#too many errors and retcons not to be i guess

[like-sands-of-time]

The first three seasons of House really are a whole different vibe. That's not to say that there weren't moments of just ??? But Every season after that it's like they branched out into the multiverse or something. Like sure it's possible that this happened which escalated into this but how about not ???

[bg-11]

Ripping into TCW's A Friend in Need, in which every character is awful.

I'm going to be upfront about this: I do not care for TCW, I never really have. See, I've always been a big stickler for continuity, even as a kid, and by this point there was *plenty* of Clone Wars related content that had been set across the whole 3 years of the war. The big issue of course was always Ahsoka, who of course just couldn't neatly slot into that timeframe at all because there were already plenty of comics that made it clear that Anakin never had a Padawan. She was a square peg the writers of TCW had jammed into a square hole. Of course, Ahsoka wasn't the only example, it was clear the writers never really gave a shit about what other, better writers had already established, and so retcons and continuity errors were rife with the series, only increasing as it continued. Exactly the kind of thing I was leery about. I was willing to give it a chance when it first came out, but that optimistic goodwill didn't really last too long.

I watched it on-and-off when it came out to check it out, I didn't want to judge it without having seen it. It was the same when I heard about how obnoxious Karen Traviss' Republic Commando series was, I wanted to see if that was as bad as people were saying it was (it was worse). By Season 4, I was pretty ready to write it off, the retcons were getting bigger and bigger (Even Piell getting killed off before his Canon death in Coruscant Nights, changing Asajj Ventress' backstory and fate contrary to what it was in the Republic comics, treating the Nightsisters as if they were literal witches who could use actual magic, the list goes on, but those were my biggest gripes). One episode that stood out to me though, was A Friend in Need, an episode in which pretty much everyone except for Artoo is stupid, malicious or both. At the time, I thought it was the worst episode of TCW yet. Has that changed since then? Yeah, but I'd still count this episode as the dumbest.

For whatever reason, the episode popped into my head recently after...I don't know how long its been, relatively shortly after the episode aired, I guess? And, I don't know, I guess I wanted to take a jab at picking it apart? I've never really done this before, there've been a couple of times when I've wanted to examine bad media, but for whatever reason, I never really got to it. So, fuck it, better late than never, I guess. So, I rewatched the episode to get it fresh in my mind. As the old EU was still Canon when this aired, I'm putting it through the lens of it still being Canon when I talk about it.

There's a good reason why my friends call me a masochist, I guess.

Things start out on Mandalore, where Ahsoka is escorting Padme, Bail and Mon Mothma in talks with representatives from the Separatist Senate when Lux Bonteri walks in. When I first watched A Friend in Need, I had missed Lux's Introductory episode which also introduced the Separatist Senate, so I was a little confused here. Confused because prior to TCW, there wasn't a Separatist Senate, the Confederacy was solely ruled over by the Separatist Council. Now, there's commentary from Filoni that apparently, the EU writers had misunderstood the purpose of the Separatist Council, that no, they weren't the leaders of the CIS, and that the megacorporation's who made up the CIS were just neutral parties. I have two issues with that, first being that I trust Dave "I sincerely believe this man wants to fuck wolves" Filoni's word about as far as I can throw his furry ass, and two, that isn't how it comes across in the movies at all.

The leaders of the Trade Federation, Intergalactic Banking Clan, Techno Union and Commerce Guild are all present, outright saying they're pledging their alliance and their armies to the Separatist cause. That they're apparently neutral, uninvolved parties doesn't gel at all, it just seems like a clumsy retcon to me. One of many.

But anyway...

Lux busts in and causes a scene, accusing Count Dooku of murdering his mother, so the Separatist senators have their guards drag him away. Ahsoka, concerned, gets permission from Padme to follow him, as long as she's discrete. Lux is dragged back to the Separatist's shuttle, where a hologram of Dooku appears to gloat a bit, before telling the droids to execute Lux. Why he doesn't just use the Force to choke him, I don't know, all you need is line of sight.

Now, I'd actually misremembered how this scene went down. In my memory, Lux dropped an ion grenade to disable the droids and *then* Ahsoka showed up. Apparently my flawed memory made Lux more competent then he actually is in the episode. How was he actually planning on getting away? We'll get back to that in a moment, but for right now, he's at the battle droid's mercy.

And then Ahsoka intervenes.

Here's another issue I had with Ahsoka, her characterisation. There were a couple of moments that stuck with me that I think are relevant here.

Season 1, episode 19, Storm Over Ryloth: Ahsoka has to learn not to be a reckless, headstrong idiot because she gets her troops killed.

Season 2, episode 1, Holocron Heist: Ahsoka has to learn not to be a reckless, headstrong idiot because she gets her troops killed.

This episode? Ahsoka is a reckless, headstrong idiot who forces her way into a hostile situation, gets the attraction of a bunch of armed droids and leads them back towards the Senate Guards who are stationed at the Republic shuttle, quickly alerts the unaware men that some pissed off droids are on her tail, then boards the shuttle, takes off and flees back to Coruscant, abandoning the Senators she was supposed to be escorting *and* the Senate Guards who are now taking the heat for her.

Ahsoka is such a shitty bodyguard, Jesus Christ. Getting Lux to safety is a priority, fine, but why does she need to board the ship herself and flee the system entirely? Why not just have Lux board the ship, then go back to help the Senate Guards deal with the battle droids that she *led* there in the first place? They're not just regular battle droids either, they're droid commandos who are supposed to be a lot tougher and smarter than the standard B1 battle droids. We don't see the outcome of this fight, so I presume the Senate Guards won, which, good thing. Because Ahsoka abandoned the Senators she was supposed to be watching over, and I genuinely wouldn't put it past the Separatists to pull something now that these peace talks have collapsed because of what Ahsoka did. They were never going to work out anyway of course, given Sidious' whole purpose behind the Clone Wars, but the characters aren't aware of that.

Anakin gets in contact and when Lux tries to apologise with "Master Jedi, I'm sorry if I've caused you any trouble." ("If" you caused trouble? "If"?)

Ahsoka tries to brush it off with "It's nothing." Uh, no, it's not. See the above paragraphs for why it *is* a big deal, and I can't see Anakin of all people being too happy with Padme being left in a dangerous situation like that. But I guess we're brushing past that, cool.

Ahsoka points out how dumb Lux's plan was, saying he would have been killed if she hadn't intervened (true). Then Lux says no, actually, he *did* have a plan, then he pulls out a taser and stuns Ahsoka. Seriously? His plan was to go in, confront Dooku, hoping that he'd send a transmission just to gloat (apparently he "knew" he would, but why? He could just have easily been shot by the battle droids), and he went in there armed with a dinky little taser? Brilliant plan, I'm sure that would have done *wonders* against a squad of droid commandos all armed with blasters.

Ahsoka wakes up hours later aboard the shuttle with just Artoo, her lightsabers missing. She goes out to talk to Lux and finds out the contacts he's meeting are the Death Watch, that Mandalorian supremacist group of terrorists who are awful even by Mandalorian standards.

Jesus Christ, Lux is so fucking stupid.

Despite Ahsoka attempting to tell him that they're bad news, he keeps brushing it off because they *also* hate Dooku, so it'll be fine. Back aboard the ship, Artoo finds Ahsoka's lightsabers tucked away in a random drawer. So, if she had bothered to look for them, she would have found them in the space of five minutes. My God, she is useless. These two deserve each other, I swear.

Oh, and we meet Bo-Katan for the first time.

Awful, *evil* Bo-Katan.

On the ride back, Lux reveals he had a way to track Dooku's location through his communication.

Serenno. He was probably on Serenno, his homeworld of Serenno, where he has a mansion on Serenno, Serenno on which he is a Count. This isn't exactly hidden knowledge.

They go back to the Death Watch compound. see them using kitbashed battle droids as target practice and Ahsoka is marched off while Lux talks to their leader, Pre Vizsla. Apparently, he has beef with Dooku now and the Count gave him a scar. Which, first thing, if Dooku had wanted him dead, he'd be dead. Second, I actually don't remember those two falling out, so I looked it up and apparently it happens entirely offscreen between his last appearance and now, so whatever, I guess. Also, Vizsla threatens to cut up Lux if he doesn't hand over the tracer, and Lux seems pretty fine with that. Brilliant, that one, real smart.

Ahsoka gets thrown in with a hut full of enslaved women from a nearby village. Great people, those Mandalorians. Artoo, meanwhile, is taken to the droid shack and told to fix up the damaged battle droids so they can be used as target practice again. They don't even slap a restraining bolt on him, they just leave him to his own devices. Which, in this case, happens to be a room full of battle droids, several of which actually still have blasters in repairable condition as we'll see later.

Well, the Mandalorians are rock stupid, so I suppose I can't complain *that's* out of character.

Big feast is held, now Lux can see with his own eyes that the Death Watch are using the local women as slaves...but he doesn't seem to give much of a shit about it, even as Ahsoka keeps trying to point out how awful his allies are. It's at that point the village elder shows up and demands Viszla let his people go. He did this unarmed, with his only support being two other unarmed villagers, walking into a camp full of hostile people who had already taken the village's women as slaves and expected things to go well for him. When Vizsla agrees in the most sinister way possible, with several other Death Watch members openly snickering about it, the elder thinks all is well and Lux even says: "You see? They're not the butchers you make them out to be."

I...Jesus Christ, they were using the local women as slaves, but you're fine with that so long as they take them back when they're done? Lux has to be the stupidest character in this series, I swear. There is exactly one smart person this entire episode and it's Artoo.

Next day, the Death Watch take the enslaved women back to their village, the Elder thanking him for it.

And then he takes out his stupid edgesaber and stabs the man's granddaughter in front of him. Can't help but feel this would have been more impactful if obvious sacrificial lamb character had more than a minute of screentime, but okay, its awful and its typical Mando behaviour. For good measure they start torching the village and maybe set one villager on fire. And much to my shock, Lux finally gets it. I was half expecting him to brush it off as them setting fires to keep the villagers warm. Ahsoka seems to impale a guy with a blunt pole, before getting tied up. And then they drag her back to their camp from their speeder...yeah, Ahsoka should be dead.

Then Lux says this...

"I believed you had honour, but you're just murderers."

What possibly led you to think that conclusion, you absolute dumbass? This whole time, Vizsla has been acting as blatantly sinister and creepy as Dick Dastardly, if he had a moustache he'd be twirling it. Lux seems like the kind of character who needs to be told not to drink drain-cleaner, I swear to God.

As Vizsla is preparing to deal with Idiot and Useless, Artoo shows up with an army of kitbashed droids...and like I said either, a few of them have working blasters. Literally the only competent character, I swear. Artoo gives Ahsoka her lightsabers back, and Vizsla decides to duel her one-on-one, because like every Mando, he has a totally unearned superiority complex. She ends up slicing his jetpack and he doesn't even notice until Ahsoka points it out to him. How did he not hear her hit it? How did he not feel that? In the confusion of the exploding jetpack, Dumb and Dumber manage to escape, chased by Bo-Katan, but they get away.

Then Lux fucks off in the escape pod, the end.

And apparently the next time Ahsoka runs into Bo-Katan, they're besties and join forces to free Mandalore. Guess Ahsoka kinda forgot about the whole slavery, village torching and innocent people she murdered, huh? Yeah, guess so. Bo-Katan fucking sucks, she doesn't get a redemption, the narrative just wants you to forget all the atrocities she commits because she doesn't want Maul to be her leader. Zuko she ain't.

Ahsoka majorly screws up her assignment, puts senators in danger and gets some guards killed, Lux is so braindead that he blindly trusts the most obviously evil pack of killers he could find. I'd say he needs a helmet, but I don't think its possible for him to get anymore brain damage.

TCW is massively overrated, this is a hill I will die on.

[sizzlinbaconpeach]

The text connecting Chris and Jill is “戦友” or “kanyuu” which translates to “commrade in arms; war buddy”.?

in the Revelation's bio for Chris, they called him Jill's Brother-in-arms.?

So they don't have feelings for each other?

https://www.tumblr.com/chirikalovesjill/34500920927/where-did-this-picture-come-from-please-anyone

Hello Anon! I want to start off by saying that it's okay if you don't ship Chris and Jill romantically - not everyone does. I mentioned in a previous post how I can certainly see how others would only view their relationship as platonic or coworkers. Unfortunately, the link in your question does not work so I'm sorry I can't respond to that in particular. And I am not trying to sow any discontent or attacking, I'm merely responding and enjoying my preferred ship. I hope you can understand. If we can all stay positive and respectful that would be greatly appreciated. ^_^ Chris and Jill have been fighting BOW's since the very first game. Actual canon is that they survived through the whole mansion together. They've always protected each other. So 'comrade in arms', 'war buddy, 'brother-in-arms', 'partner', 'bestest friend', 'kindred spirits', 'love of my life' are all titles they would/could use to address each other.

Also, in RE1 original, Chris and Jill were written to be romantically interested in each other. In a recent interview, the live-action actor for RE1 Chris stated that he wanted to remain as respectful as possible to Jill's actress as she was much younger than him and he knew they were supposed to be romantically linked in the story. Source: ROE Plays RESIDENT EVIL 1 w/ Original Chris Redfield (Charlie Kraslavsky)

And this cute song that plays when they are reunited: Long Lost Friend Long Lost Friend Revisited - I love how bittersweet this is, very fitting In my mind, there is definitely some romantic sweetness to this song. But Capcom likes to keep them ambiguous or seems to want to retcon them, so I don't know. Ship them or don't. Doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. I just like how mature their relationship seems - built on lasting trust and respect. Even in Death Island there were ambiguous hints of something more between them. Like, Chris staring at a smiling Jill, backlit by a beautiful setting sun, seems kind of romantic to me. ... Only to fist bump her seconds later. Guess he wanted to keep it professional and clean in front of his sister XD

Before I got into Resident Evil (Biohazard), I never really knew about any 'ships'. I had vague memories of RE2 (Cleon bby) and RE5 (my unknowing teenage self actually shipped Sheva and Chris!), but it wasn't until I actually replayed the games as an adult and explored more of the extended lore that I became a Valenfield fan (and unexpectedly, less of a Cleon shipper). And what cemented it for me even more was the supplemental RE5 guide translations!

I highly recommend any Valenfield shipper to read it here. (scroll down a little more than half way on the page to find the STORY section. It's after the different colored text timeline.)

Some quotes from this official guide book:

... Referred to as "the BSAA's ace", Chris has a brilliant track record preventing many bioterror attacks, but Chris' chest is filled with an indescribable emptiness. Many comrades have been sacrificed to repair the errors of fools. Even if the world's saved, these friends will never return. He had lost his irreplaceable former partner. ...

... Chris has nothing against having a female partner. In fact, the partner he regarded as irreplaceable was a female too. She's the perfect person whom Chris can totally trust and rely on, someone whom he believes is what he needed to complete any mission. Chris felt their teamwork was like an eagle able to escape from biohazardous danger. ...

... Chris is staring intently at a statue of a sleeping beauty. He's like a person looking at his lover through a mirror, where the other side of the mirror's a different dimension. ... The image displayed on the PDA screen issued by the BSAA isn't very good quality. The faint face is illuminated by a weak light, ... Despite that, Chris is able to recognise the person. He's been chasing this lead all the while, just so he can repair the missing piece of his heart. This can't be a mistake, nor an illusion. This is a fact. ... It's Jill, his old partner who sacrificed herself and jumped off a cliff in order to save Chris. Due to Jill's absence ever since, the BSAA have removed her from duty. But two years later, there's finally a sign that shows she may be alive after all, and this sign's appearing right in front of her partner who refuses to believe she's dead. The reason why Chris, who was from BSAA North American branch, was hoping to join this operation within Kijuju, was because he'd obtained some sort of lead leaked by Irving on the black market while he was looking for Jill. ...

... Jill, with her antibodies, has been administered P30--- Gifted with superhuman abilities, she's been given a powerful drug that controls her mind too. This evil drug is continuously injected into her body, torturing her to no end. Just as Wesker intended, Jill's receiving hell-like suffering. "I'm begging you, kill me!" ... Wesker's instruction to Jill before he leaves, which is to kill Chris who has finally come for her, plays mercilessly in her mind like an echo. The painful, unbearable order's destroying Jill mentally, and she's begging with her mind for her old partner, Chris, to end her suffering. "Don't worry about me! If this goes on I'll only end up killing both of you! Shoot me, please!" Despite that, Chris refuses to give up. Chris screams like a beast at the brainwashed Jill. He promises that even if it means giving up his life, he's going to free his partner with whom he has finally reunited, from her curse.

But again, I believe Capcom will keep their relationship more ambiguous and open to interpretation - I think they want to keep all potential shippers content. And they certainly seem to be moving towards a more 'just a good friend/co-worker' angle than before.

Which, in my opinion, cheapens the over arcing story (RE1 - 5) and relationship - but that's for another post to ramble about, I suppose.

No hard feelings if you're not a Valenfield shipper. They have a good friendship and I can totally understand if people only see them as that and nothing more.

[shynetyme06]

OKAY you already know I had to ask some questions of my own as well >:3

These are for Mc! PJ, of course!

1. How many fan kids are canon to their au? I know that Crescent is canon as well, but are there others?

2. Related to Crescent, how did the two meet and become friends?

3. What are *her* magical-abilities?

4. What's her personality like? Is she similar to the original PJ or completely different?

5. Do the Star Sanses / Bad Sanses exist in your au? If so, what are her thoughts on them, if any?

Oh boy and u thought ur answer was long... get ready I had a lot more to say than I thought ;Dc

1. Only PJ and Crescent are here. Palette used to be in like the earliest iteration but he’s been retconned, and I’ve considered adding Lux but it’s unlikely she’ll show up cuz I haven’t come up with a real reason she should lol

2. PJ first learned about crescent through Ink’s description of him, that Crescent frequently tests Ink’s patience by seeing what he can get away with in the aus before he gets told to leave for messing with the script, but PJ was more interested in the fact that there was another outcode kid out there, one who also doesn’t have a script of their own. He was definitely curious but was hesitant to seek him out bcuz of the worry that Ink would be unhappy with that. and uh Ink is also the reason Crescent knows about PJ, and the reason he immediately didn’t like her because of the similar beliefs she must have to his. He was kinda a dick the first time they spoke yet as the conversation progressed, he realized PJ wasn’t how he thought she’d be. He took a step back and realized he of all people shouldn’t be judging anyone that easily based on who they were raised by, and he continued to hang around PJ while she pretended to hate his company (still unsure of the exact circumstance of them finding each other so for now they just happened to cross paths in some random au)

They mostly stick together due to their shared fear of never being able to find their desired place in this multiverse, and while they still can only ever hope for that place, it doesn’t hurt to have someone around who actually understands. They’re pretty reserved with emotions like this so they’re kinda just affectionately mean to each other most of the time instead of getting into all that. they're pretty important to each other by now so let's hope nothing bad happens <3

3. Her magic is very simple and close to canon but differs in some of the ways she uses it. She can’t summon ink or paint out of nowhere like her dad does, so that’s what the bag is for, she keeps extra ink in there for creating small objects, shields, portals, and attacks. The ink strings come straight from her hands, and her last ability is being able to revert to a puddle at will, she usually does this when jumping off of really high places to land painlessly

4. He's got the sarcasm and sassiness factor you'd expect, as well as a habit of trying to hide certain emotions from others. A defining trait Mc has that I'd say isn't too close to canon is his level of recklessness. Like 99% of his decisions are made on impulse and he doesn't even warn people before going through with his foresight-deficient plans so that's fun. And he actually gets away with it a lot of the time so W I guess

5. The Star Sanses exist, but they aren’t as close as they used to be. At this point their relationship was work only, up until PJ showed up that is. Blue and Dream are still friends but haven't really heard from Ink in a long while, until one day he called them for an emergency to the Doodlesphere. To their absolute shock the emergency happened to be looking after this kid he had now for a reason they couldn't even begin to guess, (that looked to be at least 2 years old, how could they have not known by now???) while he leaves for an unknown time to fight off error as he had just begun attacking an au. Before they could even speak Ink promised them that he’d tell them what happened as soon as he got back, introduced PJ, and explained what they needed to know right now about taking care of them (they can only eat art supplies, don’t let them touch water, etc) in the span of like 20 seconds before leaving them to it

Alright that’s the background covered, time to actually answer the question lmao. PJ is 3, but they had only actually gained consciousness about a month prior to this point, and in that time Ink was the only person they were ever around. And now these random people showed up and they’re left with them. Great. PJ didn’t trust them at all and just tried to do whatever they wanted while avoiding acknowledging them, (which included climbing on the walls multiple times, something Ink failed to warn them they could even do. They also tried to eat a lot of random stuff lol) They have warmed up over time, and Underswap became a place they’ve stayed in a lot while Ink was away. Nowadays, PJ loves them like uncles but compared to what they’re used to with Ink, (ridiculous amount of freedom to do whatever, short of messing with scripts ofc) their advice about what they should/shouldn't do can feel smothering. they don’t interact as much as they did when PJ was younger

And oh right the bad sanses uuhhhh.. Killer has to exist for Crescent to be here so that's 1, aand I actually have no ideas for the rest of the MTT sorry LOL I'll try to brainstorm more but Dust and Horror might just not show up at all.. 🙏 and PJ has not met Killer or Nightmare so they just formed most of their views on them based on the things Crescent has told them, which are not good things in the slightest

[kaija-rayne-author]

Dragon Age Veilguard Review 4th in series

22 game hours 20 actual playtime

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard

Critical review and a rant

Obligatory disclaimer. If you've already read it you can skip to the cut.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Y'know? Every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you Bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

3.5 in series is here.

If I've ever played a glitchier piece of shit game in my life I honestly can't remember it.

So I went to go watch a movie with the partner and kids. I saved my game and turned it off.

Came back and it played okay for a few hours. I met both Mae and Dorian squeeeee!

Met Davrin and Assan. Everything's going fine. I got creamed (again), I swear the devs have no idea. I'm a consistent gamer who plays on hard/tactician mode in most games I play. (Many the same style of fighting as DAV.) And I'm having trouble with the strength of these monsters. WTF do they think someone just getting into gaming is experiencing?

Anyway. I got creamed, clicked reload last save, and it loaded with the now far too familiar no CC reverted back to the basic elf body error. I went back to the main menu, and now absolutely none of the saves are showing up with video. They load with sound, map in the corner, and tags above heads but no fucking video. They're either corrupted or the game is just a piece of shit.

Yes. I'm rather annoyed. I was looking forward to finishing recruiting Davrin tonight and it doesn't make my brain happy to have to stop in the middle of what I wanted to get done. In game or out.

I'm currently verifying my files from steam. We'll see if that fixes it. I just... and this is what the devs thought was releasable? REALLY?

I know I keep using BG3 as a comparison (which honestly isn't a very good one because one is turn based and one 'live' fighting). But the Venn diagram of people who play DA and who play BG is probably a circle so that's why it comes to mind.

It's also the most recent game I've actually purchased and played a lot.

I played that day of release and on into the week and had nowhere NEAR this many problems. I actually think I've had more trouble with DAV in three ish days than I've had in BG3 for over 700 hours FFS!

Anyway. Vent over (for now. I imagine this game will give me plenty of more opportunities).

Dorian looked really weird. He has what I'm now dubbing the 'Solas effect'. He doesn't look like himself. I wouldn't have recognized him at all if it weren't for him introducing himself.

Oh, and way to retcon the condition of the veil guys. For three games it's been getting more and more tears and holes in it. Now it's solid and the only thing holding off a world of blight that hadn’t ever really existed in the fade like that before? It was just the black city. Do these guys ever get sick of retconning shit? I sure get sick of playing retconned shit.

My partner saw the game and he really can't get over how jarring the art is. He's a pretty consistent gamer too but I doubt he'll play this one.

Y'know how I said I didn't know WTF the devs were thinking in my review of the game play trailer?

I'm even more flabbergasted now. I just... seriously?

The game doesn't work well. it has numerous glitches.

The art style sucks.

The bad dudes are WAY overpowered for even a pretty decent gamer. Not so experienced gamers are likely rage-quitting in droves. Every one of the glitches I look up is pretty common. Even for people with better machines than mine.

The story took bloody forever to get started. It finally seems to have but it shouldn't take me 20 hours of game time to get somewhat invested in the story!

The characters are honestly pretty meh so far. My much beloathed Lucanis is the only mildly interesting one so far.

I honestly just can't get over how they felt this was A. Good. and B. Ready for release.

I'll keep trying. But if it's corrupted my whole 20 hours I'm not sure if I've got the stomach to replay all that boring assed nonsense to get to where I only just got to today.

I HATE writing critical reviews as a matter of course. I especially don't want to write them about a piece of intellectual property like Dragon Age that I love so very much. But What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Part 5.1

[markipliers-madhouse]

Hello? Hello Hello?

...Well, this place has been dead for a little bit, hasn't it?

Mentioned a little bit before on that collab piece I did, but figured I'd be better to do a full post bout it here!

So, this AU...has been laying dormant for quite some time, and there's not really any excuses for that. I've just been a little busy with school and life in general, but mainly...haven't had much motivation to do it in all honesty, and their's two main factors to that unmotivation.

1. I kinda realized I'd be needing to write a lot for this story, and though I love writing in general...the scope of this would be like writing a few novels if I continued on, and I just wouldn't have the time or sanity to do that, but more on that later for a solution...

And 2. ...I kinda fell out of FNaF for a moment. Well- Not entirely, I'll always love this series, but I guess it was mainly...the state of the fandom after one certain game...Security Breach. After that game came out, it kinda broke the fandom in half. One half being those who hate the game and left the franchise entirely, now seeing it as nothing but for kids and not taken seriously, and the other...well, actually kids. Y'know the ones. You know.

So that kinda left me kinda unsure for my AU, since I thought if I put stuff out now...it wouldn't really be that appreciated. From the start it was meant to harken back to the original classics of FNaF, but with the fandom mostly filled with newcomers for just this one game, and the original fans gone and unhopeful for the franchise, I just kinda...left this place dorment till I felt motivated again.

...And then the Ruin DLC happened, which gave me a spark of motivation. Seemed this franchise was starting to to head to a better place, getting some old fans back, so that's nice. Got me thinking more bout this AU again...

And then the movie happened, and now i've been slapped in the face with motivation.

SO- Guess that's my excuse for why things have been so empty, but now...I AM READY TO OFFICIALLY SAY IT IS STARTING BACK UP! And not just that...but starting fresh! ...Which, isn't saying much, since I only wrote two chapters for it...y e a h - But there's a reason I'm starting fresh, not just for improved art or retconing some of the mistakes of what I did give out, but mainly because...

I'm turning the AU into a comic!!

That's right! Gonna be drawing the whole thing start to finish! Figured this would be better to me since it's quicker then writing it all, and get to show and improve more of my art, so works out! (You can already kinda see some of that with the new pfp and header) Maybe might get some help in the future, maybe might dable in some animation, maybe a lot of things, but guess we'll just hafta see where it goes from here!

What does that mean for the previous content though? All...f o u r of it? Well, that stuff is gonna be non-canon from here on out! It'll be easier this way since those stuff have either some continuity errors that'll effect the story in the long wrong, or just simply I've changed my mind on some things and it'll be a bit more different! I'm still leaving them up, however! Just cause I think it'll be fun to see how far I've come, and ey some art pieces there weren't bad! ...Too bad...okay like one or two were d e c e n t

TLDR of it tho is this: AU's getting a reboot, gonna be made into a comic now, previous stuff is non-canon, and this page should be a bit more active now!

But yeah! Big things are coming, and I am excited to start up this AU again! I have so many plans for this story that I'm just hoping you guys will love, wanna do justice to both sides of the story! So keep an eye on this blog, might take a little longer, but hoping to get things officially and finally started soon!

And to prove some of that, before I go...you guys deserve a a bit of a sneak peak of what's to come, so...hope you enjoy these redesigns >:]

EDIT: THE SERIES HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN- READ EM HERE- AH-

[sayyourprayers]

Such a coincidence because I was going to send an ask about the play right before you made that post.

Even if it is not a production mistake... what makes people think that the writers won't change stuff for convenience? They already changed some things on the show small or whatever, Joyce and Bob weren't supposed to be close in the highschool, but now it seems like they will spend a large chunk of their screentime together looking at those 'trio' photos of Joyce, Hopper, and Bob shot together. Patty is a new character inserted into the story to give Henry a love interest (and apparently Bob mentions about his sister being alive in S2, so it is more of a 'error' to make her die in this play which seems very likely to happen). Hendersons were not Hawkins residents, now they are, apparently. Actually there's just some fuckery with the characters ages overall anyways. These are the things that come to my mind rn, there's just more stuff that can be found. Ppl acting like ST is some Bible-ridden filled with master details and shit have lost the plot. This is not some ASoIaF storyline written by GRRM or LOTR by Tolkien.

Production mistakes have happened and will happen, just like changing stuff for convenience. Building up whole contrived scenarios to say that everything has ''a meaning on the show'' and all those inconsistencies or changes exist due to some (insert timetravel/fuckery and variant contrived theories) is reaching way too hard. Why accepting the reality is so hard for some ppl in this fandom.

I called it production error cuz it happened in the same season where CLEARLY Alice is younger than Henry. Like there's just no two ways about it. The paper had to have messed it up. And the simplest explanation is production error. In terms of changing plot/characters for convenience and retconning shit? Ya I agree. It's hardly something that'd be unique to ST if it happens. It wouldn't even be unique to ST5. Regards Hendersons I think it can be justified that Claudia came back with Dustin? N was prolly never married? Idk. Least implausible of the confusing things tbvh. Cuz they hardly focus on her in the 4 seasons so that can be taken care of. I love how there were so many black people in Hawkins though. Truly drives home the fact that this show is fictional. The writers have changed UD mechanism and have gone with the flow with El's powers and abilities throughout the show, so like there's no real integrity to any ST Bible. Please. This is not that show. It's a superhero show. It's gonna do whatever needs to be done for the superhero shit.

The thing is I'm not opposed to ST being a great show, it just isn't. And much like with myself I'm okay with its average to subpar-ness. It just annoys me when personal opinions are foisted upon others with no tact or elegance to top it off. I feel like I'm honour bound to peel this veneer of excellence and MAYBE ruin the fun for everyone (as a result but not as a motive).

To make theories or guesses is not wrong or stupid and is actually fun if done by fun people. But also if we're presenting it as evidence and for serious contention then I am not in error to expect the person making those contentions to first get the vibe of the show right. Vibe in terms of how complex it has been so far, how meticulous in its facts and world building, how thorough in its characterisation and lore and how innovative in its execution. THEORETICALLY you can have A show that scores 10/10 on all those metrics and then you wouldn't be remiss in expecting a similar performance in a future instalment of that show. But when the prior seasons are averaging at average and the prediction is going 11/10 you gotta chill with the attitude cuz you're foundationally WRONG. Not probably but definitely. So everything you posit could be but not would be. There has been a lot in the way of mistaking the nature of this beast itself. So it follows that the rest of it would also be in all likelihood a mistake.

Now back to why people can't accept the reality of this fiction? Idk. Idc. I have my theories tho. 😛

[katatonicimpression]

1, 4, 6, 10, 30, 40, 45 for Monet, 47. also if this is too much feel free to just do whatever ya feel like

Putting this under a cut because it got long.

How has DC/Marvel/publishing company wronged you, specifically?

They keep hiring Gerry.

I'm sure there are better answers, but tbh drawing me back into comics so thoroughly with the promise of some allerdrake and the set up of Marauders in general and then failing so hard to deliver is up there.

4. Worst decision for [x]’s “new direction”?

Nature Girl. What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Oh, and I guess Beast just basically being Dark Beast now can be an honourable mention.

6. Worst coloring error you’ve seen.

Off the top of my head, this notorious panel from Marauders (2019):

10. What’s the most cursed panel you’ve seen?

Consider yourself warned.

This is from Generation X #72. There's a reason I cut the panels down a lot when I talked about this issue.

What you are looking at is a drawing of a 17 year old girl, training with her adult teacher. Her labia majora are drawn in an exagerated way, prominent and .... er.... "bulging."

Now you've seen it too.

30. What side character do you hate?

Howard the Duck.

Hmm.. actually I don't know if they really count as side characters when they're acting as individuals, but as a group I don't really get the Cuckoos. It's not hate, but I just don't really understand the appeal.

40. What’s your most detested plot point?

"Snap" Wilson (thankfully it's been re-retconned now)

Monet/Sabretooth

Jet Zola - specifically the thing with her and Sam but also the character in general... also throw in Sin. No one needed "sexy Nazi teenager" and we certainly didn't need it twice.

Bonus: it's such a minor point but I would like to erase most of that x-force issue with Shinobi and Mindmeld. Keep Mindmeld, I like her. But everything with Shin should go. He's way too evil and way too competent. And he actually kills someone with his powers which is something that he's generally portrayed as being all talk with. That's something that should've been built towards and treated as big change, but it isn't and I dislike it.

I'm sure there's more. I am a fountain of bitterness.

45. What’s the worst take you’ve seen about [x] (popular or not)?

You said for Monet. This is kind of fudging the question because it's not a specific take.

There's a thing that happens with Monet where she is mostly remembered and mentioned as "the other Black woman in x-men who isn't Storm or Reyes." And the way she gets utilised in fandom is frequently very much like:

"Here's my fantasy x-team line up. I needed someone who wasn't white so here's some lady. I skimmed the intro to her wiki, maybe, but tbh I'm just making this up."

And I don't want to be mean about this, because it is good that people are thinking about her even if they don't currently know much about her. I don't want to gatekeep. And also, far be it for me to tell people how to approach racial diversity in this kind of thing, I am far from an expert.

But it bothers me that so many of the times that she's remembered, it's just to meet some imaginary quota.

Hell, if we're talking about representation, there are so many boxes that girl ticks with her background and character history. But so often they don't bother with any of that. Some random white dude is the neurodivergent one, the one with the trauma. Or whatever.

And this is bigger than fandom, obviously. It's a big thing with a lot of POC characters, especially Black characters, in comics. They get included with little thought to their actual background or characterisation, and just get slapped with a random personality the author feels is appropriate.

Urgh, this is unfocused. But I guess what I'm saying is I wish people would bring her up as herself, with more actual personal detail and attention to her background. And not just mention her to round up a line up, or drag her into some nebulous attempt to cancel an author after the fact (lol that is a specific subtweet but I'm not going to elaborate). Maybe at the very least don't assume she's American. That would be nice.

47. What’s the worst blatantly untrue fanon take you thought was canon?

I don't really have one for this. Not that I haven't seen a bunch of blatanlty untrue fanon takes - dear lord it's like 90% of them - but I'm usually pretty skeptical... I think...?

Lol it's going to turn out I am 100% wrong about something and I discover it, like, tomorrow.

[trevisos]

okay here are my thoughts on finishing veilguard while i try to decide if i’m going to start my new rook or just immediately restart with magpie

i didn’t actually think i would be right about varric having been dead the whole time man. i wasn’t at all mentally ready to be right about that one. i Did cry. i love u varric. i also rly assumed davrin was going to die killing the archdemon?? so i guess if u choose harding there she beefs it instead??? horrible. and ASSAN JUMPING IN AFTER HIM…… OUGH.

the choice to send neve to disable the ward really sealed the deal on magpie’s run being Neve’s Horrible No Good Very Bad Day (But She Gets Laid). extremely funny. idk if it’ll stay her canon because i’m unclear on if neve like… got un-tainted at the end or if her taint didn’t load for me bc that happened once before when they were climbing up lol. i don’t need another romance where they’re just Waiting For The Calling so if she’s still blighted after. well. i will simply retcon this. LOL

overall the veilguard i played was a Fine Game. the gameplay was fun (tho being stuck on storyteller to avoid my save load error and magpie turning into a default model sucked balls) and the story was like. fine? it was a pretty solid game but maybe not a great Dragon Age Game. the veilguard in my mind where i’m fixing the weird retcons and giving my rook more of a real personality is fucking awesome tho.

more or less wiping out southern thedas with a double blight was…. a choice. flattening the whole elf struggle into a couple of throwaway lines and sidelining the dalish was also like. a choice. and retconning the crows into Purely found family instead of found family (that is still toxic) was just kind of a boring decision. let my de riva and lucanis bond over thinking child abuse is normal bioware! so many times bioware was faced with a choice between making something a little morally grey and making it boring and every time they chose boring! so many things also could have been improved by taking your previous choices into account but those choices were just Ignored and so often there wasn’t the level of emotional payoff i Wanted. like yeah i cried when varric died but i would have lost my mind if he even Mentioned hawke?? isabela being in game but not being able to mention it if she was romanced has single-handedly convinced me my isabelamancer’s world state will simply never make the jump to veilguard bc if my inq who knew siobhan hawke is going to exist in the world but isabela will never mention her wife i think i would die.

lucanis’s romance is……. bad. sorry. it’s bad. it has like no content until the very end and very few of the flirt options even really sound like Flirting. you lock in the romance by thanking him for making you dessert? no kiss! nothing! thankfully magpie is also canonically romancing neve so i get to experience that one next. yay :)

also as a nonbinary faggot. if a video game in a fantasy setting ever says the word Non-Binary to me again it will be too soon.

also. minor problem. but not a word out of the inquisitor’s mouth was in the ballpark of something quinn would say. them not letting us at least choose a General personality for the inq was BAD

overall well. i’m about to start it again so i did like it. i just think the game in my head is better.

[gorogues]

Spoilers for Flashpoint Beyond #3!

So Digger (or the guy pretending to be him, although I could believe that he was the only mugger-Rogue who was the real deal) gets away mostly unscathed, but Eobard does not.

The next question is, who was chasing Eobard, and is it the same person/thing/force that killed him?  The obvious answer is Doctor Manhattan because of "he's coming for me again" and maybe the watch parts, although I can't imagine him butchering Eobard on a bed; odds are he'd just disintegrate anyone he wanted dead.  The death is uncomfortably similar to Silhouette's in Watchmen, but Eobard does have a weird small smile on his face.  He did seem distressed when Cobblepot saw him, though I can't help but think he wanted this or was pleased about who did it...so maybe he knows it'll all work out for him in the end.

It’s doubtful too many people were clamouring for the return of Hypertime, but I guess DC is on a 'continuity's not important' kick so maybe that's an attractive way for them to have their cake and eat it too.  In practice, Hypertime was used to explain continuity glitches, like when Wally West's eyes were momentarily shown as blue or DC decided to retcon someone's origin.  A writer makes a mistake..?  It wasn't an error, it was Hypertime briefly overwriting reality.  But we'll see where this goes.  Maybe DC’s teasing us with the idea but will ultimately reject it.

[kagrenacs]

Explaining the Iceberg #8

In which the theories get worse as you delve deeper. (some content is cut because it’s not appropriate/something I would want to discuss)

Coldharbour/Clockwork Tamriel: Coldharbour has many locations that resemble Tamriel, and often are outright taken from it. C0Da seems to indicate Sotha Sil’s final goals for the clockwork city is to recreate and ‘perfect’ Tamriel.

The Crimson Ship: During the Knahaten Flu, the Kothringi were hit particularly hard, and the Crimson Ship was full of refugees trying to find a new home. They were turned away at every port, until reaching Hammerfell. After being turned away once again, they sailed out to sea. Some years later, pirates found the ship full of corpses.

Storming of the citadel: Unsure of this, the wording is too general. It could possibly refer to the Morrowind Mainquest, when you take back the profane tools, A Covenant quest in Elder Scrolls Cnline, or the Main quest in Elder Scrolls Online

Altmeri formwars: Mentioned in an MK short story. Possibly a war from a previous Kalpa that involved the Dreugh

Yagrum Bagarn made the Numidium: He states he was a Tonal Architect under Kagrenac, there’s a possibility he may have worked on the Numidium as well.

Sons of Hora: Mentioned in the Nu-hatta, related to mantling. ‘this is the death children bring as son’s of Hora’. My guess is that it’s the ability of mortals (sons of Lorkhan, Hora?) to actually mantle deities and understand their limits.

Kaleidocules: ‘Leaky Creatia’  the power of creation, magical possibility 

Ayleids=Bird people: A race of unnamed bird people Topal the Pilot was said to have met on his journey across Tamriel. Since they occupy the same region as Ayleids did (although they seem to have been present before the Ayleids and subsequently died out), and since Ayleids have recurring bird motifs within their armor and art, it’s thought that these two groups may be one in the same.

Dragon Tusk: The name of the oversoul (cumulation of all aspects) of Akatosh/Auri-el ect. Is Aka or Aka-Tusk.

Lorkhan’s heart the egg of time: In Morrowind, the egg of time is a rebuttal paper to Kagrenac’s theories on the use of the tools on the heart of lorkhan.

Khajiit ??? Genetic memory: I can’t make out if that says lactable as in the infant formula for babies, or something else. 

The Prisoner: A name for all playable characters in tes, revolves around the concept of seeing past barriers formed previously (the prison) and overcoming these obstacles to change things.

82nd Crodo: Mentioned in the redguard forums, a community in Alinor.

City of Rockcreek: In Arena, there is a city called Rockpark. A glitch in town generation happened, and the palace to Rockpark was blocked off, rendering it inaccessible. In Daggerfall, the developers referenced this glitch in ‘Ius the Animal God’ But misspelled Rockpark as ‘Rockcreek’

Atmora-Aldmeris Invasion: Not quite sure what this references, my best guess is the invasion of the Atmorans and Aldmer from their respective continents to Tamriel.

1008 weapons of rapture: 1008 or 108 is usually in reference to Cyrodill (8+1 gods), in Et’Ada, Eight Aedra, Eat the Dreamer, there is mention of 1008 weapons of rapture. This could possibly refer to the Divines, the Middle Dawn that lasted 1008 years, or perhaps 1008 literal weapons.

Thalmor UFOs: Seems to have originated on the iceberg

King Harald and Talos die at 108: There goes that numerology again

Adamantia Scroll rocket: While this seems to have originated on the iceberg once again, there is a group of tes LARPers with the shared name Adamantia

Ghartoki: Mentioned in what my beloved taught me after Vivec reads a symbol on Nerevar’s palms (possibly some sigil, scars or just reading palms). Ghartok in Ehlnofey means hand, and in the sermons it’s often associated with the word Padhome, or change.

Thalmor and Jyggalag: The Altmer are orderly so they worship Jyggalag.

Motheaters: A little song mentioned in this thread https://www.imperial-library.info/content/forum-archives-unknown-posts

Klecksographic Lyg: Another iceberg original, Klecksography is the art of making art from inkblots, essentially this is just saying how lyg was created in a fancy way

Ha-Note is Mehrunes Dagon: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/3o0uwk/nanote_dagon/ the original theory is here, TL;DR Ha-Note, a monster born from Vivec, renamed itself ‘City-Face’ and fled to Lyg. The ‘grabbers’ grabbed it, because they can’t create things of their own and said they’d build a Hope-Tower upon it’s face. In the Commentaries of Mankar Cameron, he states Mehrunes Dagon was built from hope.

Zurin Arctus=Versidue Shae: An apparently deleted theory, mentioned only in this post debunking it https://www.reddit.com/r/teslore/comments/9rs2ad/what_were_the_motives_of_versidue_shaie/

The King’s Cough: Mentioned in Sermon 29, another name for the Thu’um

The Catalyst: The driving force that starts an Enantiomorph 

Tsaescence: A tsaesci word from We ate it to become it, MK states it means it’s the Tsaesci word of “High Perception” In context, seems to mean something similar to CHIM.

Hero of Kvatch=Pelinal Whitestrake: See the Knights of the Nine DLC. (To expand further, there are many similarities between the two, force of change, knight to the emperor/empress)

Amiel Arctus: An old screen name for Michael Kirkbride

The Space Gods: Found in the last song of Pelinal and Eight Aedra Eat the Dreamer, like many things in tes, it’s Lorkhan.

Uriel V: The father of Uriel VI, tried his best to invade Akavir.

Otherkin: You are reading this on tumblr. You know what this is. MK made a lengthy forum post about how Tosh Raka hates the Otherkin for some reason.

Falmer are Hermaified: Horrible word, but there are resemblances between Hermaeus Mora’s shrines, and Falmer shrines.

Invisible Dragons: In morrowind, if you ask M’aiq about dragons, he’ll state they’re too high up to see. Or invisible

Alien Ayleids: A relic from the since deleted bethesda forums. MK wanted to have a plot twist where Ayleids were Aliens.

The insect god: Mentioned in the Adabal-a, or Morhaius’s memoirs. May be a since-retconned god, could possibly be Lorkhan due to his frequent connection with Scarabs.

Suicide Trolls: An easter egg in Oblivion, a poorly scrawled note and a troll found dead under a bridge across the bridge from Bravil.  

Arkay=Arnand the Fox=Zurin Arctus: Zurin Arctus is sometimes called Arnand the Fox (Seen in where were you when the dragon broke) Shor is also represented as the fox, which makes sense since Zurin is a Shezzarine. This connects to Arkay by Malacath/Orkey/Arkay, who is a trickster god (fox like) in Nordic pantheons. Malacath also got compared to a fox once. I never said these theories were well backed up.

Dwarf-Orc theory: referring to Dumac, who is sometimes called Dumalacath, or Dumac Dwarf-Orc, suggesting he has an orcish and dwemer parents. This also may imply there are cross cultural connections between the two groups (especially when you consider the Rourken clan having Volenfell, Malacath’s hammer.), meaning Dwemer blood could still be present within Orcish clans.

Tosh Raka: The Dragon-God of the Ka’Po’Tun. Became a dragon through unknown means (possibly through Dracocrysalis?) Hates the otherkin I guess.

A worn and weathered note: A curious note from Morrowind. https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:A_worn_and_weathered_note

TalOS: Talos is called a virus by Jubal in C0da. If you think of the Aurbis as a computer, Talos could be considered analogous to a Trojan Virus when you look at his place in the pantheon of Divines. He used the mantella to cheat-code the universe into accepting it as Lorkhan’s new heart to power the Numidium. An error occurred, and now the universe considers TalOS the new Lorkhan.

King of Worms = The Underking: Both are liches, both are undead, that’s about it. May stem from initial confusion of MK saying there were ‘multiple underkings’ when he meant there were multiple copies of the same person in the dragon break.

500 companions were dragons: the 500 mighty companions, an obscure text calls at least one of the companions a dragon, and some of the names were draconic sounding.

Dreamer can’t wake up: Straight from the mouth of MK, this might mean ‘the Godhead isn’t literal’ or it might literally mean, the universe can’t cease to be because the Godhead just stops.

[littlemisssquiggles]

...So...about Lie Ren...

I never thought I would say this but…I want Lie Ren to be the one to save Oscar from Salem. 

At this point, given a bit of evidence from the last episode, I’d like to think that Ren may be the one person capable of doing this. The thing is, he’ll have to do it on his own and will be forced to leave Jaune and Yang behind to go off on his own. 

And not going to lie to you folks, I want Ren to abandon Yang and Jaune and go save Oscar by himself.

The show has already highlighted for me how much Jaune and Nora care about Oscar’s wellbeing. Nora was so relieved to see him return from the slums, that she was the first and only person to actually hug him when he arrived at the bar.

Mother-trucker, Jaune went to sleep still thinking about poor Oscar and worrying about his well-being, hitting my squiggly heart right in dat Shovel knight BROTP feels.

The only member of JNR who hasn’t proven how much he cares for Oscar is Ren. I’m not saying that Ren doesn’t care about Oscar. I’m just saying, there hasn’t been any major opportunity for him to display it like his other two comrades. Until…now.

Let me tell you why I think it’s perfectly possible for Ren to save Oscar. In the last episode, during the chase scene with George, I saw two pieces of evidence that highlighted Ren’s capability. Not only does his Tranquility semblance make him undetectable to the Grimm but as demonstrated in the last episode with George, his weapon upgrade enables him to latch onto any kind of flying Grimm and hitch a ride. 

We also saw that in the last episode, Ren felt the most bothered about being forced to rescue Yang and Jaune at the expense of losing Oscar. We even see his line of vision focus on Oscar during the chase. From this moment, I got the impression that Ren was more than determined to save Oscar.

They had ONE chance to save Oscar and it was all foiled because Ren had to save Yang and Jaune. So this gives me an idea.

We’ve seen huntsmen hitch a ride on a Grimm before---particularly a Nevermore in the past. We saw both Ruby Rose do this during the V4 Ruby Character Short and Maria Calavera during V6CH7.

That being said, imagine if…Ren decides to abandon Yang and Jaune at the outpost in the middle of the night and go off on a solo mission; making his sworn goal to bring Oscar back. We then fast forward to early morning after where Ren is standing on a lonely cliff now overlooking the giant Monstra hovering above the storm clouds. 

After traveling mostly on foot for most of the night, Ren’s next objective was to scope out a method of getting up to the flying whale, when he spots a flock of Grimm flying up into the storm. Perhaps they were Nevermore or more Kevins since they appear more common in Solitas.

This is when Ren gets the brainiac idea to use his weapon to hitch a ride on one of those Grimm, steering it in the direction he wants it to take him which is straight up to Monstra. And since his semblance makes him invisible to the Grimm, Ren is allowed to fly his captive Grimm exactly where he needed to go without the detection of other Grimm.

Once he’s landed safely inside of Monstra, Ren shoots the Grimm stead to kill it and quickly goes into stealth mode. Now in the belly of the beast, Ren uses his skills. Perhaps this may even force Ren to utilize the aspect of his semblance that’s been teased from the last season.

I’d imagine that the inside of Monstra will be like a labyrinth to anyone entering. So what if…because of his semblance, Ren is able to “lock on” to Oscar’s aura with enough concentration and focus. And it’s through this newfound ability that Ren is able to hone in and find Oscar easily.

And from here, this is where the main escape begins. But overall, Ren is able to save Oscar on his own and the two are able to return back safely to the others.

I know this is just me mainly speculating here. I’ve had many folks come to me with the assumption of Oscar either being saved by Neo or of his own fruition. 

And while both are good concepts, I think what this squiggly Pinehead wants to mainly see now hopefully is Ren being the one to save Oscar somehow.

After the negative way the show kind of painted him in the last episode, I want to see Ren do something absolutely amazing. 

Speaking of, it may rant a bit right here---I was actually bothered that the accredited writer for this last episode--- Eddy Rivas had Ren snap at Jaune by using the info of him “cheating his way into Beacon Academy”. Not only was this uncalled for but...correct me if I’m wrong but if I recall, wasn’t Jaune’s “secret” something only two people knew back at Beacon?

Jaune told this info to Pyrhha Nikos and then it was overheard by Cardin Winchester who had been eavesdropping on their conversation on the room and later Cardin used this info to blackmail Jaune into being his slave during the Jaundice three-parter.

As far as I’m aware, there was never any further confirmation that Jaune also entrusted this info to Ren and Nora. If this was retconned in any other form of RWBY canon media (like the novels or the DC comics) please let me know because otherwise...this is an error??

Ren was not the teammate of his team who Jaune told his secret to in confidence. That was Pyrhha. Sure I can make the innocent assumption that Jaune probably told this to Ren and Nora afterwards offscreen however...this secret was such a personal thing to him that I figured only Pyrhha and Cardin knew since they were the only two confirmed to know in the canon. Ren was never confirmed to know according to the canon but I guess Double D needed Ren to know this detail otherwise this moment wouldn’t have worked. But I dunno. It felt off to me (like many things about this episode but I digress.

Please, if Lie Ren is to do one redeemable badass thing for this season outside of “brooding” and “pushing everyone away” like Yang implied (the big hypocrite), then please let him be the one man army who single-handedly braved the storm and fought against all odds to rescue his youngest teammate and friend from the depths of Monstra and return them both safely home.

 If there is ONE person I want to see save Oscar now, it’s Ren. Let him do this noble thing and let him do it on his own.

I’m sorry. Call me nuttier than a nutcracker but at this point, Ren should honestly ditch Yang and Jaune and go off on his own to get Oscar. Nothing against Jaune and Yang is genuinely driving me up a wall right now with her characterization for this season but…I think what Ren will probably need to do right now is take a similar route as his female half---Nora.

In V8CH3, Nora said that she doesn’t know who she is without Ren. And it wouldn’t surprise me if Ren might feel the same way too. He’s never done anything on his own, outside of saving Nora back in Kunoyuri. 

And since that fateful night, he’s always had Nora by his side. And ultimately the two of them gained more friends to love and care about. But I think what Ren needs right now is to move like Nora. Do something that only he can do.

And I think at the moment, the only person who may have a sliver of a chance to help Oscar is Ren. Yang and Jaune will only keep him back, sadly to say. While I understand that it will be a suicide mission for Ren to go get Oscar back on his own without backup. But nevertheless, is it wrong of me to say I don’t care.

 I want to see this happen for Ren. I think proving himself and doing something noble on his own---something that he KNOWS he can do and manage successfully on his own without anyone holding him back or standing in his way to distract him from the main objective…I think that’s what Ren needs.

So many things have gone wrong for the teams. They need a win at the point and if Ren can provide that in the form of saving Oscar, it could work. But this is just me.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[pluckyredhead]

What's the top 10 worst things about HiC

Oh god, it took me FOREVER to narrow this down. There are so many bad things about it!!!

Literally I’m not even going to address all the little talking heads therapy sessions and how thoroughly riddled with continuity errors and godawful characterization they are, because there’s so much else wrong with the book. Just trust that they’re a mess, even if King is trying to be Intellectual (TM) by putting them in a nine-panel grid. WE GET IT. YOU’VE READ WATCHMEN.

I’m also not putting “they killed Roy” on the list because it’s comics, characters die. The fact that this book was a slaughterhouse is a problem (see below, #2), but the fact that one of those deaths happened to be one of my favorite characters is a bummer but not necessarily evidence that the book is bad. (The book is so bad.)

But okay, so the rest of it, from least-worst to worst-worst:

10. That Poison Ivy cover: Clay Mann draws beautiful people but for some reason he decided that the cover to #7 should be a dead Poison Ivy on her stomach, cleavage pressed against the floor, her spine arched EVEN THOUGH SHE IS DEAD in order to lift her ass in the air so that the reader can see both T and A at once. This was leaked and then ultimately pulled before it hit stands and Tom King tweeted that he'd never liked it, but it’s very telling to me that either literally no one noticed how gross this cover fetishizing a dead woman was before the internet protested, or DC actively planned to use a sexy dead woman to sell comics. In their book that was supposed to be about trauma and mental health and recovery.

10b. Babs, a theoretical protagonist of this book, sexily peeling her pants down to show her bullet scars, which shouldn’t even look like that due to all the surgery she’s had: We get it, you’re only interested in women’s trauma if it’s sexy. She doesn’t even get to talk on this page.

10c. The full splash page of Lois in her underwear, saying “What do you want me to do?” like she’s inviting the reader to bone her in the middle of this story about death and trauma: Stop!!! Just stop!!!

9. The laziness of everything having to do with Booster: Okay yeah, I’m gonna be fannishly self-involved about another one of my faves here, but Booster is legitimately one of the main characters of the series, along with the Trinity, Harley, Babs, and Wally. And yet the “trauma” that places him at Sanctuary was part of a hastily shoehorned-in Batman arc directly before HiC that writes him deeply out of character (he carelessly changes the timeline when despite the fact that he’s spent 15 years protecting the timeline, including the Superman arc he starred in literally directly prior to the Batman one), instead of anything endemic to the character (because spoiler, Tom King doesn’t actually know anything about the character). The series then entirely fails to address it, hanging Booster’s emotional arc instead on his friendship with Ted...a friendship that explicitly does not exist in the Rebirth timeline. The Ted/Booster friendship/marriage is literally my favorite relationship in the entirety of the DCU, but you don’t get to rest a protagonist’s entire arc on a relationship that was retconned out of existence seven years prior and then retconned away again. Do the work. Don’t copy Keith Giffen and J. M. DeMatteis’s papers from 31 years ago.

8. Interpretive hand jiving through the pain: You know how some people have to leave the room when characters do something very embarrassing on television? I’ve never been like that, just Jesus Christ I had to read this page between my fingers. Y i k e s :

7. Harley beating the Trinity in a fight: Come on. Harley couldn’t take a single one of them on her own, let alone all three. Don’t warp the characters to make your MC look more badass and keep the plot moving. (King also wrote Catwoman beating THREE SPEEDSTERS in his Batman run, which again: no. Absolutely not. Stop it.)

6. That Watchman reference: See above re: being so embarrassed for someone you have to read through your fingers. If you haven’t read Watchmen, the line “I did it 35 minutes ago” is extremely famous and absolutely a mic drop moment. It’s not a mic drop moment here. The characters are completely different and talking about completely different things. The only thing Heroes in Crisis has in common with Watchmen (besides copying the use of the nine-panel grid, like I said before) is that it’s about how heroes are fucked up, I guess? Which is hardly a bold statement in 2018; it’s actively cliche now, in fact. The only purpose referencing Watchmen serves here is to let the reader know that Tom King has read Watchmen, which is both pretentious because it is Art and ridiculous because it’s one of the bestselling comics of all time and millions of people have read it.

5. The abysmal “journalistic ethics” on display: There are so many characters literally and figuratively assassinated in this book that it’s easy to miss that Lois is one of them. But here’s a tip: when someone’s medical information is leaked to you, it is not in fact your obligation to share that with the world, no matter who they are. That is not information meant for public consumption, which we might assume Lois knows, since she doesn’t usually share the private business of her husband or her son or their cousin or any of their friends that she is also friends with. But suddenly she’s forgotten that because it’s on a zip drive? Not only does that show horrifying journalistic ethics from both Lois and Clark, who seems to think she had no other choice, it’s also ableist as hell - what, if someone has mental health problems or experienced trauma on the job they’re automatically a danger to the public? And despite the attempt to make this feel like a big twist, there’s actually zero point to it, because a) we never see civilians reacting to this information and b) there are literally zero consequences to publishing it in this or any subsequent comic. It’s never even mentioned again. If a tree publishes all of a superhero’s medical information and deep dark secrets in a forest and no one reacts to it in any way, shape, or form, does it make a sound?

4. The actual premise: I do sort of believe that Bruce would think “go to the middle of nowhere surrounded by robots wearing creepy robes and masks and tell your secrets to cameras which are then wiped and interact with no one” = therapy, although if that’s the case I don’t know why he keeps bothering to put people in Arkham, which at least allows them to talk to other humans. But under no circumstances do I think either Clark or Diana would go along with this horrible, horrible idea, that offers no genuine help to anyone. Not only does the fact that it’s implausible undercut literally everything that happens within the framework of Sanctuary’s existence, it’s just one of many examples of how almost everyone acts completely out of character all the time in order to keep the plot chugging along.

3. Bruce’s terrible detective skills: The World’s Greatest Detective spends like six issues seriously thinking that either Booster Gold or Harley Quinn is the killer. Booster or Harley! Booster has neither the temperament nor the ability to kill on that level and Harley would never hurt Ivy, plus neither of them are a match for Wally (who is believed to be dead at this point), and Bruce should know that. Again, weak characterization all around, but it’s especially egregious given that King wrote Batman for A HUNDRED ISSUES.

2. Wally’s character assassination: This is a three-parter:

2a. Logistical: It makes no fucking sense. Wally got his own corpse to the crime scene by traveling five days into the future and killing his future self. Everyone sees the corpse. Then Booster, Ted, Harley, and Babs talk him out of killing himself. But...he already did that and everyone saw the corpse, so now we have a paradox that’s never addressed.

2b. Moral: The comics have tried desperately to walk Wally’s actions back in the past two years, emphasizing that he didn’t mean to kill TWELVE PEOPLE, including one of his best friends. It was an accident! But he still framed Booster and Harley for literally no reason except to create a whodunnit, set them on each other which could have easily ended fatally for Booster, and then sent everyone’s private information to the media (which again, the comic frames as somehow noble and necessary, but which is actually deeply unethical). So you made this beloved 60-year-old hero into a villain...why, exactly? Just so it would be surprising? Cool, great work, Captain Edgelord.

2c. Metatextual: This comic spins out of Rebirth Special #1. The New 52 erased Wally from continuity and then brought him back as the younger, biracial Wally (and this isn’t the place to get into fandom’s response to that and DC’s response to fandom’s response so let’s just say they are both YIKES MCGIKES and leave it at that). Rebirth Special #1 brought him back, and the return of the “real” (white) Wally (again: yikes) heralded a new universe that was lighter and happier and contained way more fan favorites. It was literally branded as a gift to fans, embodied in Wally West.

In Heroes in Crisis, Wally is crushed by the weight of everyone being so happy he’s there and loving him so much while he’s struggling with grief and depression, and that’s why he snaps. It’s the metatextual equivalent of having Wally look at the reader and say “You’re happy I’m back and comics can be lighter now? Well, FUCK YOU, YOU RUINED EVERYTHING.” It essentially blames the reader for having Wally go evil, because the reader loves Wally too much.

King, what the fuck?

1. The overall message: Heroes in Crisis was sold as a thoughtful exploration of mental health and trauma, instead of just another bloodbath. Instead, it killed a dozen characters in its first issue and dicked around for another seven with an uninspired whodunnit before throwing a beloved hero in the garbage. But in the meantime, it manages to say:

Trauma is unavoidable.

But therapy doesn’t help.

Trying it does more harm than good.

If you’re struggling, you are a danger to others and don’t deserve privacy.

Good luck with that.

Therapy literally saved my life. This comic enrages me. This comic is harmful. Superhero comics as a whole have a lot to answer for when it comes to discussions of mental illness, but at least some random issue of Batman where Bruce thoughtlessly throws another “looney” into Arkham isn’t billed as a sympathetic take on PTSD. Our culture already discourages asking for help, and we don’t need a pretentious funnybook miniseries helping with that.

(If you made it all the way to the end of this post and you are struggling with trauma, depression, PTSD, whatever...please do look into therapy. I promise you it’s nothing like this comic.)

In conclusion, Heroes in Crisis is bad and it should feel bad.

THE END.

[fancyfade]

so ive been debating editing chapter 3 on my fanfic to make 1 scene line up more from canon. (chapter 3 is this one, where the characters deal with the aftermath of battle for the cowl, Tim finds out Damian’s Robin, and Dick and Damian move to the penthouse)

I’m debating making the Tim finding out Damian’s Robin scene a little more canon compliant along what happened in Red Robin (link) for a few reasons, the main of which is in the scenes that I’m writing next (like... chapter 47 lol), Tim and Dick do have to talk about what transpired when Dick made Damian Robin. Potential reasons for change

In my fic Tim kind of just left on his own without a push, but I’m not sure if Tim would have left on such bad terms if there wasn’t the complication of Damian antagonizing him and him feeling as if Dick was picking Damian over him (even though in the comic we saw Dick trying to de-escalate and get Tim’s back, it still felt that way to Tim)

I dislike the way some of this was handled in the comic and I can’t really comment on it in my fic if I just retcon it out

it seems fair-er I guess if Tim is allowed to have flaws just like Cass and Damian and Dick all have flaws in this fic. i know many tim stans think otherwise, but punching a ten-year-old victim of child abuse in the face out of anger is wrong.

the con side is obviously this involves Damian getting hit and that kid has been through so much already. I’m really trying to figure out how it works with character dynamics vs like. give the poor kid a break-ness.

anyway if I did decide to replace the current chapter 3, this is what it would be replaced with (only the first scene, the second would be the same). If you are a reader of the fic feel free to leave your comments. I would do an “oh and I edited chapter 3″ note before the relevant stuff was mentioned if I go through with this, I wouldn’t like expect everyone to know what happened. Some of the dialogue is not like exactly like in canon (cuz thats boring and also to match with what I wrote the first time) but the feeling/ beats should be similar

Gotham’s finally had a bit of lull in the violence, and Dick is just wondering how he’s going to do this.

He’s accepted that Damian’s his responsibility – seeing the kid shot in the chest made that perfectly clear, as much as he would’ve liked it to be otherwise. He felt like he was way too young to be watching out for a kid in any capacity other than cool older brother, especially a kid who’s as difficult to get along with as Damian. He was a great fighter, of course, and he knew it – Dick’s not sure he’s ever heard the kid be humble about anything. To make things worse, Dick feels like he’s constantly stuck in the middle between Damian and the kid he actually views as his younger brother – Tim, who Damian tried to kill. Evidence in point:

“Robin?!” Tim asks once he’s gotten back on his feet and Dick's explained his plan – away from Damian, who's still recovering from surgery.

“You made Damian Robin?!” Tim asks again.

Dick sighs. He’s in the cave, in a Batman costume he feels doesn’t fit right at all with the cowl off, and Tim’s still in his regular clothes. He has no idea how to explain this to Tim – no idea how to make him feel like he’s not being replaced. Dick never wanted to be the one doing the replacing – he remembers how much it hurt to find out that Jason was Robin from the papers, and that was after he officially stopped being Robin. Tim never quit – and Dick’s not about to make him – but he has to come home to the guy who tried to kill him getting his name.

“Tim, I know this looks bad, but Damian needs this.”

“Remember when we thought Bruce was going to retire after Crisis?” Tim asks. “Batman and Robin was supposed to be us. You and me. Not you and the psychopath that tried to kill me.”

“Tim, you’re not my sidekick, you’re my partner – ” Dick takes a step towards Tim with his hand out, prepared to offer sympathy, but Tim shakes him off angrily.

“Obviously not!”

“And Damian needs me way more than you do. If we don’t keep an eye on him, he’s going to kill again.”

Tim scowls intensely. “That should really not be an endorsement for being Robin, Dick! He’s a killer! He belongs in jail!” Tim swallows a little and then lowers his voice out of shouting range. “Dick, he didn’t try to kill me because he for some reason thought it was the only way to stop me from doing something bad, as far as I can tell he just wanted to replace me. We’re talking about someone with absolutely no sense of right or wrong.”

“Of course he doesn’t have a sense of right or wrong. He’s a ten-year-old child who was raised as an assassin from birth!”

“Lots of our villains have really sad or sympathetic reasons for doing crime, that doesn’t mean we team up with them.”

“Are you serious?” Dick asks. “This isn’t the same, Tim.”

“How not?”

“Well for one,” calls Damian's voice from the stairs, and Dick can't help but cringe and think not now – “I'm a lot better than them.”

Dick's cringe only intensifies when he turns around to see what Damian is wearing. His new Robin costume.

Tim's hands clench into fists the instant he sees Damian. Dick knows he has to de-escalate things quick before Tim and Damian have another fight.

“Damian,” Dick says, trying to keep himself carefully neutral-sounding. “Shouldn't you be resting?”

Damian lifts his head up slightly so his nose is in the air, and walks down the stairs almost normally. There's only a little hesitation in the twist of his torso, a little stiffness of his right arm.

Either he's zoned out of his mind on painkillers or depressingly good at masking his pain for a ten-year-old.

“Please,” Damian says. “I was trained in the League of Shadows. Do you really think an over-the-hill ex-Robin could put me down?”

Tim's fist clenches further, and so Dick says, letting a bit more urgency slip into his voice, “Damian, shut up. Now.”

Damian puts his left hand on his hips and looks intentionally at Tim. He adds, “I'm not Drake – ”

He's barely got the word out before Tim leaps forward and punches him in the face. Dick's out of his seat, grabbing Tim to hold him back, who is still distressingly struggling against him, like he wants to keep up the assault despite the fact that Damian fell to the floor.

“My name is Tim Wayne!” Tim shouts as Dick is still holding him back.

Damian gingerly sits up. Dick prepares to release Tim, prepares to stop Damian if he has to, if he decides to get revenge. But he doesn't. He just briefly braces his right side with his left hand before wiping the blood off his face.

“I let you get that shot in, Drake,” Damian says, again dropping intentional emphasis on Tim's original last name.

As he does, Tim struggles forward.

“Tim, back off!” Dick says, because Tim still isn't cooling down –

“I want you to feel good about yourself,” Damian continues.

Tim seems to relax his stance slightly, so Dick, possibly in an error of judgment, lets Tim go. But Tim doesn't try to attack Damian again, he just shakes Dick off and starts stomping away. “You want me to back off? Fine.”

He's going for the exit.

If he leaves –

Dick can't chase him. He's not sure that he can leave Damian alone –

“Tim, wait!” Dick says, taking a step forward. “Bruce is gone. But I still need you.”

“For what?” asks Damian and damn it is there anything this kid isn't going to try to ruin?

“Shut up, Damian,” Dick says again, even though as far as he knows he's just going to wind up pushing Damian away too –

And Tim leaves.

Dick turns to look at Damian. The kid's already back to his feet, like nothing happened, and Dick takes a step forward to inspect the injury – though he's really more worried about the gunshot wound than Tim's punch. Both Tim and Damian had wound up injured pretty badly during the chaos that gripped Gotham in the rumors of Batman’s death. As his new and not-improved version of Batman, Jason had tried to kill them both, which Dick is way less than pleased about. He’d been kind of hoping that they could talk Jason down, but this seems like a line he doesn’t know if Jason can ever un-cross. He shot a ten year old in the chest.

Damian grabs Dick's wrist as he reaches out.

“Are you all right?” Dick asks.

Damian scoffs. “You're worried about Drake? I've been hit harder sparring my mother.”

“I was thinking about the gunshot.” Alfred had said the primary damage was blood loss and a punctured lung (well, traumatic pneumothorax, but Dick knew what he meant) and given the kid a minimum of four weeks downtime to heal.

It's hard to tell due to the domino mask, but Damian adopts the position of a kid who's rolling their eyes, head slightly tilted to the side with a loll. “It's not enough to impersonate Batman, now you want to impersonate my mother?”

Dick doesn't know how to approach the mother thing, so he doesn't even try. He just explains the logic for being Batman – (and there is logic behind it. It's not like he wanted this). “Someone has to step up and convince Gotham things can get back to normal,” Dick says. “And serial killer Batman wasn't going to cut it.”

“Did you at least take care of him?” Damian asks.

Dick knows that Damian isn't actually worried about Jason's wellbeing, so he says, “Do you mean 'did I kill him'?”

“Tt. Obviously.”

“Obviously not.”

Damian presses his lips together in a thin line.

Dick might as well get this out of the way now. He's going to have to sometime. “Alfred wants you out of the field for four weeks.”

“That's preposterous!” Damian shouts, and as he shouts, he coughs. He rubs his chest quickly and then glowers at Dick when he sees him staring.

“Damian, you could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

Jeez, doesn’t this kid have any sense of his own mortality? Though, Dick supposes, growing up around Lazarus Pits and a centuries old grandfather might make that impossible.

“I’m not a fool, Grayson, I know I’m not capable of healing instantaneously. I’ll take a break for one week,” he offers, like it’s a huge concession on his part.

“Four weeks,” Dick says.

“What about you?” Damian asks. “Didn’t you get injured?”

“Not as badly.”

“Are you taking a break?”

“Someone needs to convince Gotham that Batman’s not dead,” Dick says. Also, he doesn’t want to take a break. He doesn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. Losing Bruce. Failing Tim.

“Tt. Then I don’t need one either. I’m younger. I heal faster.”

Dick actually has no clue whether that’s true, because he’s not a doctor, but he knows that people usually say kids heal faster.

Dick swings his arms a little, trying to feel them out. They’re still stiff, and as they move, a jolt of pain shoots through him. Even when he’s not moving, his shoulder is still sore. He knows that he might get injured going into the field like this and that it’s not a smart decision – last time he went into the field while still healing, he wound up blowing his secret identity to Blockbuster.

He decides that at least if he’s going into the field, he won’t tell Barbara and Alfred about it. Okay, so that’s probably not the smartest of his plans. Most plans that you have to hide from people who care about you aren't smart.

“I’ll take a week long break with you,” Dick concedes. “And we can see how fast you’re healing.” The second part is a lie, of course. He's not going to supersede Alfred's orders on medical matters.

Dick sighs a little. He figures that while they’re both on bed-rest duty, though, he can try to figure out how to set things up so they can operate effectively once they get a clean bill of health.

“How do you feel about not living in the manor?” Dick asks.

“Kicking me out already?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I wouldn’t be living here either,” Dick says. It’s true. He’d rather not feel like he’s living in all of Bruce’s old places, wearing Bruce’s old costume, … replacing him, essentially. He needs a place he can clear his head.

“Where would you live then?” Damian asks skeptically.

Dick shrugs. “The penthouse, maybe. Bruce already made a bunker nearby, so we could operate out of there pretty easily.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “Why do you keep saying ‘we’?”

Because you are ten and not ready to live on your own. But Dick just says, “Well, you’re Robin now, right? That means you’re pretty much obligated to team up with Batman.”

“Batman isn’t here, Grayson. He never will be again, no matter how much you play dress-up.”

Charming kid. Like Dick didn’t already know that.

“You know I operate effectively alone, right?” Damian continues. “I don’t need to be hand-held and babysat like all of Father’s previous partners.”

Dick figures that it’d be a jerk move to remind Damian he just almost died and therefore really shouldn’t be on his own. Instead, he says, “Well, Alfred’s staying with me, so unless you want to get all your food and clean the house by yourself, you have to put up with me.”

“Tt . I don’t need a servant. I’ll just eat at restaurants.”

“On who’s money?”

“In the event of his death, my father’s assets should have transferred to me. His blood son.”

Oh boy. Dick rubs his face. “Does this have to be a thing, Damian? No one’s doubting your capacity to take care of yourself but I think it’d really be easier if we were operating out of the same building. “

A long silence on Damian’s part. “Fine,” he says eventually. “I’ll allow you to stay at my penthouse.”

My penthouse. Of course. But Dick takes it. “All right,” he says. “Let’s move in.”

[intothewickedwood]

Once Upon A Time Rewatch: 6x12 Murder Most Foul

Oh! This is a Charming centric, I think? Awesome!

Aww! Baby David and James!!

So James was named before he was adopted. Interesting that George and his wife chose to keep that name.

I wonder which twin is older. I think I’ve said this before. I hc that David is younger by a few minutes.

Omg Ruth pointed a knife at Rumple for trying to take one of her sons. 

That really must be an impossible decision. 

Rumple gave him the coin! 

I forgot they went by heads or tails. I thought David was just Ruth’s favourite.

Uggggh! That’s so horrible! It hurts!

Creepy ghost is creepy!

Archie! I miss seeing Archie more. I wonder if he has any trauma from when Killian kidnapped him. And now he’s his therapist!

Snowing miss each other so much!

David is going through the motions today! 

Neighbouring king? I always thought Ruth and David lived in King George’s kingdom. Do you think that if King George knew about David as well, he would have adopted him too, by force if he had to, in order to keep the secret? I think he would have. If someone saw another boy looking exactly like the prince, then they may have said something. Though, would it have to be a secret? Were they allowed to have adopted heirs in their realm? I mean, Regina would have made Henry heir to her throne and then she is not Queen due to line of succession even though she was born a princess. Couldn’t King George change the law if he wanted? It may have been an issue if the secret was the reason he wanted to kill David’s father. Oh, in England it’s been illegal for centuries apparently. That is beyond stupid! What are you gonna do if the next in line to the throne is asexual or gay and wants to adopt or just wants to only adopt? Not that I’m a fan of the concept of royalty in the real world but that’s straight up discrimination! Laws may be different in the EF though. I just can’t remember why George wanted to kill David’s dad. 

Awww look at little David!!

Omg he’s adorable!!

David, honey, you need to get some sleep. I know you miss Snow, but you probably haven’t slept in ages! 

Maybe David is seeing things that aren’t there. I always start seeing things that aren’t there when I haven’t slept, especially spiders. I f***ing hate spiders. 

Talking to a dead significant other’s alternative self must be so weird. Are they trying to court over stories of the original Robin? *whispers* That’s kinda weird.

Zelena, what the hell? That’s not even his child. Calm down, girl. 

I mean, I guess she is biologically his child. When an identical twin is an uncle, do they have dna matches as if they were the biological father also? I’ve probably asked this before. And then when it comes to alternate versions of the same person, don’t they share 100 per cent the same DNA? So biologically Robin Jr. may be Wish Robin’s child. The same goes for Original Hook and Alice and Wish Hook and Hope, I suppose. I wonder if the Hooks would act like uncles to the kids that aren’t technically theirs. 

Zelena, that was so random.

That’s not even the Nottingham you know, Robin! 

Was this what original Robin meant about having a dark past, or something. Was he like this before?

I wanna see Emma and Henry’s canoeing trip!! If there are any edits of this, please point me to them! 

Wait, there’s another curse Emma wants to break? I can’t remember there being one. What happened this time? Oh! Her parents’ sleeping curse! I thought there was another dark curse I’d missed. That could have very well been the case.

“I’d do anything to see my boy and tell him I’m sorry.” You can see Rumple felt that because it’s exactly what he wants to do. He doesn’t even need a hair from his head, he’s just trying to keep his image up. Really he’s helping him for free because he knows what that pain is like. Yep, he threw it away!

Rumple: “Someday, may we all be reunited with our sons.”

You go canoeing Emma! You guys have fun!

Why didn’t Regina give those hearts back once she decided to turn over a new leaf? I know she said she took so many she lost track but if everyone who’s heart was taken came forward, they might be able to figure it out through trial and error.

She really was hoping to get with this Robin so that they could be part of each other's fresh starts. But wouldn’t that feel like a betrayal to the other Robin? It’s kinda like replacing him with a copy. 

Oh snap! They kissed! Regina, don’t do this, girl. It’s too weird.

He’s stolen something, hasn’t he.

Pleasure island makes me feel so uneasy. I used to be terrified of Disney’s Pinocchio. Pleasure island is just creepy in that movie.

I hate the fact that they put Pinocchio in the flashback of this episode so much. If we’re to assume this puppet is physically 6 or 7 then he’s probably older than David! He must have remained physically a 6 or 7 year old puppet for at least 20 years. I liked him being closer to Emma’s age. Why did they retcon this? And this Pinocchio has so much more attitude than the young Pinocchio we’ve seen in previous episodes.

I love James’ Prince outfit! It’s so cool! Omg! I’ve just realised it’s the same outfit the prince wears in the Snow White Disney movie!! How have I not realised this before?!

James doesn’t want to kill things! George completely manipulated him. He had a good heart and why would George do this to his frightened son?? And he’s only 6! So cruel!

Nope. That doesn’t make sense. No way August took the pages about Pinocchio out of the book. Henry had already read the whole book by then. The whole idea was that August added the story of Pinocchio to help Emma figure things out or something. Henry said the Pinocchio story wasn’t there before when he got his book back. 

David, no!

I feel so sad for James. He’s just a kid. Leave him alone! Let him run through the forest and sing to birds, as Disney princes should. George basically got James killed. Just be a decent father, George and don’t be so cruel to your own freaking son. Jeez! I bet he was a horrible, controlling husband too. He is so controlling! 

Random thought but I kinda ship James with Zelena. They both had terrible fathers. Zelena had two! I wonder if she ever met her other dad. Would she have pulled a Tom Riddle and killed him? 

David’s dad stood his ground. He was told of James’ father’s abuse and tried to protect James, even knowing he would pay dearly. And then afterwards no one was left to protect James. Maybe his mother did before she died and maybe that’s when George began trying to force him to become a knight. I like to think his mother was loving to him until she died when he was young like Zelena’s was. They got a taste of unconditional love in their early years and then it was torn away from them and replaced with control and/or contempt.

This guy has just told James he is his biological father, George acknowledges this and then tells them to kill him in front of Janes?! How freaking heartless!

Look how angry David was when he thought he’d found the man who killed his father. Then when he realises it was Killian he’s like “it’s all cool bruh. We chilling at Granny’s tonight?” Let. The. Charmings. Express. Their. Anger. And. Pain. It’s like Regina and Killian are Gods to them who can do know wrong, require instant forgiveness and nothing must be spoken against them. As for other villains, good freaking luck! And if your one of the Charmings or considered a hero from the start, if you so much as look at someone the wrong way you are the worst most evil villain in existence. Like Eva. Due to her deeds, which I agree weren’t nice, Regina considered her the villain as compared to freaking Cora. What??! She was the bully in that situation, yes, but how can you compare her misdeeds to Cora’s?!

David, bby!! I’m sorry! I love you! 

Oh Lord, I’m crying!

I want to hug David so badly!

David says he doesn’t know if he has a way to repay Killian, Killian says he may have an idea and then asks for David’s blessing. Like, “Yeah you can repay me! Repay me with your daughter’s hand in marriage, suckkker!!”

Hey! I’ve kissed many photographs of my dog! And if you believe hard enough, they will walk through the photo into your living room and frighten the sh*t out of you!

Called it! He did steal something.

Interesting choice for August to give Killian the pages with him killing David’s dad. He should have given them straight to David. Maybe that’s what Wish Pinocchio meant when he said that Emma put her faith in him and that he hopes she never does that again. I love August but maybe Blue imbued him with some of her shadiness when she turned him into a real boy.

And Killian was naughty to look at those pages. Or maybe that moment wasn’t part of those pages. Maybe Killian just recognise the face of the man he ruthlessly killed!

The thing is, why would Killian care if he saw him kill the King’s men? He’s spent years rebelling against royalty. I’m sure he’s known by now. 

Killian must be taking one of his trips from Neverland ordered by Pan at this point.

The heartlessness! He hears the man has a family and a child, he believed him and then kills him horribly afterwards. This has got to be one of the evilest things Killian ever did. And it’s Emma’s grandfather!!

Even one of his crewmates is look looking at him like “Wtf.” It makes me so angry. Don’t get me wrong, I actually think it was a great twist, but I hate how it was handled. I hate that David, who was so hurt by this didn’t get to express his anger at Killian towards him or at all. That’s just not realistic. I guess he was following how Snow forgave Regina for killing her father. But even that took many years, not freaking minutes!

At least tell Emma.

Is that ring getting smaller the more I look at it or am I high on my meds? 

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Gou Ep14

haha wow I love dying and being dead :’))) [and also being totally wrong about some of my theories]

Thoughts under the cut.

OK so i guess I was wrong about at least some of my theories of what went down in Tataridamashi, and Rena was actually being totally accurate about what happened, lol.

It’s still kind of ambiguous, though, and I don’t want to jump to too many conclusions about what might have happened. Like, it comes across like it was actually Ooishi who attacked Keiichi, but in that case it’d be kinda weird to have him show up at the festival first and then have Satoko show up several minutes later, when she ran out of the house during Keiichi and probably-not-Teppei’s fight scene. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ooishi had actually come from killing someone like Takano and Tomitake instead, but the fact that he was using a baseball bat is pretty specific, so I dunno.

Mostly I just don’t really know what motive Ooishi would have for killing Keiichi. At least with the festival murder spree you could argue that he just wanted to kill Rika, and everything else was just him trying to prevent anyone from getting in his way. But Keiichi got lured away from the festival on his own, so if Ooishi attacked him, he must have had a really good reason for it.

But they intentionally don’t really explain anything about what the fuck Ooishi was thinking or planning at that point, so who even knows what was going on with him. All we know is that, like with Mion in Watadamashi, he somehow became convinced that Rika was behind everything, and he also super obviously had gone full L5 by that point. The timing of it makes it seem like he got injected like what happened with Tomitake in the VNs, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d actually been going slowly L5 over the course of the arc, and something just pushed him over the edge.

In a lot of ways this makes Satoko seem even more suspicious, especially since it seems that she really did just run away from the house and go back to the festival, but I still don’t really like any theories to do with her being the new mastermind.

Anyway, it looks like we’re more or less in answer arc territory now, with the focus shifting to Rika’s POV as she begins actively trying to solve the mystery with a new set of abilities and clues at her disposal.

I still think that Gou will just be 24 episodes long, but Rika talking about giving herself a roadmap of five more loops before she gives up makes me wonder if they’re setting the stage for a second season. It’s entirely possible that she won’t actually go through five whole loops before the show ends, though, and maybe some of the next loops will only be an episode or two long. So it might not mean much.

If anything it kinda feels like we’re in a position where it’d be difficult to fill out an entire second season after this, but on the other hand it’s hard to imagine the story wrapping up with only ten more episodes. It’s possible that if we get a second season it’d only be one cour long, but I doubt it. Either way, I’m going to continue basing my theories around the assumption that we won’t get a second season, just to play it safe.

I’ve been wondering for ages how the sword is going to come up and play into the story, since it was the biggest question mark out of all the new stuff in Gou, and this episode sure laid that whole plot point out once and for all, lol. It almost felt kinda info-dump-y, but it’s still nice to finally have an idea of what the hell’s going on with it.

So basically the gist of it is that there was indeed a sword in the statue, and apparently it’s important because it has the ability to permanently end the life of someone with time travel powers. Rika needs to obtain the sword so she can somehow use it to put an end to these loops, but someone’s already stolen the sword, with a single shard of it being left behind inside the statue.

Sadly Hanyuu just peaced out before actually explaining much of anything to Rika, so it’s hard to tell exactly what her goal is meant to be here. I’m not even sure if we’re meant to think that Hanyuu was talking about the idea of there being a second looper that Rika needs to kill, or if she was just presenting it as a way for Rika to kill herself once and for all if she wants to. But in general it definitely feels like the story is setting up for the idea of there being a second looper who Rika has to discover the identity and motives of.

There’s still a lot of mysteries surrounding the sword, but this at least proves that Rika had nothing to do with it in the previous loops, and maybe didn’t even really know that it existed, or that there was anything special about it. It’s also noteworthy that in this new loop, the sword had already been stolen at the very start of the loop, which makes it more likely that it’s something that happens before the start of every loop. So I’m still going along with my theory that this implies that there’s some kind of fundamental ‘retcon’ going on with the history of the game board, where a third party has gone back and changed stuff in the past from before where Rika can loop back to.

Since this arc seems to be all from Rika’s POV now that we’re fully on her side of the story now, it just makes it increasingly more weird and suspicious that she’s continuing to do nothing about the whole Takano situation. She asked about Tomitake’s whereabouts at the festival, but that’s something she would have done in the VN before she found out about Takano being evil, so that doesn’t say much. But now that we’re fully in her POV, it’s more weird than ever to see her being completely despondent about the entire situation when she doesn’t seem to be doing anything about Takano.

I’m still not entirely convinced about it, but it really does feel like she doesn’t actually know about Takano being evil. It’s possible that she’s somehow already caught onto the idea that things are fundamentally different now and that Takano’s not the villain anymore, but I don’t think it’d actually make sense for her to reach that conclusion at this stage. That’s more of a meta thing for the audience to think about. It might still just be a bit of clunky writing where Ryukishi’s trying not to spoil or overwhelm new fans by having Rika start talking about endgame plot stuff from the VN, but at this point I think it’d just be hurting the story if that’s what’s going on.

Anyway, now that we know what the overall point of the sword is, it makes me wonder why someone other than Rika would have already stolen it. I guess it was probably just the hypothetical second looper who stole it, either to preemptively screw over Rika, or to use as a weapon against her. Though there’s still the fact that there haven’t really been any clues about the sword being used for anything in the story yet, so there’s not many clues to go off of to try and guess what happened to it.

Though it does make me wonder if maybe in Watadamashi, Takano found the shard of the sword in the statue when she went back to inspect the statue again. I don’t really know what she would have done with it, or even thought about it, though, even if she’s still evil like in the VN. Maybe she knows about the sword and it’s importance from studying Hinamizawa’s history and myths, but I dunno.

Also, at this point it almost feels like they’re fucking with us, with how blatant the Umineko tie-in stuff is getting, lol. Hanyuu chipping her horn as a result of giving Rika the extra ability to remember everything from each loop feels like a giant neon sign point toward her connection to Featherine. I also have to wonder if this new situation Rika’s stuck in is meant to be what Lambda was talking about when she referred to Rika’s master abandoning her within a logic error. That still might just refer to the VN’s version of events, but with Hanyuu chipping her horn here, it comes across like Ryukishi’s using Gou as a way to directly establish Bern’s whole backstory from Umineko, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the logic error stuff also refers to Gou’s loop, rather than the VN. And even though Hanyuu did in her own way push all the responsibility of solving the mystery to Rika in the VN, she did straight up disappear in this episode and leave Rika to solve things on her own, so there’s that.

The focus on Rika’s depression in this episode also gives me major Bernkastel vibes. Her talking about being completely alone, the crushing horror of always worrying that she’ll get dragged back into the endless hell of the loop, and saying that if she can’t solve the mystery in five more loops she’ll give up all hope, all feel like it’s in line with Bernkastel’s whole attitude in Umineko. Of course that would imply that Gou will end with Rika ‘losing’ and giving up hope, if this is really meant to set up for Umineko’s whole story, which would be really depressing, but at this point I wouldn’t be too surprised if Gou just straight up has a depressing ending like that.

With how much it feels like Gou is heading towards being a Bernkastel origin story of sorts, I still feel like it’d be really lame if this isn’t setting the stage for some kind of Umineko anime remake. People could just go back and read the Umineko VN after this, but that’d just make Gou feel kinda incomplete in and of itself. It’d make more sense if it leads into an Umineko anime remake afterward that can serve as an indirect sequel to Gou.

And since Gou also seems like it’s going to clarify the connection between Hanyuu and Featherine, with what happened in this episode, I’m still wondering if Gou will also end up getting into Lambda’s whole origin story. It’d feel kinda weird at this point not to have her be relevant to Gou, if they’re going this far to set things up with Bern and Featherine.

I still don’t know how I feel about the Satoko looper theory, but it’d make sense if we find out that Lambda has given her the blessing of certainty in this new loop, for some reason or another. I at least think the only real way to incorporate Lambda into Gou without being totally confusing and alienating to new fans would be to tie her to Satoko, one way or another.

I don’t think Gou would end up getting too deep into the witch stuff, but I’d be interested to see how it’d play out if the story really does end up revolving around Featherine, Bern, and Lambda. I still think that might be something that new fans would actually be more willing to go along with than old fans, lol. With how much it risks alienating old Higurashi fans who don’t like the idea of it getting blended too much with stuff from Umineko, it makes me hope that they’re going to go the whole nine yards with this, and that they’re setting up for a full Umineko anime remake. 

Anyway, I’m really curious to see how the rest of Gou is going to play out now that it looks like we’re following Rika’s POV now. I’m really curious to see if they can actually pull off a satisfying ending in just ten more episodes, since there seem to still be so many mysteries to solve at the moment, and Gou hasn’t even really touched upon the stuff with Takano and the GHD yet.

Though I actually think that if Gou has a really depressing and potentially inconclusive ending that sets up Bernkastel’s origin story and paves the way for Umineko, that might make it a lot easier for them to get to that point in just ten more episodes. It might piss a lot of people off, but maybe it’ll just end in an intentionally unresolved manner, with Rika completely losing hope and having her Bern persona split off into it’s own being that ascends into being a witch on the meta plane.

I know a lot of people don’t like the idea of this tying heavily into Umineko stuff, but with this sort of episode in particular it really feels like that’s where things are heading, lol. But we’ll see how it goes.

Also, even though this episode mostly just focused on Rika’s POV, I’m really intrigued by the hint toward Mion having access to the keys to the part of the school where the septic tank seems to be. That feels like a big hint toward the idea that she was the one who put Rika’s body there in Watadamashi, but I guess maybe anyone could have stolen the keys from the faculty office or something. It still feels like an intentional hint about that mystery from Watadamashi, though.

This episode also didn’t have the new ED yet, even though they’ve already announced it, so I guess they’re saving it for the next episode. At this point I think they’re only changing the ED, since I don’t think they’ve announced a new OP, and the OP’s visuals clearly relate to Gou’s story as a whole, and not just the first half.

I’m also still waiting to see if the rumored subtitle change happens at some point soon. It might end up being related to a hypothetical second season, but I still think we won’t get one.