#who was an established villain.

[songforten]

this is an absolutely insane thing to say for multiple reasons but the most glaring are a.) using the phrase “sausage fest” is an incredibly loaded and weird term to use when 3 out of 4 rtd2 episodes so far have included trans women and b.) the implication that chris chibnall (a man) did not write his stories from a quote-unquote “male perspective”. sorry but casting a cis white woman as the doctor does not absolve you of all misogyny and racism.

[myspacelegend]

[shannonsketches]

There's a meme going around to draw your comfort characters as the Steven meme.

Bowser's never been a comfort character for me, but thinking about how great an Illumination Smash Bros movie would be with these two having the dumbest greatest villain team dynamic has brought me SO much joy this year.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

plot twist: Ruby is the Master under chameleon arch

[weneedatdcharacterwho]

There’s been so many horse-girl related asks that we need a whole season full of them

Total! Drama! Horsemanship!

[queernarchy]

watching episode 3 season 4 of superman and lois feels like watching season 7 of game of thrones aka recognizing huge cracks in storytelling as the first harbinger of absolute doom for the show but that most people cannot see and are therefore still psyched about, leaving those who CAN see it cassandras as they try to explain a narrative decline that nobody believes

[lord-squiggletits]

Answering that ask is a good reminder for me to remind everyone else that Pharma actually did nothing wrong in the way that he handled Tarn/the DJD and the t-cog blackmail, and the only reason he's villainized and seen as irredeemable scum is because the narrative wanted to have Pharma as a villain.

Literally every other time the DJD are shown attacking people on the page (or the aftermath of their attacks) it's constantly hammered in how brutal and unstoppable they are and how traumatizing it is to suffer even as a survivor who merely witnessed their methods so like LITERALLY THE ONLY REASON Pharma got singled out as selfish and cowardly is because JRO wanted him to be a villain.

And it sucks too because it's not like making the DJD terrifying was some retcon that happened 30 issues down the line. The DJD made their first on-page appearance in MTMTE #7, during which there's a whole page dedicated to the Scavengers describing every reason why it's impossible to stop the DJD-- including one person outright describing fighting the DJD as "suicide with delusions of survival."

There's no way JRO didn't know what he was going to write for #7 while he was writing the Delphi arc (#4-5, so only two issues beforehand more or less) so like. I'm sorry but there's no actual in-universe reason why Pharma should be considered evil for how he handled the DJD when every other person got to be seen as a victim/underdog hero defending themselves from horrible death. JRO just wanted there to be a mad doctor evil Autobot villain and that was that lmao

[sprooknooky]

Here’s… (checks notes) …Bird, Blade, and Gate, for all of the Bird Blade and Gate fans out there (of which there are none)

+my own colors because the manga is black and white and I can believe whatever I want

[stairset]

Rotta returning is Lucasfilm's way of redeeming themselves for not making him the true main antagonist of Book of Boba Fett

[theprinceandthewitch]

Fans: Can we please learn about the Philip and Caleb/Evelyn drama because it contextualizes Philip's actions and it is honestly the most interesting part of this show.

TOH: Mm, nah, we're gonna meander around for the majority of the first season. We're not even gonna have Belos interact with Luz until the season one finale LOL.

[fabuloustrash05]

If you ever feel useless, just remember that Karai was in the When World Collide episode.

[thebluestbluewords]

Excerpt from Establishing Council of the United Sovereignties of Auradon, General Meeting Minutes, Early Spring, year XXXX

Motion #22: Villainous Uprising:  King Adam of Rouen-Metz

King Adam presented to the council the current status of the villain uprising, which now controls the kingdom of Atlantica, the border with Waverly City to the east, and the border with Astoria to the west. The troops dispatched by the United Sovereignties upon our last meeting have been returned to their respective kingdoms in the form of a large quantity (roughly equivalent by weight to the bodies of the soldiers originally dispatched) of black sand. 

In light of this development, King Adam proposes that the council dispatch the full military forces of Auroria and Charmingdale to disburse the villain uprising and recover control of Atlantica. 

Princess Briar Rose of Auroria proposed a second division of troops, in order to lessen the burden on specific kingdoms within the United Sovereignties. 

King Adam reminded Princess Briar that the current troops were returned in ashes, and suggested that perhaps this abject failure at quashing the villains was due to the scattered nature of the previous defense. Furthermore, he brought to the council the proposal of sending all of the troops from each of the united sovereignties in waves so that if the first were to fail once again at suppressing the forward motion of the villains, the second could have an encampment prepared a short distance away so as to avoid the constant moving a troops into position while the villains march forward. 

The council approved the deployment of a united force from the kingdoms of Auroria, Charmingdale, and New London, to attack on the current front lines. An additional contingent will dispatched from each of the other kingdoms in the United Sovereignties who holds a standing military force, to establish a breakpoint in the kingdom of Westerly should the villains evade the front line deployment. Motion approved 16-2, 1 abstained.

[acerikus]

the funny thing is. i ALSO went into the game already knowing The Twist but i FORGOT like almost instantly. so i was squinting at loop trying to figure out their deal forgetting i was already told by my wonderful mutuals on tumblr dot com. it was great

SFFSHDFHFHHDSGGDHF THAT'S AMAZING

I don't think I'll be able to forget exactly but I still have the timing and exact specific and the how of the whole thing to see and learn about and I'm excited

[batsplat]

your posts are as illuminating as always thank u for ur work... i was watching route 46 route 93 from 2021 recently and sete showed up in that (as in, they gave vale an ipad and made him watch a video of sete lmao) and i thought of you.. i loved that even in that vale is still.. agitated about qatar... ends the segment with "if i had to give sete some advice... it's better if he hadn't done it." about qatar lmfao

omgggg I love this soooo much..... I haven't been able to watch that documentary so I'm immediately incorporating this into all my lore about them... like yes!! see!! he's STILL not over it, he can joke and laugh in the press and pretend this whole thing of 'oh I've actually made up with all my rivals With One Notable Exception' but he hasn't!! certainly not with sete, because that's valentino's whole deal - okay it's one thing to have a rival who kinda annoys him, but a friend who crossed him? oh it's over

this randomly reminded me, there's a bit of the mugello 2006 race commentary I find fascinating (in between all the bits where they were talking about how if sete beat valentino at his beloved mugello then it'd be the 'greatest day of his life' and 'better than any christmas present' which is very funny to me) (obviously he did not beat valentino):

I'm sorry that's a BONKERS level of feuding, like apart from valencia 2015 and cota 2018 even valentino and marc managed to sit next to each other - and even there it was dorna who were like 'yeah no we can't do this lads' not them.... the commentators didn't even mention a specific precipitating event, they just hated each other that much. "they didn't feel comfortable around each other" okay?? what does that MEAN. why are you even letting them decide this. is this not a little silly. remember these men used to go on holidays together!!

thing is I do understand why valentino has mostly shut up about this rivalry when he's not being shown sete's face on an ipad, but also he is giving up on insane bragging rights. I do think the most horrifying aspect of sete's fall beyond the literal 'no more race wins for you buddy' is the kind of... god, he never got revenge! nothing! every time they got close to each other after jerez 05 it was always 'oh sete wants revenge so badly' and he never got it! idk about sete gibernau but I'd be FUMING, even the thought makes me shudder. valentino detonated that entire relationship and sete never even finished ahead of him for the rest of 2004 and 2005. in 2006, he technically did so twice with two valentino dnf's, but was himself in ninth and eighth - when they both finished a race he was not ahead of valentino once after qatar 2004. can you imagine losing that rivalry that badly? no wonder he couldn't bear to see valentino's face for a while there

anyway the fact that valentino's going 'oho he shouldn't have done that!!' about qatar in 2021 and sete's going on three hour long podcast interviews to air his jerez grievances in 2023 does make it kinda funny they were posing together for photos together in 2009 to pretend like war was over. like you people did not mean this come on

[monards]

i fear that i don’t acknowledge enough the fact that i KNOW rhinedottir's evil !!! and she's horrible !!! and that she's wholly ireedamable !!! i know and love and respect that fact !!! i'd shoot myself in the frontal lobe if hoyo made her out to NOT be wholly evil !!!! but the reason i always go on and on and on about her humanity and complexity is because. SHE IS ALWAYS DUMBED DOWN !!!! TO JUST THAT !!!! it's literally the greatest and most moving theme (IN MY OPINION!!!) in genshin, that human beings are COMPLEX !!!! and they're MORE than just evil or bad or wtv. we see this through every character to almost ever be introduced to us -> literally just take arlecchino as an example. if anyone was at all paying attention to the discourse around her when the fontaine teaser dropped (and. 4.0 in general) it was the BIGGEST thing to watch people argue between "she's a harbinger, so she's clearly the most evil and the big antagonist of fontaine because of these accounts we have right now !!" versus the argument of "we've only seen ONE perspective of her so far, and it's no duh that all this stuff sucks -- but there's no way she's JUST gonna be all these horrible things,, because literally nobody to exist is just horrible and cruel with zero to no good in them. and also that'd make a shit narrative by hoyo in a story driven game" AND LOOK WHAT HAPPENED !!!! we saw !!! in REAL time !!! that while arlecchino was rightfully cruel and horrible and, yes the things she did were fucked up beyond belief and she should absolutely not be excused for any of it - she is NOT just evil ! she's shown to care, albeit in a fucked up way that only shows she's even more deranged ; but what's so incredibly important about her is the way that her being "evil" doesn't mean she's incapable of anything else. She is evil, yes— but so many of those evil actions have *motives* and *reasons* that explain them (but not excuse or condone!) and, although they don’t save her grace or anything of the sort, they DO show her true character. AND YHATS SO IMPORTANT!!!! She’s capable of being an antagonist while still being justified in some form, and given nuance and backstory and redeemable traits

I am !!! NEVER !!! going to say rhinedottir is a good person. she isn't! no shit sherlock ! how the fuck do you think im gonna go on and ignore the fact she sent both her kids to their deaths, and also fed one to another. dare i say, that is NOT anything good !!! suprise of the century !! woah !!! -- but what i AM gonna say is that she's much beyond that? hello !! not only has the point of her having not a zero good trait or will in her body been. proven false over and over and over again. but it's such ! Sad and not compelling is character choice for her *not* to be nuanced and complex and justified in a fucked up !! — like do you REALLY think hoyoverse (who is clearly capable of, and likes to make) complex characters, who are horrible, while not being *only* those horrible things, would pass up a golden (haha) opportunity to make a characters whose entire existence is JUST that??!,!2????

believe what you want! Do what you want! This is a silly video game that will be eroded along with time in a hundred in so years ! But god so help me, please don’t be willfully ignorant to the complexity and nuance of characters, just because you want a villain. No villain , real or not, is entirely evil. People are complex and multi faceted and people really, really need to hop off this cart of going “okay but stop saying she’s multifaceted because it takes away from her being evil” because it DOESNT! If anything, it makes her so much more compelling . Which is something some people can apparently. Not handle.