#wasted characters and arcs

[cicimellie]

jaime and brienne literally make me heartsick. i have never felt so genuinely distraught at anything as i was at how they ended. like braime makes me nauseated and miserable and closer to tears than anything ever. i delight in it mostly except for the late nights where i burn at the unfairness of their ending and how brutally they massacred jaime's growth and the LOOK in brienne's eyes when she was writing his deeds in the book. the noise of anguish that was punched out of me the first time i watched their story through was unholy.

[jalluzas-ferney]

Was just reminded of prime empire and how that was basically supposed to be jays “focus season” considering kai had the fire chapter, Zane the ice chapter, Nya seabound, and Cole motm- and well yeah, clearly prime empire is SUPPOSED to be a Jay season by how it kinda focuses more on his at the beggining but especially by the end where he confronts Unagami and has that whole speech/talk about being abandoned by your parents.

Thing is many times I just kinda forget that’s it’s supposed to be a Jay season because from what I remember he doesn’t rlly seem to have any sort of arc is struggle he has to overcome in it (other than uk, evil video game but uk what I mean- personal struggle) and by the end when he’s talking about being abandoned by his parents to me it feels underwhelming. It didn’t feel significant, it came out of nowhere. YEAH we do know about jays parents abandoning him in Skybound. But after that? There’s like NO references towards the fact at all. And it’s especially an issue in prime empire because they just brought the fact up out of nowhere for the grand season finale. LIKE?!?!

It would have been a thousand times better if we actually saw Jay reflecting about his birth parents and how he was abandoned. Perhaps in the season we could discover that has a huge toll on him actually. Making him doubt himself, doubting his worth. His desire to know what happened gnawing at him. Perhaps he drowns himself in video games to not think about it too much and that would be a cool way to tie in how he gets trapped in prime empire in the first place. It would have been great to see some actual GROWTH. Some actual BUILD UP. To that FUCKASS finale because ohmylord i don’t feel anything towards the ending of prime empire because it didn’t feel like a good payoff to ANYTHING.

[nocofamilyau]

not related to noco at all but what is katie and sadie’s relationship like now?

pretty good all things considered! while they're both married to two sweet guys and have separate families (none of their kids are other td characters, unfortunately...) they're still really close, and still live next to each other at that same beach town they grew up in, now both running that successful 80s themed ice cream business they've been dreaming of! its safe to say they probably suffered the least on Total Drama, only leaving with a couple of minor scars, good god were they lucky..

[friendlifyre]

one thing i will not forgive or forget is how 2.5 somehow made the revelation of 'your master was exiled for experimenting on this individual in an illegal way that completely fucked up his life' more about consoling the master's disciple than consoling the individual in question. who was standing right there and learning of this for the first time too

[flea-the-circus]

even if ronance isn’t endgame, i need nancy to have an arc where she chooses her friend. in my head, the only thing that makes sense is nancy choosing robin. not even in the romantic sense (although i would die of happiness if it was), just nancy remembering her choices and not making the same mistakes she made at sixteen.

having nancy go through four seasons of chasing/grieving/fighting for her best friend, only to turn her entire character into a plot device for steve or jonathan, would be the worst possible choice the duffers could make.

[pattonflowerinnit666]

Society if Black Butler Season 2 wasn't so Fucking Weird

[anassemblageofpassions]

Supernatural: hmmm okay so we need a way to show Jack how bad Lucifer is, something really horrible to force him to confess to, something that will make him drop his father forever….hmm, what could we do, what could we do….

Sam, life ruined all for Lucifer, possessed by Lucifer, tortured by him for centuries, multiple attempts on his life by lucifer, loved by jack like a father, main character on the show for 13 seasons, literally in the room when this happens:

Dean: multiple attempts on his life by Lucifer, loved by jack like a father, main character on the show for 13 seasons, literally in the room when this happens:

Castiel: killed by Lucifer multiple times, possessed by Lucifer, loved by jack like a father, main character on the show for 9 seasons, literally in the room when this happens:

Maggie: killed by Lucifer, met jack two episodes ago and barely interacted with him, literally introduced on the show two episodes ago, not in the room when this happens:

Supernatural: yes. Maggie is the one. Maggie is the one who will make Jack see what a monster his father TRULY is. She is such an important character on this show, so important than we will kill her off permanently less than a season later. Her impact is so real.

[quatregats]

I've been thinking about how to push Hornblower to his breaking point recently and I think the best way to do it would be to put his compassion and his duty in conflict in a way where he could either be a good person and put his naval career in jeopardy, or be a tyrant but maintain his position. I think that these often come into conflict in the narrative, but he always finds some sort of loophole and manages to worm through without having to sacrifice either ideal. I think that it would be really fun to push him into a corner and make him choose, though. I can see both scenarios leading to interesting results.

[alternativeproject]

Button pusher extraordinaire Dean Ambrose

[soviet-supersoldier]

So, I just heard that the upcoming Spider-Man and Wolverine comic is going to be featuring Omega Red as a villain, teamed up with Kraven the Hunter.

It comes out May 7 and, from the article, it sounds like it is set in the present From the Ashes era. Only problem: Omega Red is currently in Greymalkin prison and has been for months. How can he be there and appearing here at the same time? Is this actually current, or does this take place earlier/later in the Marvel timeline? There's something about this timeline that isn't sitting right with me. Is this even Omega Red, or are both the clone boys causing trouble? I have no idea. It isn't making any sense.

I will check it out, because it has Omega Red set to appear, but I am rather confused at the moment, if not frustrated with Marvel for not keeping track of their own characters and their continuity. Omega Red only just appeared in Sentinels, has been name-dropped in Uncanny and Adjectiveless X-men, and he appeared constantly in the Krakoa era. It's not like Marvel is reviving a character who has been gone for years. Editorial should know where he is, if he is able to be used, and should be able to tell a writer "no" in cases like this where he's being used elsewhere.

This upcoming comic also highlights a concern that I and other Omega Red fans have had ever since Arkady was thrown into Greymalkin: that Marvel is trying to walk back Arkady’s redemption arc he's been on since 2017 just so Wolverine can have someone to punch. Just because Omega Red has historically been a villain is no excuse to not respect his continuity and story arc as a character over the past several years. He was just teammates with Wolverine in the last era. Kraven the Hunter was an enemy to them both when he attacked Krakoa during Judgment Day. Wolverine and Spider-man even just had a recent team-up in Fall of X, there shouldn't be anything between those two to cause the conflict that is being teased between the two of them. Marvel should not be ignoring recent events to revert to the perceived status quo -- and this goes for all the characters involved in this upcoming book.

This is really a problem when they bring back writers who are fans of specific, older eras: they want to return back to those days of nostalgia rather than respect the character progress that has been made in the decades since they have read/wrote about these characters. Especially with regards to villains, who they almost never consider when they make stories like these. Their continuity needs to be respected the same way the hero's continuity is respected -- especially when they're involved in other storylines taking place at the same time that makes a double appearance like this very conflicting. Omega Red can't be in prison and palling around with Kraven the Hunter at the same time. You can have one or the other, not both.

We will see what this comic (which is being promoted as an ongoing) will actually do and if Marvel will respect the continuity they themselves have made or toss it aside to make money off of their cash cows at the expense of making the timeline make sense. I'm not holding my breath, though. Marvel seems to do this sort of thing when they're out of ideas and want to make quick money, falling back on the Wolverine and Spider-man zombie fanbases to save them and get guaranteed money. Unfortunately, no matter how Marvel tries to spin this as an easy jumping-on point/accessible story for new readers stories like these just never fit easy into the timeline that Marvel has and make it even harder for anyone to follow what is going on. Marvel really needs to get their act together. Continuity has to be respected.

[the-fandoms-swallowed-me-longago]

Man the cursed sapphire in Peaky Blinders is so weird to me because it’s meant to be this big bad curse that claimed the live of someone Tommy loved and cared for and then came back a decade later to do it again.

But both times the death of a female character is used to be like “oh look at Tommy. Look at how sad he is and how self destructive he is in his grief. But he only drinks, fucks and represses his emotions through other questionable decisions because he’s a tortured soul who cares soo much even if he doesn’t show it. Look at this sad man, don’t you think he’s a good person deep down? Don’t you think he deserves to be redeemed?”

Both times it is used as nothing more than a quick, cheap way to make Tommy sad.

Curse of the sapphire? More like curse of lazily sacrificing female characters to prop up the main character.

[localguy2]

Zane being used as a fucking battery for Unagmi to get into the real world, and him walking it off like it's nothing fills me with so much viisceral rage it's unbelievable

What the FUCK do you mean he's fine??! Did you not see him literally pass out and wake up with an immediate inhale like he was drowning or something???

You don't just walk off being used as a battery, and no amount of cartoon logic will make me think otherwise ESPECIALLY seeing also how he seemingly walked off the whole Ice Emperor shit as well (until Quest for the Lost Powers)

Like, at the very least have him go into a panicked terrified franzy because according to him it felt exactly like his Sacrifice against the Overlord

Or if you wanna go all our just have it wipe all of his damn memories and make him start as a person all over again, even then that still works better if you make it a post Ice-chapter consequence

And even those besides, you could do soooooo much with Zane and consequences and the shit he goes through...

[ufonaut]

You play by the rules, you lose.

Jack Palance as Ricciolo/Curly in Il Mercenario/The Mercenary (1968)

[bisupergirl]

i miss kara...................

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

the statements “catra was an extremely traumatized person who craved love and validation from her abusive mother and used unhealthy coping mechanisms because she wasn't taught how to deal with her own trauma” and “catra abused and tortured everyone around her and committed war crimes with no hesitation, and she did not deserve to be forgiven so easily” can and should coexist.

[bibibbon]

I've seen a take where you say that Hawks thinks he didn't have a choice and HAD to kill Twice, and you mention in ( ) that he actually DID have a choice and that confuses me.

Hawks gave Twice TWO chances to change and go with Hawks and leave the LOV behind him and change his way of life and when he refused BOTH chances, he posed as a potential (MASSIVE) threat to the hero's, so Hawks had to kill him so he wouldn't risk others lives.

So, with my maybe-not-very-analysed take, why do you think this? Have I missed a crucial part of his character? Did he actually have any other options? And how different would they be then what he ended up doing?

I am assuming you're talking about this paragraph from one of my posts about Hawks👇

Now it is true that Hawk's did indeed give Twice two (possibly 3) chances to back down and surrender. The first time it happens is when Hawk's corners twice, with all the feathers pointing at twice, ready to strike him, saying that he shouldn't resist and come calmly. The second time is when Hawk's explains his reasoning for offering twice this chance, and the 3rd is after Hawk's killed the first set of twice clones and reaches out saying that there's a way forward if he comes calmly and that he would personally help twice start over after he gets punished for his crimes.

However, I still think there's an interesting way in how Hawk's approaches Twice. He doesn't choose to position his feathers far away, but he quite literally corners him, almost trapping Twice in one place and offering him one option which is to surrender himself and come quietly or else. Now, while from an incredibly detached prespective this may seem as a mercy option that Twice should be grateful for I think that there needs to be acknowledgement as to how Hawk's own hpsc teachings and hero experiences have shaped him in approaching a situation like this and before Hawk's offers anything to Twice he feels and acts on the urge to be in control to be above Twice in this conversation to make sure that he has more power. All of this is summed up to Hawk's experiences, and we see how this is a flaw because in reality Hawk's is an incredibly fast man he did not need to corner Twice in such a way and essentially give him one option he could have approached the situation differently (yes it doesn't mean that he would have succeeded but there's still a point to be made in the way Hawk's approached the situation from the beginning)

When horikoshi first introduces Hawk's to us in the series, he makes it a very clear point that Hawk's is fast and that he is a powerful hero.

Hawk's is fast in every sense of the word,he is shown to quickly climb up the ranks at an incredible speed becoming the number 3 hero, he is fast enough to stop a criminal without batting an eye, he is fast enough to evacuate everyone from a falling building and to try and stabilise the building. Hawk's is also quick in being able to mentally recognise what's going on and quickly act on it. With the series reinforcing this message consistently it seems weird for Hawk's to not be fast enough to knock twice out instead going for the kill.

Now you can chalk this up to a writing mistake or an ooc moment, but I personally think there is symbolism in it. Hawk's failure concerning the MVA was foreshadowed the moment he came into play and said "I am too late" this to me shows the small downward spiral that Hawk's is then sent to by the narrative. It's essentially tragic that the fastest hero or man was too late or too slow to stop tragedy from occurring. In other words, Hawk's heavily reminds me of minato namikaze from Naruto.

@doodlegirl1998 even points this out

So, how does this link into Hawk's killing twice, you might ask?

Horikoshi establishing that Hawk's main trait is his speed and agility highlights (to me) the ability that Hawk's had to simply knock Twice out and get him out of the area.

Again, this didn't occur due to the tragedy and reoccurring theme of the fastest hero being too late. Hawk's was too late to apprehend Twice, he was too late in escaping from Dabi's flames. He was too late in many things, and it resulted in horrible consequences.

However, while this string of events is played for the tragic irony, it also highlights just how corrupted Hawk's has become by the hpsc teachings and how he at the end of the day is still a bird trapped in a cage both mentally and physically. This is because you can clearly tell throughout that scene that Hawk's doesn't really want to kill twice. He keeps on bringing the fact that Twice is a good man at heart and that he believes that Twice can be redeemed, but after Twice's rejection, he believes that he must kill him saying that he didn't come this far for mere sentiment to trip him up.

However, even with that being said, when fighting Twice Hawk's doesn't aim to kill him. He could have. He had Twice cornered. He could have killed him in one hit but didn't because he couldn't because mere sentiment was indeed tripping him up and he was so clearly trying to justify his actions, trying to be logical but failing. This is further highlighted when Hawk's ends up saving both himself and Twice from Dabi's flames in chapter 266. Hawk's didn't want to kill Twice but after a string of events, he believed that it was the only way to resort to his hpsc teachings.

Personally, I believe the brief fight between them heavily shows Hawk's internal struggle with his own beliefs, his own desires to save as a hero, and actually help all of that clashing with his hpsc teachings and the belief that killing Twice would be easier and safer.

Hawk's ending up killing Twice narratively shows us the failings of the system and could have been great in showing us Hawk's further questioning the system he feels trapped in and straying fat from it as he does end up acknowledging in the final arc that jin was a good man (I think it's symbolic that he calls him by his citizen name and not villain one) and it could build up to him creating a completely different one but alas that fails due to various reasons which are too long for me to list out.