#what I AM pissed about is when it's pointless and badly written

[oreo-cookies-fan]

Izzy's death better have the biggest impact on the plot in history. The Revenge crew hunting Ricky, taking the most risky missions, being more violent with the British than ever. Ed mourning him, having whole ass conversations with him in his head, his death being both the reason Edward, revenge driven, comes back to the sea and the main thing keeping Blackbonnet apart as it was Stede's suicidal plan that killed Izzy.

I need it to be important and not just something that Jenkins decided to do while being on crack and then try to gaslight everyone into thinking that Blackhands was just a messed up father-son/mentor-student dynamics as if 1. Izzy wasn't in love with Ed 2. Izzy didn't stop supporting Blackbeard and telling Ed what to do at the begging of season 2. And that Izzy had to die in order for Blackbeard to die.

[bisluthq]

Well she never really paints the picture of them having a great relationship from the pov of them actually being together in any songs. Like most of the album is pining for him, missing him, or cursing him out, whether from the pov of pre or post tatty2.0. But there’s really no “we’re together in love and it’s amazing” songs. The closest is BDILH but all she really says is he’s wild and chaotic with bedroom eyes and sort of speculates on her still finding “bad boy” types so attractive as having to do with her growing up precocious with a heavily controlled life. And most of it is just “fuck you all you can’t tell me what to do that’s right I am in love with Matthew Healy and I’m having his baby jk but I bet that pisses you off hahahaha y’all can go fuck yourselves”

And the only others which IMO are at least partly from the POV of them being together are TTPD and ICFH (NRIC). Like those songs are all about her seeing many many flaws with him and their situation but choosing to just accept how fucked up he is because she’s fucked up too so omg invisible string, and because she feels that she’s the only one who could ever truly love somebody like him.

I think TTPD could have been written when they were still together that’s how I interpreted it, and ICFH (NRIC) seems like mostly likely a satirical song written after, or I guess a mix, but it’s from the pov of her being with him and seeing all these problems, and choosing delusion even though she’s self aware.

Anyway just based off the album I’m not sure how long it’d have lasted before she dumped him if he never could have dumped her. However, it does seem like her mindset was to accept and put up with his many many issues because the reasons I said above, so I guess it depends how long she couldn’t done that lol.

I mean it ended VERY VERY VERY badly and by the time she was releasing it, she was very seriously with Travis. Why would she have included happy songs? Like it’s pointless to say “it ended badly ergo they couldn’t have lasted more than six months” because it ended badly because he dipped. She expresses A LOT of anger and disappointment with his ultimate choice to leave, she acknowledges outside noise as being one of the reasons it failed, but she never says “wow I kinda knew it was time to go” lol. I’ve said before this album imo went through a lot of iterations and edits but the one we ultimately got is a breakup album so like how would there be many songs on that about the times it was good? (TTPD kinda *is* that but it’s set after he’s gone because again by the time she was releasing this, he was… gone).

[ambersky0319]

Uhm, heya. I saw that you were accepting prompts? I have a Loceit one if you want to do it. -Since Deceit is the one known to be the Side who decides whom Thomas meets, perhaps not all of them are happy that he won't let them meet Thomas. Perhaps one of them find out about his not-so-tiny crush on the Logical Side and kidnaps him to use against Deceit? Maybe even hurts Logan a bit to piss him off. 💙💛 You don't have to do the prompt if you can't. Also, I wanna say that I love your writing ❤️

This was actually really fun to write and it’s over 3k words long- also it’s more pre-loceit but like, very close to them getting together?? You’ll see what I mean. Hope you all enjoy!

Warnings : Literal embodiment of Repression, blood/blood mentions(fairly brief), kidnapping, morally gray sides excluding Logan and Deceit, ask if I should add anything else!

Masterpost 

——————————–

Logan’s head throbbed as he slowly regained consciousness. He bit his lip as the pain only grew, and he lifted his head up slightly, squinting. He was surrounded by a muted and dull brown on all sides, with walls decorated in nothing but filing cabinet after cabinet. Logan furrowed his brow, he didn’t recognize where he was, and couldn’t recall what had even happened.

Maybe Remus had hit him over the head with his morning star, trying to surprise attack Logan again? But Logan could always dodge those. And even when he was hit, he’d never gone unconscious. Remus wouldn’t really have any use of trying him up and leaving him in this dull of a room, either.

“Ah, you’re awake!”

Logan snapped his head to the side at the voice, wincing as his vision grew dizzy for a moment. His captor tutted, shaking his head. “I’d be careful, Logic darling, don’t want to be in so much pain so soon! Besides, I kinda need you to be able to see everything I intend to do.”

The side was dressed in all orange in varying tones. He was much shorter than Logan, even when Logan was tied to the chair Logan was still about a head taller than this side. But that’s not what struck Logan, no. It was the fact that the side had what appeared to be scars all over his face, but the scars were like portals into a bright, painful orange galaxy. What seemed to be stars swirled in these patches of skin, and the side raised a brow when he realized Logan wasn’t listening to him.

“Logic, you should really stop being so curious.” The side hissed, resting his hand on Logan’s shoulder. The gloves he was wearing a moment earlier disappeared, and he squeezed Logan’s shoulder tightly. Logan’s eyes widened, but when he tried to speak, nothing came out but a slight squeak and his throat suddenly felt numb. The side laughed at Logan’s worried expression, and Logan had never seen a smile on anyone look so sinister.

“Wonderful what I can do, yes? Oh, but losing your voice is only the start, Logic. I can do so much more.” The side released Logan’s shoulder, trailing his hand up to grip Logan’s jaw. His smile disappeared. “But I need to remember to not hurt you too badly, make sure you’re still useful to Thomas. And make sure you’re still pretty enough for Deceit to want to save you.” He tilted his head. “I doubt he’d be happy if he knew I scratched you up.”

Logan’s expression morphed to one of confusion, and the side stared into Logan’s eyes for a long moment, as though reading Logan like Logan was an open child’s book. “You don’t know, do you?” When Logan’s expression didn’t change, the side cackled. “Oh! This is going to be more fun than I thought!” He began to trail his fingers down Logan again, stopping at where his heart was.

He grinned. “You know, Logic, you’re very lucky I was the one to take you. Imagine what you can tell the others once you go back up there, and they start fretting over you. You were repressed. Imagine that, logic being repressed?” The side, Repression Logan now assumed, hummed as he began to unbutton Logan’s shirt to have better access to his chest. Logan could only stare at the side and feel his heart rate increase as he began to feel the panic creeping up on him.

Repression pushed the shirt back, and Logan shivered as his cold fingers gently moved across his bare skin. He returned his hand to where it had been above Logan’s heart, and he traced the area, scratching the pale skin there. “Though maybe no one will fret over you. They haven’t noticed you gone just yet, and it’s already been about a day. Do you want to know what they’ve done without you, Logic?”

The side stared up at Logan with feigned innocence, and when Logan shook his head slightly, the side grinned. “You don’t want to know, do you? You’re afraid that they were happier without you, that Thomas was happier without you there. You don’t want to know because you don’t want all of your irrational thoughts to wind up actually being true.” Logan was starting to hyperventilate as Repression continued to speak, digging his nails into Logan’s skin further, starting to draw blood.

“I’m going to reveal everything to you, Logic. Each little thought that you’ve had that is true. What the others really think about you. I’ll show you how Thomas really feels when you come up to ruin all their fun. And you know what? I bet I can do it before anyone even realizes you’re gone.” He laughed slightly. “Well, everyone but Deceit. I need Deceit to know you’re gone. If he didn’t, then this would all be pointless.”

Repression finally drew his fingers away from Logan’s chest. His nails were coated in a thin layer of blood, and Logan felt as if his heart had suddenly become heavy, like a rock was lodged in his chest instead. 

He examined his fingers. “I’m going to need more of your blood…” he trailed off for only a moment before a small knife appeared in his hand. “Surely you don’t mind, do you Logic?” Repression didn’t wait for Logan to even attempt to protest before he started cutting at Logan’s exposed shoulder.

—

“Shit, shit, shit, shit-” Deceit hissed to himself as he read the note again, trying to remember who’s handwriting was staring back up at him. He hadn’t anticipated for this to happen, hell, he didn’t get why any of the hidden sides wanted to be introduced to Thomas! He wasn’t only just doing his job, keeping them away, but he was protecting them! Deceit knew that Thomas would never listen to them because they were dark sides.

The note, written in dark red ink that was unmistakably dried blood, was a demand. A demand Deceit knew he couldn’t fulfill if he wanted to keep Thomas safe. But he couldn’t keep Thomas safe if the embodiment of logic was taken hostage and was being repressed-

“Fucking hell Res!” Deceit hissed, everything coming together now. Oh, this wasn’t good. Not one bit.

Deceit looked at the television, black because Thomas was asleep now. But it all made sense. Today Thomas had been recording a video, and Logan hadn’t popped in once. It seemed the others didn’t notice the shift or maybe thought Logan was just busy with other things. But some of the things Thomas had said earlier, and then agreeing to everything Patton, Virgil, and Roman said instantly without much thought? That was unusual, even for their host.

He muttered a few more choice curses before crumpling the note up and throwing it in the trash bin, attempting to summon none other than Repression.

Res popped up after a minute of Deceit waiting, bouncing on his heels and looking up at the deceptive side. Res grinned at Deceit. “Hello, Dee! Did you by any chance need something?” It took all of Deceit’s willpower to not grab Res by his infuriatingly bright scarf and punch him. Instead, Deceit glared down at Res.

“Where’s Logan?”

Res hummed, his grin morphing into a smirk. “Nowhere, really. Why? Afraid that I’ve hurt your sweet and precious Logic?”

Deceit’s glare only grew harsher. “Considering your note was written in blood-”

“That wasn’t my question and you know it.” Res held back his laugh as he saw Deceit only growing angrier. But he brought this upon himself. All Deceit had to do was reveal him to Thomas, if he had done it before this would have all been avoided. “I doubt you’d actually tell me, but I know you are afraid. It’s so easy to read. I even told him how you would be the only one to worry he was gone. Well, that and a few other details.” The much shorter orange side leaned against the couch, watching Deceit carefully.

“Where is he, Res.” It wasn’t a question. A demand. Res frowned.

“You know this isn’t how it works, Dee! You can’t start demanding things without answering my demands.”

“Res, this isn’t funny!”

Res tilted his head. “I never said it was a joke. The situation is quite serious, actually, and we both know it.”

“You would put Thomas in danger, just so you could have five minutes of glory before everyone up there started to ignore you just like they do Remus and I?”

“They wouldn’t get the chance to keep me quiet, and you know that. But I also don’t think you’re just concerned for Thomas.”

“Of course I am! Logan is an essential part of Thomas and you know damn well know that you know exactly what thoughtless decisions were made today, and which ones will be made tomorrow if Logan isn’t there to fix everything.”

“No, you’re concerned because you like him, Deceit. Do you really think I took Logic because of Thomas?” Res shook his head. “No, it’s because out of all the sides that Thomas knows of, you like Logic, and would most likely do anything to ensure he’s safe. But now…” Res laughed, grinning from ear to ear. “But now he isn’t! And guess what? It’s all because of you, Dee, because you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you to let me meet Thomas.”

Deceit clenched his fists, taking in a deep breath as Res just laughed again. He hated how Res was right. Deceit, although he truly did fear for what this would do to Thomas, that was a fear second place to just losing Logan at all.

He really, really wanted to punch Res. To shun him to the Subconscious again. But then Deceit would never find Logan, at least for a few years. That couldn’t happen.

“Fine. But on one condition.” Res stopped laughing abruptly as Deceit spoke, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes.

“No demands, Dee.”

“It isn’t a demand, really. Just a compromise.”

Res held Deceit’s gaze before slowly caving in. “What is it?”

“If you take me to Logan first, we can all go up and introduce you, and only you to Thomas.” Deceit held out one of his hands. “Do we have a deal?”

Res considered it for a moment, looking Deceit up and down as if trying to see Deceit was lying. He thought he was picking up on a lie, but Deceit was a walking lie, so Res assumed that it was nothing, and he shook Deceit’s hand.

Before he could say anything else, Res forced Deceit to sink down with him. They appeared in Res’s library, a maze full of memories that Thomas no longer remembered because they were just really really old, unimportant, or excruciatingly traumatic.

“He’s right this way.” Res didn’t let go of Deceit’s hand as he pulled him down one of the hallways with shocking strength coming from someone so small.

It didn’t take long to get to where Logan was, and Deceit cringed at the sight of dried blood over Logan’s shoulders. He broke out of Res’s hold to rush over to Logan, checking for a pulse when he saw that Logan’s eyes were closed. His anger returned to the surface when more marks covering Logan reached his eyes, and he glared at Res for even daring to harm a hair on his head. Res rolled his eyes.

“What? How else was I gonna get all those repressed emotions up? Logic is like a damn rock, and I needed to… dig deep, to get the prettiest wonders to the surface.”

“Just help me untie him!” Deceit hissed, and Res obeyed without much complaint. He watched Logan slump into Deceit’s arms, and Res was surprised Logan had passed out in the first place. He thought he’d shot Logan up with enough adrenaline to keep him awake for another two hours. Maybe the logical side just had an extremely low tolerance to actual pain.

Deceit sunk out without another word, and Res tried to follow.

His eyes widened when he didn’t move. “Fuck,” he whispered when the filing cabinets of memories slowly started to grow black again. He really should have seen this coming, and not pushed aside Deceit’s minor lie.

—

When Logan woke up again, he wasn’t in any pain. He knew just by the feeling around him he wasn’t in Repression’s room any longer. For one, he was lying down. But another reason was he was under a blanket and his head was resting on an incredibly soft pillow. He slowly opened his eyes and was greeted with a ceiling painted to look like the canopies of a jungle.

“You’re awake already?”

Logan tilted his head just as the bed shifted, and Deceit smiled down at him sadly. Logan blinked at him for a few moments, unsure of how to react.

“I honestly expected you to be out a bit longer, Res’s domains typically have that effect on sides.” Deceit frowned, before moving Logan’s shirt out of the way slightly and Logan actually flinched away. Deceit drew back slowly. “It’s okay, just wanted to make sure they weren’t leaving any scars.”

Logan just turned to stare up at the ceiling again. “How long have I been out?”

“Repressed, or unconscious?”

“Both.”

“About three days.” Logan groaned quietly at that number. It was small, but he knew how devastating that could be for Thomas. Deceit was quick to reassure him though. “He didn’t do anything drastically stupid, Remus managed to freak Virgil out about the different possibilities that Virgil was able to prevent Thomas from doing anything stupid. Though Thomas might have like…. five cavities he couldn’t stop Thomas from eating only sweets for the entire three days.”

Silence once again took over Deceit’s room, and Deceit couldn’t do more than just watch Logan process the information. He bit his lip gently. “Logan?”

“Hm?”

“What did Res tell you, exactly?”

Logan caught Deceit’s gaze again, and he moved a bit to sit up as he thought, trying to remember.

“Mainly confirming my suspicions that the others don’t care about me.” Logan didn’t notice his eyes tearing up, and oddly he didn’t care if Deceit knew his insecurities anymore. Maybe Repression had cut deeper into him than he had thought. “That I just ruined there fun. He showed me some of the unedited content from… I guess the other day. Everyone just seemed so happy, and he wouldn’t stop saying that I was holding Thomas back.” Logan took a deep breath, finally feeling the tears. He didn’t make a move to wipe them away, not yet anyway.

“He went through each of you, too. Starting with the others, and he ended with you. He spent the most time on you.” Logan laughed, though it didn’t have a hint of happiness. It was just sad and broken, almost hysterical. “He- he kept lying, telling me that you liked me, he tried to get my hopes up, and he told me so many times, oh god… each time he cut deeper, he said it was because you liked me and he needed me to get to you and out of everything, I can’t believe he kept lying about it! Out of all my repressed hopes, he chose the one that I knew would never be true to use!” Logan’s laugh turned into actual sobs, and he pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face there as he continued to shake.

Deceit hesitantly moved closer, settling beside Logan. “Logan, Res wasn’t lying.” Deceit’s voice was soft, but he knew Logan heard when Logan glanced back to him.

“What?”

“He wasn’t lying. Res took you, because of me.”

Logan attempted to stop crying, but the tears just kept flowing as he sniffled. He lifted his head from his knees though. “I don’t understand.”

Deceit sighed, running his hand through his hair- Logan only just noticed Deceit wasn’t wearing gloves, in fact, he wasn’t wearing any of his usual garments. Instead, he was in a yellow sweater and some black sweatpants, hat and gloves nowhere in sight. “This isn’t- this is the worst possible way for you to find out. I’m so sorry that you found out like this, Logan, that it happened in the first place.

"Res took you specifically because he knew I liked you. And he thought this would be the best way to get me to let him meet Thomas. You getting hurt by him is all my fault.”

“You’re lying,” Logan stated, shaking his head. “You must be.”

Deceit shook his own head. “I would never lie in this situation, Logan.”

Logan took a shaky breath, looking away from Deceit again and to the wall opposite him. It was a massive enclosure, and he could see one of Deceit’s snakes from where he sat.

He was trying to process how he felt. His crush just confirmed that he reciprocated, but also just said that it was all his fault that Logan had been taken in the first place. Logan couldn’t see how Deceit could have prevented the situation though. Or had known it was ever going to happen. Which meant that it wasn’t Deceit’s fault. He was still trying to wrap his mind around everything that had happened, plus the new information that Deceit did indeed like him.

Logan groaned, burying his face in his knees again. “Why are emotions so annoying?” He asked.

“I guess that’s why you had them repressed,” Deceit said gently. Logan heard the sadness enter his voice as Deceit continued. “Um, I understand if you want to go back to your room, Logan. I’m sure everyone else would be overjoyed to see you, after all-”

“No.”

“W-What?” Deceit stared at Logan in confusion as Logan sniffled again, lifting his head once more from his knees and wiping away the last of his tears. His eyes were puffy from rubbing them so much.

“I don’t want to go. Not yet, anyway.” He looked back to Deceit. “I want to be in here, with you.”

“But- wait, why?”

“Did you miss the part where I said I thought Res had tried to get my hopes up that you liked me, and I thought he was lying until you just said that he wasn’t?” Deceit still seemed confused, but he seemed to be understanding at least a little bit. “Dee, I like you too, and I’d like to spend some time with you, y'know.”

Deceit blinked a few times before the human side of his face flushed a light pink. “Oh.”

“Also the others are too intense, and I don’t think I could handle them right now…”

Deceit laughed lightly. “Alright. Um, want to watch a documentary then? And then we can talk more about… us, when you’re feeling a lot better?”

Logan smiled softly, a genuine smile, and he nodded.

——————————–

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[taiblogcomics]

Absolutely Thera-Pissed

Hey there, visas and green cards. It's our ninth blogaversary! Wow, we've been going for quite a long time. Long enough to completely change platforms at least once. Considering we just finished our whole backlog, I think we should try something new in honour of the amazing coincidence of these two events synching up. Before we start on another backlog of terrible comics (trust me, I have something in mind), let's do something we've never done before on this blog. We've only ever really covered comics issue by issue. How would you feel, dear readers, if we instead did an entire storyline all at once?

And oh boy, do I have just the storyline in mind. Here's the cover:

Oh yeah. We're doing this. This story has kind of hung over this blog, mostly due to its connections to Red Hood and the Outlaws. It also prominitely features Harley Quinn, who also appeared in Suicide Squad (which ended before this story took place). And personally, I am a fan of Harley, Booster, and the Titans. And oh boy, does this comic shit all over them, in some of the most truly appalling ways possible. This is Heroes in Crisis. All nine issues. Let's jump right in~

I won’t be going over the covers of the individual issues, or even this one so much, but I do like that quote at the top. It is actually some good superhero artwork! It is an extremely awful story, but the artwork is fine~

So the first issue starts like this: Booster Gold's in one of those tiny middle-American diners. The host's loving it, since she says superheroes never show up and eat here. And oh look, here comes another one! Booster replies that that's no hero, as Harley Quinn walks in. Clearly he hasn't been reading her solo series. Harley orders some pie, and she and Booster eat in terse silence. Until suddenly Harley grabs a knife, and the two begin a real knock-down, drag-out fight. And lemme tell ya something, Harley keeps up with a guy who can fly and project forcefields pretty well. Eventually the pair are exhausted, and Booster says he's gotta bring Harley in, after what he saw her do. Harley protests, because she didn't kill all those people. She saw Booster do it.

All this is intercut with two different scenes. One is sort of a confession-cam style thing, a bunch of heroes (including Harley, Blue Jay, Booster, and Hotspot) all admitting they're here for therapy. And the second is Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman talking with each other as they land in a particular site. This place is called Sanctuary. It is currently full of dead heroes. Among the deceased here are Hotspot, Lagoon Boy, Wally West, and Roy Harper. And this is my first major complaint. Do you know what all these characters have in common? Hey, DC: Stop using the Titans as your cannon fodder. Stop treating them as a joke. Every iteration of the team deserves more respect than this.

So Harley and Booster are going to be our POV characters for this story. I like both of these characters a lot, so this is probably going to be pretty painful seeing them written horribly. Harley goes off to the Penguin for protection, and we actually get to see her in her old costume. It is a breath of fresh air, honestly. Booster, meanwhile, mostly just tries to rationalise his actions with Skeets, his robot buddy. Booster suffered kind of a psychotic break back in the Batman storyline "The Gift", which is why he was in Sanctuary to begin with. This story is basically a follow-up to that one, and has the same sort of tone.

Harley confronts the trinity in Gotham, revealing she set the whole thing up with Penguin just so she could get close to them on her terms. She uses the Lasso of Truth to confess she saw Booster Gold do it, then uses the Kryptonite in Batman's belt to skip town. The next time we see her, she's at the docks, giving a eulogy to Poison Ivy, another victim of Sanctuary. Booster Gold, meanwhile, has rationalised that Batman would solve the crime himself rather than turn himself in, and goes to Barry Allen to check in. Of course, the trinity are the only ones who know about the accident yet, so when Booster tells Barry that Wally's dead, he gets super pissed. Just like the readers are!

Issue 3 is a flashback issue, showing Booster's first day at Sanctuary. Sanctuary works like this: everyone gets their own private quarters, and if they want to visit the common areas, they wear a mask and cloak to preserve anonymity. Here's the first really big problem with Sanctuary: while therapy for superheroes is a good (possibly necessary) concept, Sanctuary is only one kind of therapy. It essentially assumes everyone responds the same to the same sort of therapy. The kind here is that Sanctuary gives you a private room that simulates your traumas (with a holodeck) and has you physically confront them. Lagoon Boy, for example, is shown to be facing the laser that killed him over and over again. Wally sets up superhero battles that still have his kids with him. And while this sort of therapy might help some people, it's definitely not universal.

Booster starts his first session, which ends up just being a hologram of himself, talking to him. Before he can get much further, though, alarms go off and everyone is urged to emergency evacuate. Lagoon Boy is killed--in a deliberate callback to his previous death, no less--and we see a few other victims, including Red Devil, Commander Steel, and Gunfire. Wally clutches Roy's body as he dies in his arms, and Harley smacks Wally in the face with her hammer. She greets Booster cheerfully, and he admits he's having a hell of a first day.

After a brief scene of Aqualad (Garth, in this case) drinking in a bar--and who can blame him for wanting to drink after experiencing this story?--Batman and Barry meet, thus showing they're still unsure who did it. Booster is being interrogated under the Lasso of Truth, and he relays the previous issue to us. In his mind, Harley did it. Harley, meanwhile, has tracked down Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) and surprisingly... they hug. Babs promises to help stick by Harley and prove her innocence. After all, Babs has been through trauma, too. The comic reminds us of this with another confession-cam video, showing Babs display the scars she received from “The Killing Joke".

So, about these confession cams... They've been interspersed between scenes, showing everyone from Batman down to guys like Gunfire or the Protector relaying their problems by confession. Again, this sort of therapy isn't for everyone, but it's the only one Sanctuary's got. Superman tells Batman that Lois has been receiving these videos anonymously. Batman responds that there are no videos. Sanctuary does not keep records, to preserve patient confidentiality. Supes replies that there are videos, he's seen them, and now the media has them. The issue ends with a breaking story about "What is the secret superhero Sanctuary?" exposé airing on television...

Speaking of breaking, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord, who I'm as surprised as anybody to find out is alive again post-Rebirth) breaks Booster out of the Hall of Justice where he's being held. The pair watch the breaking news report on television while they try to come up with a plan. Booster's idea is to confess to Barry again, figuring they won't expect the stupidest possible move, making it actually the smartest possible move. Booster has not really recovered from his insanity, I see. He and Beetle do exactly that, surprising Barry at work, which is apparently all the advantage they need. This is because Barry, as a forensic scientist, has access to the data on the autopsies.

While Superman makes a public statement to the press regarding Sanctuary, Batman passes Skeets into Batgirl's care, and she immediately violates that trust by in turn passing Skeets to Harley. It's implied Harley tortures the information regarding Booster's whereabouts out of Skeets, but it's okay because he's just a robot. Babs and Harley turn up at Booster's place as he's analysing the data he obtained from Barry. Here's where it all starts to fall into place: the data on Wally West says his body is five days older than the rest of them.

Issue 6 is kind of a triple piece, but one that can be summed up fairly quickly. It focuses on three specific characters who were all at Sanctuary. The parts regarding Gnaark the caveman (another Titans alumnus) are ultimately pointless, since the issue ends with his death. The parts with Harley focus on Joker's abuse of her and Posion Ivy's care towards her. This also ends badly. Wally's parts focus on the DC Rebirth story where he essentially willed himself back into the universe. And while that story is really good and it was a joy to see Wally again, it ultimately ended with the knowledge that Wally's family did not reappear with him. His kids are gone, his wife is with someone else and does not remember him, and until he forced his way back into everyone's memories, no one else recalled him either. This would traumatise anybody. But it may have really traumatised Wally.

The next issue starts really well, honestly. Booster and Harley are fighting it out--again--while Babs and Beetle just watch. Like, they aren't even stressed, they're both familiar with their respective charges, and this is really no surprise. In any other comic, this would be a great scene. Shame that it's in this one, and it's not nearly enough to save even a lick of it. Eventually Babs works out that Booster's forcefields are only currently working because of some jury-rigged tech that's powered by Blue Beetle's consciousness. So she knocks him out with one hit. Harley prepares a killing blow, but ultimately cannot go through with it, proving she's a good person. She and Booster just collapse on the floor, and bond over the fact that they both kind of suck as superheroes (from their own perspectives, at least).

With Booster, Beetle, Babs, and Harley (Barley?) all on the same side now, the group decide to get to the bottom of everything together. Meanwhile, the rose Harley dropped off the docks is picked up by Wally. See, while the body they found of Wally is five days older than the rest, this means he time-traveled and is still at present alive. Wally channels his Speed Force into the rose, causing it to grow rapidly--and Poison Ivy blooms from it, restored to life. I don't get it either, but if it means Ivy didn't die in this stupid story, I'll take it. Wally then apologises, since Ivy just returned to life and now she has to see death so soon. Those five days are up, and a second Wally appears, ready to literally kill himself.

So here's what really fucking happened.

Wally had been at Sanctuary three weeks already. He's frustrated because the therapy's not helping as fast as he thought it would. He does a jump into the Speed Force and basically exists everywhere at once. Spread across the time stream, he witnesses everybody's confession cams all at once. He sees "the trauma of a thousand heroes in crisis" (hey, we have a title, ladies and gentlemen). And... it's too much. Realising everybody's personal pain breaks him. He unleashes the burst of pent-up energy he'd stored to do the time jaunt thing and kills everyone at Sanctuary.

Lagoon Boy. Protector. Hotspot. Red Devil. Arsenal. Gnaark. Solstice. Tattooed Man. Gunfire. Blue Jay. Commander Steel. Nemesis. I want you to remember these names. These were all pre-existing characters. Half of them were members of the Titans at one point or another. Wally West, the Flash, killed them in a stupid, stupid storyline that not only assassinates his character, but also literally assassinates all these other characters.

Wally uses his super speed to set up the bodies, rig the crime scenes so it looks like Harley or Booster could be responsible for their deaths. He then travels forward in time to the present moment, where he has just confessed all this to Poison Ivy. He kills that version of himself and travels back in time with it to fake his own death. He then uses the VR tech of Sanctuary to trick Booster and Harley into believing they saw the other commit the deeds. Neither of them even knew they'd never left their respective therapy simulations. This leaves Wally with a five day window to figure out something good he can do to make up for killing everyone.

So the final issue wraps it up like this: Booster time-travels the group back to where Barry is about to kill his own paradox clone. Harley and Ivy reunite, which is nice. So here's the plan: this doesn't have to end with any more death. In the end, what Barry did was all an accident. So Booster travels into the future to make a clone of the paradox-Wally. This gives them a five-day-old body they can leave at the massacre, in order to close the timeloop. The present Wally turns himself in and is arrested, while the five-days-ago paradox Wally merges back into the Speed Force, still running to try and find his family.

And the "good" thing Wally did to make up for killing everyone? He was the one that leaked Sanctuary's existence to the media. In his mind, the idea that heroes are seen as constant paragons was too much pressure. By letting the public know that even superheroes need therapy, even superheroes suffer trauma just like everyone else, he he could let people know that heroes are just that: people. People like everyone else. And that it is okay for anyone to seek help if you need it. This seems like a nice sentiment, until you remember the reason Wally killed everyone is because he was impatient about how his therapy was going.  What an awful story.

-----

Like, legitimately, this story is just awful. The basic premise--that heroes could probably do with therapy--is not a bad one. The execution is just really completely mismanaged, though. Start with the beginning. Why are Harley Quinn and Booster Gold chosen as the focus characters? Because they're the ones you could believe would orchestrate a mass murder, right? Except no. You would never believe that. Booster is not that much of a screw-up, and Harley is not that much of a villain. Neither of them have been those things for many years. The readers know that, but it feels like the writer didn't.

And that's the worst part of it all. The superficiality of the story. In the end, why was this story written? To explore the concept of therapy for superheroes? Well, then, it went about it in the worst way possible. Not everyone experiences trauma in the same way. And therefore, not everyone responds to therapy in the same way. The way therapy is depicted in this story is just wrong. Frankly, Sanctuary looks like one of the worst places to get treatment, right alongside Arkham Asylum. Do you think anybody's really going to take away from this story "It's okay to talk about your traumas if you need to"? In or out of universe?

I didn't really talk about the confession cams, but they seemed highly unnecessary. They were always the same, a 3x3 of panels featuring a superhero talking about their traumas. Most of them didn't factor into the story, and at most they felt like a common scene transition. They tried to give them some weight by revealing that the contents of all these possibly got leaked? But then they just kinda dropped that subplot. Which was really kind of serious, because the traumas range from the Protector (a character created for drug PSAs) confessing that he has done drugs to Superman talking about the burden of keeping his identity secret. How much of these did the public actually get? And if it was none, what was even the point of it being a subplot~? Like, leak that Sanctuary existed, sure, but why did Lois Lane get sent all the videos that shouldn't have existed~?

What this story has done to Wally is awful. They have completely tarnished this likeable, amazing hero by having him kill twelve people (thirteen, if you include Poison Ivy), several of them colleagues and friends. All because he's trying to fake his way through therapy when it isn't helping him as fast as he wants. Know what would have been a good story? How about he learns to cope with his trauma? How about he actually gets his family back? It's unrealistic as hell, but it's a fictional story. It's escapism. It's okay to have a happy ending. I ''want'' my stories to end in happy endings, because it's so hard to get them in real life. I want something better than this.

DC Rebirth was a breath of fresh air. Wally's return to the DC universe felt like the clouds were lifitng. The stories following Rebirth felt like a return to form after the darkening of the New 52. It felt like the stories were getting good again, like the comics were getting fun and hopeful again. It couldn't last, though, could it? This story is only three years after the Rebirth initiative. Three years? That's all the hope we get in the universe? I sincerely hope this story ends up an abberation, and not a return to form of the darker, more dour universe we put up with in the New 52. Especially given current events, you can understand why a brighter, optimistic fictional world is appealing. I sincerely hope that when comics resume publication after the pandemic, a more positive outlook continues, and stories like this are left in the garbage where they belong.

This book is fucking awful, and I am done with it. Next week, we'll start reviewing an all-new series for the Taiblog. Let's just say I'm not done ranting about injustices against the Teen Titans~

[mysterious-prophetess]

4 AM thoughts on the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy-A Rant

So, firstly I’ll say this: If you like them-More power to you. You do you. 

My thoughts are mine and I will not claim that they are the only opinion to have because that’s a wrong way to be.

Secondly: It is literally 4 AM as I write this. So, I will probably go off on tangents and there won’t be a lot of structure to this.

So, approx eight and a half months since I was dragged to The Rise of Skywalker and I go back to a trilogy and a franchise for that matter that I was kind of DONE with. 

Yeah. Disney Star Wars ruined my love of Star Wars in general and I even liked the Prequel trilogy!

I liked The Force Awakens when I first saw it, but I think it was my nostalgia goggles blinding me to its issues.

One of which it was almost a beat-for-beat remake of Episode 4. Being that 4 is my favorite of all the Star Wars films, this also worked in its favor as it was just fresh enough for the nostalgia and partiality to its predecessor to work in its favor.

Also, the new trio--Finn, Rey, and Poe-- had a lot of great potential. Especially Finn. Former Stormtrooper & taken from his home to be raised as a soldier to find he no longer could stay with the First Order, but terrified of them. Yet, despite that fear deciding to go save Rey--who was one of his first real friends. That was a character’s journey with so much potential and the marketing made it seem like he’d be a jedi. 

Yet, I wasn’t too upset when it was Rey. 

In retrospective, Rey winning against Kylo Ren was dumb. She should have been decent at the weapon since she was able to protect herself and Kylo was injured but, the planet falling apart could have happened sooner to prevent her from going on a ass-kicking spree of Kylo Ren.

Then we get to 8 which had an opening crawl it didn’t need since it was literally just after 7. 

I hated that btw

Then we get Poe who was shown as a smart ass in 7 but talked up as this great pilot but shown to be an IDIOT in 8. Rose’s whole storyline was badly handled.

People were shitty to Kelly Marie Tran over shit out of her control. Rose Tico was a terribly written character and the actress did what she could with what they gave her. 

What they did to Finn was undid ALL of his character development from 7 and turn him into a joke for the rest of 8 and nothing in 9. I’ve recently learned that this was done to appeal to a certain market that has never liked Star Wars anyway. Way to go, Disney. You fucked up your new character with the most compelling backstory to appease a market that hates this product in the first place. Bra-fucking-vo. 

The Light Speed tracking thing was bullshit. Canto Bite was a pointless side quest. Cut that stupid shit out of the movie and you lose nothing of value. You could cut from them landing on that pointless planet to them ending up in jail for parking illegally and saved the audience around 20 minutes of wasted time.

It didn’t advance the plot. It didn’t make Rose any more sympathetic. It just felt preachy. Also, Rose x Finn was so fucking forced. Kelly Marie Tran tried to sell it but again, she was given shit to work with.

I recently found out that who Rey was kept changing and It’s SOOO fucking stupid to not have a solid plan for a fucking trilogy. (and to find out my favorite idea of Rey as a Kenobi was the first one before Johnson came in and she was No One also is irksome)

Idk what Abrams planned but by not having it implemented over all and letting Johnson piss all over it with his ideas for a subversive mould-breaking story ruined any flow the films had.

Yeah, I am aware 4 was all but stand alone, but it was set up so it could connect to 5 & 6 just in case it was successful enough for 5 & 6 to be made. It was very stand alone because there was a chance nothing would come after 4.

7, 8, & 9 however, could be planned for there to be three because it was fucking STAR WARS. Which meant, they should have had people fucking plan out what they were doing. Instead, they didn’t, it shows, and it also seems to take an almost savage glee at pissing on the past.

Ruining Luke I-see-the-good-in-my-Father-who-committed-genocide Skywalker by having him give up on Ben/Kylo was one of the biggest betrayals of character I’ve ever fucking seen. 

Trying their best to get all the other OT characters out of the way so their new shiny replacements can take center stage without any nuance was also irritating. And this is at the parks too. It’s apparently all Sequel shit now with no legacy characters. 

Killing off Luke in 8 in a stupid way in how the force does not work. Continuing the force bullshit in 9. Wasting our time on a redemption arc for Kylo Ren/Ben only to KILL HIM AT THE END. 

No. Make him face what he’s done and atone as a living person. No more redemption=death. Death is too easy.

And I hate that they brought Palpatine back in a corporal form. Nice way to piss on the BEST moments of the OT where Anakin, finally throwing off the ties of bondage to Palpatine and the dark side and destroying the man to save his son, sacrificing himself in the process, dying at peace. Nope. That now means NOTHING. Palpatine survived.

Force Ghosts fucking exist. Sith Ghosts FUCKING EXIST TOO. Just make him a force ghost possessing some fucker and I might not have been as pissed off.

That force diad shit? Either play it up more or cut it out.

Snoke being a Palpatine puppet was fucking dumb. If he’d been Darth Plageius’s creation then that might have been better than “it was palpatine all along.”

It’s just such a waste. Star Wars was a film series about hope. The first film was retitled to have its subtitle be “A New Hope.” These films? Are not about hope at all. They’re about cynical cash grabs and trying to signal the right virtues to try to exploit the movie going public of their money and attempt a moral high ground. 

One more thing that bugs me: the fact they shunted a lot of shit per film to the novelizations. Fuck that shit. If your medium is FILM, you tell all your shit in that damn film. I shouldn’t have to read your tie in materials to understand your fucking film.  e.g. Palpatine’s son is really his clone is in the last film’s novelization. That stupid casino world allegedly has a full explanation too. 

No. It’s a sign of really poor planning and command of storytelling that you shunted this information into your peripheral materials. Then agian, we know the planning was shit because they couldn’t even fucking settle on who Rey was WHILE FILMING THE DAMNED TRILOGY AND EVEN DURING 9 THEY WERE CHANGING THEIR MINDS. 

And there are lots of other things but better minds than mine have talked about them-like everything wrong with Poe’s backstory. That can of worms I won’t touch because I don’t have the expertise beyond wondering if Disney has a single person with any sort of common sense or any awareness of optics on staff.

Final mini-rant: 

I fucking hate the way they’re trying to push their oh-so-special OC’s as better than the original cast at times. Luke and Leia were presumed to have been born the same day the empire was founded because THAT’S THE FILM’S APPARENT TIMELINE. But now. Now, somehow that took 2 days and now their new special snowflake character from Rebels Ezra Bridger has that Empire Day birthday and is force sensitive too and has a jedi teacher. 

Like, I’m sure that the character isn’t as Gary Stu-ish as I just bitched about there, but from the outside looking in, it pisses me the fuck off because of all the other shit Disney’s been pulling with Star Wars to distance themselves from legacy characters and push the new characters at all costs.

It’s just I hate what they’ve done in their corporate greed.

[green-blooded]

So I watched Into Darkness and wrote out my reactions to it... Again, it's going to be negative, so if that'd bother you, please don't read! All Star Trek fans are legit, even if this is a portion of the canon I don't like.

A brief summary of my reaction:

And it's a Star Wars opening. This is a scene from a Star Wars film. The sound effects even sound like Star Wars. LIKE. I love Star Wars, but this isn't supposed to be Star Wars please stop.

I mean why should we give Uhura any characterization other than liking Spock. That would take effort or something.

I'll admit that I like Spock hanging out in a volcano wearing a disco suit. It's where he belongs. It is his home now that they blew up Vulcan. ('Cause it's a volcano, get it.)

Hey, hey omg they are almost doing a philosophical thing with Spock being willing to die for the needs of the many and McCoy yelling at him, then telling Kirk that if the situation were reversed, Spock would let him die. It's almost a Star Trek!

They're letting McCoy have lines. Wooow. I don't expect it to last.

Um... suddenly I'm in an episode of Black Mirror or something? I don't... wait holy shit that's Mickey? Who gives a shit about Sherlock, that's MICKEY. I didn't know he was in this!

Oh good, Kirk is having a threesome with alien twins. Cool. Love this. Love it. Great characterization.

OH GOOD more bickering between Spock and Kirk that is absolutely the worst and I hate it. :)

I just want McCoy in scenes. :( I just want Uhura with her own story. :( I just want to not look at Sherlock's face. :( Oh look, Mickey's already dead. :(

I don't... get Spock's characterization in these movies. I don't get what Kirk and Spock's friendship is. I don't... feel anything about it. I actually really love Kirk and Spock's friendship, and not having it work for me is a huge void, right up there with McCoy having lost his role in the trio.

So much of the sound design is Star Wars-y. It's really, really bugging me.

Chris Pine is such a likable guy. I really do enjoy when he's on screen. I don't like some of the characterization that he's been saddled with, but I like the character just fine outside of him being called Kirk.

... The conflict that made Kirk not the captain of the Enterprise and Spock not the first officer lasted for like five minutes and had no consequences wow.

OH MCCOY IS GRACING MY SCENE AND HAVING MORE INTERESTING INTERACTIONS THAN ANYONE ELSE AGAIN WOW THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EXISTING. I really do enjoy him fretting over Kirk. It is really cute.

Ugh, please stop having Kirk take the place of McCoy in the arguments with Spock. I hate it. It does not work, especially with McCoy not taking Kirk's role of being mediator. It's just bicker bicker bicker but without actual ethics really being brought in because?????? WHO KNOWS. Why'd they have to mess up the trio? That was the easiest thing not to mess up.

Here's what it is. The conflict between Kirk and Spock in AOS is a pissing contest with the standard TWO MEN CAN'T JUST BE FRIENDS THEY HAVE TO BE COMPETITIVE. While the conflict between Spock and McCoy in TOS is ethical and moral differences with a core of (admittedly complex) friendship. Just. Let men be friends and have real disagreements instead of just trying to play Alpha Male.

As I'm typing this, they're doing the same with Kirk and SCOTT of all people????????????? This is so not Star Trek ugh. Let people be nice to each other what the hell. Kirk is such a nice person. Let him be NICE. Let Spock be NICE. They only one they made nice is McCoy, and they only managed it giving him 0% of his edge. He's just cranky instead of a super intelligent and philosophical guy who is also Real Southern and ready to argue.

... He just made Chekov his chief of engineering? What... are... who... why is everyone on this ship twelve.

Is it just me or do they write Spock as an android instead of a Vulcan? Like... he knows how Humans work. And yeah, he sometimes plays up being non-Human on TOS, but... it just seems so overdone. Maybe I'm being too picky idk.

I continue to hate the Spock/Uhura stuff wow.

Take McCoy On Away Missions He Has No Business Going On Like Real Star Trek!!!

Oh my god even the shuttles are fucking huge. Why are all these ships so big inside? It makes everything feel much more sterile and difficult to believe.

The McCoy and Sulu interactions are A+.

Oh good, now Uhura is having a McCoy argument with Spock. Don't let McCoy have any role in this whole movie, that's fine. I mean the Bread and Circuses talk about Spock wanting to die was way better and took less screentime, but that's fine. That's fine. Let's just bluntly talk directly about Spock's Feelings instead of any kind of subtlety. God I really hate the writing.

Wow, we almost had one (badly written) conversation without an action scene. Phew, they fixed that.

Why does every iteration of Star Trek feel the need to completely redo Klingons from scratch?

Oh no, they almost have diplomacy where Uhura got to show off her skills, couldn't have that. Time for an action scene!

Every interaction Kirk or Spock has with another man in this whole fucking movie is aggressive for no reason. And even in this alternate universe, McCoy refuses the toxic masculinity. This is why I love him. He just wants to be everyone's mom friend.

DID THIS MOVIE JUST IMPLY THAT KIRK FUCKED CHRISTINE CHAPEL I FUCKING WHAT THE FUCKING WHAT WHAT WHAT NO STOP SHE IS NOT A NAME DROP FOR YOU TO MAKE THE FANS HAPPY SHE IS A CHARACTER THAT I LOVE AND I DEMAND RESPECT BE PUT ON HER NAME AND SHE AND KIRK DID NOT FUCK AND IF THEY DID HE WOULD REMEMBER IT

Oh hey they did send McCoy on an away-- what? Did he just... flippantly refer to a Gorn? That's... they didn't... whatever. McCoy demanding to be left behind to die for the good of someone else just flies by unnoticed but it was a big deal for Spock. Okay.

Ok, the reveal that this is about Khan is more than an hour into the movie. Which is a reveal everyone knew before the movie came out and also a character that we're all familiar with. So I just kinda feel like every minute of the movie so far was just wasted on backstory. Again!

(McCoy should be in this scene where they confront Khan but whatever.)

Hey, AOS? We already know that Khan is a fucking monster, so trying to get us to feel sorry for him as if we don't know this is weird as hell. Like, these ethical quandaries it's trying to bring up are not working for me at all, because... if you're going to base this on TOS, you can't just pretend nothing in TOS happened!

Also love these reveals where I'm supposed to care what ship just showed up, but they're shining lights in my eyes so I can't even see what it is!

Nimoy was on my screen time to start paying attention again. I definitely kind of zoned out for a while there. I think I missed like five consecutive action scenes.

Again, why are we getting a reveal about Khan being evil? We... we know this. Even people who don't watch Star Trek know he's a bad guy. Why do we need Nimoy to tell us this? We're an hour and a half into the movie and still getting reveals that we should have known before the movie started!

~ This Is Dumb ~

Oh my gosh Khan betrayed them wow i didn't see that coming

Wow look at this disaster that shows why a huge fucking ship with endlessly huge corridors is maybe a bad idea because we're in space and gravity failures means everyone would fucking die. I hate this pointlessly large interior oh man.

How long do I have to watch the Enterprise fall apart before something new happens? This movie could be like half an hour long if we just cut the pointless action scenes.

Okay, time for the only actual reveal in the whole film; Kirk "dies" instead of Spock. It might be good if it didn't go on too long and make the Sad Music swell. They did hire good actors, so you'd think they'd let them use their Acting Skills instead of making it sappy and dumb with bad cinematography and overwhelming music.

So, for one thing, McCoy should be getting to Engineering to see to Kirk when he gets out, not Spock. For another thing, there is no history between this Kirk and Spock that makes this moment meaningful. Maybe it would be kinda, if you don't have Wrath of Khan (which I don't even like!) to compare it to where we have three seasons and two movies of history between two people who are actually friends! Kirk's actual friend in these movies is McCoy, WHO SHOULD BE THE ONE CALLED DOWN HERE THIS IS A MEDICAL SITUATION.

Like, it's great that you're feeling, Spock, but I'm sure not. This is so dumb.

NOW UHURA'S HERE. WHERE IS MCCOY? THE MEDICAL OFFICER AND FUCKING FRIEND OF KIRK?

Oh god did he just yell khan no this is so dumb this is so dumb now i AM crying this is so dumb

Love that they took the Khan storyline and drained it of any relevance by not really getting into the whole eugenics aspect.

Oh now I get to see someone who actually was Kirk's friend reacting to hsi death. Thanks for finally getting to something meaningful, movie. Oh man, I almost felt something, because Urban is a pretty good actor and McCoy's friendship with Kirk is the only relationship I care about in the AOS, but then there was a tribble and ruined it, so.

This fight between Khan and Spock is dumb, just. Dumb. It's dumb. This is dumb. Why does every action sequence go on SO LONG.

Spock's rage toward Khan makes no sense. He and Kirk barely tolerate each other in these movies, I don't get it.

McCoy and Kirk are really cute in these movies. That's all I have. Of course, we can't let McCoy talk too much, because this is the Kirk and Spock show.

OH GOD THE TRANSITION TO THE OPENING SPEECH WAS SO BAD I'M LAUGHING SO HARD.

Oh thank goodness, this movie is over. I am hoping I'll like Beyond, because people have said this one might not be awful. Probably going to wait until tomorrow because it's nearly midnight and I want to be in a better mood when I watch it.

[mindibindi]

Jaime & Brienne (8x04 thoughts)

                         * * * * * S P O I L E R    A L E R T * * * * * 

Some people are calling it bad fanfiction but I thought it was perfect. Jaime and Brienne’s consummation scene had a little of everything that is quintessentially them: some snark, some awkwardness, some tenderness and some fragile hope giving way to extreme sexual tension. I loved how Brienne looked at him as she tried to figure out what the hell was happening. I loved how Jaime looked at her as she began to untie her top. And I loved how even when they were half-naked, they still looked each other straight in the eye.

What I didn’t love was what came next (cos it wasn’t them - boom, ching). A tender sex scene would’ve been much more deserved than it was with say, Jon and Dany, who I find boring as fuck (as a pairing). But GoT is more conservative with such scenes these days. And I can forgive that cut-away since I never really thought, way back in s2 when I started shipping these two, that they would actually become canon, they would actually be endgame. And despite the absolutely ridiculous turn the writers took at the end of this ep, I’m pretty sure they are still endgame.

I don’t think Jaime is going back to Cersei and I do think he is heading south to help the right people, although I’m not hoping he’s the one to actually kill her. He’s already taken out one monarch and had it haunt him the rest of his life, and that wasn’t even someone he had a close connection with. I wouldn’t want him living with his twin’s death for the rest of his days. (I suppose there is the highly depressing possibility that he will resume his place at Cersei’s side, eventually turn on her, kill her and die in the process, leaving Brienne to forgive him as he dies or posthumously. There would be some poetic, full-circle moment in that, I guess.)

With the idiotic way it was written, I totally understand people trying to interpret Jaime’s parting with Brienne as an act of love and protection. After all, he so clearly adores her. One woman is so clearly good for him and the other not. One relationship is so clearly superior to the other, boasting a healthy love, respect, admiration and loyalty. It doesn’t make sense for him to act this way towards this woman, within the context of their relationship. To me, however, trying to understand Jaime’s actions this way is pointless because it’s just piss poor behaviour. Not that I blame the character. I blame the writers. This is hardly the first time they’ve fucked up Jaime’s character arc, but they’ve been doing such a stellar job this season that I really didn’t see this coming.

Some folks have pointed out that Jaime & Brienne’s relationship arc has been mirrored in Arya & Gendry’s. So I guess we should’ve seen it coming as soon as Arya dumped Gendry. Personally, as much as I like Arya and Gendry as a pairing, I am actually okay with Arya taking off to take care of unfinished business because, 1. she’s female and it’s a rarer plot to see a young woman heading off on a quest of justice and leaving a man crying in her wake, 2. she’s young and young people do dumb stuff that hurts the people who love them and 3. Arya’s journey has never been about her discovering she’s not an immoral killer but a decent, honorable person. (Her journey has been the opposite: discovering that she’s not an honourable lady but a ruthless assassin. Go girl). Even since meeting Brienne, Jaime’s character arc has been about realising he is a good man who is worthy of the love and devotion of a good woman. This arc stalled slightly when he fell back under the influence of his tyrannical father and psychotic sister but kicked back into gear when he finally left King’s Landing to fight for the living, Brienne’s words no doubt ringing in his head. Just like in the old-fashioned books, Jaime is a knight who must earn the pure and constant love of his lady. He knows he doesn’t deserve it as he is, so he must better himself with acts of internal improvement and prove himself with acts of external valour. This is something he has done, many times over. Fighting beside Brienne at the Battle of Winterfell was the culmination of this journey of improvement and proof. He has earned her love and, even more importantly for him, her respect. He has redeemed himself in her eyes -- again.

Every time Jaime is in Brienne’s presence, he stands a little taller, he looks a little clearer, his heart opens a little more. His honour revives, his resolve steels and his belief in his worth is confirmed. You can actually see it happening, thanks to Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s amazing performance. And sure, we all backslide occasionally into destructive behaviours of the past. But he has earned this time with Brienne and he knows it. He wants it so badly, values her so dearly. If he still has thoughts like the ones he expresses in their final scene together, he wouldn’t let them ruin that time or impact her. He wouldn’t make life-altering decisions based on them. Not necessarily because he trusts himself so completely, not when he’s in that dark and doubtful place, but because he does trust her. If she tells him he’s a good man, he believes her. If she wants to be with him then he believes he’s worthy of her. If she believes he’s not a killer, a destoyer, an immoral coward, then Jaime knows he can trust her judgement. Because she would never let him close enough to wound her.

Which is, of course, what he does at the end of this ep. Now, if they had to get Jaime out of Winterfell and down to King’s Landing there would’ve been a way to write that that was still heart-wrenching but that also honoured these characters and their connection. Jaime could’ve spoken to Brienne in a loving, mature and respectful way. He could’ve spoken to her in a way that befitted a man of his mature age and improved character. And yes, she may have fought him. But I don’t buy the cruel-to-be-kind explanation. If it is true, then it’s not just OOC, it’s over-dramatic, unnecessary and ridiculous. It’s the writers trying to create drama where it doesn’t need to be. It’s them trying to elicit a reaction rather than write organically from the truth of the characters. This is, in my mind, the ultimate insult to the characters, actors and audience.    

[brandxspandex]

What did not you like Unicron # 6? I loved the issue. I agree that they treated the relationship of Bumblebee and Starscream horribly, but I did not see any regression in Starcream at the end of Optimus Prime and Unicron.

I would think that it’s reasonably uncontroversial to saythat in the grand finale of a story one expects to receive some sort ofemotional payoff and closure regarding the major emotional and thematic arcsexplored throughout the narrative. The story’s climax is where the major themesof both its plot and character arcs get reiterated in a way that sort of sumsup everything that’s come before and provides a tremendous emotional punch.It’s where the main points the story has been building up to get made in a waythat evokes the most powerful emotions.

Over the 13 years IDW Starscream was developed as acharacter he became fascinatingly multi-faceted; his morality, his motivations,his personality and his relationships were all shown to have multiple layersthat could be explored. When it was announced that the IDW continuity was comingto an end the opportunity to fully explore all those layers was lost becausethere was so little time left, which made that little remaining time all themore precious. Not everything could be explored, but there was still some timeleft to develop Starscream a little further along the trajectory he was alreadyon, or at the very least reiterate the most important things about hischaracter that had already been established.

Instead most of that time was just wasted. I don’t think theway that Starscream was written after TAAO ended was necessarily out ofcharacter; he’s undergone a lot of character growth, but said character growth didn’terase 4 million years of being a dick, so it isn’t out of character for him tobehave in dickish ways. However, there is a difference between being written incharacter and written well. Being written well is a subset of being written in-character;at any point in a story there may be a number of things a character could dothat would be consistent with what’s been established about them up to thatpoint. However, not every one of those options is going to be emotionallysatisfying or progress the story in an interesting way; a good writer should beable pick the in-character behaviours that doadd to the story in this way.

Of all the things Barber could have done with Starscream atthe end of the story, it seems that the point about his character he was mostinterested in making in the precious little time that was left was: he’s stilla bit of a dick. I have no idea what emotional reaction he was going for withthat. In an ongoing story, repeatedly reminding readers that Starscream isstill a bit of a dick is certainly worthwhile, but this was the end. As I’ve said, at the end of astory you typically want to evoke deep and powerful emotions, and there were so many ways that could have been donewith everything that had been established about Starscream up to that point.Petty scenes of pointless bickering do not make deep, emotionally affectingstatements about a character.

I think the most glaringly obvious instance of this is inissues #3 and #4 of the Unicron series; issue #3 ends on a promising note with Starscreamdeciding to put his faith in Windblade because she’s believed in him in thepast. That builds nicely on the character and relationship developmentestablished in TAAO, and could have been built upon further in the subsequentissues of Unicron to showcase how his character had grown. After all, the firstcouple of issues of the mini-series had already established that he’s still adick, so surely the rest of the time could be spent exploring the ways he’dchanged. But no, the most significant Starscream scene in the following issueinvolves him just whinging about some petty bullshit, with the closest peoplehe has to friends then getting pissed at him, before he gets clocked in theface.

I’m not saying that Starscream whinging about petty bullshitwas necessarily out of character, but out of all the possible in-characterthings Barber could have had him doing in that moment, why the ever-loving helldid he decide to go with that? What kind of emotion was he trying to evoke inhis emotionally climatic grand finale with that moment? It wasn’t just wastefulfor Starscream’s character arc, it was wasteful for the book itself. Cybertronwas just destroyed; surely thatshould have been a sombre moment. That scene could have been used to underline asense of sadness and hopelessness felt by billions of beings at the loss oftheir home, and then maybe establish a sense of defiance in the face of thathopelessness. Instead the time was used for…that. What the hell was that? What werewe as readers meant to be feeling in that moment exactly?

In the following issues we had Starscream agreeing to ferryOptimus to Unicron, and then deciding to sacrifice himself to help stop Unicron.That’s good right? Isn’t that showing his character has developed? But by thatpoint it all felt lacking in any emotional substance because hardly any ofStarscream’s scenes in the lead up explored why he’d be willing to do thesethings. Instead most of his scenes involved him getting alienated from the characterswho helped him change into the kinda person who would be willing make suchsacrifices. The emotional build up was completely off; because Barber spentmost the mini ignoring that aspect of Starscream’s character growth, the way hetacked it back on at the end made it feel as though it came out of nowhere. It basicallyfelt like he was only acknowledging Starscream’s character development in themoments it was convenient for the story, but ignoring it otherwise. Also, whileTAAO established that Starscream is capable of sacrifice (which I think madehim sacrificing himself in the Unicron mini pretty redundant by the way), I don’tbelieve he would sacrifice himself that easily. He didn’t even take a moment toconsider alternative options; Arcee and Optimus ran up against an obstacle andsuddenly he was like “guess I’ll die”. As I’ve said, it honestly read more likea suicide than an act of heroic self-sacrifice.

And then yes, Starscream and Bumblebee’s relationship wastreated horribly, and that’s not someminor point I can overlook. Their relationship arc has been developing for years, and involved some veryemotionally significant moments, interspersed with some funny, sweet andcharming scenes. It was given many moments of significance and felt reallyimportant to the development of both characters. Then the only acknowledgement wegot of their relationship after Bee returns to life was Bee saying “Well…”after watching Starscream die. That’s just…unspeakably horrendous writing. Idon’t understand how it’s even possible to write that badly.

The only way I can wrap my head around what’s been presentedis if emotionally significant scenes involving Starscream and his relationshipswere left out of the Unicron mini because they’re all being saved up for thelast issue of OP. If that’s the case then I still don’t think it’s very goodwriting because by failing to have those scenes in Unicron it severelysubtracted from the emotional impact of that series. Also there’s more thanenough interesting things that could have been done with Starscream to fill outimpactful scenes in both the Unicron series and the OP epilogue. But at leastif we get something worthwhile in thelast issue of OP it won’t be atrociouswriting anymore. The only way I can see it being anything vaguely approaching good writing is if the last issue recontextualizeswhat we got in Unicron to show it was all building up to something emotionallymeaningful in the last issue. Also, there will have to be something at least somewhat decent between Starscreamand Bumblebee for me not to write it off whatever happens; after everythingthat’s happened between them they deserve that.

The fact that Starscream didn’t appear in the montage of thedead might mean that he’s still notdead so there might still be somehope on this front, but otherwise it means that not only were his character andrelationship arcs butchered before he was predictably and needlessly killed,but they even failed to acknowledge him after his death, and I am…revolted.

[stealth-spiderr]

unfiltered // p.p.

hay lads, here’s @itsholyholland‘s request for the 2k celebration “Break my heart Em, just do it” i tried my best bby xo prompt is “tell me why you never loved me, cause i gave you my all”

summary // Not all relationships last, but they don’t always end badly but after saying things without thinking your heart gets hurt more than it needed to.

pairing // peter parker x reader

warnings // swearing ((when do i not?? should i like chill out on it a lil??))

word count // 1,295

“We need to talk.”

The words had been playing through your head since lunch, Peter hadn’t even said them to you but instead written you a note that he’d slipped into your locker sometime before lunch. You hadn’t been able to find him during the break either, you’d gone to Ned who claimed to not know his whereabouts. You didn’t believe him, he couldn’t meet your eyes so you knew immediately Peter was avoiding you.

You didn’t see him until the end of the day, he was waiting by your locker when you got to it. He didn’t say anything so neither did you, all he did was offer a tight lipped smile. though it did nothing to reassure you of the future of your relationship with him. Once you’ve packed your bag you offer Peter your hand but he just shoves his in his pockets and starts toward the exit. He remains silent as you walk out of the school, you struggling to keep up with his pace.

“Pete, would you slow down,” you huff.

He stops abruptly and you bump into him, you meet his hard stare and try to read his expression but for once you can’t read him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Us. I don’t think we’re working.”

Your world shatters as the words hit your ears. You and Peter. Peter and you. It’s how it had been basically since you moved to Midtown High about two years ago, he’d been tasked with showing around and you’d bonded quickly over your love of the Avengers. Of course when he eventually revealed that he was Spider-Man you were excited, and slightly mortified as you remembered all the times you’d gushed to Peter about his masked identity. You think back to the last month or so and realise both of you had been snappy to each other, spending more time apart than you used to, it was like you were falling out of touch.

“What the fuck does that even mean, Pete?”

“It means I can’t do this anymore!” he yells. “Being around you doesn’t make me happy anymore, I’m not in love with you anymore, the idea of baring this relationship for another week, month, year just sounds stupid and pointless.”

“Wow, just ripping off the bandaid, huh?”

Tears well in your eyes and you continue on your walk home. You can hear Peter yelling after you, but you walk faster, manoeuvring skilfully through the other people walking. Peter catches up of course, he is a superhero after all.

“(Y/N), I’m sorry, okay? I really am, but-”

“I honestly don’t give a shit how sorry you are, Peter. Your feelings might have changed but mine haven’t, and I think you could have worded ‘I’m not in love with you anymore’ a little better so it didn’t feel like you ripped my heart out of my chest and thrown it in a wood chipper.”

Your words stung Peter a little bit, mostly the fact that you hadn’t called him ‘Peter’ in a long time, it had always been ‘Pete’. But he couldn’t keep lying to you, somehow he really had fallen out of love with you. One day your smile didn’t warm his heart as much, your skin brushing his didn’t send a shiver down his spine, kissing you didn’t set off fireworks.

“I’m sorry-”

“Sorry doesn’t cut it.”

Peter freezes. He’s heard that before, from Tony after the whole ferry thing. It stirs up the bad memories, he’d nearly got so many people hurt or possibly killed, including himself. His blood boils, and he shouldn’t take it out on you, especially now, but he can’t catch himself in time.

“You think this is easy for me or something? I understand that this sucks, all I’ve been thinking about is how to tell you because the longer I waited the more it’d hurt you-”

“So you broke up with me for my benefit? What a fucking hero.”

“Can you not be sarcastic for five fucking minutes? God, how did I last two years with you? I just needed to get over Liz.”

He says it without thinking, he doesn’t even mean it but he’s too pissed off and he’s trying to piss you off. Bringing up Liz was the perfect way to do it, you’d been hesitant to start dating him because the whole Liz thing was still moderately fresh.

You shake your head and let out a humourless laugh as you back away from him. You angrily wipe the tears from your face with the back of your hand and sniff.

“Low blow, Parker,” you say, before finally turning away from him.

You spend the next hour crying, curled up in a ball in the bottom of your shower. The hour after that, curled up in your bed, still crying and wondering if Peter really hadn’t loved you, just used you to get over Liz. You’ll be damned if you don’t find out so you pull on some sweats and hoodie and head to Peter’s place.

Peter, who was supposed to have gone out on patrol, was lying in his bed, uncomfortably numb. He knew he’d done the right thing breaking up with you, but he regretted everything that was said after that. He cared about you still, just not in a romantic way, and he’d just hurt you beyond belief. He was glad May was out when he got home because he didn’t want to talk about it but he also just needed someone to hold him.

A knock on the door echoed through the apartment, he groaned in annoyance but got up to answer it. Sometimes May came home with armfuls of groceries and couldn’t open the door easily. So to find you standing there when he opened it shocked him a lot. Your face was wet with tears, red and blotchy as well, your eyes red and swollen to match.

“I’m sorry to just show up, but I have a question and didn’t wanna ask over the phone. Is May home?”

Peter shakes his head and steps to the side to let you in, you hesitate but step inside. Peter heads to his room, automatically, it’s what you two usually did, but you ground yourself in the living room and clear your throat.

“Right,” he mumbles, walking back towards you.

“It’s not even really a question, but I need you to tell me why you never loved me. Because I gave you my all, Peter, every damn thing I had in me. I mean if it’s about Liz, okay, fine. But for two years? You told me you loved me hundreds of times, every fucking memory of you is tainted because you told me one god damn lie over and over. I don’t want to hate you, Peter, but… it’ll just be easier.”

If your hating him would make it easier, at least he could help with that.

“You just aren’t- weren’t- what I wanted. I thought I just needed a little bit of time to fall for you but it just… never happened.”

“I’m such an idiot,” you mutter to yourself, but he hears.

“Yeah, you are.”

You send him a harsh glare that he returns. You stand just as the front door opens, May enters and quickly glances at you both, not realising the tension straight away.

“(Y/N)! Lovely to see you, will you stay- oh, what’s happening between you too?”

Peter looks to May, but he can’t find the words to explain. You can’t bring yourself to look at May, she’d always been so kind to you when you visited. You wait until Peter looks back to you before you start towards the door.

“Goodbye, Peter,” you say, turning away from him and leaving his place for good.

let me know if you do or don’t wanna be tagged!! tag list // @tomsfireheart // @tomhoellandb // @laucontrerasv // @spidey-pal // @paper-goonie // @hottrashformarvel // @gayvodkatour // @webfluihd // @starksparker // @h-osterfield // @upsidedownparker // @shuriismyqueen // @spideymood // @thewiseandfree // @stephie-senpai // @bi-writes // @peters-vlogs // @noneighborhood // @caloe-vera // @starlightfound // @lafayettes-baguettes-1 // @lemirabitur // @lilleone // @yoinksholland // @ablogbypeteparker // @iaiabear // @rainbow-marvel // @rumoured-whispers​

[965cchikudasai]

Arslan Senki vol.16 (final book) - Detailed spoilers + illustrations

So I finished reading the book and here are some detailed spoilers about the deaths of some characters.

(Warning: NOVEL SPOILERS)

Jaswant

first victim (vol.16 actually starts with his death)

Arslan gave him the order to protect the women (Nasrin, Aiyar, Tus’ wives, Parizad, etc) and escort them to Sindhura

on their way to Sindhura he gets badly injured in a battle against Paripada (a Sindhuran general who was caught as a war prisoner by the Parsian army)

Jaswant arrives in Sindhura and asks King Rajendra to accept the refugees from Pars

Rajendra wants to refuse but gets convinced by his wife Salima (yes they married in vol.15)

Rajendra reluctantly agrees to accept the refugees

Jaswant dies from the injuries (p26)

Rajendra suddenly says “I always wanted him (Jaswant) [as my servant]...” and it suddenly turns out that Jaswant, Salima, Rajendra and Gadevi were all childhood friends (which is such an obvious ass-pull because in vol.3 it was clearly stated that neither Rajendra nor Gadevi knew Jaswant)

Jaswant’s last words (to Rajendra): “I am very grateful [that you accepted the refugees]. I will return to Pars as soon as possible and tell His Majesty Arslan how kind Your Majesty King Rajendra and Your Highness Queen Salima w-... (*dies before completing his sentence*)”

what I don’t like about this: 1) Jaswant’s death was totally pointless, 2) Jaswant wanted to stay by Arslan’s side but had to leave Pars because Arslan gave him the fucking order to escort the women to Sindhura, 3) the only person who was at Jaswant’s side when he died was Rajendra (and Salima in the background) wtf Jaswant didn’t deserve this, if anything, he deserved to die in Arslan’s arms, 4) When Jofanes reports about Jaswant’s death to Arslan, he (*Jofanes) adds a little joke wtf (it pissed me off because I wasn’t in the mood for any kind of humour in that moment :/).

Bruhan

dies in a duel against Merlaine (p47)

Arslan “I don’t want to see someone who is tied up to be killed. So if you wish, you can choose someone and challenge them to a duel.” (wtf????) → Merlaine volunteers and he kills Bruhan in a ‘fair’ duel 

last words: “How did my brother [Jimsa] die?” [Kishward answers: “He died as a general of Pars.”]

Lucian

killed by Grugan (p74)

his death was absolutely meaningless and redundant

last words (to his nephew): “My nephew, please take care of His Majesty Arslan... He is too gentle... I am very worried about that...” 

Grugan

Elam kills him with only one fucking arrow (p75)

Guiscard

Merlaine and Farangis’ arrows hit his chest (p92)

last words: “I won’t die... I won’t die... I won’t die...!!”

most pathetic death scene

inconsistency: In one of the earlier volumes it was mentioned in the narrative part that Guiscard later becomes the founder of the “Kerfanis dynasty” in Maryam but in this volume it turned out that he had no children lmao

also the whole battle against Maryam concludes within 8 fucking pages

Tahamine & Leyla

Zahhak (who possessed Andragoras’ body) orders her to come with him to put pressure on Arslan

Tahimine refuses saying “I did something bad to Arslan. Now that I think, I used to hate on him even though he didn’t anything wrong.” (wow she realised it just now???)

Zahhak is like “Okay, then die” and kills her (p.126)

last words (to Leyla): “Leyla... Leyla... please call me your mother...“

Leyla

she’s beheaded by Zahhak right after Tahamine was killed (p.126)

Parafuda

dies in a battle against Zahhak and his troops (p136)

manages to beat one of the snakes on Zahhak’s shoulders but dies from the poison of the snakes

last words (to Farangis): “Please tell *Parizad [*his wife] that she was a great woman...”

Fitna

Gieve’s arrow hits her on her forehead and she dies (p144)

no last words

the most ridiculous thing about this is that Gieve beat the whole troop of Misr all by himself (within 1 page lmao)

I mean was Fitna, or rather the whole story about Misr, really necessary for the plot in the first place??

Kubard

dies in a duel against Ilterish (they kill each other at the same time)

he’s actually the only character whose death was depicted in a somewhat detailed and dramatic way (p162)

last words: “That’s about it, I guess.”

Isfan

the most ridiculous death in this volume (p163)

no last words

he’s attacked by the sorcerer and dies from the toxic gas/liquid (what the hell???) the sorcerer splashed on him (literally, that’s all what was written in the novel)

WTF????????

???????????????????

Sorcerer

Arslan gets outraged when he heard about Isfan’s death and challenges him to a duel (wtf)

Arslan “I will avenge Isfan!! I can’t leave it like this! I need to kill him [the sorcerer] with my own hands!”

And now I present you the most ridiculous conversation in this volume which goes as follows:

Sorcerer: You are a coward! If it wasn’t for the holy sword Rukhnabad, you wouldn’t even try to fight me!

Arslan: Okay, if you wish, I won’t use Rukhnabad to fight you. But you have to promise that you don’t use any magical power, either, okay?

WTF (it sounds like a children’s quarrel)  

Arslan kills the sorcerer with Rukhnabad (p167)

again: WTF

Merlaine

manages to beat one of the snakes on Zahhak’s shoulders with his arrow

he’s surrounded by Zahhak’s troops and is badly injured, but still continues to fight bravely

but then he gets beheaded by Zahhak (p170)

no last words

Zahhak (to Merlaine): “Out of you all humans, you were the bravest brat”

Merlaine gets praised by the Snake King! What a honour wooooow

yes I’m super salty

Kishward

manages to beat both snakes on Zahhak’s shoulders with his two swords

but is killed by Zahhak (p173)

last words: “Your Majesty... Nasrin... Aiyar”

he was one of the major characters and appeared since vol.1 (1986)

number of pages Tanaka dedicated to the depiction of his death: 1 page

Tanaka are you fucking serious

Hilmes

dies in a duel against Daryun (p177)

last words: “I’m now coming to see you, Irina...”

Hilmes was one of the main characters

he was the antagonist of this series

number of pages Tanaka dedicated to the depiction of his battle against Daryun: 3 pages

Tanaka are you really fucking serious

also ridiculous conversation part2

Hilmes: You are the only one who might be able to kill me, Daryun.

Daryun: I won’t kill you. I will capture you alive and drag you before His Majesty Arslan. And you will kneel down before him and apologise for all you’ve done.” → then kills Hilmes

Arslan: You killed Lord Hilmes. How brave of you.

Daryun: He wanted to die. I just helped him out with that.

??????????

??????????????????

Daryun

fights Zahhak

manages to kill the two snakes on Zahhak’s shoulders but gets stabbed in his chest and dies

Zahhak (to Arslan): “He was the strongest out of all humans I’ve ever met.”

woooow Zahhak praised him yesss!! (*pure saltiness*)

at least he died in Arslan’s arms

last words (to Arslan): “I was truly happy to be able to served you”

number of pages Tanaka dedicated to depict the battle and death of one of the most popular characters of the series: 2.5 pages (*note: it’s 2 and a half pages, and not 25 pages)

Arslan

is outraged by Daryun’s death and challenges Zahhak to a duel WTF (who is this hod-headed guy??? is he really Arslan???)

Arslan and Zahhak kill each other in a duel (p200)

pages dedicated to this most important “protagonist vs main villain” battle: 2 pages

at this point everything seems so ridiculous that I don’t have the motivation to translate his last words

wtf 

@ Tanaka Yoshiki this gif is for you

About Zahhak:

The most ridiculous thing about this book and the deaths of so many characters is... you know if the remaining generals had all attacked Zahhak TOGETHER at the same time (e.g. Gieve, Farangis, Elam and Merlaine focusing on beating the two snakes and Daryun, Kishward, Kubard and Arslan with his Rukhnabad focusing on beating Zahhak himself), they could have beat Zahhak and his two fucking snakes so easily. (*Also, it’s worth noting that Arslan is able to seal part of Zahhak’s supernatural power with his holy sword Rukhnabad lmao)

But no, they all attack Zahhak in a 1-on-1 battle for no reason, so even if they manage to beat the snakes or wound Zahhak, they give them enough time to heal/regenerate until the next general comes to challenge Zahhak to another duel. It’s like

day 1: Merlaine’s turn. He beats one of the snakes and dies.

day 2:  (the snakes had enough time to regenerate) Parafuda’s turn. He beats one of the snakes and dies.

day 3: (again: the snakes had enough time to completely regenerate) Kishward’s turn. He beats both snakes and even manages to wound Zahhak, then he dies.

day 4: (again: the snakes had enough time to completely regenerate and Zahhak’s wounds are already healed) Daryun kills both snakes and dies.

day 4: FINALLY, Arslan doesn’t wait until the snakes have regenerated. But too bad, he dies, too.

Do you see how ridiculous this is??????

Everyone’s so extremely dumb in this book and I just hated it.

[themattress]

My Disliked Pokemon Adventures Arcs

I love Pokemon Adventures, but there are three arcs that I don’t care for at all: the Ruby/Sapphire Chapter, the Emerald Chapter, and the OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire Chapter.  

In other words, all the Hoenn arcs.

Why I dislike the Ruby/Sapphire Chapter:

- The tone. It’s inconsistent - it goes from a children's version of "Around the World in 80 Days" to a political thriller based around Team Aqua and Team Magma to a freaking Kaiju movie as Groudon and Kyogre wreak havoc, and none of it really gels together or works well, and I feel that this arc is the only one to have this particular problem.

- Ruby and Sapphire.  I personally don't care for Ruby and Sapphire's personalities here. I think Kusaka wanted to subvert expectations based on the characters' designs, but it's still done in a pretty hamfisted, over-the-top way, with Ruby being stereotypically feminine and flamboyant and Sapphire being stereotypically tomboyish and wild.

- The story's whole set-up is flawed. Ruby and Sapphire argue about which is better: Pokemon battles or Pokemon contests.  They make a bet to see which one can master their preferred goal in 80 days.  The problem is that this makes much less sense than an alternative bet: to have the one disparaging contests to try to master them and the one disparaging battles to try to master them.  How much more interesting would that have been? That's why I'd have had Ruby be masculine yet still end up doing and enjoying contests, while Sapphire would be feminine yet still end up doing and enjoying battles.  But if Kusaka really wanted to do them the way he did, then the contest-loving Ruby should have challenged the gyms and the battle-loving Sapphire should have performed in contests.

- The whole Ruby vs. Norman conflict. It is so forced and so badly-written.  It starts out as a thinly veiled metaphor for a bigoted father who can't accept his gay son (which is stupid since, when you strip the metaphor away, Ruby not being gay and being in love with Sapphire is kind of a big plot point later on), yet we're later expected to sympathize with Norman because it turns out he was going to allow Ruby to do contests before Ruby ran away and that he has been protecting Ruby more than Ruby knew for a long time, making him running away come off as particularly ungrateful.  But is this really a good excuse for Norman outright beating his son in a physical quarrel in which Ruby is hopelessly outclassed?  Yet Norman is still called a "good father" immediately after this! What!?

- Wally.  All the build-up he gets to being the "Emerald"-representative Dex Holder, and it amounts to absolutely nothing because he ends up having to turn in his PokeDex back to its rightful owner, an actual character named Emerald who doesn't work nearly as well as Wally would have.  What was even the point?

- Archie and Maxie.  With Archie, Kusaka gives him an interesting position as the head of Hoenn's primary TV station and thus Ty and Gabby's boss while secretly being the leader of Team Aqua, but his personality is all wrong - he is now Faux Affably Evil rather than genuinely Affably Evil, ruthless to the point of discarding (even lethally) his own grunts in order to get what he wants, which Archie from the games would never do, ever.  Maxie's personality is on point, but his position as a total shut-in at his cavernous lair undermines him as a character, since in the games he's a badass who is just as active with his team as Archie is because he's just as committed to his extreme vision of a new world.  They get worse when they decide to team up to awaken Groudon and Kyogre, despite knowing the risks and the fact that they'll have to betray one another in the end, anyway.  But then they get driven mad and even flat-out possessed by the Orbs they are holding and seemingly get killed.  But then they show up still alive in the end for one pointless final battle, no longer possessed but evidently permanently insane and sadistic. They meet an unceremonious defeat within an electrical forcefield.  This is a severe bastardization of the well-intentioned extremists from the games, who were the series’ first (somewhat) fleshed-out villains!  Just what was Kusaka thinking?

- Tabitha's design. Seriously, wtf!?  I get that Tabitha didn't exactly have the most interesting of designs in the games, but you could have come up with better than this!

- Courtney. When she first shows up, she's fine. But then she faces Ruby one-on-one, and we get a very uncomfortable one-sided flirtatious dynamic, with Courtney finding Ruby "interesting" due to him being an innocent, beauty-loving Coordinator like she used to be before becoming an evil pyromaniac (a backstory and transition which is never explained, btw!)  She then gets so obsessed with Ruby that she looks up all sorts of personal info on him before getting called back on her mission, in which she takes innocent people hostage and threatens to kill them in order to avoid being defeated by Roxanne - a low, cowardly action.  So we're supposed to dislike her, right?  Well, apparently not, since she receives an abrupt redemption as she helps Ruby in stopping Groudon and Kyogre, even at the cost of her own life until the Celebi Ex Machina happens.  Very little about this character adds up, yet she receives the most exposure and supposed "development" out of any of the villains in this arc. I was so sick of her at the end that I wish she'd just stayed dead in the Cave of Origins - or better yet, back when Ruby dropped her into a flaming inferno at Rusturf Tunnel!

- Shelly's disappearance.  Shelly came off as more likable than Courtney, and yet not only did she not receive as much paneltime, but she also just disappears without explanation. Following her defeat at the hands of Winona and Flannery, who she had good adversarial chemistry with, she retreats on a Vibrava and is never seen again.  She's the only villain to not receive a conclusive ending at the end of the arc, and that really bugs me.

- Matt. Apparently, Kusaka thought it would be too boring if he was just the generic tough guy he was in the games, so he made him more sensitive and accident-prone, which should have made him more sympathetic.  But like Courtney, he really isn't, particularly when he attempts to drown Sapphire and Flannery and set a Sharpedo on them, grinning and laughing with maniacal glee while doing so.  Kusaka must’ve realized this by the end, since he's ultimately left to die (by drowning, karmically enough) - and unlike with Amber, nobody saves him.

- Ruby crosses the line.  Late into the arc, after Kyogre and Groudon are awoken, Ruby pulls a two-punch move that kills all likability his character had. First, he refuses to swallow his pride and call off the bet in order to join Sapphire in saving all of Hoenn when she pleads with him to, flat-out saying he doesn't care about what happens and just wants to keep doing contests. Sapphire is understandably pissed about this extreme display of selfishness. What's worse, afterward he blames his Feebas, whom it looked like he was coming around to liking for a while, for losing a contest and kicks it out of his party, yelling about how it's weak and ugly.  Yes, Ruby played the "You're not beautiful enough for me!" card well before Lusamine did!  How am I supposed to root for this guy after this?  I don't care if he felt remorseful afterward, this was too selfish and mean-spirited for him to come back from.

- Ruby and Sapphire's backstory. OK, this was just stupid.  Out of nowhere, it's revealed that Ruby and Sapphire actually knew each other as children and don't recognize each other in the present day.  Even worse, we find out that the reason they developed the personalities they have was because of a misunderstanding - a Salamance attacked Sapphire, and Ruby viciously fought it off all by himself, at the cost of getting a scar.  He and Sapphire were separated afterward, leading Ruby to think he traumatized her with his viciousness and becoming more gentle and feminine as a result, while Sapphire thought that Ruby must have gotten in trouble (in addition to getting hurt) because of her weakness and becoming more rough and tomboyish as a result.  Really now? That's what we're going with?  Ruby and Sapphire's romance, IMO, would have been much more engaging without this "bombshell”.

- Groudon vs. Kyogre.  This starts with round 53, in the fifth volume.  It ends with round 83, in the eigth volume.  So that's 30 chapters of this big climactic event happening!  It just goes on, and on, and on!  What's worse, it keeps getting sidetracked by other things, like the Gym Leaders fighting the Aqua and Magma Admins, or Norman training Wally, or Ruby and Sapphire's quarrel and reconciliation and backstory reveal, or the introduction of Juan and his training program on Mirage Island, or Courtney's whole Redemption Equals Death...and then, even after Groudon and Kyogre are finally put to rest, we get another climax when Archie and Maxie turn up alive and ready for one more battle!  It just never seems to end!

- Sapphire being locked in the car during the big climax. Fuck you too, Ruby!

- The infamous Celebi Ex Machina.  So, after that prolonged climax, we have had three casualties: Courtney, Norman and Steven.  That seems fitting - you shouldn't do such a huge, lengthy, perilous event and have no prices be paid at the end of it all.  But nope - Ruby reveals that he's had Celebi all this time, and uses it to do some time mumbo-jumbo and resurrect all three characters.  This remains one of the most criticized parts of the entire manga series, since it's such cheap writing and feels like a slap in the face to readers who read through this arc.  It was completely unnecessary - Courtney never appears again and Norman doesn’t do anything that couldn’t have been done by another character, so it's fine for them to stay dead.  And as for Steven, his father could just resurrect him in the OR/AS arc with the whole Infinite Energy / Ultimate Weapon ritual that he is canonly well-versed in.

- Finally, the arc's length and what came from it.  This arc taking so long, particularly due to the Groudon and Kyogre battle getting so dragged out, screwed the entire manga's schedule over for the next decade.  Gen IV started and Gen III was nowhere close to being wrapped up in the manga.  Gen V started and Gen IV was nowhere close to being wrapped up in the manga.  Gen VI started and Gen V was nowhere close to being wrapped up in the manga. Only with Gen VI have we finally gotten back on track, with the manga wrapping its Gen VI arc just as that generation came to a close - and even then, we still have yet to see Gen V's B2/W2 arc conclude.  And it's all thanks to this one, long, BAD story arc.

Why I dislike the Emerald Chapter:

- Emerald himself.  There is almost nothing likable about this guy.  He's a battle fanatic who only cares about Pokemon as tools of battle, he's an insensitive jerk to everyone around him, he's got a very unappealing design, and he's actually freakishly short (and his sensitivity about this is nowhere near as funny as Ed Elric's.)  The worst part is that Wally was supposed to have his role, but for some reason or other, Kusaka became convinced that he needed to pull a Yellow and create an original character with the game's name, and that Wally is too gentle to fit in the Battle Frontier...which is exactly why Wally would be so interesting in the role, and it would fit his development from the games (even more emphasized in OR/AS) and this very manga!  

- The tone. It's by-the-numbers shonen action style.  C'mon, Kusaka - you're better than this!

- The big twist.  It turns out that Emerald is actually under hire from Professor Oak and Kris to catch Jirachi so that it can use its wish-granting powers to revive Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and Silver from the petrified state they were inexplicably left in at the end of the previous arc. The problem is that everyone predicted this already, and it makes it seem like the whole reason that cliffhanger was even put in to begin with was to make the Emerald Chapter more "epic", like the Gold/Silver/Crystal Chapter.  It didn't work, at all.

- Ruby and Sapphire return.  As if things couldn't get any worse when it comes to the main character, he ends up having to deal with Ruby and Sapphire inserting themselves in as his teammates midway through the arc.  Their already excessive stereotyped personalities are even worse here - they seem to have gone through Flanderization, and it’s annoying.

- Guile Hideout.  Nothing about this arc's villain works.  It's a lone man in knight-like armor with the absolutely stupid name of "Guile Hideout", who wants to capture Jirachi for his own evil purposes. Again, it's a blatant attempt to copy the epic quality of the Gold/Silver/Crystal Chapter and its Mask of Ice.  They even throw in a red herring and make it look like Guile Hideout is actually the resident old man, Spencer, just as Mask of Ice was Pryce.  But nope, the villain's true identity is actually....Archie!?  And he's even crazier and more evil than before - the armor he's wearing is space armor that keeps him from dying as an aftereffect of his possession by the Orb and he murdered Maxie in cold blood to get it.  And now he wants to create a demonic version of Kyogre and take over the world?  Kusaka, just stop it, please!  You've fucked this character up enough already.

Why I dislike the OmegaRuby/AlphaSapphire Chapter:

- The Delta Episode. The postgame scenario of OR/AS is the basis for the arc.  I did not like that scenario in the game, and while there are a good number of improvements made to it in the manga, I still can't say I like it.  There is just so much about the plot that feels contrived, from the Draconid tribe we'd never heard of until now to the Grand Meteor Delta itself that we're supposed to believe is a threat to the entire planet even though the Pokemon World has survived worse before.  Kusaka did his best, but he can't fully salvage this.

- Zinnia's Villain Sue-dom.  I love Zinnia, but her use in this arc was iffy.  It keeps in that she was undercover in Team Aqua and Team Magma, and that her guidance was crucial for Archie and Maxie to discover how to awaken Kyogre and Groudon...but without the stipulation the games had about it being in an alternate timeline, thus making Zinnia responsible for the villains' plans in the R/S arc.  If this wasn't enough, it turns out it was her Salamance that attacked Ruby and Sapphire as children, caused the trauma that made them change their personalities, caused Ruby to get scarred, caused Rayquaza to escape and Norman to take the blame in order to protect Ruby...all of that (with Rayquaza escaping being retconned into being the goal all along rather than a freak accident Ruby caused, meaning that Norman did what he did for nothing).  So Zinnia is literally responsible for everything that went wrong in the R/S arc.  Every bad thing that ever happened in Ruby and Sapphire's lives can now be summed up with "THANKS, ZINNIA!"

- Emerald's new design. OK, I take back the criticism I had for his old design being unappealing.  This one's even worse.  Kill it with fire! 

- Archie and Maxie. Didn't see this one coming - it turns out that Archie and Maxie's spirits were somehow transported to the Distortion World due to the supernatural nature of their deaths, merged together and then split apart, which cured them of their evil and insanity. Now resurrected into new bodies (their OR/AS designs), they are finally in-character and finally get to redeem themselves before dying again.  While I should be pleased with this, and to some extent I am, the convoluted way it happens and that it had to happen at all only reminds me of how badly Kusaka botched these two in the first place. Sometimes I question if they weren't better off just being left dead and forgotten about.

- The Codenames.  How does Kusaka work in the OR/AS designs of Shelly, Matt, Courtney and Tabitha?  He has them show up as entirely seperate characters, and reveal that "Shelly", "Matt", "Courtney", and "Tabitha" are actually codenames that Admins of Team Aqua and Team Magma use, and that they weren't the real names of the originals either.  Lame!

- Crazy Rayquaza. In the R/S arc, Rayquaza was unquestionably a heroic Pokemon.  In this arc, however, it's suddenly prone to mood swings of psychotic anger, and it keeps switching from a protagonist Pokemon to an antagonist Pokemon at the drop of a hat.  This, along with it eventually doing battle with Deoxys, calls "Destiny Deoxys" to mind - and I don't want to be reminded of that crappy movie!

- Needless Relationship Drama. For no good reason, Ruby decides to start keeping secrets from Sapphire, until he suddenly doesn't and starts being open with her.  In between is all the expected relationship drama between the two, and it all feels so forced.

Now, let me say that none of these arcs are actually bad by regular manga standards, IMO, and there are also several things I like about each one.  And Kusaka doesn’t half ass-it, he always tries his best.  It’s just that the bad stuff overshadows the good stuff for me, and that by the standards of this usually excellent manga series, they fall disappointingly short.  

[sending-the-message]

Truth or dare, or how I french kissed a corpse by LithiumLidya

This story itself started rather innocently, as a game of truth or dare. For those who aren't familiar (if such people exist), it's a game where you spin a bottle and whoever gets heads can ask a question or give a dare to the person who got tails. There are variations from place to place (such as a limited number of truths or an inversion of the head/tails axis), but in essence, that's it. What's more important, however, it's the people here involved.

I may have to say that no locations will be provided, and all names are fake. You can call me Lidya, for a start.

The school year ended in early July, as usual, and the end of high school meant most of us were going to different colleges, different countries even, and we would probably never see each other ever again. It wasn't a big deal for me, since I wasn't close to many of my classmates. However, one of my closest classmates wasn't okay with that. Magdalene is an emotional person, one to get attached easily, and she wanted us to reunite for one last time during this August, before the start of classes in college in September.

Am I friends with Magdalene? Not exactly. It's a complicated story; before certain events we never talked, exactly. During earlier years of high school, she was bullied pretty badly because one time, she broke her nose and it became crooked a la Owen Wilson. It ended up being so bad that she actually got a nose job later, but even though she forgave them for what they did, I didn't. I was one of the few who stood up for her most of the times, and we were on good terms, but nothing more. Until one day she appeared outside during break, where Eric (my childhood friend/lover/friends with benefits) and I used to go for our deep and pretentious philosophical conversations, and decided we were friends. I think it's more gratitude of her than anything, but whatever. She extended this gratitude towards Eric as well and so this semi friendship came to be.

Our place of reunion was a classmate's, Claire, house. Her parents were traveling, as most people do during summer, and she lived quite far from the downtown area, so the neighbors wouldn't be so close to complain about the noise; besides, she had a pretty big house. Most of our classmates didn't come, though: some were on vacation, some already preparing for university, some had left the city or the country... In the end, only nine of us, including myself, could come; less than half of our class, actually.

I suppose this is an oportune moment to present you to the characters of that night. You already know me: Lidya, your narrator, pleasure to meet you. Then we have Eric and Magdalene, both already mentioned. In sequence, we have Claire, class president, and her boyfriend and source of Magdalene's greatest angst, Adam. We also have Aglaé and Edgar, the twins, Sebastian, Edgar's friend, and Léon, who happened to be Magdalene's crush. In fact, it looks so painfully bland that you could slide us as typical teenagers, your perfect horror movie cast.

Our reunion started with drinking. I don't drink alcohol, so thankfully they had soda in there, but almost everyone drank exclusively alcohol. At some point someone suggested that we should play truth or dare and we all agreed, for whatever reason. The game started innocent enough: who was your crush, have you ever cheated in an exam... Nothing out of ordinary. Then we all became sleepy, and before I could imagine, we all fell asleep.

You can imagine my surprise when I woke up handcuffed to Eric in the basement. But that wasn't even the scariest part: there was a body in the middle of the room.

The body was from one of our classmates, Léon. He had been stabbed in the chest, and blood stained the once pristine grey carpet. Our other classmates were there as well. We were handcuffed in pairs, except, of course, for the body.

We all searched for our phones, but it was pointless, they were nowhere to be seen. However, during our search, we found a recorder in Léon's pocket. Who even has a recorder in 2017? Apparently, the murderer... It was both anticlimactic and terrifying at the same time, in a completely uncanny way, to find such an outdated thing in a dark basement inside a pocket from a dead person's jeans. The whole scene felt so surreal that even remembering it now leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I really thought it could be a prank, until Adam got over Léon to get the recorder back and just said: "oh my God, it's real! He's dead, it's real blood!".

Evaluating this now, I already knew we were doomed. Deep in my bones, the worst and most intense fear I've ever felt took me over. Léon was dead, and soon enough it wouldn't be the most frightening experience of that unholy night.

But we ended up listening to the recorded tape, for lack of option.

"Hello. I want to play a game. If you don't follow my instructions, all of you will die. Listen and do as instructed. In this room, there's a corpse of one of your classmates. Next to him, is a bottle filled with papers, each should take the paper written with your name, but don't open it yet."

I wasn't feeling this Jigsaw bullshit, but considering how obedient everyone else was, I was left with no choice.

"Now you will play truth or dare. Head asks, tails answers. In your paper, there's a question for truth you should read out loud and answer truthfully. I don't like cheating and I already know all the answers for those questions. In case you would rather have a dare... Each paper also has a dare written for someone else. Whoever has the dare directed at you should read it out loud and well... You should do it.", the stranger said. It was pretty obvious that his voice had been altered, like what they do to witnesses on TV.

"And why should we do this, you sick fuck?", Claire's boyfriend, Adam, said, screaming at the recorder.

Almost if it predicted our question, our answer came. "Why should you do this? Because I am outside this door right now and I'll kill you if you don't."

Chills ran down my spine as we got up to see the door. We screamed for help as if there was no tomorrow: the basement was below ground level and its windows were too tiny for a baby to pass through. The door was locked with heavy chains and padlocks from the basement side, and something heavy was blocking it from even moving from the other side. There was no way out.

"But I shall remember you... Once you use up your truth, there's only dare to pick. Start now."

I opened my paper to read what was written. Let's just say that the question was something I wouldn't ever answer to unless my life was in danger. I was hoping the dares wouldn't be as fucked as this question, but once the bottle started spinning, I doubted my choice was right. The bottle landed on two known figures: Eric as heads, Adam as tails.

"Truth or dare?", Eric asked.

The answer surprised us far more than we expected. Adam was always know for his bravery and cockery, but it seems that his fear got the best of him. "Truth.", Adam said. He took some time before reading the question. "Does your girlfriend knows... About the time you sexually assaulted someone?"

It caused an uprising between us. This is a serious accusation, and well, you might already know that I have a low tolerance for this kind of trash. His answer, though, only made everything worse. "No."

Claire was pissed as fuck, and two others had to hold her down. "When were you planning on telling me you're a fucking rapist, Adam? Holy shit, I can't believe this. Tell me this is a lie, tell me."

"It's not... I-I...", he pleaded, crying. Utter disgust filled me, and now I was the one who wanted to fuck him up. "I-I'm sorry, Magdalene, about that day, I...".

Oh, the plot twist.

Magdalene started crying immediatly, as loudly as a human being could. "WAS IT YOU? OH MY GOD, NO!"

Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold. The punches and slaps she gave him after this revelation was much less than he deserved. Eric tried to calm her down, but frankly, he knew that she had every fucking right to fuck him up and I'd gladly help.

Second round. Aglaé gets heads, Sebastian gets tails. Dare, he says. His dare was to receive a punch from the person of his choice; he chose Aglaé, who took it easy on him. Third round. Edgar gets heads, Claire gets tails. Dare, she says. Her dare was to be tied up from her wrists and ankles for the upcoming round.

Fourth round. Magdalene gets heads, Edgar gets tails. Truth, he says. His question didn't regard a particulary sensitive topic: "how do you feel after flooding the bathrooms to avoid a Math test?". He said he didn't feel particulary happy about it, but didn't regret. Fifth round. Aglaé gets heads, Eric gets tails. Dare, he says.

"I dare you to be stabbed by the person of your choice in this room.", Magdalene read the paper with a trembling voice. There was a knife next to Léon's corpse, stained with blood. His blood.

"Who do you choose?", Adam asked.

"Lidya.", Eric said.

Out of all the choices he could make, he made the smartest, even though not what I hoped for. I have to say that stabbing someone you love is really hard, and the more I thought about it, the more my hands seemed to shake in pure dread. I could kill him. A simple mistake and I could kill him. He prepared himself, holding my tights as firmly as he could.

But, being me, I made the safest choice and stabbed him in the left arm, his non dominant side, and not deeply. He screamed so loudly that I was deafened for a moment. As he later explained, he trusted me to find a loophole in the set dare and save him, and I'd say I'm very honored by his trust, especially because I was nowhere near my right mind to make sensible decisions. Blood squirted over me, and we made a bandage out of his ripped shirt to stop the bleeding.

There was a big silence following this incident. Eric was still shaking, and so were my hands. For someone who never thought I could be able to hurt someone, I proved myself wrong in the most despicable way possible.

But the game must go on. Sixth round. Claire gets heads, I get tails. I chose dare.

My dare was to french kiss the corpse for thirty seconds.

If it isn't luck to get the most fucked up dare of all. Of course I tried to find my way out of doing this, but it was too late. I knocked on the door to speak to the bastard behind it. "Hey, can I change from dare to truth?". No answer. I tried to plead and bargain, and flat out refused, until I saw that the door had a little creak open. I could see chains securing it from the inside, but also a gun pointed directly towards me coming from the outside. Good argument, buddy, sorry to bother you.

The worst part about kissing a corpse is not the smell (considering this was a very fresh body, the only recognizable smell was Léon's minty cologne). Oh no. It's like kissing a bad kisser, who doesn't move their tongue at all... But with blood. So much blood coming through his mouth and flowing through mine that I had to spit it out before I got to the first ten seconds. I vaguely remember hearing screams as I spat out blood, but I assume my brain shut down due to the circunstances or else I would have either thrown up or passed out.

I went through it somehow, until the moment when Léon's corpse started to kiss me back.

[ethekitchenator]

Some thoughts...

Alright, I’ve given this a couple of days, mostly because I’ve been upset and angry over the whole thing (and still am) but am more reasonable in moving to talk about it.

This contains Supernatural spoilers, so, just be aware.  It is also quite long (I’m a writer okay?  It’s expected).

Now, I want to start this by saying that season 12 has probably been the most disappointing season so far.  This season felt as if it was rushed and as if the writers had no idea where they were going with it and trying to fill in bits and pieces as they went.  Not only that, but it felt as if the writers didn’t know, or even try to know their characters at all.  Sam and Dean, maybe, but Castiel and Crowley, definitely not.  I honestly don’t know how they’ve gone so wrong.

Between the BMOL storyline and the Lucifer’s baby storyline, in my opinion, the season has been nothing short of a joke, with maybe one or two good episodes.  Both storylines could’ve provided so much potential, and in all honesty, could’ve very easily combined into one very good storyline.  

The BMOL people, were mostly just arseholes that had no character development (except Mick who deserved a lot more than what he got) and, in all honesty, were just damned frustrating.  I don’t believe, ever, that Sam and Dean would’ve ever worked with them, especially with what happened at the start of the season, I don’t care what was offered, I don’t think it would’ve happened.  Those first few episodes were enough to show that BMOL had no interest in fixing things.  They just wanted control.  They wanted to prove that they were better.  They wanted to just destroy virtually everything that the boys had ever done.

So it was frustrating when the boys worked with them.

Now, the Lucifer storyline, this has to be the one that really upset me the most.  If you had asked me after season 5/6, I would’ve easily agreed that he was a very underutilised villain and that they got rid of him way too early.  I was excited when he was back for season 11, and while slightly disappointed that it was Misha playing the role (don’t get me wrong, he did amazing), it was still decently handled.  This season though, this season has truly been nothing short of a joke.  I don’t think I’ve ever sat through more of a frustrating storyline and seen nothing but a weird conglomeration of his character that craps on the others for no particular reason except and ‘oh, it’s his character’ ideal.

I didn’t expect it to get worse.

Now, Lucifer becoming the President, at first I was a little stunned and then very curious about where they could take this.  I mean, they could’ve gone down the road of Lucifer showing the world what existed, would’ve brought the two storylines easily together as well as brought in a lot of conflict for the mains (I’m not saying it should’ve gone like that, but it was a path they could’ve gone down).  But then, my god, then they went down Lucifer having a baby.  I mean, first, yeah, I was interested, I wanted to know where it was going and what they were going to do with it.  The nephilim concept was something that was always brought up but never really used.

But then it began to be used to just shit all over other characters.

Mostly, of course, Crowley.  Now, I will admit, I’m a huge fan of Crowley, I think he is one of the most complicated characters on the show and that he brings a characterisation that it needs to keep going.  The way that he was treated this season though, was nothing short of a joke.  It doesn’t take much to see that the writers wanted to completely ignore the way the character works and acts and just went the worst possible options so that they could solely try and write him out of the show.

Sadly, I think it’s worked.

I’ll get back to that in a moment.

As we got towards the end of the season, I sat there in sheer shock as I watched the writing seem to get worse, and it made me furious as both a fan and writer that they would dare to treat the show and characters this way.  I kept watching simply because I am a fan of the show, have been for a while, but it was with great trepidation that I watched the finale.

Episode 22 actually resolved things pretty nicely for the BMOL storyline.  It had some good elements and good moments that made it feel like a decent resolution.

Then we got to episode 23.

I just...I couldn’t really believe what I was watching.  Out of everything, I was not expecting them to suddenly bring in an alternate universe, and from that moment on (among other things) I think I pretty much decided I was done with the show.  It shows desperation in writing, especially when they had so many other options available to go with.  An alternate universe.  I was sitting there in stunned, furious silence, because, in all honesty, it’s utter bullshit and nothing but a cheap excuse for writing, and I honestly don’t think I can watch an entire season where that is going to be the plotline, not even to mention the weird manbaby (which again, nothing but poor writing) that is supposedly more powerful than anything we’ve seen before (apart from Chuck and Amara).

If there’s one thing that kills a show (unless a part of the original storyline) it’s an alternate universe, especially one that is clearly going to just be an excuse to try and bring back some old characters.  Bobby’s return was, I’m sorry if you disagree, nothing short of cheap.  The Bobby in this universe could’ve easily been brought back, after all, we never saw what the angels did to him.  It was never gone back to.  Just another plot hole in the massive slew that just keeps growing bigger.  I would’ve happier if the rumours/discussion of it being purgatory were true, I think it would’ve worked out so much better for them and still opened up cause for them to bring back characters.

Okay, now let’s go into the character deaths.  Supernatural has always been a show that is known for killing of characters, but the mains aren’t ones that stay dead.  Now, this season in general has been piss poor in the handling character deaths, I think the only one that was handled well was Ketch (although I have a theory that he’s not dead, despite not really liking his character).

I was furious over Rowena and Eileen’s deaths.

Something that Supernatural lacks is a regular, strong, female character.  Jody and Claire are awesome and could easily be used more, but they aren’t regular, and in fact, I was almost expecting them to die too the way the season was going.  But Rowena and Eileen...

Eileen was brilliant character when they first introduced her, she was a good balance for Sam and Dean and I was quite sad when they didn’t keep using her.  When she was brought in again, I was happy, but then, as most character this season, she was only, and I literally mean ONLY, brought in to kill her.  That’s not how you treat a character.  THAT’S NOT HOW YOU TREAT A CHARACTER.

Then, Rowena.  The perfect clash with Crowley, with a brilliant possible storyline.  To disrespect her the way they did, killing her off screen and to advance the shitty manbaby storyline, was just disgusting.  I completely agreed when Crowley stated that he thought he would be the one to kill her, as much as I believe he wouldn’t have done it, it would’ve been the only thing that felt possibly right.  But no, she’d ignored most of the season, and the writers couldn’t be fucked in trying to find a way of fitting her comfortably back in.

Okay, now, I know I’ve mentioned Crowley already, I’m still not done, but let me get to Castiel first.  Again, he was someone that was written so poorly this season, that I was getting frustrated.  Castiel, next to Crowley, is one of my favourite characters, but I was beginning to hate seeing him on screen.  I grew tired of seeing him like that.  Now, his death was expected, as was Crowley’s, but in all seriousness, why the hell would Castiel go back through the portal?  It didn’t achieve anything, it was a completely pointless venture that only served one purpose.

To overshadow Crowley’s death.

I honestly don’t think the writers/producers/directors/whoever understand how important a character Crowley was/is to the show, and to treat it so badly, instantly overshadowing his death with the death of one of the most loved characters show was just wrong.  Now, I was upset when Castiel died, I was, but it’s already been clearly said he’ll be back.  They’ve made the mistake of killing him off before and it killed ratings, so Castiel was never in danger of dying permanently.

But Crowley is a different story.

He’s been treated so badly this season that I pretty much knew it was coming.  I knew what the writers were leading up to and it just made me start to hate the show.  I know that, as a writer, you are expected to treat your characters cruelly at some point, it’s one of the many ways you can get character progression, but I know, that you never, never, treat them poorly to the point that you lose their characterisation and personality.  Crowley, at the end, became nothing.  He was purposefully abused by Lucifer, I mean, that dancing and face pulling was fucking ridiculous and uncalled for and the plot made no sense as to how that suddenly happened.  I mean, to have him working with the BMOL was bad enough, giving them a Hell Hound (I mean, seriously?) was awful, no matter what interest there was in England.  But then, for the rest of what happened...it all showed how little the creators think that Crowley means to the show.

Now, I’m still under the belief that Crowley isn’t dead.  A part from the lack of body at the end, there are other reasons I have for knowing that Crowley isn’t dead.  What gives me concern, are the posts from Mark Sheppard and further posts onwards.  By the sounds of it, he really is quitting the show the show this time round, and in all honesty, I wouldn’t blame him.  From what I’ve heard, it’s not just his character that they have been disrespecting, but him too, and no one deserves that treatment.  If it truly is over, then I wish him all the best, as does all his fans, because he really has brought something special to the show, something that will be irreplaceable.  It was a balance that the show needed and I honestly think that it will suffer greatly without him there, to the point that it will most likely kill it entirely.

For a show that has been running so long, I would expect better, but I think this season has proved that they are incapable of keeping it going.  They don’t care about the storyline, they have no idea where they are going with it, they don’t understand the characters and I honestly don’t think they really care about the fans.  It’s such a sad thing to see a show I’ve loved, that means so much to me, so much to a lot of us, go this way, but I’m not sure that there’s going to be a way out of it.

It’s something that is sadly wrong with the TV industry (I won’t go too much into it) but with writers, their roles aren’t set.  This means that multiple writers have control over a show’s story and it’s characters.  There may be a couple of key writers, but this does not change the fact that almost every episode, at varying points across a season, are written by different people.  It means that the creative control isn’t as strong as it should be.  As someone that is writing two of my own tv shows, I know how important this is, and it terrifies me that if they ever go into production, that I will lose that control and it will get out of hand in a way that’s irreparable.  In all honesty, I think that the only thing that will save Supernatural is a fresh look on it with a small team of writers.  It’s been made clear that the current ones can’t handle it.  Even as I say this, that I’m ready to stop watching the show because of everything that has happened and the direction it’s going, if I was offered to write on it, I would take it in a heart beat.  Not only because it’s my dream career, but because I love these characters and would do everything in my power to my make sure that they are treated accordingly, as I do with my own characters.

I’m still so sad and angry about all this, and I honestly don’t think it will go away anytime soon.  I could definitely go on more about Crowley, but I think the fandom is angry enough over that my point get’s across.  Sorry that this has been so long, and thank you if you read it all, but I just needed to say all this to get it off my chest, even if it doesn’t fix anything.

[riverofmemoriesft]

. Obsessive Impulsive . 16

Full Summary: “‘I’ve been trying to find you alone for weeks, but you’ve been avoiding me.’  He clicked his tongue, as if scolding her.  'I tried approaching, but you always had someone with you to give me nasty words and looks.  They turned you against me, Miss Levy.’"

Pairings: Gajeel x Levy

Warnings: I strode for a darker fic again.  This is not for sensitive readers.  Violence, stalking, etc.  

Author’s Note: This is a very, very twisted gift for Bubbles, who has not been allowed to so much as read a single chapter.  This will update every other day.

Levy flinched as she moved too quickly, her shoulder throbbing with agony. It was on fire, and when she moved the bandage aside, she saw that it looked anything but ready to heal. She thought about using it to get Elroy to maybe let her go, but didn't dare try just yet. If he lost his temper…

Well. She was kind of trapped in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no way of escaping and no one to hear her screams.

She took a deep breath and rolled onto her side. Elroy had locked her into the room again for whatever reason, and her shoulder ached too much to attempt an escape for the time being. There was no way out here in this room. She'd hunted up and down the walls for a good portion of the night before.

Levy carefully sat up, propping herself up with a grimace. She listened.

Silence.

Elroy wasn't there.

She climbed out of the bed and immediately made her way over to the door. She touched it with care, getting a feel for any magic. She couldn't use her own with the cuff on her wrist, but it didn't mean she couldn't sense it. She didn't feel anything and tried the knob.

Locked.

So, she retreated back into the room, seeking out any pens or pencils. Written magic could be used by anyone, if used properly. And she just so happened to have memorized one for unlocking - specifically for situations like this.

She was utterly shocked when she found a quill and some ink displayed on a shelf. In tribute to her alongside empty pieces of parchment, Levy guessed. Courtesy of Elroy; a form of entertainment. Scowling, Levy pulled it down. She dipped the quill into the small container and then took a deep breath and took the quill to the door.

Levy scrawled the spell out without faltering, eyes blazing. The lock clicked open as she pulled her quill away. Her hazel eyes narrowed as she peeked her head out of the room. She nodded to herself and padded softly into the other room. She looked around, listening. No sign of Elroy.

Levy scampered further into the room and went to work on investigating, seeking a way out of the cabin. She bit her lip when she found nothing of use and wondered if, with the way he'd miraculously used written magic, he had used some kind of disguising magic to trap her there.

Frustrated, Levy decided to retreat for the time being.

Elroy would be back soon, and she had nothing.

Nothing but a cuff that sealed her magic away.

Gajeel stared openly at the cabin as the sun set. He'd seen no change throughout the day, Lily returning late into the evening with instructions from Makarov to do as he saw fit. The pair had long since fallen silent, simply watching.

He'd seen movement in the windows, and he'd made a low sound deep in his throat at the flash of familiar blue. Levy was certainly in there. She couldn't get out, he was willing to bet, but at least she was alive.

"When do we strike?" Lily asked, sharpening his small sword.

Gajeel mulled over the thought and then decided, "Not tomorrow. We need to make sure we've got some kinda schedule set out. Elroy's too fuckin' perfect. Ain't no way in hell he doesn't have a schedule. We'll watch tomorrow and maybe the next day. Then we'll figure out how to get in. Figure out how to tell Levy we're here. Might leave that up to you. One look and she'll know. Won't even have to say a word."

"That would be nice," Lily replied with a tinge of amusement in his voice, "had I not seen detection spells written into the walls and carved into the ground surrounding the hut."

Gajeel stared at him with blank crimson eyes and then snarled, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"I hate this man," Lily mused, "but we must give him credit for preparation. He sure knows how to keep a dragon slayer and Exceed out."

"I hate this man," Gajeel grunted, "and I'm gonna laugh as I rip his fucking throat out. Anyone else in the guild know somethin' about written spells?"

Lily thought over it. "Lucy perhaps. Natsu, maybe, but from Lucy, so he'd be pointless in asking. A few of the S-Class mages might know some information, particularly Freed, but he's away with the Thunder Legion and Laxus...Droy and Jet might have picked something up from Levy."

Lucy would be clever, he supposed. "Grab Bunny Girl. Tell Wendy to head out to the crazy old hag and see what she might know about gettin' past 'em."

"Are you just going to watch?"

"The hell am I gonna do with those spells written there?" Gajeel was exasperated. "I ain't stupid, Lil'."

"Well,I mean, look how long it took you to kiss Le - okay, okay, I'm leaving." Lily sprung into the air before Gajeel could grab him. He smirked at his glaring friend. "I'll be back in the morning. Watch your back."

And then he flew away and Gajeel bared his teeth, settling down to watch. His sharp crimson eyes saw blue in the window again and a furious and worried feeling flooded him as he watched from the trees.

Gajeel wondered if she knew he was there.

"...ugh," he finally muttered, sitting back. He'd turned into a goddamn sap over the shrimp, and quite frankly, it was pissing him off. Once upon a time, he would have charged straight in there without thinking - even if it killed her.

Even if it killed him.

But knowing that it'd hurt her in ways far more terrible than physical wounds or illness...he didn't dare let himself get killed. Hurt, sure. Maimed, hell yes if it meant getting her out. But not dead, never dead.

Movement outside of the cabin caught his attention. "Fucker," he sneered as he saw Elroy slip out of the trees and approach the cabin. Gajeel ducked down and leaned forward, paying close attention. He swore under his breath when he saw him disappear behind the cabin. Slinking low, Gajeel made his way around to the back and swore again when he realized he'd missed it. Grumbling, Gajeel settled down to wait.

"I hate this," he muttered.

And fell silent, eyes locked on the cabin.

Levy couldn't figure out why she couldn't sleep, but she could have sworn that she'd seen shadows darting this way and that in the woods. She felt as if someone was watching her.

Of course, that might have been Elroy, too. She wouldn't put it past him to watch her sleep.

She hated it. And him. She especially hated him.

Levy turned over onto her good side with care. Sweat dampened her hair and she pushed her bangs irritably out of her eyes. She was flushed, feverish. It had set in only hours before, and she knew without a doubt that if she didn't get proper medical help soon, it would end badly. She blinked blearily.

She wanted to go home, damn it!

Taking a deep breath, Levy forced herself to close her eyes and relax. Stressing herself out would get her nowhere. Elroy had apologetically told her he had something to do tomorrow. She'd search the space again then. See if she'd missed anything. Maybe go to work on scrawling out runes that might break her out.

Or send off a signal.

Breaking a window might help.

Levy blinked and climbed out of the bed, stumbling to the barred window of her room. She expertly checked the width of her hips against the width between bars, of her head, to see-

Levy grinned.

She could fit through the bars.

"I just," she mumbled under her breath, studying the spell that had been scratched into the glass, "have to figure out how to puzzle out a new spell and fix it..."

If she could redo the spell into one that would shatter it - maybe even the wall - she could leave.

Levy nodded to herself and returned to bed. Rather than wasting time seeking an escape, that's what she'd do. She'd break herself out through a simple window. She curled up on top of the covers and thought only of her friends, family, and Gajeel.

Particularly Gajeel.

When dawn rolled around, Levy was up and smiling prettily at Elroy, her impatience nearly brimming in her eyes. She wanted him gone. Desperately. Because the second he was gone, the second she could work.

She fought down the urge to retch as he lightly took a hand in his and kissed it with cold lips. Levy stiffened, but said nothing as he said gently, "I'm sorry, Miss Levy. I'll be back later, alright? You can come out of your room later."

"I understand," she pretended to sigh miserably. "Don't take too long."

He beamed, delighted. As if he thought she was finally coming to her senses. She wanted to outright laugh at him. How stupid was he?! He touched her cheek warmly and then gently nudged her into room. Levy dropped her smile the second the door was shut and scrubbed her cheek with a look of disgust. "Ugh," she muttered.

She headed for the window, studying the spell there. "Here we are," she murmured. "A spell...saying... " She scanned it, ignoring painful throbbing in her shoulder. "If I try to break it with something...then it'll blow up in my face. So I just need to figure out how to squeeze the idea of doing nothing instead. Maybe even a soundless rune. Thank you, Freed, for your glorious teachings."

Levy continued to mumble to herself as she went to work, humming quietly, grabbing a book and cursing herself for ruining its beauty as she began to scrawl words, symbols, and more on the paper.

"Gajeel!"

"Holy fuck, Bunny Girl!" Gajeel yelped as Lucy very nearly screamed, ducking to avoid the spear of iron that came flying at her. She glared viciously at him.

"You just nearly beheaded me!" she said in a shrill voice.

"You scared the hell out of me!"

"Well, I'm sorry!" Lucy threw her hands up and then pressed a hand over her pounding heart. Her dark eyes flickered with annoyance and then worry. "Any sign of Levy?"

He shook his head. "Seen her in the cabin," he muttered as Lily settled on the ground beside them, jerking his chin towards the building. "She's alive for now. What d'ya know about written spells, Bunny Girl?"

Lucy shifted uneasily. "Not a whole lot," she admitted. "Bits and pieces. I'm not good with re-making them into something else - not like Levy is. But I can read them fairly well."

Gajeel huffed, but said nothing as he looked back at the cabin. He paused when he saw Elroy, swiftly shoving Lucy to the ground despite her protest. Lily lashed his tail and all three watched through shrubbery as Elroy paused to look around and then slid away, heading further into the forest - towards Magnolia.

"What the hell is he doing there?" Lily demanded.

"Could ya follow him?" Gajeel said, looking at him.

"I can try. He's very perceptive and will likely notice." Lily's gaze was fierce. "But I'll do it if it means helping Levy."

"Be careful," Lucy pleaded, "and hurry back. I promised Natsu I'd be back before sunset tonight."

Lily nodded, reassuring her he would be, and then flew off. Grunting, Gajeel knelt in the dirt and thoughtfully scratched out a few symbols in Draconian. "How's Salamander?"

"Not good," Lucy admitted with a defeated sigh. "He's...paranoid. Really paranoid. Every sound makes him jump, and...and he's...so…" She struggled to explain. "Dark. He hasn't smiled since Strawberry Street blew up, and he wakes up panicked in the night. I haven't gotten much sleep sitting beside him, to be honest."

Gajeel paused to look at the woman he'd reluctantly begun to call friend over the last few months. She was tired, with shadowed eyes and a haunted look. And he realized that while Levy had been Elroy's goal, he'd affected them all. "He ain't gonna get better anytime soon, Bunny Girl."

"That's what Porlyusica and even Lisanna said. Mira said the last time he was close to this is when Lisanna...died?" She paused, questioning herself, and then shook her head. "I need to get closer to see those spells...what are you doing?"

He jerked his chin at the Draconian. "Recognize these?"

She shook her head. "Should I?"

"Draconian," he explained. "Some of 'em are used in even regular spells. S'hard to sort 'em out from other languages. Thought I might have seen some etched in the larger spells on the walls."

Lucy studied them, tucking a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes. "I see. I do need to get a closer look, Gajeel."

"Well that's gonna be a fuckin' delight," he rumbled, glaring over his shoulder at the cabin. "I don't know a lot about these things, but I recognize alarms. There are sure as hell alarms. Everywhere."

"The thing about written alarms like you're talking about," Lucy said with sparkling eyes, "is that they have to be specific, and I doubt he thought to write them out for me. He was probably thinking of you and maybe Gildarts or Gray or something. I'll try and get close. If I can, I'll let Levy know we're here."

"Not all of 'em are alarms," he warned.

She smiled, standing and brushing her knees off. "I know. I'm off. Watch my back?"

He rolled his crimson eyes to the sky. "You're psychotic. Ya succeed, I'll give ya some payment."

She faltered. "How much?"

"Ya won't have to pay rent for ten years."

She beamed. "I won't fail."

Lucy set off for the cabin.

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Better Late Than Never (Dec 6)

The title of the Wednesday Ramblings is in reference to a goalie who finally earned the first shutout of his career and to a team whose defense finally scored its first goal of the season. Or maybe even to the very late hour that I am posting this.

*

I’ve written about Brayden Schenn numerous times this season, and I will be mentioning him again here. Schenn recorded a hat trick with a goal in each period in the Blues’ 4-3 win in Montreal. Considering what Schenn has provided to fantasy teams since his trade to St. Louis, it’s hard to believe that he entered this game with a five-game pointless drought. Over that stretch he still managed to take 11 shots on goal, nine hits, and six penalty minutes, so he’s filling your stocking even when he isn’t scoring.   

Linemate Jaden Schwartz assisted on two of Schenn’s goals, breaking his own three-game slump without a point. In case you hadn’t noticed, Vladimir Tarasenko has been pulled off this line (lines below from Tuesday).

20.14%  EV           SOBOTKA,VLADIMIR – STASTNY,PAUL – TARASENKO,VLADIMIR

19.79%  EV           SCHENN,BRAYDEN – SCHWARTZ,JADEN – STEEN,ALEXANDER

18.06%  EV           BRODZIAK,KYLE – JASKIN,DMITRIJ – UPSHALL,SCOTTIE

16.32%  EV           BERGLUND,PATRIK – BLAIS,SAMMY – PAAJARVI,MAGNUS

The Tank has just one point in his last four games and no goals in his last six. Considering the absolute roll that this line was on, maybe it’s inevitable that the scoring has cooled off a bit.

In a losing cause for the Habs, Shea Weber scored two goals on six shots on goal. If you add in his assist from Saturday’s game, Weber has three points in the two games since he has returned from a lower-body injury. Check out the curve on Weber’s first goal.  

Two faceoffs. Two clappers. Two goals. Too easy for Shea Weber. pic.twitter.com/5Opy3DjGUi

— HockeyNightInCanada (@hockeynight) December 6, 2017

*

Kyle Turris continues to produce, adding another two points in the Predators’ 5-2 win over Dallas. I know I mentioned the Turris/Duchene trade yesterday, but here’s another update.  

Since the trade…#Preds are 10-2-1; Turris: 12 points#Sens are 3-7-1; Duchene: 2 points

— Ryan Porth (@PorthGame) December 6, 2017

Linemate Craig Smith was held off the scoresheet, though. I mentioned Smith yesterday as a potential waiver-wire pickup, but I’ll add in a point made by Brennan in his most recent Lining Up. Smith currently holds a shooting percentage of nearly 17%, which is nearly double his career percentage of 9.6%. Still, I might add him anyway, considering that he has found instant chemistry with the newly acquired Turris. His icetime and power-play time have also increased over last season, so his stock has undoubtedly increased.

Backup Juuse Saros had an impressive game for the Preds, stopping 43 of 45 shots that he faced. Saros struggled over his first five games of the season and was even demoted to the AHL for a time. I’ll assume that he has turned the corner, so I’d still consider him for streaming starts given his impressive 2016-17 (2.35 GAA, .923 SV%).

Ben Bishop wasn’t so impressive at the other end, getting pulled in the second period after allowing three goals on 15 shots. Bishop reeled off four consecutive victories prior to this start, but his numbers have still been up and down in his first season in Dallas.

*

Yanni Gourde scored two goals in 1:34 late in the second period of the Lightning’s 6-2 win over the Islanders. Gourde had gone six games without a point, but he is within the top 10 in rookie scoring with 18 points (8g-10a) and a plus-12 in 27 games. Gourde’s 17% shooting accuracy could mean that he is due for some kind of regression, but he has emerged as a true sleeper for a Bolts’ team that scores at will, leading the league with 3.7 goals per game.

*

The Sabres needed a win badly and got one on Tuesday against Colorado. They also needed a goal from a defenseman, for which they had none from before this game. Jake McCabe took care of that, along with an assist, a plus-2, four hits, and five blocked shots. So if you’re keeping track, that means that Rasmus Ristolainen, Marco Scandella, and Nathan Beaulieu all have yet to score a goal this season.

Ristolainen was given all the time in the world to break that slump in this game, logging just over 30 minutes. Given how porous the Sabres’ defense has been (league-worst 3.44 GA/GP), I can see why. Ristolainen has been finding other reasons to stay in your fantasy lineup, including a plus-4 on Tuesday and nine shots over his last two games.

Can we call it a breakout season for Nathan MacKinnon yet? With two power-play goals on Tuesday, MacKinnon is up to 10 goals and 31 points in just 26 games. I can think of two separate instances in which I had MacKinnon queued up to pick at around 140th-150th overall in a fantasy draft, only to see him grabbed just a few picks before me. If only I picked him one round sooner.

*

Ondrej Pavelec is one goalie I make a habit of staying away from, but he was worth it on Tuesday if your league counts saves. Filling in for the ill Henrik Lundqvist, Pavelec stopped 41 of 44 shots in the Rangers’ 4-3 win over Pittsburgh. If you look at career records against a team, Pavelec might have been on the bottom of your list. Lifetime against the Penguins, Pavelec was 2-13-1 with a 4.20 GAA and .870 SV% entering this game. I’m guessing that a few of those starts were as an Atlanta Thrasher.  

Injury alert from that game: Justin Schultz left Tuesday’s game with a lower-body injury.

*

This was the wrong game for me to bench Gustav Nyquist (a two-game week for the Wings was the main reason I made that choice). Nyquist scored two goals and added an assist with a plus-4 in a 5-1 win over the red-hot Jets. Nyquist had not hit the twine in his previous eight games, so no doubt some of you did the same.

I traded for Nyquist earlier this season thinking ahead to my fantasy playoffs. (Should I make them, of course. I don’t like to piss off the fantasy hockey gods.) Like this season, Nyquist posted modest numbers throughout much of last season, then cranked it up a notch in March and April with 19 points in 20 games. With a 5on5 SH% of 6.67%, Nyquist is identified as a great buy-low candidate in his Dobber player profile. Nyquist’s line with Anthony Mantha and Henrik Zetterberg was mentioned as a cold line in this week’s Lining Up, so now might be a great time.

*  

I'm all for Kopitar/Gaborik being reunited.

— Nick Alberga (@thegoldenmuzzy) December 6, 2017

Yes, this was a thing during the third period of the Kings/Wild game. Marian Gaborik scored two goals in the third period, both assisted by Anze Kopitar. Gabby now has four goals and a plus-7 in just seven games, which would mean that he could have some residual fantasy value should he somehow stick with Kopitar. He’s probably available in your league, no less. Ride him until the next injury, which is probably just around the corner.

*

The Canucks don’t suck as much as you thought they would. On Tuesday they were led by a couple of former top prospects that you may have once had stored away.

Jacob Markstrom stopped all 30 shots he faced to earn – get this – his first career shutout in 129 career games. If you follow the Canucks, you’ll already know that he nearly had one in his previous game against the Leafs, only to lose it with just under three minutes left in the game. Somewhere, Pokey Reddick weeps. The tweet was from after Saturday's game.   

the streak goes on… pic.twitter.com/Q9NSmMQusG

— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) December 3, 2017

Considering that Canucks’ goaltending was an afterthought in many fantasy drafts, you may be surprised to learn that the Canucks currently sit in the top third of the league in team goals-against average (2.78). I actually heard someone here in the Vancouver area recently mention Canucks’ goalies and the Jennings Trophy in the same sentence. Don’t worry, it wasn’t me.

Derrick Pouliot scored a goal and added two assists with a plus-2 in over 20 minutes of icetime and power-play time. He’d been held without a point in his previous five games, but he hasn’t looked bad overall. It’s possible that Pouliot is the odd man out once Erik Gudbranson returns, but it always seems as though there’s injuries on the Canucks’ blueline anyway. Plus there’s a possibility that Gudbranson is traded by the deadline, as he’ll be a UFA at season’s end.

It wasn’t all good for the Canucks, as Bo Horvat left the game late in the third period against the Hurricanes. Should Horvat miss any time, it could be a concern for not only Horvat owners, but also Brock Boeser owners.

*

The reinforcements are starting to appear for the Ducks. Rickard Rakell returned to the Ducks’ lineup on Tuesday, although he was held without a point. Meanwhile, Adam Henrique has three assists in three games as a Duck. So Derek Grant’s days as a top-6 center are officially over, as he has been held to less than nine minutes in each of his last three games.

But the Ducks still give up a ton of shots (36.3 SA/GP – highest in the league). Although John Gibson is holding his own in leagues that count saves, it’s been a constant battle for him to earn wins. An 8-10-2 record with a 2.97 GAA is more on the team than on Gibson, who also holds a solid .921 SV%. On Tuesday it was 43 shots on Gibson, who stopped 40 of them in the shootout loss.

Check out the shots on goal from a few Vegas Golden Knights on the Ducks on Tuesday:

Reilly Smith: 7 shots

Alex Tuch: 7 shots

Erik Haula: 6 shots

Colin Miller: 6 shots

Haula scored the game-tying goal and assisted on the Golden Knights’ two other goals. I think Tuch, who scored the game-winner in the shootout, would really take off if he could somehow get top-6 minutes in Vegas.

*

For more fantasy hockey information, follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

  from All About Sports http://www.dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-better-late-than-never-dec-6/

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Chris' Tv Blog Timeless Episode 14: The Lost Generation As usual, if you're watching at home and want to comment below, give a spoiler warning ahead of time. So, let me get this straight. We just came back from a long break in December. The show was moving along nicely and next week is the season finale. Unless I'm wrong about that, I'm actually pretty pissed. Onto the blog. Plot Summary Paris, 1927. Charles Lindbergh is to be the first person to cross the Atlantic in the Spirit Of St. Louis. Flynn shoots down Lindbergh's plane and captures him. Lucy, Rufus, and the new guy head back in time to track down Flynn. But everything obviously goes against the plan and they end up in trouble. Thoughts (Spoilers) The Lost Generation is a good build up episode before we hit the season finale. Wyatt is locked up. Rufus and Lucy are lost on what to do. Flynn and Emma seem like a good team. Everything is on a roll.... But fuck this season finale crap! Sorry, sorry. I'll hold my rant in for later. I got one thing right, the new guy dies. I forget his name but we met him earlier in the show. He was Wyatt's friend in the military. He got shot early on and died in Paris. So I got that correctish. Because I was still speculating slightly what the show might do. Lucy now knows she's officially in the Rittenhouse bloodline. She is meant to join the group later on down the line. Obviously Lucy is reluctant to be apart of the organization but that may lead to Lucy teaming up with Flynn, again. Okay, so is this going to happen or not? Is Lucy going to join Flynn? Because I want this to happen so badly. First reason, Flynn is interesting. I like when he's on screen because he brings about new information in the show all the time. Second, Flynn seems legit. In every turn Lucy takes to avoid him, the show keeps connecting the two's paths. Flynn will say something and it tends to pan out. Lucy keeps witnessing the events unfolding and it's becoming harder to deny Flynn's findings. And lastly, the actor is good. Goran Visnjic gives Flynn a calming demeanor. Even though he may seem a little out there, Goran is able to make Flynn not feel not completely evil or completely good. He just seems to ride the line right in-between. On another note, Lucy gets the diary. She doesn't get the future one Flynn has but she gets a journal at the end of this episode. And it's exact same one Flynn has from the future. This actually brings up a good question, how does Flynn have the diary? Actually, how did he know Lucy wrote down the events in a journal? Is Flynn from the future? Is he lying about what's in the diary? Or did he tell us and I forgot? Assuming I didn't forget, Flynn knows Lucy supposedly joins him. It's been a big underlying plot thread throughout. But how did he know that was going to happen? If he stole the time machine in the present day, how would he have known future events? I guess it could be broken down to Flynn doing research and finding out about Lucy. Maybe he went into the future to track down himself and steal the diary? But then that would create a plot hole because you aren't supposed to visit a time that you exist. But if that's the case, every time the team returns from a mission, wouldn't they technically not be allowed to exist because they would interfere with their current selves? Or is the show saying the future isn't written yet, so they can come back to the present because it's no different than a vacation? Am I just breaking myself? A lot of this goes back to the beginning when I mentioned that the show didn't properly introduce its characters, its setting, and the time machine. The only rule we've been living by is "You can't visit a date where you've already been or where you've existed." I might have the wording a little messed up but that's essentially the only rule we've obtained for time travel in this universe. Now maybe Flynn found a loop hole. It's possible he discovered it and was able to get the journal. That could be the reason. It also could be that the diary is all coincidental. It's also possible that the journal is something he made up to get Lucy onto his team because he is infatuated with her. Huh? That would be a drastic turn. The premise of this pointless theory that I literally just came up with is one, I want to see if I get any reactions. And two, there's a slight chance. Looking back on it, Flynn has never harmed Lucy. Even when he captured her, he always made sure she was safe. What if Flynn attended one of her classes and "fell in love?" What if his family dying is a throw away back story? Maybe it was to entice Lucy in some way. Maybe to get her to feel sorry for him? It wouldn't necessarily explain why he's after Rittenhouse, unless he's apart of it. But I really don't think that's a possibility at this point. He did shoot one of the original leaders.... Unless it was a cover up?... No, probably not. I'm sorry if I just went on a fan fiction type ramble. I think it would be interesting if the writers did go that route but that's a far stretch. Plus I think I'm just trying to exactly figure out how Flynn got the diary. It just doesn't fully add up. But we're going to find out about it eventually. If Lucy decides to test the journal Flynn has, and writes something down, and it doesn't change the future journal, we know the one Flynn has is a fake. What else do we have, oh, Wyatt escapes. Agent Christopher helped in some ways but Wyatt is out any ready to go. Not surprising really. Charles Lindbergh was apart of Rittenhouse. Lucy gets captured, again, and Flynn let's her to try and convince Charles to get out of Rittenhouse. She doesn't succeed and Charles goes on with his future plans. This might not be a huge plot point but it does put some legitimacy into Lucy's diary of the future. She wrote that Charles was associated with Rittenhouse and so on. So it does tie back to the journal in some ways being legit. Again, how did Flynn get it? Oh never mind. Lastly, Lucy seems to have a major connection to Rittenhouse's plans. The reason I say this is because, before the episode started, there was a flash back to Flynn telling Lucy to dig deeper into why she was chosen to do these missions. I don't know what her purpose is but maybe everything the trio is doing is on purpose in one way or another? I honestly can't tell but if I've learned anything from this show so far is that Timeless creates paranoia with its viewers because you always think Rittenhouse is right around the corner. Okay, I'm done with that. We dove into the show, some oddly placed fan fiction, and rambled for a bit. I think that's a good way to end everything until the season finale comes out. Next Episode (End Of Spoilers) Public Enemy Number 1 is the name. The trio steal the time machine, head back to the 1930's, seems to be a common theme, and run into Al Capone. Should be fun. Except for this being the end of the season. No seriously, how is it that we waited all of December to come back to 5 episodes? It's all going to depend on how long we have to wait until the next season comes but fuck that shit. I want the show now.... I knew I should've just waited to buy Timeless and binge watch it. Overall The Lost Generation feels like a precursor to the last episode of the season. There's just enough build up that you want to see what happens in the finale. If I had to give a score, I'd go with a 7/10 (Satisfying). The episode did enough to peak my interest. As usual, thanks for reading!