who could not only be defeated, but exploited. And, of course, each time Luigi defies those expectations because he's a lot stronger and braver than he presents (although he's always complicated). And it's the type of thing where I imagine it's partially that the villains feel their egos are bruised by their defeat coming from the "other brother," on one hand, and on the other, there's that promise they see in Luigi, whether or not he'd actually betray his brother, but they see those shades of grey in him, see something they could use and it has to be alluring to them.

(Not to mention Luigi's penchant for magic - the Thunderhand, his weird negative dimension thing in the Smash Brothers series, his dream capabilities - unlike Mario, Luigi's abilities tend to fall into the more fantastical and in tandem with his engineering skills, have the potential to make him so, so powerful. If He Ever Tapped Into That Side of Himself.)

[pokelolmc]

The Ultimate Enemy is a Disappointment (and How I'd Fix It) (Part 2)

Here I am, back with Part 2 of my analysis on The Ultimate Enemy. If you haven't read part one, I suggest you check it out. But I suppose this one works in isolation, too. This time we're going into everything to do with our main villain/the episode's attempt at the "alternate villain self of the hero" trope. This one's a doozy, so be prepared! Unfortunately this post got too long, so this'll be the criticisms and the fixes will get their own post. But I have some interesting headcanons in mind, if that's any consolation!

I think I got a bit too heated with this one--I was running on frustration while trying to figure it out. Oops.

(Part 1), Part 2, (Part 2.5)

Part 2--The Problems with Dan’s character/story arc:

The writers minimised Danny’s moral responsibility in the events of Dan’s existence/creation.

So I noticed a pretty glaring pattern with this episode, but I don’t think it was intentional on the writers’ part, probably just subconscious:

Any time we see our hero doing supposedly bad things, which are supposed to lead to his own villain origin story, the writer’s minimise Danny’s responsibility as much as possible.

They insist that Danny’s going to become evil/turn into Dan, but the events that lead to Dan’s timeline (as far as we get to see them recur in the main timeline) essentially drag a very passive and reactive Danny behind them on a leash. It comes off as very hollow. Like they want to do an “alternate timeline villain self” superhero plot, but couldn’t actually commit to the bit when they wanted to show our Danny having the “seeds” of Dan’s immorality (or the events that lead to Dan’s timeline gradually coming to fruition because of Danny's actions, and risking Dan's creation again).

Exhibits A through C:

“Danny cheated on the CAT”! Except he didn't. The idea didn’t occur to him on his own, nor did he break his own moral code to steal the answers with his ghost powers. The fucking Master of Time just GAVE them to him! Danny just basically just accepted someone else’s offer (his own choice, but reactive and minor). He doesn't even think about cheating until Clockwork drops the answers in his lap. And we'll never know if he would have without them.

And after that, he never even actually GOT to cheat. He didn't get to finish opening the envelope (he was interrupted), and the one who actually cheated in his place to make the story happen was the main villain.

By the end of the episode, Danny had still never seen the answers! He could’ve sat the CAT right there at the very end, without handing the answers to Lancer, and it would’ve been totally legit!

(Keeping the answers with the intent to cheat was still a dishonest move…but a fourteen year old kid doing that, especially when he never got to actually go through with cheating, is extremely minor. That's not evil, ladies and gentlemen. It’s petty academic misconduct at best. Compared to Dan’s actual crimes, it’s laughable.)

Being a victim in the deaths of his loved ones was totally fair…but then we find out how Dan was born. Danny didn’t spend the next ten years spiralling into grief or madness and becoming a villain alone. Instead he had his ghost half fused with an already established villain and Vlad’s evil overwhelmed his mind.

In theory, the writing team had the freedom here to write it however they wanted. They really could’ve just written the “alternate villain self” trope straight—“Dan is literally just Danny, but he’s older and had a massive shift in his personality and moral compass for (insert reasons)”.

But instead, the writers gave us “Danny fused with an already-villainous character and absorbed their evil”. Seriously?

There could be plenty of alternatives—“Danny dealt terribly with his trauma and took it out by abusing his powers (starting small, but escalating) and got corrupted by them”. “He spiralled into madness and split himself in half to try end the pain, but his ghost half ended up with all his negative/toxic traits (or emotional pain) and no restraint (so it went evil on its own)”.

Heck, maybe you could even throw in a toxic relationship with Vlad, for good measure—becoming Danny’s “new father”, clinging to him as “the only person who could understand him”, isolating him, manipulating him, teaching Danny his own bad coping mechanisms and cutthroat philosophy (because Vlad also had trauma, don’t forget) and using Danny to carry out his errands as a gateway to villainous behaviour. Think Silco and Jinx’s relationship from Arcane.

Or, use the idea of fusion, but at least acknowledge Danny’s not the only person responsible for Dan’s creation and explore that in the story.

If they wanted to show Danny at risk of becoming evil, they should've actually shown him more actively making/resorting to immoral decisions instead of dragging him into those situations and calling it "evil".

2. Dan being a fusion of Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves means he can’t be the same person as Danny. He has to be either a mixture of both of them, or a new person born from them combining (they're basically the ingredients for somebody new).

We don’t know how halfa fusions work, but it wouldn’t make sense for a fusion to be the same person as only one of the components. Dan By the episode's logic, Dan was a "future version of Vlad" then, too. But the episode refused to acknowledge that. Dan only acknowledged his relation to Vlad from Danny’s point of view, as “his cheesehead archenemy”.

Physically, it’d be impossible for Dan to exist without Vlad. He was physically comprised of half-Plasmius. His physical design reflected a hybrid of both Danny and Vlad’s ghost halves (and in Vlad’s case, also his human half). His blue skin, ponytail, facial hair and cape (and likely also the red eyes) drew from Vlad/Plasmius. Dan, as he was, could not exist without both of them.

Vlad’s recollection of Dan’s backstory also implies that most of Dan’s “evil” came from him. And we know from Identity Crisis that separated halves aren’t just one or two pure emotions—they have some self-image, or level of awareness and personality. When Plasmius was separated from Vlad in TUE, he would’ve had some self-image or identity of his own to carry into the fusion. It wouldn’t just have been “Phantom’s identity plus Plasmius’s evil”. It would’ve been both of their identities mixing. If whatever constituted as Plasmius’s “evil” (rooted in his memories/backstory, emotions and personality traits) was able to “overwhelm” Phantom, it’d only make sense for his whole mind to win overall.  But for some bizarre reason, Phantom is Dan’s dominant identity--and treated as his only one.

How could Plasmius overtake Phantom in the battle of wills enough to flood the latter with his malice, but somehow Danny’s identity or memories were dominant enough that THEY won?

Besides, in a mental battle between a mentally stronger, older man with more experience with his ghost powers, and the fourteen-year-old kid who was still too weak to beat him directly one-on-one, it’d make no sense for Danny to win. They were both in grief over losing the only people they truly "loved" (Maddie, for Vlad) and Vlad as twenty other years of built-up, unresolved pain to stew in first (not to mention his already strong maliciousness/selfishness). So Danny probably wouldn't win out on negative emotions alone.

Though, we are taking Vlad on his word here, which was rather dubious and vague in canon…but I personally trust him on that statement because he’d have little motivation to lie about this to Danny. That statement directly incriminated Vlad in Dan’s villainous nature to Danny, only giving a reason for the latter to further oppose him or be outraged. If he had any reason to lie, it’d be to make himself look better or avoid directly admitting fault. He already seemed to do that in previous parts of the same flashback.

We absolutely know the fusion happened, though—because Dan’s mixed design outside of the flashback was undeniable and alternate Vlad was in ruin without a ghost half.

And if we want to say that Danny still technically counts as "becoming Dan" because his and Vlad's ghost halves both became Dan together (assuming Dan is an active combination of both halves back-and-forth, rather than a new person just made from both of them) I don't believe it's fair to say that Danny's crimes were Dan's, or hold him (main!Danny) primarily responsible for Dan as a problem. This is because of the disconnection of identity and moral control between Danny Fenton and Dan.

It was never clear, not even in Identity Crisis, what happened to the original, whole halfa’s sense of self or consciousness when split into two. Danny obviously didn’t have much, if any, control over his halves in Identity Crisis—they had to cooperate like two separate people, and their personalities and behaviours were distinctly exaggerated and out of character for his whole self. Individual parts no longer controlled or regulated by the larger whole.

By that logic, Danny couldn’t be held fully morally responsible for the actions of his halves while separated, since they weren’t under his conscious control/he wasn’t of his full mind (similar to the reason insanity pleas exist in court, or you can't properly consent when under the influence of drugs/alcohol). His responsibility would be there somewhere, but unclear and debatable.  It’s possible they could be separate identities from him entirely. The only thing fully his responsibility is the decision to split in the first place, which facilitated their actions (since he did that while still of his own sound mind).

That creates a degree of separation between Danny and his split halves before his ghost half even fuses with another person. Adding a literal separate individual into the mix would make Dan two degrees of separation away from the original Danny Fenton. Alternate!Danny could be held fully responsible for requesting/going along with Vlad's Ghost Gauntlets procedure (facilitating Dan in the first place), but after that, his moral responsibility is in doubt from the moment he's split apart. And considering that this hyperspecific method for Dan existing is relatively easy for our main Danny to avoid (as long as he's informed), I highly doubt it's even REMOTELY fair to accuse past/main timeline!Danny of everything Dan has done. The episode's repeated assertions of "this is what Danny will do...in time" when referring to what Dan did is just not correct.

3. The episode’s plot does so much telling the audience that Danny and Dan are the same person, and that Dan’s crimes are consequently Danny’s, mostly through character dialogue. Dan's backstory throws all of this into question, and the plot does NOTHING to explore or remedy the apparent complexity/contradiction.

While “Dan is Danny’s future self” could be “technically” true���in the sense that the Phantom half mixed into Dan is the only remnant of Danny in the future—it’s not true that he IS Danny as a person. He’s a fusion with an entirely separate individual, who was already villainous before the fusion. The question remains as to whether Phantom and Plasmius are both intact as identities inside of Phantom, or he's a new person entirely.

But the episode repeatedly had a handful of characters spell out that “Dan was Danny but evil”, mistake past/main timeline!Danny for Dan, or accuse Danny of what Dan's done. And even when characters have a reason to be wrong in-universe, the sheer repetition of their mistake in the script (out-of-universe) serves as a framing device for what the narrative wants us to believe.

Clockwork and Dan himself both have every reason to know of his origin as a fusion, and yet they still refer to him and Danny as if they’re the same person.

In the light of Dan's nature as a fusion, this rings hollow. The situation is more complex than anyone is letting on.

And when Vlad reveals Dan’s backstory, NOTHING is made of this information. Danny doesn’t even verbally react to it, to show that he’s processed it. It doesn’t change how he sees Dan or lead to him trying to figure out what Dan is. He doesn’t react to the “my evil overwhelmed you” comment from Vlad. He still goes into the final fight with Dan insisting “I won’t become you!”. The episode says nothing of it—the only thing Danny takes out of his encounter with Vlad is the Ghost Gauntlets.

[lockpickingliar]

Ouma Kokichi (Joker) on Bias

So obviously I was never around to witness the trial. That's a given. And every time there was a trial, Ran-chan was there. That's how the time loops worked. If he was dead already when it happened, my death would have been the one to reset the loop, and so there would never have even been a trial to my knowledge. But that's a lie, since I don't remember loops anyhow and ultimately besides the point.

I have, however, seen the game and how the canon here goes.

And I'm not surprised in the slightest.

I will fully admit that I expected this to happen. I set up these dominoes for myself. I knew Saihara-chan and the others were so ingrained in the mechanisms of the game and that Monokuma was desperate enough that it would be inevitable for him to rely on the Talent of the Ultimate Detective to get out of the mess I'd made for him and they would just accept it because as far as they were concerned, Monokuma was the god of this world.

I wouldn't be surprised if the first time this happened, it went almost exactly like this with the exception of Ran-chan's presence (and the fact he sabotaged it, but I'm not in the mood to elaborate on that).

It's just a fact of the bias I set up. I'm a liar. I'm a cheat. While I'm not proud of the narrative I was complicit in letting Shirogane set up for poor Gokuhara as the easily-manipulated idiot, it absolutely served its purpose to cast an even worse light on me in the end.

That's what I wanted. I needed them to believe I was the mastermind, and in the event of my death, that they would be so biased towards my "malice" that they would not possibly be able to conceive of an outcome where I was the one under that press and Momota was the one in that Exisal.

That of course doesn't mean I had to like it.

It's laughably easy to tip the scales of bias when you know how. That's what lying is best for. Kind lies, cruel lies, they're all lies at the end of the day to the average person, and to the average person lies are bad. If you're known to be the boy who cried wolf right from the start, then people will just assume your only goal is to cause as many problems as possible just for your own amusement.

I don't usually broadcast myself as a liar, actually.

But that's also a lie.

It helps weed out the people with biases like that. Helps me find the people who understand the nuances behind motivation. Helped me curate my organization in a way that benefited the disenfranchised.

Not that the others would believe me. Because they know me as a liar, and liars are bad people so that means anything good I say must be a lie because why would a bad person who lies have anything good to say?

Even though I lost my cool and the mask cracked for a minute before Gokuhara's execution, they ate up my villain speech afterward like ravenous dogs. Do you know why? Because it fell in line with their bias. They had already made up their mind about me from the start, and I fed them and fed them and fed them until they had their fill.

It's easy. It's so laughably easy.

If it had been any other situation, I wouldn't have recruited any of them. Not one, except for Ran-chan, who was the only one of the bunch who picked up what I was putting down. But it wasn't any other situation. It was this situation, and I had no choice but to lead this sorry band of prejudiced idiots.

And what better way to string them along than to take advantage of their biases for my contingency plan?

It carried over from loop to loop, too. The disdain. The hatred. Even though no one else remembered the details, the feelings remained. It seemed to compound on itself and grow, more and more with every repeat. After that first time, that was it. I was locked into that role whether I liked it or not.

I made it work, though. I came up with all sorts of crazy ways to use it to my advantage. To steer the group in a particular direction with fear and fear alone. But maybe that's a lie. Maybe I was terrible at it and after that first bout with the press failed, it was all downhill from there.

I hated leading that way, but it had to be done.

But that's a lie, too.

Which part is the lie? Well, that's for everyone else to decide with whatever biases they have.

[maxwell-grant]

thoughts on the Penguin trailer ?

Still have a hard time believing this is happening and that Penguin is somehow gonna be the first comic book villain to get essentially TWO tv shows with him as the protagonist. Not bad, Ozzie, not bad at all.

Very glad to see his limp is more pronounced this time around, that's one of my favorite modern additions to the character. I like the gold teeth as well, they compliment his wretched grin quite nicely.

I have some hesitations regarding this teaser though mainly because Gangster Penguin is in general a concept I have some very mixed opinions of. This is very clearly aiming for that serious Prestige TV Gangster Show vibe, and that can be a bit hit or miss.

I think a lot of what's gonna make or break this show for me is how they paint the world around Penguin and how he contrasts from it. Because part of what works about this Penguin is that, besides the Tony Soprano and Fredo-becomes-Scarface of it all, they made his personality citing the likes of Bob Hoskins and Sydney Greenstreet to make him "a throwback Warner Bros gangster", which means he's quite a few steps removed from being anything like a "real" gangster. He is as much of a gangster as the old version of Penguin was a gentleman thief and swashbuckling nobleman, which is to say, he very much wants to be and can even pull it off in spades, but he's Oswald Cobblepot, awkward farcical counterpart to the actual main character of this world, so he's not quite there the way he would like to be.

The movie plays this that contrast a bit by setting Oz as the loudmouth movie gangster sidekick to Falcone, played to a far, far more chilling and real menace by John Turturro, and the show seems to be following suit with Sofia Falcone playing a "normal" crimelord opposite Oswald. The Falcones are generally incurably boring characters but I think this is a smart choice, making it so that the show's setting and supporting cast make Oswald stand out as uniquely bizarre (compared to the movie, where he was never going to top Batman and Riddler in that regard).

Sofia Falcone is not the hottest Batman woman of all time a giant who strangles cops as a kinder alternative to crushing their skulls like soda cans between her forearms, and therefore there's really no point whatsoever to adapting her. But unfortunately I'm gonna have to declare myself a Tumblr heretic and point out that the giant murdery lady might have not been the best choice here at this moment in time, if this show is gonna play on the idea of Penguin as a unique aberration among the regular mobsters trying to stop him.

Worst case scenario, assuming The Batman somehow was just a fluke, is that this is gonna be a fairly boring nothing of a spin-off focused on uninteresting gangsters warring it out and largely held together by Colin Farrell being a hoot. The more optimistic case scenario is that this is gonna be more of The Batman and The Batman's Penguin, which means this is gonna obviously rule, and best case scenario it might be, against the odds, a really, really good Penguin show, because so far, this is a really, really good version of The Penguin.

What they seem to be doing is zeroing in on Oswald's core as a hedonistic social climber with an almost perfect oily charm punctured with insecurities and self-loathing so strong they warp all the way around to an almost-maniacal overconfidence, spitefully driven to prove himself and take what he wants before a world that repeteadly puts him down as unworthy and lesser ("Da world aint built fer guys like us") and who almost succeeds enough to stop living in almost-weres for good. A Penguin who is both this laughably over-the-top waddling freak who gets into pissing contests with the Batmobile and this miserably human figure whose anger and bitterness comes from a deeply understandable place as a lifetime victim of ableism and violence.

They're taking this ridiculous loud parody of a person and infusing that with unexpected complexity, tragedy and grandiosity so the disconnect and contrast makes the character as intriguing to follow as he is fun to watch, a posturing and even pitiful jolly man who gives you a jolly shank between the ribs with unrelenting menace the second you start getting cozy to his charm and forget how dangerous and clever he is. Of course they have to give this guy a show, because that's The Penguin and The Penguin rules.

“He could have that mix of being incredibly, incredibly scary and volatile, and then all of a sudden, you’d see this vulnerable side that really made you feel for that guy". “So I really wanted him to play the character." The idea of getting to do the series and really sort of dive into the depths of who this character is and look at that moment where it’s kind of his Scarface moment. The moment where everyone’s underestimated him, he’s gonna reach for power in Gotham - Matt Reeves

You see that face and it's got, so much history, so much pain, so much violence in it [Matt Reeves] mentioned Fredo to me, because Fredo's crippled by the insignificance that he lives with. There is a kind of fracture at the core of Oz, which fuels his desire and his ambition to rise within this criminal cabal. Where that rise goes … - Colin Farrell

@davidmann95 brought up an idea they might be touching on, which is that in this setting, the Gotham mafia spent 20 years running the city with GTA cheat codes for Infinite Wayne Money, and Oswald happens to be stepping up to take power right at a time when they've been downgraded to a normal mob vying for power in a broken city where that's no longer gonna be the dominant power structure moving forward, because Batman defeated crime by cutting off the crime allowance and that's how we're getting super-crime times two with Clayface and/or Mr Freeze in Part 2.

They also have an Arkham show in development that further cements that changing structure of the rogues and freaks taking over, and so it's possible that this show is gonna be about what happens opposite that, the Gotham mobs trying to ride the tide with Surfing Jokers closing in and the two Falcone Juniors left in town racing to see who gets to be captain of the Titanic.

And this is getting even more into wishful thinking territory, but given how they intend to characterize Penguin in the ways he very much doesn't fit in seamlessly where he wants to and so has to claw and scrape and struggle his way there, and given that he's obviously gonna stick around where as Sofia Falcone and Sal Maroni and etc are all pretty much sealed,

And given how this universe is eever so slightly working it's way into more closer-to-comics elements such as Clayface and Mr Freeze, Arkham Asylum as a gathering hotbed of rogues, and Robin (which both Reeves and Pattison expressed a desire in adapting), it's possible then that the show is gonna be about Penguin becoming a [BIG SHOT] by adapting with the times and thus surviving them, unlike the other mobsters, and so becoming ever so slightly more like his comics self. They did say that Oswald is greatly ambitious and with big plans for the city, that he's capable of taking over power, and that the show is about him moving up from flunky to kingpin, so who's to say he's not gonna have to get creative?

And so what should have been routine business for Sofia and Maroni thrown off the rails by the intrusion of our laughing snorting Simpsons crimelord protagonist, just some weird oily nightclub manager that held Falcone's umbrella up until the city turned upside down and now he's somehow kicking their asses amidst his personal journey of figuring out that being a Godfather / Sopranos extra isn't gonna cut it anymore with all these Bat and Riddle Freaks blowing things up, and so Dah Nu Kengpeen of Gotdam becomes the rocket-powered umbrella genius stealing the seats of power from the kingpins-that-would-be while shouting PENGUIIIN!!! I GOTTA WIIIIIINNNN!!!

Well okay probably not the last part, but I think we're gonna be in for a good time with Mr.Boniface regardless.

[aroaceleovaldez]

honestly I can’t believe TSATS tried to take Nyx and make her the main antagonist here, and claim that she’s on a threat level equivalent to or worse than Gaea.

Like, a.) It’s been talked to death over that Gaea is one of the weakest Riordanverse antagonists ever, because she’s just... so lackluster. The first series antagonists are all so cool and legitimately threatening and intimidating! And it feels like a real victory every time our protagonists defeat them! They’re winning against insurmountable odds! Gaea was just... lame, honestly. So acting like she was actually any kind of threat when discussing her in TSATS is almost laughable.

And then b.) You cannot introduce a character like how Nyx was introduced in House of Hades, and then in a companion novel expect us to accept her as A Big Bad Worse Than Any Of The Others. She was possibly one of the easiest encounters Percy and Annabeth faced in Tartarus! She’s explicitly a silly villain in HoH! Trying to make her the Big Bad now is like if you spent all of The Lightning Thief having every scene of Luke depicting him in a clown costume, right down to the pit scorpion honking when it stings Percy, and then proceeding to spend the rest of the series trying to convince the audience that no, Luke’s totally a valid threat! Just ignore his clown shoes, and the fact that he makes cartoon crashing noises when Thalia kicks him off a cliff. Nyx in HoH is comic relief. And then we’re supposed to believe she’s somehow the biggest threat possible in TSATS? And it doesn’t help that in Nico’s Tartarus flashback, there’s once again so much bathos packed into that scene that Nyx is STILL left feeling completely unintimidating! Like, congrats, yeah, she is the worst villain of the series so far, but worse in the wrong direction than what you were hoping for.

[rallamajoop]

What changes would you make if you were in charge of remaking Resident Evil 6?

Ha, trick question! You're not getting me with that one. I wouldn't remake RE6, it's the only good solution.

Seriously, as much as I did enjoy so much of the absurd nonsense that is RE6, you can't make something so-bad-it's-good deliberately, nor should you try. A complete list of everything from RE6 I'd want to preserve in some hypothetical remake basically goes 1. Jake, 2. uhhhhh, maybe that bit where Piers grows a MONSTER ARM that shoots lightning? (But does that mean we'd have to keep the rest of the Chris/Piers campaign to get there? Ugh, no. Not worth it.) I liked Jake's dynamic with Sherry, but Sherry herself could use a major rewrite. I mean, she has almost-wolverine-level healing powers, and the game still thinks she needs to be tackled out of danger every 10 minutes. Aaaaand I'm already running out of stuff I'd genuinely want to keep.

RE6 is the kind of fractal disaster that could be broken down into a near-infinite number of smaller disasters, representing almost every major creative decision that went into it. Making it a co-op game was a mistake, giving the player 4 different campaigns was a mistake, the big-bads are laughable, the mooks are forgettable, the story leaves far too much hanging and unresolved. It's overlong and tediously repetitive, forcing you to fight the same bosses over and over, and then again as a different character ‒ and that's without even touching on all the weird bugs and jank. The campaign throws you from major outbreak location to major outbreak location, over and over, like a scenario that once supported all of RE2 and 3 is no longer interesting enough to hold anyone's attention. Chris' entire campaign is one long military-shooter-handjob that doesn't matter. Leon and Helena's has far more redeeming features, but I wouldn't really miss it. And Ada's campaign, while critical to the plot, is just the absolute worst way to get all that plot-critical info across to the player.

You could maybe salvage something worth remaking by coming up with some real villains and extending Jake and Sherry's campaign into the whole story, with Chris and Leon (and partners?) mostly appearing as NPCs, ala RE8. But how you'd make Jake and Sherry work without co-op I don't know, and can't be bothered trying to figure out.

How do you remake RE6 successfully? You start by deciding what kind of bloody game you're trying to make, and committing to that. Is it supposed to be horror? A military shooter? Action co-op? Is what you're trying to make even really Resident Evil at all? Or are you actually aiming for some sort of weirdly compelling, frequently ugly, campy, janky, utter mess of an experience? Well, good news if so on that last point: you don't have to remake it, it's all that already.

For the record, a complete list of everything I'd want to save from RE5 goes, 1. Sheva, 2. That bit where Chris punches a boulder. But hell, maybe you could salvage something decent by promoting Sheva to the main character, now trying to save her own country from these fucking foreigners who've introduced bioweapons into her homeland, with Chris reduced to an NPC who's too focused on trying to rescue Jill to do much else but get in Sheva's way (until towards the very end where they finally manage to team up to save the day). But that's all about as likely as Capcom actually producing a good version of RE6.

[bloomeng]

I just finished a fic that dealt heavily with disability and terminal illness and if I had to guess I’d say the author was speaking from experience whether that be themselves or someone close to them so as you can imagine it was very inclusive.

And yet they had the only female character (at least to have a speaking role) go out of her way to be ableist. That was the only purpose she served in the story. She had less than a paragraph of ooc, out of left field, mean ass dialogue, and a single throw away line after. Her comment wasn’t just snide, it was genuinely abhorrent. It was the worst kind of “she would never fucking say that,” because it wasn’t just out of character, it was needlessly misogynistic.

It pisses me off how misogynistic fandom spaces get without even realizing it. I know I’ve talked about this before but why is it in fics that these one dimension villains that exist solely to be bad plot devices always have to be women? I don’t know which is worse; making a whole new female oc to be your one dimensional bad guy or twisting a canon female character to not even resemble herself for the sake of “well I needed someone to suck for conflict.”

In this fic it also felt like such a backhanded thing too because we went so far out of our way to be inclusive and to explore the nuances of these male characters yet the only female character got nothing more than a shitty throw away comment. Made even worse by the fact that there’s a range of male characters in ofmd who are even more likely to have said the ableist thing.

Like it already sucks that female characters don’t get the same level of attention in fandom spaces. Searching for wlw ships is a constant struggle of weeding out all the fics where they’re tagged as a side couple. And you know what I’m not even absolved of this. I’m guilty of also engaging more with male characters and I think the conversation is complex because it’s a feedback loop. Which like…. you can write essays about that. There probably are essays on it.

But the issue of villainizing female characters for the sake of bad conflict isn’t complex.

Which is why I find it so much more frustrating to see people go out of their way to strip female characters of their personalities for the sake of their gay ships and male favs. I want to assume most of these authors don’t even realize they’re doing it, however I’ve seen multiple authors directly state in the notes “I don’t hate *insert female character* but somebody needed to be the villain.” It’s laughable.

Disclaimer: I’m not saying women in fics can’t do bad things or be villains or even be bad people. Men in fics get to be all these things and deep. So why is it that women can’t?

[transpersian]

Why did you tell the blogs to stop talking about Poppy’s cousin? You realize how bad this looks right?

I always approached this conflict from an evidence-based perspective. There are so many arguments that could be brought against this particular piece of info that it makes it too much of a non-starter.

The biggest part is that if it's something that happened literally three decades ago, it's going to be hard to argue that Poppy is even the same person anymore. It can immediately be crushed by any discussion of rehabilitation and growth.

But then there's the entire rest of the situation that we literally know nothing about. What are you going to do, call her mom and ask her for dirt? All you have is the basic allegation.

THAT IS A WEAK FUCKING ARGUMENT.

Just because I wasn't ready to shout something from the rooftops doesn't mean I was trying to hide it. Why do you think internet conflict goes out of control so often? Most people involved are fueled by outrage and conjecture. That doesn't win anything.

Like I said, my methods were always focused on an evidentiary approach. It doesn't have to be enough to show in court, but I needed to have something to back up my claims other than, "Well we heard she did this at one point!"

Do you really think she'd bring it up on stream like that if she wasn't confident in her argument protecting her from it?

If you think that "looks bad," then you're not thinking about this conflict from a level-headed, big-picture perspective. I've been involved in this kind of thing before, but in real-world communities where loyalties were much deeper and people preferred to stay out of it much more. You people need to start thinking about this like detectives and lawyers, not teenagers gasping at every new piece of info and going "I KNEW IT" like this is going the be the thing that brings her down.

You can't just jab your finger at some deep lore and go "SEE??" and then have no follow-up if someone asks other than, "Um... it's bad!"

At the VERY least, have the fucking due diligence of someone writing a college essay, for fuck sakes. Y'all don't even have that. Are you seriously coming after me with "dO yOu KnOw HoW bAd ThAt LoOkS" based on arguments like this? Miss me with that shit. No wonder nobody listens to you.

Grow up. Focus. Stop reacting, slow down and start thinking.

I didn't just grab anything that could look bad and throw it at them. Same thing when it came to anything about AnnieGal (or at least before she put a flashing neon sign over herself), or Laurelai Bailey, or a bunch of other things we heard reliable testimony about.

Did they look bad? Yeah they did. But I knew the tactics she'd use to fight against them and I only wanted to use rock-solid arguments. If you want to bring someone down for the threat they pose, the strongest evidence is current evidence.

You only have so many shots where people will listen to you in situations like this. I just didn't waste those opportunities on weaker shots. I wanted everything I brought to the table to be a haymaker with the weight of extensive evidence. I wanted things they couldn't deny.

This isn't fucking gossip. You want to win? Get a grip and get serious.

Every attempt to paint me the villain has been laughable so far because I have the feeling it's coming from a place that's basically ruled by this kind of reactionary, impulsive thinking.

I'm playing chess. Y'all aren't even playing checkers, you're playing fucking Parcheesi.

Stop wasting everyone's time, especially mine. You have no idea what I'm doing or going through.

[hotcocoabombb]

Wish is painfully mid.

That's it really. That's all you need to know. This movie is just... Bleh. But why, right?

well, im so sad you asked but im here to deliver

The best way I can describe wish (outside of painfully mid) is it feels like a Disney Renaissance movie that was written and then not revised or edited, but they animated it anyway. A lot of the elements in this movie are from the Disney Renaissance, and those elements are good!

In different movies!

So let's start at the beginning: the movie opens explaining how King Magnifico built the kingdom of Rosas in order to ensure people could be safe and live FOR FREE. He also takes the wishes of people to grant for them because they may not have a chance to make their wish come true. The drawback is when you give him the wish, you forget what it is unless he grants it. A little weird but whatever. Do these sound like the actions of a villian? No? Well guess what. He's the villain.

YUP!

so this little selfish prick asha, who is our "hero" wants to be this guys apprentice. her grandpa is also literally 100 years old and hasn't had his wish granted yet so she wants to become his apprentice basically to get his wish granted. which sounds pretty selfish to me but whatever.

So she goes for her interview and after a mid song she finds her grandpa's wish and asks magnifico to grant it. He says no because the wish is to "inspire the future generations" which is too vague for his liking and could be used to inspire them for something bad like overthrowing the kingdom. Asha gets mad because she can't understand his very sound logic and she flips the fuck out starting an argument with him where he declares that he won't grant the wishes and won't give them back because the movie needs an excuse for him to seem evil. By the way we are given no reason to think that anyone is upset about this, even other people who have seen the wishes, which makes asha look even more irrational by comparison.

So asha decides this is unacceptable and tries to hell her grandpa who's like "bro, i gave it up anyway who gaf" and she runs away and makes a wish on a star after a shitty musical number. the star becomes alive and it's name is star. no im not kidding. so this star convinces asha that the wishes must be returned after ANOTHER shitty musical number and now she's on her mission. magnifico sees the star and because magic is outlawed unless he does it (which is such an ass pull that it's laughable) and he decides that the star is a threat towards him because the movie needs an excuse for him to be evil.

asha decides to go steal her grandpa's wish back, which the movie insists is selfless but is very clearly a selfish decision because she only gave a fuck about her family, while magnifico assembles the people and tells them about the illegal magic that happened. asha ends up having to tell her friends about the magic and.... OH YEAHHHHHHH! ASHAS FRIENDS!

Guess what! They don't matter at all and could literally be composed into a single character because in total only two are important! And I don't even remember their names! None of them get any development aside from "oh the king is bad now let's help asha!" or "I ratted asha out but now im possessed so it doesn't matter anyway" which i will get to

anyway, asha asks her friends to stall the king while she steals the wish for her own selfish reasons from the only person in this movie who has acted selflessly thus far. so her friends (or only one of them actually lmfao) helps get the townspeople to question magnifico and he gets so mad he turns evil.

IM NOT KIDDING. THIS IS THE THANKS I GET IS LITERALLY HIM GETTING SO MAD ABOUT BEING QUESTIONED THAT HE TURNS TO FORBIDDEN MAGIC, WHICH TURNS HIM EVIL. ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS

I'm not kidding when I say I consider this character assassination. King Magnifico built Rosas brick by brick, learned magic literally just so he could grant people's wishes, and yet he gets questioned a little too hard and turns evil. The movie tries it's hardest to make it feel like it's just his nature but Magnifico literally has no motivation past "I was questioned too hard"

That's fucking stupid, I'm sorry. Its honestly insulting.

You know what Magnifico's turn reminds me of? The rise of skywalker. In that movie they try to convince you that Rey may turn evil. Magnifico being evil is like if they made Rey ACTUALLY turn evil in rise of skywalker. It would've made literally no sense. Yeah, that's Magnifico.

Anyway, now that magnifico is evil he starts crushing wishes because they make him more powerful. this is so fucking stupid that i just don't care anymore but unfortunately the movie keeps going.

Asha gets her grandpa's wish and gives it to him and he absorbs it and says "imma make it work now for myself" but uh oh! Magnifico found them and he crushes her mom's wish in front of them which gives him a power-up and makes her mom feel sad or something. Then asha throws a shelf or something on him and they flee to an island where asha decides that she has to free the rest of the wishes which is the first selfless thing she has ever done in this movie and only looks good because atp magnifico is reduced to a cartoon villian.

She goes into town where it's revealed she was sold out by one of her friends and his wish was to be Magnifico's loyal knight and he gets possessed and sells out the fact that her other 6 friends knew about asha and a witch hunt is started because magnifico says asha was the one who destroyed the wishes.

asha meets up with her friends and they plan to free the wishes but asha is stopped by her possessed friend and magnifico is stopping the other friends from getting the wishes free, but asha escapes from the possessed guy (by the way im not calling him that for comedic effect i just deadass forgot all of her friends names and im writing this like 20 minutes after watching the movie) and goes to help her friends fight magnifico who then decides, in the writers last middle finger towards me, that he's gonna block the sky and make everyone stay in Rosas so he can remove all hope from the people or something. Asha starts singing and then the town starts singing and that somehow overpowers him and he gets trapped in his magic evil staff, the end

dear god.

So yeah. That's wish. A painfully mid movie with music id rather not listen to again and a villian who appears more altruistic than the hero, so much so that they commit character assassination in order to make him evil. Happy 100th anniversary Disney!

[skuntank]

see. i struggle a bit with J bc there is a part of me that very much is like. I shouldnt try to develop too much of a history for her, because i enjoy the mystery around her an awful lot.

but without that, it makes it more difficult to think of stuff for her, as well as her characterization. it feels awfully dull to just be like. shes a bad guy and she steals pokemon and she doesnt care about anyone.

i guess whats holding me back is like. being that she is a villain, and like, a pretty serious one too (by pokemon standards) i get all tied up around the worry that im just gonna make her really generic if i try to delve deeper into her. i worry that i lean far too much on cliches and dont trust myself to be interesting and creative when it comes to anything writing related.

i am too inside of my own head. i dont worry this much when it comes to other pokemon characters i really like. but also like. they are objectively good people. i am very much someone who likes the idea that everyone has the capacity to be a good person and that there is hope for everyone (the concept of hope in stories and characters is one of the most important things to me. but whether they choose to try to do better is entirely a different story). and hunter j.... does not demonstrate any interest whatsoever in ever trying to be a good person. which is part of what compels me so much about her, but also its like. weirdly out of my depth i guess. i wanna get into the nitty gritty with her but im like weirdly self conscious its just gonna turn out laughably edgy and one dimensional.

[bestreviewguy]

Madame Webb is one of the greatest movies ever made. Everything about it is truly a masterpiece. Please stop what you’re doing and go watch this right now…April fools. This is a terrible film that is actually so bad it’s laughable. Let’s start with the positives in here. Like I said, if you want something to laugh at because of how cheesy it is, this is the movie for you. Also the actresses and actors do their best with what’s given. Which is not a lot. In this film Ezekiel Simms is on a hunt to eliminate the 4 girls (without) resembling super-humans. Although they have no powers the whole film, he has a vision into the future and decides the only way to save his own life is to eradicate these 4 girls. It does not make sense. My favorite part of the movie is this scene that also doesn’t make sense where madame Webb played by Dakota Johnson runs the villain over about 3 to 4 times, each to a snippet of Brittney Spears early 2000’s hit, “Toxic.” It’s my favorite part because it is so stupid and cheesy it’s worth laughing at. From that point on, my brain decided to turn off and treat this film as a comedy. In a cynical sense, the film became more enjoyable as it transitioned to a comedy. Also the film is far better than Morbius because it’s a lot easier to laugh at. Morbius was just boring. This is boring but so bad it’s funny. The characters don’t make sense, the writing is awful, the villain is a sorry excuse and it’s just a downright awful film. However it would make a great “bad movie night” watch. Madame Webb gets a 3 out of 10!

3/10

+ It’s better than Morbius

- Terrible story.

- Filled with plot holes.

- Mediocre at best ending.

- Lousy CGI.