#vs the fallout of coming back to earth

[trillscienceofficer]

the way Voyager ended VS the way DS9 ended (for their respective casts) is something that has interested me for a while though I never wrote meta about it. Essentially what I did is I invented a pairing of characters that have never met in canon to talk about it here and that's something I've kept thinking about ever since

[stacotto]

I shouldn't be surprised when the episode title is, "The End of Hope", but.....fuck. I can barely keep my thoughts together as I write this, but, here we go.

Watching Earth House deal with the fallout of Aerial being the new poster child for the evil Spacian overlords was damn sad, Aliyah pretty much nails how I feel about it, though Lilique going "not our problem" is both a mood and unexpected (not in a bad way ofc). It was really sweet seeing Petra be nice to Suletta, on top of commiserating over their love lives, really added some nice depth. Her dialogue was Death Flag city tho. For those that care, the post-episode radio program hinted that she might still be alive, though just judging by the rubble she was under she might not have working legs anymo- OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Clever.

Love to see Guel finally show off why he's always been an Ace in the making; my man faced off in his still school-spec'd Darilbalde vs a freshly upgraded Michaelis set to full power, and came out on top. Really appreciating his ability to use his drones, he's definitely the series' Quattro. Feeling bad for Lauda tho, dude just learned big bro just killed their father then gets the call at the end probably about what to Petra. Can already tell he's going to have a lot of internalized guilt over this happening because he skipped out on their date (for an admittedly important reason) unless she gets the chance to tell him otherwise.

RIP to the Earth House hangar and Chuchu's Demi, but I take solace in the fact that I called the Barding being her next custom suit the moment I saw the Gunpla images (obviously the Barding we saw in the episode was missing some details from the gunpla like the second head mounted on the backpack which is definitely going to be salvaged from Chuchu's old Demi but yeah, called it). Also now feeling the Felchu vibes, ya'll got me.

Speaking of new ships...why did I have to get so rabidly attached to 5nore only for her to get Anew'd literally one episode later, it's not fair. They were going to run away and see the things she drew then the rest would come later. It's not fair. 5 is either going to have a Guel arc or just go absolute villain mode, and I'm not ready. It's not fair.

Okay I'm going to ramble a bit because I have been absolutely normal about the fact that Suletta has been a rescue pilot for a significant portion of her life and that detail is only really known to those that read Cradle Planet but they absolutely showed that off right at the end because this girl is tearing her hands apart moving heavy concrete slabs because goddammit there are still people that could be saved and she did not memorize the canyon patterns of Mercury, learn to wield a beam saber with the precision of a scalpel and earn Eri's complete faith that if she said she could complete a mission in 4 minutes then it'd be done in 4 minutes for her to not put all that experience to good use. I hope her effort gets recognized. It probably won't, Gundams just attacked the school again and killed likely scores of students if not hundreds this time around, but she's gotta get some respect for this.

"What We Can Do Now" is a hopeful title, and probably another TitleDrop episode like "Not the Best Way", so here's hoping that it's either a breather episode gearing up for a descent to Earth or said descent episode proper. I mean, it's either that or Mio and Prospera coming back up to Plant Quetta to send Quiet Zero...into...oh no.

[dalekofchaos]

Context

Choice 1. I was rereading the Injustice comics and came across the panels where Bruce and Barry were talking about Barry time traveling via the Speed Force and saving Lois to prevent the whole thing. So this is the basis of Injustice 3.

Barry's tired of the fighting and dying between the Regime and the Insurgancy and his war crimes keep haunting him. So Barry does what he swore he would never do. Goes back in time, save Lois, disassemble the bomb and stops the Joker.

Injustice 3 is the the fallout of Barry's choice to go back in time. As for what's caused this? Maybe an all out war between Brainiac and Darkseid, Black Adam vs Sinestro vs Wonder Woman vs Grodd vs Zod. But it would ideally end with Barry realising that he has to merge with the Speed Force for the good ending to stay in place, so he does and Wally takes up the Flash mantle.

Choice 2. The villains see that the world is vulnerable. The Regime is powerless without Superman, WW standing trial on Oa. No one can stop them.

So the Legion of Doom led by Vandal Savage seizes power. And this leads to the Legion causing chaos throughout the world and it forces Batman and Superman to team up and this eventually leads to a redemption for Clark because we're all tired of this grim dark edgy bullshit.

Choice 3. Continuing from the Absolute Justice ending, Superman escapes the Phantom Zone and with him is Zod, Ursa and Non and other Kryptonian criminals and all the other criminals Bruce locked away.

Choice 4. Superman is desperate. Everyone is either imprisoned/depowered or dead and Nekron gives him the choice and in Superman's ignorance he gives in and this results in Blackest Night. Everyone dead in the games or the comics comes back.

It's ideal for bringing back characters want in the game, that have been dead in the story. This way we can get Beast Boy and Nightwing back.

The Lantern Rings might work very well as a mechanic to give us playable variants, if every character comes with three different movesets depending on their Lantern Corps (a no Corps moveset is also possible as one of the three.)

This would also might give us Red Lantern Supergirl as a playable option.

Choice 5. Apokolips invades. Darkseid is the big bad. Joined by Steppenwolf, Granny Goodness, Desaad and Kalibak and the heroes and villains of earth must unite to stop Darkseid.

Choice 6. See my post here

Choice 7. Trigon will be the main villain, and it’s a chance to have many magic based characters such as Raven, Constantine, Zatanna, Brother Blood, Ragman, Circe, while keeping the likes of Doctor Fate, Enchantress, etc. I would love Constantine be one of the main characters in this storyline, where Trigon can try to destroy the world for its crimes against hell. Also a potential pre-order character in Lucifier.

Choice 8. The game is set after the events of Injustice 2's good ending with Batman training Supergirl and some new members of the Justice League with Mr. Terrific, but are interrupted when Mister Miracle and Big Barda comes from Apokolips saying that Darkside has been killed. On top of that, Booster Gold and Superboy come from the future warning them that the Anti-Monitor is destroying the multiverse. Now, the Justice League must band together with other heroes across the multiverse to stop the Anti-Monitor!

Choice 9. Basically pulling from MK1's card where the first half of the game we see what Bruce's absolute Justice brought the world and then Superman's universe invades and it's all out war between Batman and Superman

Choice 10. Damian frees Wonder Woman and she decides to stop playing nice. To make Wonder Woman more of a threat, she kills what's left of the Greek Pantheon and absorbs their powers. Her brand of justice will bring the mortals to heel, she will reunite the regime and end this insurgency once and for all.

This would end with Superman once and for all opening his eyes and having a chance to redeem himself. Batman and Superman team up to stop Wonder Woman once and for all.

It ends with Bruce retiring as Batman and becoming the president. The Justice League reforming being lead by Supergirl, Batgirl(Cassandra Cain) Donna Troy, Wally West, Green Lantern(Jessica Cruz) Green Arrow and Black Canary

[danykvyat]

So I finished Gintama and I've already started rewatching a couple of my personal favourite episodes (yeah I’m hyper-fixating) but how GOOD some of those earlier arcs were really emphasises how stagnant the ending was. The ending was ok, it wasn't awful, but it was....Meh. I’m late to the party so I’m sure it’s been said a million times before but having all the characters regress back to how they were at the beginning sucked. Nothing changed. For a series that always preached about life being worth living in spite of the change, pain and grief living brings, that sucked. It sucked. 

Shogun Assassination and Farewell Shinsengumi are the high points of the series because the events in the arcs are personal for ALL the characters. By Shogun Assassination our core characters have all come to know and care for Shige Shige so wanting to stop his assassination is a poignant goal for everyone. Farewell Shinsengumi deals with the fallout of failing to achieve that goal, culminating with the Shinsengumi willingly becoming rebels to save Kondo, again, one of THE core characters in the show. Both arcs feel high stakes because they are. They’re centred around established and pre-existing characters we've spent hundreds of episodes with. Our characters' actions feel meaningful. The battles we get feel meaningful. It all feels like it'll build to something even more meaningful because what happens in those arcs force our characters to grow and change.

And then we get Utsuro’s introduction and it all goes downhill from there. Sorachi wrote himself into a corner by making Shoyo Utsuro. The second he did that he had to commit to the ending being Gintoki, Katsura and Takasugi shaving Shoyo. Anything else would not be thematically fulfilling. And he didn't do that. 

It means Silver Soul is (un)intentionally reduced to a really straightforward good vs bad story for all the characters EXCEPT the Joui 3. The rest of the characters (mostly) have no personal ties to Shoyo. They’re stopping Utsuro et al predominantly because they're bad people out to destroy the Earth. That's it. It doesn't feel high stakes because Utsuro is never going to blow up the earth. That's just not going to happen. So it’s not interesting. You could replace almost all of the characters in Silver Soul with no-name background characters and nothing really changes. 

Which makes the ending we did get even more baffling to me because Sorachi clearly realises that or else he wouldn’t have pushed for the ending to go past what had been the agreed end date. And yet the narrative still essentially punishes Gin for his choice to behead Shoyo by having both Takasugi and Shoyo die in the end. Shoyo doesn't get to save his student. Katsura doesn't get to stop Gin from having to cut down someone dear to him again. Takasugi never gets to heal and move on from his trauma. There is zero catharsis. 

And then we flash forward with no reflection from any of the characters on what just happened and to make that worse we find out every character has failed to achieve their goals and everyone has regressed back to being the same character as they were at the beginning. Except we’re meant to be happy about that. It’s…..a choice.

Like I said, I’ve seen worse endings, and if I’m being generous it’s a nice safe ending for the Yorozuya. But I never felt like GinTama was a safe series. Utsuro being Shoyo caused a fundamental flaw with the story that Sorachi never really resolves so just wraps it up with a ‘See! It’s still a hijinks comedy series!’ which by the end, no it was a lot more than that.

Also Sorachi did the Shimuras so dirty. SO dirty.

[cousticks]

any thoughts on what may have occurred in beast with the storm bringer events?

This was sitting in my inbox for so long I'm so sorry. This also kind of got away from me and I ended up rambling more about timelines & Chuuya + Dazai in Beast vs Main Timeline a bit more than actually talking about Stormbringer, oops. I still hope you enjoy my thoughts anyway!!!!

Stormbringer in the Beast Universe likely wouldn't go very differently than canon, realistically. In The Day I Picked Up Dazai Side B, when Beast Dazai is torturing the cop for information on the painting, he refers to taking care of the painting as "Phase One of the plan." So... his plans likely aren't really in action yet.

What this tells us is the events of Stormbringer likely don't have much to do with any of Beastzai's plans, as TDIPUD occurs after the events of SB (we know this because in Side A, when Oda and Dazai are trading stories, Dazai mentions something about the battle with Verlaine.)

Really, it all depends on when Beastzai came in contact with The Book and was able to start his plans.

In the main timeline, both Oda and Akutagawa end up part of the Mafia between the events of SB and the Dragon's Head Conflict. In Beast, Phase Two of Beastzai's plans is said to end when Akutagawa joins the Agency. So I'm assuming Phase Two was getting both Akutagawa and Atsushi into where they needed to be. Phase One was clearing the target Oda had on his back by enemy organizations. So I'm assuming, in both the main timeline and in Beast, events of TDIPUD occur before Akutagawa's recruitment into the mafia. All this to say, the first known act towards any of Beastzai's plans is TDIPUD Side B.

Stormbringer happens before any of this, so it is totally possible that Beastzai hadn't made contact with the book yet. But that's no fun. So, for the sake of assumption, lets think he gets it earlier.

Here's where I get fully into headcanon territory no longer really supported by canon, for the record.

I've mentioned time and time again my belief that Beastzai takes over the mantle of boss in the fallout of the DHC, which is technically wrong since in Beast its mentioned he took over from Mori 'four years ago,' making him 18 when it happened. So in reality he probably took over in the wake of Mimic, where main timeline Dazai left the mafia entirely. But anyone who's ever had a conversation with me knows that I treat Beast Canon as a suggestion at best.

Anyway. So... by the time of the Beast novel, Chuuya totally fucking despises Dazai. Like... would still protect him to the ends of the Earth if only to ensure he can kill Dazai himself, but their relationship is vastly different from their main timeline counterparts. These two are not falling back on old inside jokes or mission codenames, but Chuuya is still integral to Beastzai's plots, if only to keep Beastzai alive long enough to execute them. Chuuya is loyal to the Mafia. That being said, in the time of Stormbringer, Chuuya hadn't quite developed that level of loyalty yet. He had so much hanging over his head that he was trapped there, not necessarily "loyal."

Dazai and Chuuya had to have gotten along at some point to inspire Chuuya's personal loyalty to Dazai's wellbeing. Its just how they work. There also has to be something, or many things, that went drastically wrong for Chuuya to hate Dazai that much. I mean, Chuuya. He's one of the most forgiving people ever when it comes to personal slights against himself. He forgave Shirase and the Sheep for literally stabbing him with rat poison and leaving him for dead, and still fought for their safety. Even repaired his relationship with Shirase. He held no animosity for Verlaine even after he killed The Flags, Murase, and several other mafia members. Chuuya has forgiven people that have destroyed everything he knows. So what the hell did Beast Dazai do to him to get that much raw hatred?

As far as the events of Stormbringer themself, they probably went pretty similarly, honestly. Chuuya needs to be loyal to the Mafia. I think that relationship to the Flags, and losing them, helped cement him in the Mafia as more than just a holdover. He felt indebted to them to fill in positions they could have held and rise in the ranks as he sees they died because of him, and they were his actual honest friends. So... unfortuately, I believe the Flags still die in Beast Stormbringer, as much as I wish they didn't. Their deaths bring Chuuya to the Mafia. Same goes for Murase, he's dead. Murase's death was alternate routes closing to Chuuya. Cementing his loyalty to the Mafia is key.

The only places I think might start to diverge from the normal timeline are the fight in the Lab and the Final Battle. The Mafia is stronger in Beast, with further reach and greater power. Beastzai might want some of those ability users that die in the final battle alive to help him expand his power more quickly. Its possible he had people get N down from the tower more quickly to activate Guivre, to cut to the chase more quickly.

Here's where I'm circling back to 'what the fuck did Beastzai do to make Chuuya hate him like that.

Dazai has often been an advocate for Chuuya's free will, at least when it has to do with anything other than Dazai's personal projects. The Arcade Scene in 15. Giving Chuuya an option, and a moment alone to consider it, on whether or not to unleash Corruption for the first true time in Stormbringer. But... Beastzai is very focused on his plans going correctly. If he decides he needs those ability users alive, and hurries along the battle with Verlaine to waste fewer resources? He may be... pushier with the option. I'm not saying it wouldn't be given. That's too tactless. But I wouldn't put it past Dazai to emphasize ugency, to play it up a little, to try to force Chuuya's hand without him immediately realizing its being forced. And have that become a pattern in general. Where once Dazai was a pillar of advocating Chuuya's free will, he'd slowly stop being that over the years, and becoming more demanding. Something of that shift is what I believe would influence their relationship negatively, along with everything else miserable that happens in the course of Beast. I have a really strong headcanon that in Beast, Beastzai really played to Chuuya's tastes more and tried to gain his friendship/loyalty faster and stronger earlier so that he'd be willing to do more for him (such as help overtake the Mafia) early on, then through the course of the Beast universe just... cuts him off emotionally and pushes Chuuya away into that bodyguard subordinate role to make him more loyal to the Mafia instead of Dazai so that he's more capable of maintaining it after Beastzai's death.

As far as Verlaine? Well... if the fight is hurried up, I'm really not sure he actually survives, if Rimbaud's ghost gets to him in time. But I like to think that he does, because that means he could have trained both Beast Atsushi and Beast Kyoka, and I think that's fun. He'd be useful like that. I'm not sure if he'd end up with the Executive position he does though, but Sub-Executive (as Rimbaud had been) is possible. He'd be too busy being used to train stronger assassins and combatants to have Executive duties. Again, stronger Mafia, broader scope, needs more & more powerful underlings.

All this to say I think Stormbringer generally goes the same except for the final battle, which gets rushed and pushy and generally unpleasant, while also probably cutting short some of the emotional ties Chuuya gets to form with Adam, Verlaine, and the rekindling of his friendship with Shirase, because the entire thing would be kind of stunted. Not a very fun answer, I'll admit, but I did get to think about it a lot which was quite fun.

[owlbearwrites]

WTW Ghost Gala - Day 1: Pumpkin Carving

You have to kill off a character: who do you choose?

For this month's Ghost Gala event hosted by @welcometowriteblr, I will be filling the prompts as relates to my WIP Fate is Just the Half of It, a queer post-apocalyptic sci-fi.

Now, let me preface by saying that I don't kill characters off, and neither do I generally 'make X happen' in the story. I'm a pantser through and through, and I let my characters drive the plot, while I take notes in the backseat (and occasionally get yelled at when I point out their bad choices).

That said, for the purposes of this prompt I'm prepared to entertain the possibility of an unauthorized character death, a 'what if' where someone dies before their time. And wouldn't you know it, there can be no better candidate for this than one half of the main duo, Mr. Jack Howard himself.

(Jack says: wait, what?)

So here's the deal. The main body of the story is set some 200 years after a nuclear apocalypse (Fallout stylez), and follows the two main leads, Rowan and Jack, who were together before the end of the world and then find each other 200 years later, two improbable survivors. Except one of them... isn't. Because, you see, while Rowan skipped ahead in time by taking a cryo nap, the Jack he will find post-apocalypse is a sentient android who was given human!Jack's digitally preserved memories and personality. The original human owner of those memories and personality (Jack Howard prime, if you will), did, regrettably, perish on early post-apocalyptic Earth.

He did, however, make it almost a decade, and kept a journal through that time: a document that will Rowan will come across as he searches for Jack in the future present day, after getting a tiny shred of evidence that his man is a survivor like himself.

So, what would've happened if past!Jack didn't spend a decade traipsing through the apocalypse and taking down (mostly very irate) notes? The main difference would be that his diary would never have existed, and Rowan would not find it.

And here's the irony: when Rowan sets out to search for Jack, he's convinced the latter is somehow alive. Except when he comes across the diary, he finds confirmation of Jack's death from the man himself, as in his last entry, Jack writes about being badly wounded and preparing for imminent demise. And if that were not enough, Rowan follows the 200-year-old trail to Jack's alleged place of death, and finds remains and effects that strongly suggest that Jack Howard had, indeed, died there.

So had Jack died sooner, had his diary not existed to fall into Rowan's hands, would it have made Rowan's search for him easier? Yes and no. On the one hand, without Jack's own account leading up to his death, not to mention physical evidence, it would've been a lot easier to keep believing that the man he saw on recent security footage really was Jack. But on the other hand, it was exactly when Rowan was faced with the impossibility of reconciling his burning certainty vs. the evidence in front of his eyes that a new hypothesis re: Jack's survival presented itself, courtesy of another sentient android character who was helping out Rowan at the time. Without having his search for Jack driven into a temporary dead end that inspired this idea, who knows how long it would've taken Rowan to track him down (especially seeing as android!Jack was spending most of his time literally on the moon at the time...)

If asked at the time, reluctant-apocalypse-survivor!Jack would say that it didn't matter at all whether he died one day or ten years after the bombs fell. His world was gone, and he knew he would never see the love of his life again. He had no way of knowing the future. But ultimately, it was his stubborn determination and will to survive that would help Rowan find the way back to him 200 years later.

Because, as so many parts of their story will show, fate is, indeed, just the half of it.

[brokehorrorfan]

Maximum Overdrive will be released on Steelbook Blu-ray on May 30 via Lionsgate. The 1986 sci-fi horror film is available to pre-order for $19.96 exclusively at Walmart. 

Stephen King makes his lone directorial effort on the cult classic. He also wrote the script, based on his own 1973 short story, “Trucks.” Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, and Christopher Murney star. AC/DC perform the soundtrack.

Beyond the packaging, the disc will be identical to the Vestron Video Collector’s Series edition form 2018. Special features are listed below, where you can also see the Steelbook interior.

Special features:

Audio commentary with Tony Magistrale, author of Hollywood’s Stephen King

Audio commentary by actor/comedian Jonah Ray and Blumhouse producer Ryan Turek

Interview with producer Martha De Laurentiis

Interview with actress Laura Harrington

Interviews with actor John Short and actress Yeardley Smith

Interview with make-up effects creator Dean Gates

Interview with actor Holter Graham

Interview with Murray Engleheart, co-author of AC/DC: Maximum Rock & Roll

The Wilmington Factor – A look back at the filming of Maximum Overdrive with members of the production crew in North Carolina

“Goblin Resurrectus” – Restoration of the Happy Toyz Golbin

Behind-the-scenes footage

Still gallery

Theatrical trailer

TV spots

Get ready for the ultimate battle of man vs. bloodthirsty machine in this terrifying Stephen King classic! For three horrifying days, the Earth passes through the tail of a mysterious comet. The skies glow an eerie green as humanity waits to see what the fallout will be. But what they imagine is nothing like the nightmare they find — the comet’s magnetic fields cause all the machines on Earth to suddenly come to life and terrorize their human creators in a horrific killing spree. Now, it’s up to a small group of people trapped in a desolate truck stop to defeat the killer machines — or be killed by them!

[1lizard-onemonkey]

The will be only two things

TWO THINGS

That will get me to engage with the new mcu phase in light of the RDJ is Dr. Doom annoucement

I'll watch it anyway, just to see how it goes, I probably won't deal with any tv show tie-in

But to get me to engage with it

1. They make up this multiverse nonsense about variants and look-alikes

Between Peter Parker and now Reed Richards with Pedro Pascal, variants can look different

So there needs to be some explanation that two separate characters can look exactly the same and not be related at all, like Cap and Human Torch

Dr. Doom is NOT a variant of Tony Stark

2. We, the audience, as of today, some two years before the actual premiere, knows that RDJ will be Dr. Doom

The characters don't need to know!

Let it be a plot twist at the climax of Doomsday

So Fantastic Four comes out, it establishes the team and Dr. Doom, establishes the multiverse war

And that is the movie where we, the audience, deals with the whole Tony Stark vs Dr. Doom thing

Avengers Doomsday is when the characters deal with it

All we deal with is the suspense of when and how and what the fallout will be when they find out

Avengers Doomsday opens, Dr. Doom gets to Earth 616, all masked up, voice probably distorted, Fantastic Four pops in, explains, finds out about the multiverse look-alike nonsense, they don't say who Dr. Doom looks like because it's not important/it'll distract the Avengers

Climax

The good guys are winning

Someone, idk, Dr. Strange with his multiverse knowledge and experience and brief but important interactions with Tony Stark unmasks Dr. Doom

Blue screen

Dr. Doom gets away/makes a move and puts the mask back on before anyone else can see

Good guys are like, Dr. Strange, what the heck? we almost had him?

Dr. Strange is like, Reed Richards, what the heck!

Reed Richards is like, multiverse nonsense! This is Dr. Doom! We need to stop him!

Someone else, Thor cause of his space knowledge and for maximum damage with his history with Tony Stark, or Riri cause of her brains and Ironheart suit, or America Chavez cause of her multiverse powers catches onto what's going on

One of them asks, wait, who does he look like

Dr. Doom catches on, knows he can use it, spits out a pre-smack down one-liner, unmasks himself

"So what man looks like me?"

Multiple blue screens

Dr. Doom wins

The guy who looks like the other guy who saved the universe just obliterated it

Movie ends, we gotta wait until the next one

It doesn't have to be like that, that can be only own little personal brain version of Avengers Doomsday, one of many fanfics I'll never write

just

Dr. Doom is NOT a Tony Stark and the reveal of looking like Tony Stark is not until the climax (i'll allow some time before the climax, some time) of Avengers Doomsday

That is all

[amagicdoctor]

with sins of sinister ending not so long ago and it being your first X-Men event, what were your thoughts about it? which series did you prefer following between storm and the brotherhood, immoral X-Men and nightcrawlers?

OOH yeah! Good question! Thanks for asking.

Thing is, SOS isn't my first X-Men event. When I first "started" reading comics (at a massive amount) back in 2016~ the Inhumans vs X-Men and the Civil War 2 series was my first real event. (I forgot which came before which and I don't want to do a quick Google--) But those guys were my first TRUE X-Men event.

Now THAT I liked, and yeah it's a little biased because it was my first. And comparing them to the ENTIRETY of SOS? I did not like SOS that much 🤣.

I actually got severely annoyed with SOS by the end of the run, which was in Nightcrawlers #3 which I'm SO sad about because the Nightcrawlers series was my favorite!! There was just too much crap going on in one little book (in #3) that I couldn't follow along with. In comparison to the Inhumans V X-Men thing, I didn't even read every single story like I did with SOS, yet I still liked it!! As we've mentioned tons and tons of times before on this blog there's just something SO off about this era's writing on the X-Men team that just... doesn't do it for me.

And I think I already answered the second part of your question about the trio SOS series, Nightcrawlers was by FAR my fav. And not just because it was themed around Nightcrawler himself, (which it sort of really wasn't anyway), I just thought the smaller stories it told and the short-lived (literally) characters it introduced were SO cool (bring back Wallcrawler my beloved 😭). Mother Righteous also had a bigger part in this section of SOS, and gave us some lore about what to expect from the end of LOX (and the start of Sons of X) which I really appreciated, because I told ya'll I really liked LOX (even though it was the only side Krakoa series I'm caught up with 😅).

Storm's side of the series was ok and I only looked forward to reading it because it had Storm in it. Didn't have much else that I cared for TBH.

And I completely forgot what happened in Immoral X-Men, but it introduced the bbygirl Rasputin IV, who I'm ALL for and definitely looking forward to her next story.

But now to reflect on the whole of SOS...

I think it accomplished what it came to do. I didn't have fun reading most of it but it did set the stage for future series. Yall did tell me writers have been setting up this series for a long time, and now the fallout is coming back to the current age of Krakoa (which I'm a bit more excited to see now that Rasputin is here, Destiny's role revealed, Mother Righteous is an instigator and greedy, Dominion etc).

This is hopefully going to show everyone in charge that the cracks in their system are more like holes than anything else. And I really do love that. I love that a lot of people are scared now. This is serving as such a big wake up call and I'm so SO excited to see where it goes.

And it goes without saying that this will inevitably effect the rest of the superhero community/earth because ofc mutants have to involve everyone in everything, so let's see where that goes too!

[shitpostingkats]

There is something so chilling and incredible about remembering the fact that Red vs. Blue is a war story.

It’s a workplace comedy, it’s a goofy ensemble show. It’s everything a silly, off the cuff web series should be, so relaxed its characters feel realistic, so unconstrained its world feels alive. It establishes in a few lines what some shows takes seasons to not even accomplish at all; that every faceless person is, fundamentally. A person.

And people are silly and bored and have their own little small scale lives and they don’t think about the grand story they’re telling, their part in the tapestry of the universe. They think about how hot the afternoon is. They bitch about their coworkers. They throw rocks at complicated military equipment and then get together to ooh and ah over ‘Oh wow, the rocks got all ashy and sizzley.’ 

Every soldier in the show has those moments of down to earth humanity. And the down to earth humanity is having dumb conversations to pass the time and doing very dumb shit because you’re bored. Every. Soldier. The guards in the tower at the sarcophagus heist. (“Did you hear something?” “The sound of you being an idiot?”) The soldiers at Rat’s Nest (”Seriously?!?! How have you never met another person named Jones?? It’s very common!) The freelancers, both top agents to the so-so agents to the worst agents to the dozens of people that work for PFL that aren’t even freelancers. (Wash’s twirly straw and skateboard, the triplets and Five Things, 479er’s never-ending feud with the guy who moves the crates.)

Everything has a face, and that face is human.

Which is why it comes out of nowhere when the show starts waxing philosophical on the atrocities of war, how flexible our societal morals become, the aftermath and the tragedy of it all. It’s a gutpunch to be forced to take a step back and be told “You are nothing. You are disposable assets, names on a sheet of paper, and only used to further more violence.” To see the characters be told that.

I find it fascinating that, due to the strange relationship between rvb and Halo itself, we never actually see the war. Never really learn what started it, what’s hypothetically being fought for, only the fallout it creates. That outside the lens of our ragtag heroes, people are dying and lives are being ruined for?? What? We don’t know. But one very sad and very twisted man saw an opportunity, and the loosened ethics and the institution of war gave it to him. No one thought to look into PFL, no one batted an eye, until the dust had settled, until lives had been ruined and ended. Because when faced with extinction, every alternative isn’t just preferable. It’s encouraged.

War is just the broad, inhumane system that gives real, human people the chance to excuse atrocities. The director. The counselor. Felix. Locus. Wash.

There’s something so poignant, so heartbreaking, and so goddamn fundamental to the story of rvb in Kimball’s speech. 

“When you spend every day fighting a war, you learn to demonize your attackers. To you they're evil, they're sub-human. Because if they weren't, then what would that make you? What I'm trying to say... is I've been afraid to see you for what you really are. You're our brothers. Our sisters. And the things we've done to one another are unforgivable.”

The audience knows, has had it shoved in their faces, over and over and over again. Everyone in this universe is human. We see, from our omnipotent (yet incredibly limited) perspective that everyone in this show is a distinct person beneath that helmet. That no one is unattached from humanity.

And what do the soldiers see?

A crowd of faceless bodies, all wearing the same color armor.

[thephantomcasebook]

Ok I haven't read the books.. but basically Aemond and Aegon didn't do anything to rescue Alicent and Helaena from Rhaenyra? that's true?

Umm ...

It's a little more complicated then that ... and not.

Spoilers Ahead!

Aegon is terribly - Terribly - wounded in the first ever battle between the Greens and the Blacks at "Rook's Rest".

Basically Criston hems in the Velayron army at a castle called "Rooks Rest" and before storming it, he challenges Rhaenyra at Dragonstone to come out and fight. But Rhaenyra refuses to answer it and she won't allow Jace to answer it either. But it's a political nightmare, because, people start to think that the Blacks are craven if they don't answer the challenge to battle, especially to save their own soldiers and Bannerman.

So, instead of going herself, Rhaenyra sends Rhaenys in her stead - which is a political disaster. Rhaenys attacks the Green forces that are besieging the castle of Rook's Rest. She also, specifically, goes after Criston.

But Lord Commander Cole basically plays a game of chicken with Meleys and kinda humiliates Rhaenys in the process, cause he's basically just sitting there, no blinking as a dragon continues to try and strafe him and he just kinda sniffs, which is disheartening to the Blacks and her own men.

Eventually, Criston gives the signal, and from the sky both Aemond and Aegon descend from the sky on Vhaegar and Sunfyre and they battle Rhaenys while the main Green forces assault the castle.

In a last desperate attempt of victory, Rhaenys has Meleys grabs a hold of Sunfyre and drive him to the ground. but Vhaegar grabs hold of Meleys by the neck with her feet and the three dragons slam into the earth and Rhaenys is crushed like a grape - there is literally nothing left of her to even send back. But the force of the impact, plus Meleys not letting go till the last minute meant that both Aegon and Sunfyre got caught up in it. And both are near mortally wounded in the battle and never really ever recover.

The Dragon fire from Meleys death rattle melts Aegon's steel gauntlet to his hand, permanently fusing the steel to his body. And for the majority of the war Aegon is in terrible agony and sleeps most of the day drugged up. Alicent and Daeron - mostly cause he's her sworn shield and he goes wherever she does - are the only ones that visit him. The book makes a thing about the fact that Helaena refuses to tend or even see him.

Afterward they capture the castle of Rook's Rest and most of the Velaryon forces and deny to Rhaenyra a beachhead from Dragonstone. They parade Meleys body through King's Landing and mount her head at the main gate as a trophy and warning.

The political fallout is considerable for Team Black.

Rhaenyra is branded a craven throughout the realm, because, Aegon showed up to fight for his crown while Rhaenyra hid and sent another woman in her stead. The fact that Criston Cole was fearless in the face of dragon fire undermined Team Black's effort of ruling by fear through dragons. And a furious and enraged Corlys begins to reconsider supporting Rhaenyra along with a many of her bannermen for her chickening out. All the momentum that Daemon had in the Riverlands with early victories basically comes to naught.

Also, now, instead of the puppet Aegon on the throne, Aemond is named regent and protector of the realm. Which means instead of a constant tug of war with Otto vs. Criston and Alicent. For the first time the Greens have a consistent and decisive leader that has his own mind - and it's a pretty good one too.

From then on, Aemond and Criston outfox and outfight Daemon and push the Blacks to nearly the breaking point.

As for why Aemond never tried to rescue Alicent and Helaena?

This is a matter of interpretation. Not mine, by the way, I mean "House of the Dragon" vs. "Fire & Blood".

Unlike the show, which portrays Aemond in a more complex light, giving him a deep devotion to his family and a unrequited love for Helaena. In the book, Aemond isn't that duty bound. There's, really, no hint that he actually cares for anything other his own glory. He fights for his family, but there's nothing saying that he is actually all that interested in them - especially at the end of the war.

Now, don't get me wrong. GRRM has basically said that "House of the Dragon" is the absolute definitive version of the events. So, I would consider Show!Aemond more legit than Book!Aemond. But as for Book!Aemond .. he was kinda doing his own thing at the end ...

But then, so was everyone else.

The War, in general, spirals completely out of control till basically no one knows why they're fighting anymore. Motivations and causes are completely lost and it's basically a free-for-all of death, suffering, and mayhem for whatever reason suits.

After King's Landing falls to Rhaenyra and Criston dies at the "Butcher's Ball" trying to rescue Alicent. I think that Aemond basically just kinda gives up. He fucked up so badly that I think he feels that he lost the war. So he basically goes nuts and starts just destroying everything - egged on by Alys. I think he simply gives up and is just waiting around for his final confrontation with Daemon - who also feels the same way at the end of the war as well.

He knew he was meant to die in the war and he was just basically waiting around for it to happen.

Daeron, also embodies that shift of prospective in the war. But when he takes command of the Greens, he takes the initiative of bringing peace and justice back to a nihilistic and apocalyptic conflict which is one of the worst cataclysms ever seen on Westros since the "War for the Dawn".

He doesn't want to be king, he's not particularly fighting for Aegon, he just wants Alicent back and take her somewhere safe.

Then the narrative shifts from Aegon and Rhaenyra fighting for the crown, to a rivalry between Aemond and Daemond, to the final form of a crusade by the common people that is led by the last good man to end the reign of terror. It gets about as Black & White as Martin ever allows anything to get at the climax.

Also, if that doesn't convince you.

From a practical level. When King's Landing falls, all ten of the Blacks dragons are at King's Landing. I don't think Aemond could go in their alone, guns blazing, and get Alicent and Helaena out alive.

Part of the reason for the second Battle of Tumblestone. Was because, Daeron and his army was stuck outside in the suburbs of King's Landing trying to figure out how they were going to attack the Capital without Rhaenyra outright killing Alicent. It's basically the reverse of when the Frey's were besieging Riverrun in "Game of Thrones".

Everyday Rhaenyra is proverbially standing Alicent out on the ramparts with a noose around her neck, threatening to push her off if she sees Daeron and Tessarion anywhere near King's Landing.

So, even when the war was basically over, when Daeron had elite forces and three dragons - in theory - and the full support of the common people of King's Landing, he still couldn't get in their to rescue Alicent ... well, officially.

There is a conspiracy theory that he survived the fight with Vermethor, got to Alicent when the common people stormed the Red Keep, and kept her safe till the Baratheon's arrived to restore order. I mean, there's a reason most people thought for fifty years that Daeron was still alive ... and that Alicent just kinda disappeared from history. Also, the Daynes of Starfall have white hair and violet eyes ... a lot of the women have names that start with "A", and Starfall is very close to Oldtown.

Just saying.

But that's a theory for another day.

[fantomcomics]

What’s Out This Week? 7/13

Thanks to everyone for buying Pride Raffle tickets and helping us raise 80 bucks for charity!

Shadow’s House GN Vol 1 -  Somato

Shadows House - a strange mansion that receives no callers, inhabited by a race of faceless shadows who play at being aristocrats and are waited on hand and foot by "living dolls," who also serve as their masters' faces. What goes on inside this enigmatic manor is anyone's guess, but soot and shrieks billow up from within...

7174 Present 01 -  Ashley Wood

Following the artistic showcase that was 7174 ANNUAL 01, ASHLEY WOOD is back with this comic-sized 48-pager that showcases his ongoing and continuously evolving love affair with art styles that captivate, titillate, and motivate...you, to keep coming back for more!

Space Lady #1 -  Ashley Warwick

Space-Lady does her job exactly as the manual advises her. At least this is what her advisers think. She uses her incredible armour, technology, qualified immunity, and paycheck to get super, super high. She deals with crime in her sector anything but fairly, using any excuse to fight someone or break something. But today, after a heavy night of drinking, Space-Lady decides to sleep in and let her homemade AI police force handle crime.

Above Snakes  #1 (of 5) -  Sean Lewis & Hayden Sherman

The hit team behind THE FEW and THUMBS returns with an all-new WILD AS HELL miniseries! Writer SEAN LEWIS (KING SPAWN), artist HAYDEN SHERMAN (Wasted Space), and rock-star letterer HASSAN OTSMANE-ELHAOU introduce a world where Deadwood-style Westerns collide with the fantasia of NEIL GAIMAN in the story of Dirt, a man seeking vengeance for his murdered wife with nothing but a talking vulture to prod him on. ABOVE SNAKES is a fast and furious explosion of Western tropes and American vengeance that explores where our rage can take us.

Killing Stalking Deluxe Ed Vol 1 -  Koogi

The Mature-rated Boys' Love horror webtoon from Lezhin that became a global manhwa hit! Yoon Bum, a scrawny and quiet man, has a crush on one of the most popular and handsome guys in his college: Sangwoo. After the two cross paths again during their military training, Yoon Bum's feelings grow in intensity until they become an obsessionhe breaks into Sangwoo's home. But what he sees inside is not the Sangwoo of his fantasies; his dreams of this alluring man abruptly turn into a nightmare. Now readers can own this full-color, deluxe paperback edition in English for the first time, with a special fold-out insert included in every volume!

Impact Winter #1 -  Travis Beacham, Stephen Green & Matt Hollingsworth

It's been one year since a comet hit Earth and blotted out the sun. Now, the world is a dark, cold landscape ruled by vampires.

In the British countryside, a band of survivors has formed a resistance in the fallout shelter of a medieval castle. Among them is Darcy, a young, headstrong fighter waiting for the chance to prove she can be on the front lines. But when that opportunity comes, Darcy will come face to face with the true horrors of this new world.

Army Of Darkness Vs Reanimator: Necronomicon Rising #1 - Erik Burnham, Eman Casallos, & Tony Fleecs

When an archaeological dig unveils an important element from the world of the Army of Darkness, it ends up in the absolute worst hands of all: Dr. Herbert West's. As West tinkers in God's domain, our reluctant hero is once more drawn into the sphere of destiny as he faces a triple threat of danger!

Flavor Girls #1 (of 3) -  Loic Locatelli-Kournwsky

Naoko, Camille, and V are the FLAVOR GIRLS, Sacred Fruit Guardians of Earth! They defend the earth-the source of their power-from the threat of ever-looming aliens, whose motives regarding the planet and its peoples are yet unknown... But Sara, a normal young woman and a U.N. applicant just doing her best to save the world, gets involved with the Flavor Girls in a way she never could have imagined.

Mullet Cop: The Flavor Of Danger #1 -  Tom Lintern

An outspoken mall councilwoman is opposing the evil corporation F.O.A.M. as it tries to get its harmful beverage products in the mall. After an attempt is made on her life, Charles assigns Fred to protect her so she can spread word about the shady dealings. What starts off as a simple bodyguard mission gets sidetracked as the councilwoman must buy a few outfits at the department store, all while assassins wait behind every corner.

Moon & Sun GN Vol 1 -  Akane Abe

A yakuza heir indifferent to the family business butts heads with the stunning proprietress of a nearby drag club. When his yakuza grandfather starts putting on the heat regarding the family business, he runs straight into the arms of the masculine beauty!

Things We Create TP -  Axel Brechensbauer

A visual guide to fascinating historical facts and philosophical musings on why and how the objects we buy, own, use, see and interact with - from tanks to iPhones - come into existence. We all live in a world of objects, yet we rarely stop to think about how and why they came to exist, why they look and feel the way they do, or what shapes our preferences and why we own and use the ones we do. In Things We Create, renowned concept designer, cartoonist, and sculptor Axel Brechensbauer pulls back the curtain and provides a visual guide to civilization's endless quest for the perfect human-made objects.

Told in eight chapters covering topics such as "The Need of Objects," "Recreating Nature, "Objects as Communication," and "Objects as Power," Brechensbauer takes the reader on a rollicking tour through the history and creation of objects that comprise our world. He digs into the basics of design, discusses why certain some objects please us while others repel us, considers how the design of one object influences another, reveals how human curiosity keeps in step with technology. He answers questions such as, what makes objects so pleasing to use? Why do we create objects that are so contrary to those that appear in nature? What's the difference between an object that fills an emotional need and one that fulfills a practical one? What determines if a piece of furniture is a copy, an artifact, or art? What is the relationship between shape and emotion?

Told with visual verve, wit, humor, and, above all, clarity, Things We Create is both a history of and a metaphysical study of physical objects - all the stuff we buy, we use, we collect, we need. As befits a book about the beauty and utility of objects, Things We Create is itself both a beautifully designed and executed object and an immensely fun and readable series of comics and diagrams.

Talk To My Back GN -  Yamada Murasaki

Set in an apartment complex on the outskirts of Tokyo, Murasaki Yamada's Talk to My Back (1981-84) explores the fraying of Japan's suburban middle-class dreams through a woman's relationship with her two daughters as they mature and assert their independence, and with her husband, who works late and sees his wife as little more than a domestic servant.

The Passion Of Gengoroh Tagame Vol 1 -  Gengoroh Tagame

The often violent, visceral, and always provocative style of Japanese manga legend Gengoroh Tagame, one of the originators of Japanese bear culture, comes to life like never before in The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame, a new edition of the artist's first English-language collection. Known as "The Tom of Finland of Japan," Tagame is celebrated around the world for his groundbreaking work, masterful imagery, and craft, as well as an unbridled exploration of bondage, lust, passion, and romance.

This first English paperback edition includes ten short stories dating from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, with an introduction by celebrated novelist and biographer Edmund White, as well as an essay and new jacket design by acclaimed novelist and graphic designer Chip Kidd. With its over-the-top explicitness, this intense collection of erotic stories depicting scenes of BDSM between hypermasculine men, The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame is a must-have for Tagame fans, as well as fans of bear cultures in general. Produced by veteran "Japanist'' Anne Ishii and filmmaker Graham Kolbeins, the book also contains sixteen full-page color illustrations.

Overwatch: New Blood #1 (of 5) -  Ray Fawkes & Irene Koh

With chaos and devastation rife around the world, Cole Cassidy receives the call to rejoin Overwatch . . . but memories of its fall still haunt him. After an unexpected reunion with an old friend, Cassidy considers that maybe Overwatch needs more than the old crew to give it new life.

Whatcha snagging this week, Fantomites? 

[dragontamer22]

My unpopular opinion is that I actually thought it was a clever and profound for the Star Vs. finale to end with the destruction of magic, and as heartbreaking as it was I actually liked that the show ended doing something different. Was season 4 rushed to high hell? Absolutely. Did it need like a whole ass other season that it would never get because Disney just to tell what it was trying to tell? Yes. Like, imo, the issues with S4 come from it being condescended into way fewer episodes than the writers needed, and they had too many plot threads to tie together or wrap up. But the actual beats of the season and the plot points themselves I didn't think were bad ideas and I think genuinely could've worked better... Juuuuust the execution of them you know... Because it was all rushed so badly... yeah. I thought it was compelling the lore and story details they were trying to squeeze in, I thought her mom's shitty ass behavior was interesting and actually didn't surprise me (BUT AGAIN, WOULD'VE LIKED TO HAVE HAD THAT ELABORATED ON AMD EXPLORED MORE), and as an avid SFF lover I genuinely thought that Star's decision to destroy magic was narratively and thematically profound. And in the context of how external magic (as opposed to intrinsic magic, like with a lot of the magical creatures) works and is instead used as a tool of imperialism, prejudice, and colonialism, you know I can understand why Star made the decision that she made. Of course it saddens me because we live in a mundane world, and the thought of destroying magic or rejecting it is absurd and unthinkable. And for a good reason! But Star was faced with a hard decision in a world where external magic was a tool of the elite and the oppressors, and she and others tried dismantling systems of oppression but it wasn't working anywhere near as quickly as it needed to. And Star, as heartbreaking as the decision was, made the hard choice that would eliminate at least one system of oppression in the world: destroying magic. Of course, there's the fallout from... Well everything, to deal with, and she didn't know Mewni and Earth were gonna merge in the end. But they did.

Like, from season 1 magic is pretty heavily associated/linked/metaphorical/analogous with systemic oppression, including genocide. And in S4 isn't there literally a whole thing about Mina Loveberry getting magical superpowers to kill monsters, which is you know GENOCIDE. Magic is STRONGLY connected to imperialism, colonialism, racism, genocide, and the likes as far back as that episode where Star and Marco reinact the battle of humans vs. monsters and it's commented on how horribly unfair it is that the humans have magic and the monsters don't. Ofc there's the whole "well why not arm everyone with magic" and idk I just don't think giving everyone a gun to defend themselves is such a great idea so why on earth would I think arming everyone with deadly magic is a good idea??? Anyways, given that magic is presented as a system of oppression utilized by the elites to colonize and commit genocide against non humans, then yes, I do think that destroying magic was the right thing to do given the very pressing and time sensitive circumstances Star was under.

tl;dr: as much as I agree with everyone else that S4 was rushed to high hell, I still think the core points and extended lore of the season were compelling, and I not only think Star made the right (if VERY difficult) decision in the end given the context she was dealing with, but I also think her decision is narratively, thematically, and generically (as in a genre) compelling as part of it's extended metaphor for systemic oppression and thus the dismantling of that oppression, permanently.

But good god was it rushed.

[popwasabi]

“End of Evangelion” and the tempting nature of oblivion

(TW: Suicide, Self-harm, Pain, Depression, Mental Health, Death)

“End of Evangelion” is a perplexing movie to say the least.

Not that the original classic anime “Neon Genesis Evangelion” series ends on exactly the most conclusive note itself, but “End” takes everything that transpired in the series and literally destroys it.

The films ends with Earth experiencing the long foreshadowed Third Impact and all of the planet returning to the primordial “soup,” as fans call it, with its main protagonist Shinji Ikari and comrade Asuka Langley Soryu as the only remaining humans left. A pseudo, twisted rebeginning of Adam and Eve’s Genesis.

The film is fairly divisive among the fans to say the least. Some fans consider it a masterpiece for its nihilistic tone and mind-bending illustrations of body horror and others despised it for being too dark and confusing with no clear explanation of anything that happened in the film’s events. Hell, even the movie’s fans have a difficult time explaining what exactly happens in the narrative.

I was somewhat in the middle with it after I watched it the first time not super long ago. It was certainly abstract, and I like plenty of stories that don’t make it easy for me to understand. The animation is definitely the franchise’s best and I enjoyed the character moments between Shinji, Asuka, and Misato. But it was also, as stated before, dreadfully confusing and still to this day hard to makes heads or tails out of with its plot.

But, as with more than a few movies I have revisited this year, 2020 helped me contextualize one aspect I think the story is concretely trying to get across.

(We’ll save discussion of “Rebuild” for another day...)

At my lowest points not long ago, I had this frequent vision that would crawl across my mind.

I imagined being up in the clouds on a beautiful sunny day, but I wasn’t floating or flying. I was plummeting, falling like a bird without wings at a speed that would definitely kill me once I got to the ground. But I never imagined actually hitting the Earth like a meat-bagged, human sized asteroid. I only ever imagined the falling part. The wind reaching a terminal velocity and the air rushing past my body and you know what look I had on my face?

Happiness.

I was confused a bit by why I kept imagining this moribund fall into oblivion over and over again. I wasn’t suicidal, though I certainly have had thoughts of self-harm plenty of times before and general detachment from life. But why the fuck was I so happy? I’m about to die after all!

What I have come to realize in recent years, as I’ve developed a better understanding of my mental health and what makes me tick, it wasn’t that I wanted to die so much as I wanted the freedom that comes moments before it. The feeling of finally letting go and letting fate/gravity do the rest.

Years of my life failing at various aspects of societal expectations and career obligations from not being able to get the girls I wanted to date so badly, relationships ending poorly, not quite applying myself the way I should’ve in college, and working a plethora of unfulfilling jobs since graduation made me yearn for that release. Just that feeling of saying “fuck it all” and giving in to the void.

I wanted to stop feeling out of control. The way the world is structured often feels like you are on a wild, rapid river flowing in one very stark direction but you desperately want to go the other way. You keep fighting and fighting it and realize after a while you are just swimming in place, you tire out and either float where the river wants you to go or you drown. I wanted neither of those things, I just wanted control and unfortunately part of life is accepting that a very large percentage of it is beyond your power to alter.

2020 made this feeling starkly apparent once again as we were hit with a once in a lifetime global pandemic that has killed 2.21 million people and counting. As common people struggle to find ways to handle the loss of loved ones and the fallout from economic instability those tasked with protecting us have more or less ignored the cries of needy. Hell, they’re fucking miffed that we would even have the audacity to ask for $2000 of our own fucking tax dollars to put a band-aid on the situation. Combine this with an extremely volatile two-party system and late stage capitalism, we are about as out of control as ever in terms of how much we actually can course correct our destinies in a period like this.

It is why so many irony-pilled millennials and gen z-ers are posting dank memes about meteors colliding with the earth over the course of the year. We’ve lived through two recessions, two forever wars, and now a pandemic in our lifetimes while paying off our crippling debt with slave wages and yet boomers still wonder why we are near universally depressed as a generation.

(Seriously, everybody needs a fucking therapist right now...and also to dismantle the fucking system that’s making us depressed!)

This is what I feel is the real heart of “End of Evangelion.” The movie is a lot of things, obviously, but, after the events of this year and looking back on the more depressing parts of my life, I feel this film is about the tempting nature of oblivion. Giving up when things are clearly beyond your control so you can get that sweet but twisted, fleeting sense of freedom from it all.

Director Hideaki Anno didn’t feel too entirely different about the state of life when he made this series and certainly by the time he made “End” he was in a very dark place.

So, quick history lesson, “Neon Genesis Evangelion” debuted in 1994 and quickly became a classic among fans of anime and the giant mech vs monster genre. Critics loved it for its exploration of mental health and depression and of course plenty enjoyed the hell out of it for its giant monster/robot escapism as well. Fast forward to the conclusion of the series, critics and fans especially are far more polarized. I won’t try to explain exactly what happens in the ending and frankly I don’t think anyone can, but that confusion led to quite a bit of outcry by the fans.

Hideaki Anno, the series’ director, received tons of hate mail and death threats following the series conclusion. The fans hated how abstract it was, how it had an undecisive ending and chose to dive into the mind of Shinji instead of conclusively describing the events of the Third Impact with plenty going as far as to say he had “ruined” his own series for them. This made him unfortunately quite depressed himself over the ending he felt creatively fairly content with.

(I think it should be clear who Shinji is mostly likely a stand-in for in this anime...)

The fan reaction was toxic to say the least and all too familiar for many creatives who didn’t adequately satisfy the insatiable vapid needs of their fandom. Anno did not take this well to put it lightly. A man who was known as a delinquent in high school and expelled from the Osaka University of Arts much earlier in his life, and dealt plenty with his own bouts of depression, Anno had plenty of his own demons to sort out and quite clearly wanted to explore that mental state in “Neon Genesis Evangelion.”

I’ll be honest and say that I myself was not fond of the ending either when I watched it the first time as a freshman in college, and even went as far as to describe it as everything that was wrong with anime to friends in the years that followed for a while. I felt it was confusing and “fake deep,” existential for no reason other than because it just wanted to and people were “dumb” if they liked it.

When I rewatched it again as a much older adult when it came on Netflix last year, I found it much more fascinating and interesting. A sort of abstract introspective into the mind of a troubled teenager, who I had written off many years prior as a “whiny baby.” Though I wouldn’t say I completely understand it still, I get it much more now and I think it has a lot to say about depression and mental health.

Unfortunately, most fans did not have that reaction back then and as a result Anno made his true conclusion “End of Evangelion” as a response to that negativity.

(You’re welcome, nerds.)

As mentioned before, “End of Evangelion” is an extremely nihilistic film that seems to one up each dark moment as you traverse its spiraling narrative. It’s a film where things never get better. If you go into it blind expecting that big last minute heroic save the day moment, it’s always teased and never comes. Things just end very badly for everyone. Nobody gets a “happy ending.”

While the ending to the original series is strange for sure, it does end on a light note that can be interpreted in a number of different ways but ultimately positive. With the way fans reacted to it Anno decided to write a big “fuck you” to them by, in many ways, smashing his toys so no one could play with them again. He even went as far as to splice in the actual hate mail he received into the movie to quite clearly show to the audience, as their favorite characters met their grissly ends, that this was their fault.

(“Gee, I wonder what that was all about.” ~ a fan walking out of the theater back in 1997.)

In a way though, Anno created something strangely beautiful from that reaction. “End of Evangelion” is about giving up in some ways and accepting our inevitable doom. There are no easy answers, no workable solutions to achieve a happy ending because sometimes in life there isn’t one. Despite last ditch efforts by Misato, Shinji, and the crew of NERV the world still ends through the Third Impact. But tonally it’s not quite pessimistic; it’s actually positive, in a very twisted sense of course.

Set to the song “Komm Susser Tod” by ARIANNE, the film’s apocalypse can almost be described as a celebration. With people “popping” and turning into the primordial soup they all largely have smiles on their faces as they kind of get what they want whether it’s a desire to reunite with loved ones, to be with people they have crushes on, or happiness that they have sought for so long in the embrace of others. Everyone’s depressed! But now they are happy because it’s finally all over, they don’t have to give a shit anymore.

As the planet lights up like a Christmas tree, there are images of suicide and death that rapidly cross the screen in the form of the Angel’s final transformation but again, nobody is truly sad about it. They all have some kind of twisted smile or joy that they get from it. It’s a shocking film, if you’re not already prepared for what’s going to happen, and provocative to say the least.

(Can’t decide if I recommend watching this high or not...)

I had no idea what any of it meant at the time when I watched it several years ago (I watched it well after I had seen the original series), and to be fair there are many ways fans have interpreted what exactly took place in the film and have debated endlessly on its meaning for decades now. But at least in my interpretation, after everything we’ve been through this year, “End of Evangelion” to me is about the sweet release of not giving a fuck anymore.

Whether it’s about Anno feeling that way about his own life or the expectations of his fans or both, the film quite clearly doesn’t care about what people may or may not have wanted for Shinji and the NGE characters and is perfectly fine with the way it all comes “tumbling down.”

(He just wants to be with his boyfriend, guys.)

This past July 4th, city fireworks shows were prohibited in my area because they wanted to limit mass gatherings due to COVID but this didn’t stop people from buying plenty of their own to fire off. In what amounted to a collective “fuck you” to everything and 2020, beginning pretty much exactly at dusk people started firing off their at home lightshows like they were mortar gunners in World War I and did not let up until well past midnight. The entire Southern California night sky was lit up not to unlike the thousands of crosses that filled the screen during the Third Impact of “End of Evangelion” and though it could certainly be interpreted as a moment of people patriotically going “Yea, America!” that night, my head canon was much different. It felt like tens of thousands of people across the region just saying “Fuck it” into the night sky at everything; COVID, our horrendous government, police violence, pending World Wars, environmental disaster, and our collective impending doom from it all.

As these fireworks hit their zenith around 9pm I broke out my phone and started playing “Komm Susser Tod” from the movie and it felt perfect. Everyone just wanted to feel that freedom in the moment, that freedom of not giving a damn anymore. To be removed from expectations, from control, from hatred, from pain and it was kind of beautiful in a sick way.

And that’s what “End of Evangelion” feels like to me now; kind of beautiful in a sick way.

(Not saying the LA skyline looked like this exactly but it felt like it haha...)

There are still many ways to interpret Hideaki Anno’s cult classic, and it’s part of its charm but I think the take away fans should have is definitely not that suicide is ok but that we get it. We understand why people have those feelings and why it feels freeing to desire the void and oblivion. It’s a pity that the series most toxic fans didn’t get that clue through the original finale but Anno, not a person who likes  being shoved around, clearly created perhaps the most twistedly beautiful “fuck you” to that in anime history.

As we enter 2021 all I can say is it’s ok to feel like this, it’s ok to desire freedom from the relentless gloom and doom of the world and people’s prying expectations of what they think you “should” be. No one blames you. At the end of the day, we’re all just trying to survive the apocalypse we have zero control over, so the least we can do is be a bit nicer and considerate of one another. 

At least it’ll make the Third Impact more pleasant whenever it eventually comes...

Happy New Year, everyone! 

Congratulations on surviving 2020! Have fun in 2021...

[itspileofgoodthings]

Folkore Reactions

The third and final part of my folkore reactions! 

(Part 1, Part 2)

invisible string

oh MAN. I CAN’T DO IT I CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT. okay. calms down. This song is in so many ways the peak of Taylor’s ability to take a song that is very specifically about her and make it both universal and also somehow about something other than and more than romance? this is a song that muses on time and grace and providence and does so incredibly effectively because she’s not trying to. Taylor is not a lecturer (except for when she is, of course,) but she has no agenda, not even a good one, and so her insight feels as natural and as inevitable as rain falling into dry earth and truths are revealed in her work so naturally because she is doing nothing except faithfully and accurately transcribing her real, lived life through the medium of her gift. there is so much that kills me here but it’s the revisiting of her past, seen in this new light that kills me the most. not just the stunning, stunning bridge where old mistakes and demons are bundled up and locked down but those little moments of revelation into her younger self. the admission that she used to read at the park and hope that someone would see her there and her Great Romance would start???? i’m going tO CRY. older Taylor taking her Person back to that place but it’s FALL now and the leaves are gold and everybody is older??? Present!day Taylor naming her axe-grinding without shaming her for it, just saying “now i send their babies presents” ???? oF COURSE SHE DOES. OF COURSE SHE DOES. this song is about the way the present resolves her past hurts and angers but not the way she thought. but in a way that is so much bETTER. hell  was the journey but it brought me heaven. this is such a CONNECTING SONG, synthesizing her past with her present and doing so with simplicity and gratitude and, in a final magic Taylor touch, with a mellow melancholy that is always how Taylor really expresses happiness. This song murders me and also gives me tremendous hope. 

mad woman

tHIS SONG. i’m still shocked it is not more loved than it is but also. I guess I get it. After the magic of invisible string, the visionary tone, this can feel like regression. But it doesn’t to me, not when I really listen to it. She sounds mad and she recognizes that this is a cycle she’s stuck in but there’s a certain honest inevitability to it all that GETS ME. what did you think I’d say to that? she begins incredulously and there is a very valid “don’t you kNOW me by now” exasperation to it along with a recognition of the cost of what it means to be a person who lives by a specific code. she will always respond to betrayal with hurt and it will always be predictable and she will not CHANGE that simply because her reaction is easy to exploit or use against her. this song leans more fully into her own personality build, flaws and all, and accepts without blinking the fallout of that. she’s reached a point of really not caring if you think it’s annoying that she’s mad. “every time you call me crazy i get more crazy, what about that” younger Taylor wrestled with her anger vs. her desire for approval so there’s a new and refreshing coolness to this song that is rooted in self-knowledge and also a grown-up understanding of what she is worth. and that is just. a mood y’all. also the best line of the song is “good wives always know” because it is a draaaaaaaaag but it is also a deeply true and nuanced moment, somehow both a rueful headshake, a lecture, and a moment of sympathy all in one.

epiphany

this is one of those rare Taylor Swift songs where much of how I feel comes from other people? I’ve let my feelings on it be shaped by it (and I do nOT mean that as a bad thing) more than actually doing what I usually do, which is shape it for other people. My initial reaction to this song, once I’d actually heard it and digested the lyrics, was that it was very, very sweet and pure and had a beautiful core. I did like it, I did love it. I mean it’s Taylor. Of course I did. And yes I thought it was like light falling through stained glass. (Still do.) But I did think it was a little out of Taylor’s comfort zone or, more specifically, out of her field of knowledge (and mine too while we’re at it) and I thought maybe it showed? That her understanding was a little too simplistic for this to be one of the stronger songs. And I understand where I was coming from but I’ve let that feeling fade because so many people who work and live within the scope of epiphany have responded to it so warmly. Healthcare workers, people with a military background, people dealing with grief. They’ve all said that it feels real and it feels true and you know what? I trusted and still trust them more than me. And so I think that what it ACTUALLY is, the way I have reformulated it all in my head, is that Taylor doesn’t approach this song the way she does her songs about romance and so of course she doesn’t have her honed, careful, precise wit about it at all, one because there is a distance in terms of experience but even more because that isn’t what the song needs! The song is about silence and space and being WITH someone. Breathing with someone. Not about articulation and the catharsis achieved through words. It’s about being with someone, about silent service. With you I serve. With you I fall down. Some things you can’t speak about. My favorite thing about the song and the most important to me is that the epiphany line doesn’t come until the final third of the song and that we don’t get to hear what it is. It is so true and so real. Only twenty minutes to sleep but you dream of some epiphany. Just one single glimpse of relief, to make some sense of what you’ve seen. This is the reality of living and suffering. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that because it isn’t. This song is enough and so much at the same time.

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Rewatching Snyderverse Part 1 - Man of Steel

Not, let me preface this by saying that my opinion of Zack Snyder as a director prior to MoS was mixed. I really liked his Dawn of the Dead and 300 was a lot of fun. But I hated Sucker Punch and while there are some merits to Watchmen, I think he was a bit too slavish about adapting the comic without really getting the spirit of it along with a few fatal miscastings. But Nolan had endorsed Snyder for the movie so I was optimistic. My overall opinion of the film ended up being a big “meh”. I have seen the movie a few times, including last night and my opinion has never changed.

Now I don’t hate the movie. The film is split into two halves. I really quite like the first half of this film. The Krypton sequence is my favorite action sequence of the entire film and Snyder does create a unique version of that world. I enjoyed everything about Clark’s past with Jonathan and Martha, interspliced with him figuring out his Kryptonian heritage and finding the scout ship. I liked that Lois Lane is shown to be a smart reporter and having tracked down Clark all on her own, and I really liked how the idea of first contact with aliens is handled. I mean Zod’s arrival on Earth is very creepy and well handled. There are a few eye rolling moments like Clark being able to fake his background check and being able to make it onto a secret military installation despite just being a grifter. But those are relatively minor. Superman’s first flight is a gorgeous scene, capturing Clark’s glee quite wonderfully. The casting of the parents is excellent. Crowe as Jor-El, Costner as Pa Kent, and Diane Lane as Martha Kent are all really good.

To me, the film takes a pretty big downturn after Zod enters the picture. His arrival on Earth is well handled, but then the film turns into one brawl after another, starting with the Smallville sequence. To me, the action sequences are what I call destruction porn. Snyder seems to revel in causing as much destruction as possible. Certainly the camera lingers constantly on buildings falling and explosions. It just gets boring and monotonous after a while. And its basically one after another. The Smallville fight is followed immediately by the gravity beam destruction, accompanied with Clark trying to destroy the World Engine, followed by creating the singularity, followed by the Clark vs Zod fight. There is no relief found for the last 40-50 minutes at all because its just non stop destruction. I also found Shannon to be overly hammy. There are moments where he’s really good but a lot of it is just him screaming. Faora was a more intimidating figure in the movie. There is also some pretty hokey dialogue. Like Zod screaming “There is only one way this ends Kal. Either you die, or I do”. Every time he says this I can’t help but say in my head that that is actual two different ways how it can end. There are some big tonal issues. Like Metropolis goes through unimaginable destruction and tragedy and we have Lois and Clark kissing at basically ground zero like its a big romantic moment, and then a few scenes after Zod’s death, we have Lambard flirting with Lois and Jenny about going to the basketball game. The film also wastes a lot of characters. I mean, Fishburne, Meloni, Lennix, Schiff etc... are all good actors who are basically just spouting exposition grimly. I am a huge fan of Richard Schiff from TWW and its criminal how he is basically just used to just explain to the audience what is going on.

My big issue also comes down to casting of Henry Cavill and Amy Adams. Now, I think Henry Cavill has great potential to be a fantastic Superman and he has the looks and the acting chops, but for some reason he’s always been a tad too bland in this role. I have seen him be way more charismatic and better in other movies like in The Man from UNCLE and MI: Fallout. He’s not bad at all. He’s decent, but whereas the best superhero castings like Bale as Batman, RDJ as Iron Man, Evans as Cap, and even Affleck as Batman, have grabbed me immediately, he didn’t really make me feel that he’s The Superman. And I had never seen any Superman movie prior to MoS other than Superman Returns, so I had no Christopher Reeves nostalgia. Amy Adams is one of my favorite actresses and I have loved her in many, many movies but like Cavill, she’s a bit bland in this role. And the most fatal problem is that Cavill and Adams have no chemistry. Given how important that relationship is in the context of this film and the films that came after and were planned for the future, its a big problem.

In the end, I can’t help but make direct comparisons between Man of Steel and Batman Begins. Both have a very similar structure with the first half going back and forth between the hero’s past and what he’s doing currently, and in the second half we have the hero dealing with a villain from his past. Batman Begins managed to do the second part a lot better than Man of Steel did and it utilizes its cast a lot better despite Man of Steel having more than its fair share of quality actors. At the end, I was a little let down because the first half of the film gave me a lot of hope for a great Superman origin movie but the last hour of the film just gives me a headache. It was still an acceptable movie. there are a lot of worse Superhero movies out there, but in a world where we had great superhero origin movies like Batman Begins, Iron Man, TFA, Spider-man etc... this one paled in comparison overall. But it had laid a pretty solid foundation, if they had only followed it up properly. Overall, it was a 5.5/10 type film.