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gayninjas · 3 years

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(1/2) Okay so I'm still new to Naruto so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Also, this is long. I'm sorry. I'll split it.😅

Out of the K12 kids, Naruto, Sasuke and Neji were fucked over by Konoha (either by their clans, the old man hokage or the villagers). I'd include Rock Lee but I think he was just bullied as a small kid for being... weird? or not having chakra?? And he worked super hard and that didn't last long.

Anyway, I've read plenty of reviews about how the series ended poorly and how messages like "you can change your fate" were disregarded. That the the Naruto franchise would've done better staying an actiony, ninja shonen that focused more on changing the shinobi system instead of turning into the forced romantic shojo that it became. I agree with all of that.

And I said that to say this, I really am disgusted with how things went for Naruto, Sasuke and Neji. Naruto doesn't receive any apologies from those who should give him one (like the villagers! I think the old hokage bastard died so.. no apology there I guess). Like, I know Iruka apologizes to him and I don't know why. I know Iruka was Naruto's first bond, what'd he and only him have to apologize for.

Not only that but Naruto just accepts everyone and then hides the fact that those in charge of Konoha planned the Uchiha massacre!!! (Does Sasuke know he's doing that?) It's ridiculous to just hide the genocide committed by the state (because he's patriotic? Wants to stick to the status quo as much as possible while trying to change things??). And it's somehow worse to hide it when you have this intensely close relationship with the lone survivor of that genocide.

Like, why write Naruto like that? To receive no actual closure (imo) on how he grew up in Konoha and tp make him a top tier bootlicker

included the second part of the ask

(2/2) With Sasuke, that genocide happened and he was just left to his own devices on the outskirts. And he's treated as a villian for justifiably wanting to "destroy" Konoha and wanting a revolution. It gets under my skin how much the K12 kids don't give a fuck about stuff like this. (I like all of them (except for 2) and stuff like this sours my opinion on them)

Not only is he treated as a villain, it appears that no one pay's for the Uchiha massacre (except for Itachi?) which is bullshit. It's just swept under the rug. And THEN Sasuke is written to become another Konoha bootlicker??! He has to go off on his own to atone for his sins? What!

And finally Neji. He died as he knew he would, for the main house family. I will hate that forever and always. His destiny didn't change. Little!Neji in the chunin exams exposing how fucked up the Hyuuga clan is, no one (except Naruto?) cares. He gave Hinata a chance to back out before he killed her, which was allowed, she didn't, he was about to end it and then 4 teachers(?) jump in to save her because, special treatment. Can't let the (former) Hyuuga heir die, she means more than the other kids.

And he was treated as an antagonist for being rightfully pissed off. But no, he just gets over it I guess after befriending Naruto, the Hyuuga clan continues with its slavery bullshit and he dies sacrificing himself for Hinata. What a way to go.

And I know they don't address the slavery Neji wanted to abolish in Boruto. They just ignore it and act like everything's fine and dandy. Naruto isn't one of those series where things just happen offscreen and we know it's cool, right? They can't just expect ppl to think the Hyuuga clan changed right? They don't even focus on them, Neji died and so did any relevance to the Hyuugas because Hinata doesn't do anything.

(Had Neji lived I know he also would've been turned into a major bootlicker too)

In conclusion I can't stand how these 3 boys were screwed over by the village in many ways and then screwed over by bad writing. It's irritating. I love Naruto but there's so many problems with it.

i tried to be concise, hope i covered everything!

I agree that if the Naruto franchise didn’t end off with lackluster romance plots and instead gave closure for all the things they left open ended after the end of the war it would have made a much better ending to the series.

Kishimoto had even admitted he had trouble writing romance in as he hadn’t ever planned on it. He never considered it that relevant so when they did include it, the whole thing felt so forced and awkward it was even kinda ooc for Naruto and Sasuke (scenes like narutos flat ‘im not in touch with my emotions’ reaction to hinatas confession that butchered his character were an absolute pain to sit through)

Nejis death being an awful plot devise to develop NH was a terrible move, like neji sacrificed himself for someone who moments later held narutos hand and went "his hands are warm"??

Don’t even wanna list anything I dislike about ss cause their marriage is so lifeless i feel dead thinking about it.

As for the villagers, they were happy to alienate a poor kid who couldn’t fend for himself and let him believe he was a demon and was deserving of it all but then started licking his boots when they realized they had the equivalent of a nuclear weapon desperate to protect them, and even then they weren’t remorseful of their actions, its all very sickening really,

I think the whole end of Naruto was handled in a way that went against the characters values? like I can easily imagine Naruto being rightfully enraged at the people who issued the massacre of hundreds of innocents, and he wouldn’t ever think of hiding anything like that, especially from the victim who was also his friend??.

How they wrote sasuke as someone who now fucking bows down and becomes a soldier for a village that destroyed him and has done nothing for him is just absolute bs. Although with sasuke, even if one argues his loyalty was for Naruto, the patriotic lines are just too much.

As for the rest, I don’t have much to say cause they never tried to understand why sasuke was doing what he did, they only saw a power hungry uchiha who was seeking revenge.

And yes nejis end was tragic for all the wrong reasons, i was more pissed than sad watching it. He was treated as a tool for nh and his anger at the hyuga clan and their issues was brushed off without much thought because the series never delved into it or resolved it.

And yes we got no real closure for the uchiha massacre, all the messed up things in the hyuga clan and the way Naruto was mistreated his whole life etc. Its aggravating how they expect us to believe its all fixed and fine now

I really do love the pre shippuden arcs like the zabuza and haku arc especially though. They were the peak naruto experience for me and are always the scenes I reminisce and often get nostalgic over.

#thanks for the ask anon #sharing my opinions and interpretations

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astrologypersonalityandcartoons · 2 years

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Gonna be Brave, and Drop this Here

Okay so last power rangers post for a while (ie until I can think up more), but here is in no paticular order (except as they appear on page which is not numbered for good reason) My favorite rangers (as of recent) with explanaitions as best as I give them. Mostly these are the ones I could think of.

Karone- yeah if you've seen my last 2 posts you probably pretty much figured this one out . But why? Well my favorite villian to hero arc in early power rangers, best oufits in both hero and villian deparments for the respctive seasons (in my opinion), my favorite sibling relationship in the series almost as a whole with Andros, and all around a fun deep desevered both better and more screen time. Even with her there are a few flaws but I'm not gonna nitpick any of these as I realized the post is already way too long.

Tommy Oliver- yep it's an unfortuante truth of the world that many people either have Tommy on their favorites list or unfavorites list for a variety of reasons. Yeah the basis for me here is the more seasons you're in the more your charcter could grow as a result of those seasons. This is especially true for him I was all right with him in MMPR grew to like him in zeo, felt that he was the only main character worth watching in turbo (yes I have a soft spot for a turbo charcterization, sue me), and finnally loved him when he was in dino thunder. He went for solid cool karate guy to shoehorned team leader, to neat a fleshed out charcter to man he's smooth to cool "been there, done that" mentor figure/team member.

Izzy Garcia- I'm a sucker for suprises. One such suprise power rangers actually having a decent charcter that is lgbtq+ in any way. Scratch that an especially good character. I love Izzy, her meme humor, her timing with that humor, her relationships with her teamates and family and Fern, her charcterization, and most of all how respectfully her charcter is done from the get go. Not shoehorned in, not over the top,but also known and not completely under the radar. She's a great charcter. She's also not the only realtive noob that I'm including here because I've only watched most of the older-mid seasons recently , and almost none of that completley except for the first 6 plus dino thunder and operation overdrive.

Emily from power rangers Samurai and super samurai- Okay admitiley not the most fleshed out charcter, but argubley the best charcter to come out of Samurai or Super Samurai. I love her alright almost no logical reason for it. I just love the charcter so much. Shes adorkable, she is a ray of sunshine, she's clever when she needs to be, and (you can aruge with me, but I think so) the most steady and steadfast charcter progression in Samurai. Also as much others may not of I thuroughly enjoyed her charcter. They also probably never mention her last name as it's not on the wiki.

Wes Collins- now I don't remember much of my orignial watch through of time force. But I do remember feeling like I could stick it to the man that was destiny. This is because of this charcter specificallly for the most part. Also he remined me that we're not our parents, and what our plans or destinies are don't have to be theirs. His relationship with Jen was one of my favorites in all of PR for a while. All that and finnally he just seems like an awesome charcter, and as previously established sometimes that's all I need.

l be doing runner ups in a another post and explaining why I didn't pick them specifcally other than the reasons already listed.

#power rangers lost galaxy #power rangers time force #power rangers in space #mmpr #power rangers zeo #power rangers dino thunder #power rangers dino fury #power rangers turbo #tommy oliver #izzy garcia #wesley collins #Karone | Astronema #power rangers samurai #power rangers super samurai

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haleigh-sloth · 3 years

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I normally wait for the dub episodes to come out for bnha, well I decided to watch some of the clips of Tenko's origin. I saw a comment somebody on the video that "Tenko was a broken child, and that they believe it wasn't too late for him and that Deku will be able to reach him." I decided to look at the replies to the comment and that was a mistake. Somebody replied that "Mha isn't like a Naruto where the main character can talk to the villian and change them. Hero society can't forgive him."😅

Anon: Adding on to the last ask, it's very strange to me that some people think that Naruto is the only anime that redeem the villians in their story?? Like there's plenty of other anime where villians/antagonist will redeem themselves? Naruto isn't the only series to do so. I don't know how some people can't see the villians in bnha are being heavily set up for redemption I don't know why they act like its out of the realm of possibility. It's literally a fictional story. Of course they can be saved.

Idk if this was YouTube or TikTok you were on

But god

Be weary of both places lmao

Anyway

I have considered making a very long/detailed post comparing Naruto and BNHA because I am telling you

Naruto was used as a skeleton for BNHA

There are just too many moments, characters, scenarios, situations in Naruto that were very clearly an inspiration for a lot of BNHA's arcs/characters.

Not to mention the author was heavily inspired by Naruto. Not to say that that means BNHA will be like Naruto. But the writing of BNHA says it will be like Naruto.

UGH I have more thoughts on this so I'm putting the rest of this very lengthy rant under the cut.

People saying it won't be like Naruto are seeing what they want to see. However, they're having this issue because Horikoshi's attempt at making his own little version of Naruto (the character) was a failed attempt for the most part.

Deku is absolutely supposed to be another Naruto. But the difference between Naruto and Deku is that Naruto's characterization is fucking solid throughout the entire 700 chapters, whereas Deku's is not.

Naruto approached almost every villain with empathy toward the end of their battles. He may not have forgiven them (Pain), but he always tried to come to some sort of understanding. The villains that didn't really get redeemed or saved were the ones Naruto himself didn't face. Naruto even faced Itachi with empathy and tried to understand, despite knowing that what Itachi did is the reason Sasuke defected from the Leaf and embarked on a really painful and dark journey alone, without his closest (and only) friend's support.

Also, there wasn't any irredeemable villain that the story bent over backwards to serve, so Naruto's character didn't suffer for the sake of a particularly unlikable character, like what is happening with Deku and Endeavor in BNHA.

The thing with BNHA is that the author had a very unlikable character (Endeavor) and established him as an antagonist to one of the main kids (Shouto). But then he...changed it up on us and made it to where Endeavor is like...not the protagonist, but the POV for Shouto's story-line. Which doesn't make any fucking sense.

So what we're left to assume is:

Horikoshi decided later on to make Endeavor more redeemable

or Horikoshi didn't know how to properly establish Endeavor as the root cause of the Todofam's misery without making him almost irredeemable in his introduction

A character like Endeavor CAN be redeemed. But Hori just did not start it off well.

So back to Deku vs. Naruto:

Deku could have been one of two things:

A character who genuinely saw the best in everyone and wanted to save everyone--and I mean EVERYONE

or a character who genuinely thought he was on a path to save everyone, but in the midst of it all discovered that he was incredibly blinded by hero society and was only feeding into the punitive justice system they have in place

Personally, I think the latter would have been more interesting. It would have made sense with Midoriya's initial reaction to Endeavor.

ALike...the blindness could have started to fade away here. Midoriya could have had that punitive mindset throughout the story, but slowly but surely coming to realize everything wrong with the world, starting with the fact that Endeavor got away with what he did, but stayed a hero. But instead, Deku is this "save everybody" type of character, who displays guts in this moment ^^, which COOL!

But then the FUCKING Endeavor agency arc throws that all out the window.....

So the Deku we got in the Endeavor agency arc could have worked (albeit still super cringey) had he not already expressed disdain for Endeavor before hand. If he had been the type of "see the redeemable qualities in everyone!" person from the get go, it could have worked. Kind of. Still would have been cringey though. But that would also have contradicted the way he faced off with villains throughout the story, just punching them until they were down. So....Midoriya was never going to be a consistent character. Mostly because of Endeavor. Yes I am blaming Endeavor. Lol. But also because Midoriya's realization of hero society's flaws did not hit at any point during the story until he *felt* a crying boy in the vestige in Shigaraki's heart. Like it just....wasn't done well. It took too long, and didn't hit hard enough when the realization came.

So the reason people keep saying that Deku isn't Naruto, well, it's because he isn't.

However what they're failing refusing to realize is that Deku is supposed to be like Naruto in a sense. And BNHA is supposed to tell a story of hope, just like Naruto was.

I mean at first when I read the comments "This isn't Naruto" as an excuse for why the villains won't be redeemed (not really an argument or excuse, these villain-haters really have no argument) I brushed it off.

BUT NOW that I have read Naruto, alongside BNHA, I can tell you right now. BNHA is Naruto. Yes of course there are differences, and I'd even argue that BNHA is a LOT darker and more serious/mature than Naruto, definitely more nuanced and has deeper characterization (specifically in the lov trio), but they literally use the same recipe for their stories. It's the same shit.

I will argue this til I die. Lol.

#long post #bnha #bnha asks #anonymous #naruto #boku no hero academia #deku #bnha deku #midoriya izuku #naruto uzumaki #uzumaki naruto #naruto asks #bnha league of villains #redemption arc

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frubboflowers · 3 years

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! I don’t really want to argue about what I wrote there, I don’t have resources rn, so if you strongly disagree with anything there, pls, just ignore this post !

Sometimes I really want c!Tommy to have villian!Arc, cause he went through so many truamtic and hurtful events, blamed for most of these events, hated by half of the server or treated like nothing more than annoying child. It would be nice to see him becoming a villian who wants revenge.

But at the same time I really don’t want villian!Tommy? For several simple reasons:

1. He is not a bad guy. I actually don’t think that c!Tommy capable to be evil. Yes, he is chaotic and make mistakes and hurt people sometimes, but it’s just not the same as if he would want to be bad, like Wilbur suggested him “Let’s be the bad guys”.

2. Tommy cares. And that’s nice. So many people call him selfish and he is so not. I really don’t want him to loose this. To “blew up” what he cares about.

3. There are already so many “bad guys” in the plot. Like I don’t want to claim Techno, Wilbur, Quackity (maybe even Dream in some ways but that’s hard) villians. Cause everyone has their own perspective on things. But you can say that at least Wil and Big Q have their villians!Arc if you compare them now to the people they used to be. And I genuinely think that if we loose Tommy to villian!Arc, we will loose hope(?). Like who will fight? Who will be the “good guy”? I love Dream SMP for how realistic characters are, that everybody have their own selfish intentions, flaws and good traits too. That’s cool, yes. But stories need protagonist. And I don’t know who would it be, if Tommy become a villian. Like Tubbo doesn’t have this fire. I really love him, but he does not. Ranboo too, plus he already has this thing with enderwalking. He is totally a main character, but not a protagonist, if you under what I mean. Fundy? Purpled? George? Who? I can see maybe Sapnap but really idk, even if I would love to see him in the main plot.

Okay, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. I planed to write a small post, I don’t know why it become an essay.

#tommyinnit #c!tommy #dream smp #dsmp breaks my heart everyday

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nyerus · 4 years

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Hey I originally followed you for YOI stuff and since that seems to be on haitus, I have seen you and a lot of people rebloing stuff about a different anime or manga (i think) with different mlm relationships? I think they're two diff shows and I've heard about mdzs before. But lately youve been reblogging stuff from a manga tagged tgcf and it looks pretty cool--so i was wondering how I could get into it and what its about? Does it have actual gay charas?

Hello! I’m sorry for the late response! This morphed from a simple answer into a beginner guide of sorts, so I hope you don’t mind! I know there’s like 500000 guides out there, but I figured I’d give it a shot too! ❤

So the stuff you’ve been seeing everywhere is indeed MDZS or related to it–including on my own blog! (I promise when YOI comes back from war, I’ll be all over that again ;o;!!!)

So these works are all by the same author, Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù (MXTX) and they are separate danmei (i.e. Chinese BL) novels, though they share a lot of similarities between them:

MDZS (Mó Dào Zǔ Shī) – Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

TGCF (Tiān Guān Cì Fú) – Heaven Official’s Blessing

SVSSS – Scum Villian’s Self-Saving System

All of them are complete and fan translated, and I’ll answer your last question first: yes, they have actual gay characters! In the novels, the main couples end up canonically married! \o/ In some of the adaptations, their romantic relationships are also maintained (e.g. the manhuas (Chinese graphic novel)), though censorship is present.

Links will be added below this post! Grab some popcorn, this is long!

･:*:･ﾟ’★🐇MDZS🐇★･ﾟ’･:*:･

MDZS《魔道祖师》is definitely the most popular work by MXTX, as it has the most adaptations. You’ve almost certainly been seeing gifs and photosets from its donghua (Chinese animation) or live action the most. However, it has a manhua and audio drama (in both Chinese and Japanese) as well!

Synopsis: Reviled as the infamous Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian harnessed the forbidden dark power of demonic cultivation. Once the cultivation world decided he was too dangerous to leave alone, he was hunted down, and a terrible battle ensued that cost Wei Wuxian his life—and the lives of many others. 13 years later, he is resurrected under mysterious circumstances into the body of the pariah Mo Xuanyu. Now with this second chance at life (and while hiding his real identity), Wei Wuxian has to uncover the truth about a powerful malevolent spirit. It may just be the key to revealing a series of heinous secrets hidden from the cultivation world for years. And while the world may still hate him for crimes he didn’t commit, there’s one person who’s on his side—the illustrious Hanguang-jun, Lan Wangji—and is willing to stand by him against all odds. The two have a long and complex history, and Wei Wuxian is unsure of Lan Wangji’s motivations for helping him. But it couldn’t be more simple: respect and love.

Scene from the donghua.

Still from the live action, called “Chén Qíng Lìng”/“CQL”/”The Untamed.”

Panel from the manhua.

Art from the Chinese audio drama.

The great thing about MDZS is that you can really pick your poison in terms of what adaptation you want to get started with. If you are absolutely brand-new to the danmei scene, then starting with the donghua or manhua may be your best bet (both are ongoing). The novel of course is the most beloved, being the source, but all the adaptations have their own charms! They’re all worth checking out, and will keep you busy for quite a while.

･:*:･ﾟ’★🌸TGCF🌸★･ﾟ’･:*:･

Now, for TGCF《天官赐福》—that’s where my photosets are coming from: the ongoing manhua that started in October. There’s a donghua planned for late this year, and a live action in talks (info about that is largely unknown, but is slated for production sometime after the donghua release). TGCF actually has the same deal structure as MDZS apparently, so we’ll be getting an audio drama as well if that’s true.

Synopsis: Talented and virtuous, Crown Prince Xie Lian first ascended to the heavens when he was only 17. Once the darling of the earth and heavens for his boundless skill and purity of heart, he ended up falling from grace—not once, but twice! Subsequently, he became the laughing stock of the three realms. Spending almost 800 years roaming the earth and collecting scraps, he becomes known as the pitiful “rubbish god” and “god of misfortune.” No one could have expected Xie Lian to ascend for a third time, but fate seems to have something in store for this disgraced yet compassionate immortal. Thankfully, he is not alone, as the widely-feared ghost king, Hua Cheng, seems to have a special interest in helping him. The two of them embark on a series of adventures that unravel the secrets of their world, and of themselves.

Panel from the manhua.

Scene from the Donghua PV.

The novel for TGCF is a great place to start, especially considering how the manhua is still in it’s early stages (just starting it’s 2nd arc as of writing this post). The novel is long, incredibly well-written, and well-translated. The manhua is absolutely stunning, and follows the novel very closely thus far.

･:*:･ﾟ’★🎋SVSSS🎋★･ﾟ’･:*:･

The underrated sibling of the three, SVSSS《人渣反派自救系統》has only the novel to interact with for right now. A donghua is planned for this year. There was a manhua, but it was cancelled due to some problems with the publisher afaik. Word on the street is that they’re searching for a new team for it, so we’ll continue to pray!!!

Synopsis: Shen Yuan is an avid reader of the web novel Proud Immortal Demon Way. The novel revolves around the protagonist Luo Binghe, a kind child who is tormented endlessly by his Shizun (teacher/mentor) Shen Qingqiu, until he turns into a powerful demon lord and exacts his violent revenge. While initially a fan of the story, Shen Yuan hates the unsatisfactory ending. Upon dying suddenly, he finds himself transmigrated into the novel, at the behest of The System—a sci-fi interface which gives him missions and directives. Unfortunately, he ends up in the place of the cruel Shen Qingqiu out of all people! This new Shen Qingqiu now has to use his knowledge of the novel to navigate around the plot, within the restrictions that The System has implemented. He has to find a way to ensure a better ending, if he wants to keep this second chance at life. His plan for doing this is to be as kind and encouraging as possible to the innocent Luo Binghe, who quickly takes a shine to this new Shen Qingqiu. Even after forced to the dark side, and despite the tension between them after this, Luo Binghe won’t let anyone else touch his beloved Shizun.

Cover of the Thai release of the novel.

SVSSS only really has the novel to interact with as of right now. There’s currently an excellent re-translation in progress by tumblr user Faelicy! If you want to get started now, however, you can read what she’s done so far and then swap over to the old translation afterward.

･:*:･ﾟ’★NOTES★･ﾟ’･:*:･

• ALL three novels are intended for an R-18+ audience ONLY. Other adaptations are safe for minors over 16 years of age.

• Please be aware that the novels may contain potentially triggering content. Feel free to ask me for content warnings if you need them.

• All three of these are totally different from one another and only share common themes typical of the wuxia/xianxia genres.

• The original Chinese raws of MDZS and SVSSS are no longer available for purchase on JJWXC (publishing site). You can find print versions on Taobao. TGCF, however, is still available!

• If you’d like more info on anything, please reach out to me! I’m happy to help.

• LINKS WILL BE ADDED BELOW THIS POST.

#mdzs #tgcf #svsss #mo dao zu shi #tian guan ci fu #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #heaven offical's blessing #scum villain's self-saving system #guide #asks #Anonymous #nyerus.txt

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analyzingadventure · 3 years

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Psi: What we’ve learned so far (1-8)

Before we get into the actual thing, I wanna explain what this post is going to be about and why I’m writing it; if you’re not really interested in that you can skip ahead

On my first watch of Psi’s first 19 episodes, I’ve had this struggle with the series. To me it has often felt like the world of Psi feels empty and hollow, the characters shallow, and the pacing of the first arc has felt off, like the pace of the overall story going at a snail’s pace and little to nothing actually happening in each episode.

Now there’s three main elements that I think could be causing this impression on me. First, it’s the unavoidable comparison to Adventure, a series I am far too familiar with for my own good if we’re being honest, and a series where I could probably list off every imporant detail from each episode from sheer memory. Second, I often enjoy a series better on a rewatch, my first impressions tend to be incredibly luke-warm and because I’ve only experienced the story once, I don’t remember it quite as well as something I’ve seen at least a dozen times. So between these two factors, it is very possible that my first impression of Psi’s first 19 episodes has felt as negative as it did due to nostalgic overfamiliarity vs unfamiliar first impressions.

But there is that third factor too. It is entirely possible that Psi just isn’t written like Adventure (not nececarily better, more like “in a way that panders to me”), and my observations of it so far have been accurate

And really, I just want to get to the bottom of it. I want to try and figure out why Psi has felt the way it has to me so far, and that is why I’m going to make these posts (because this post is way too long already and I had to split it into two parts)

So what this is going to be is quite simple to be honest; like I mentioned above, I could probably list every major story element in Adventure for each episode from memory, where as with Psi I can’t do that. So in this post I am just going to rewatch each episode of Psi and write down what we learn about the series in each episode; what we learn about the world, the characters, the mechanics, the lore, the beings that live in it. This is mainly so that I can form a better, slightly more objective view of Psi in my mind instead of depending on the vague memory I have of it so far.

And yes, this is going to be just, mostly, me writing bullet point notes of obvious things we learn in each episode; not plot summaries or a timeline of key-events, just things we can “learn” from the episode. For example, while a Digimon evolving is a key-event, if we don’t learn anything new about the Digimon that relates to their backstory or personality, then it’s not worth mentioning, and will try to do my best to not repeat information that gets re-inforced through out different episodes. Also, this isn’t a critique of Psi’s writing

Also, I am going to do my best to write these from the perspective of “not knowing anything”, in the sense that I’m trying to parse out info and write it out like someone who knows nothing about Digimon would be able to get out of it. Also, I won’t nececarily write these in the order they happen in the episode, rather I might write what we learn from specific subjects in bulk (character establishment, world building, etc)

One last thing, I could possibly do this for Adventure later on, just for comparison’s sake, if I have the time, but first let’s just start with this.

Episode 1: Tokyo Digital Crisis

Opening Monologue doesn’t get too many points for what we learn from it as it is an opening monologue, stating kind of obvious stuff we’ll learn very fast, but none the less; it’s the year 2020, our world is connected by the Network, and in there live Digimon

Tachikawa Computer; minor foreshadowing for later

We're introduced to the main character Taichi, supporting cast Koushirou, getting a decent idea of their main personality traits (Taichi is friendly and very open, while Koushirou is polite, a little bit more withdrawn/closed) and briefly get to see Hikari (as well as Mama Yagami and Miiko)

Taichi is putting great effort into preparing for the summer camp; he’s the type of person who likes to plan ahead it seems. That said he can also rush into action without thinking if he’s worried enough/the situation is dire enough; this is elaborated when Taichi learns his family could be in danger, when he leaps in to catch the falling Koromon, or when he leaps into battle with Agumon

Taichi is surprisingly calm when realizing he’s been spirited away and sees a weird little disembodied pink head floating in space, only really appearing shock after a small dinosaur speaks to him; he sometimes needs a moment for everything to settle in before he even knows how to react

Taichi is more than willing to get physical beat up weird monsters

Koromon knows Taichi’s name, and Taichi somehow heard Koromon calling him; there’s a mysterious connection between these two

Agumon is more than happy to see Taichi, immidiately willing to both protect him and help him achieve his goals; Agumon seems to love Taichi unconditionally, despite only meeting him for the first time

We learn that one of the primary features of Digimon is their ability to evolve, Koromon evolving all the way to Greymon and the unnamed enemy’s (Algomon’s) evolutions being examples of this

There is a mysterious, unknown force in this universe, one that tends to manifest in the form of mysterious, glowing symbols (the Crests), that will appear in certain moments to certain people (our main characters), almost like it’s reacting to said people’s actions and/or feelings

Taichi and Koushirou are both granted mysterious devices, which we soon learn can be used for communication purposes as well as evolution, the devices coming from seemingly the same mysterious light/force as the symbols

Digimon causing issues within the Network have an immidiate effect in the electronics of the Human World, and the Digimon rampaging in the Network are willing to hurt and kill other Digimon too (not that many seem to be present there); they are an active threat to everyone but themselves and need to be dealt with

We see glimpses of other children who seem to have a 6th sense, reacting to Taichi’s actions (establishing the connection between the kids); foreshadowing

Taichi and Koushirou aren’t the only ones who have been sucked into this mess with Digimon, there’s another child within the Network as well, with his own Digimon along side hime

Episode 2: War Game

The villian of this Opening Arc, the Algomon, seems to act like a hivemind

Yamato is established as being distant and somewhat cold, seemingly uninterested in others as he’s more focused on other (more imporant?) things. He also seems to be more experienced in dealing with the Digital World/Digimon (in Taichi’s mind who wonders how experienced Yamato really is with Digimon). Despite how cold he seems from the outsite however, Yamato will quietly make plans and put them into motion, expecting others to catch on and follow up. His general unwillingless to intentionally and clearly team up is a character flaw for him though, it causes issues during battle and it’s something he struggles with. But he also worries about causing harm to Garurumon (and Greymon), so he does care for the well-being of others; all of this could suggest that Yamato is a tsundere

Greymon and Garurumon are established as knowing each other, implying they have a history

Greymon and Garurumon both tell the kids they can handle the rough plan; they’re comforting

The episode fleshes out the severity of the danger Digimon rampaging within the Network can cause; it can reach nuclear disaster leveks

We learn that Digimon can fuse

Feathers appear to Hikari and Takeru; foreshadowing for later. When the feathers touch their hands, mysterious symbols appear once more, implying a connection between them coming in contact with the feathers (and what they symbolize) and the fusion of Digimon

Episode 3: And to the Digital World

Taichi clearly loves his sister and takes good care of her

Hikari seems to know more than she lets on

A connection between Yamato and Takeru is established, as well as the fact that Yamato isn’t in Tokyo (at the moment at least)

Sora is established, us learning that she is a character much respected and liked by her classmate and that she and Taichi know each other really well (also we see an unnamed character fumbling comedically; foreshadowing for later)

When the danger was cleared, Taichi and Yamato were returned were they came from; whatever summoned them will also return them when their duty has been completed

A new mysterious threat is introduced to have been born, its birth causing massive power outtages and electrical issues

We see three lights fly through the gates of the Network, followed by three other lights;we learn that six children have been spirited away

We see the Digital World for the first time. Unlike the Network’s surreal, Tron-like landscapes with no sentient life in sight, nor water, clouds, plants or anything, the Digital World is alive and beautiful, though clearly fantastical based on the strange, arching mountains in the distance, and it’s fantastic, digital inhabitants

The fused Digimon is super duper strong and has some special powers that Greymon and Garurumon didn’t have; there’s a distinct difference in the level of power

Episode 4: Birdramon Soars

We get to know Sora a lot better in this episode, she could be described as being Just Really Cool; she seems to be super chill (not like “laid back”, more “cool”), taking in being thrown into a different world really well and calmly, not even surprised by the existence of Digimon aside from them being able to talk. Sora was also in the middle of buying supplies to get through the power outtages before getting summoned to the DW, so she’s come in well-prepared. Whether she went out to buy the supplies because she was requested to, or she did out of her own inniative, it does indicate she’s very responsible and trusthworthy. Much like Taichi too, Sora isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, being more than willing to come rescue Piyomon from the mouth of a giant mantis monster

Piyomon, scared out of her mind, doesn’t really do or say much for a long time, only clinging onto Sora for her dear life, until a calm washes over her as she seems to remember or recognise something; when Piyomon wakes up, she knows Sora’s name without ever being told it, much like how Agumon knew Taichi’s name, and Piyomon tells Sora she’s been waiting for her. Sora being present also brought confidence to Piyomon, inspiring her to be active instead of fleeing from danger, as she now has someone to protect.

We’re introduced to the kind Tentomon and his odd Osaka-accent; Tentomon, being more familiar with his home world, explained all sorts of things to Koushirou. Tentomon, much like a parent would, thanked Taichi “for looking after Koushirou”, indicating that while the two have only known each other for a short time, Tentomon is very fond of Koushirou, much like Agumon is of Taichi

We are introduced to an ominous silhouette, most likely a future villian

The DW lies within the deepest part of the Network, so the DW isn’t a separate world from the Network, just a specific section of it. Also, athough we had previously not seen Digimon the Net beyond the relevant characters Whamon being there do imply that some Digimon do indeed just like to hang out within the Network

Within the Digital World there are tablets and stone ruins of an ancient civilization, with text written on them; the Digivice react to the ancient texts, guiding the children to them and using the children as vessels, translate the message to them. The texts are instructions to guide the children, meaning whoever wrote them centuries ago, for-saw the coming of the children. At the mountain we see more ruins mysterious writings and ancient statues of winged figures. If it is a temple as Sora thinks, then that implies the existence of a religion that is or was worshipped in this world

Moving away from the lake, what we next see of the DW looks like a tropical paradise, with lots of lush jungles and forests with plants both familiar and strange. But through out the world there are these tiny visual “glitches” all around, small colorful lines and dots scattered through out, which give the world a subtle, artificial feel. There’s also a glittery rainbow mountain in the distance, further driving in the point that we aren’t in Japan anymore

We do learn that despite the world looking like a paradise, the Digimon do seem to hunt and eat each other for food; the aren’t many food sources then (like Meat Trees), or if there are, some Digimon ignore those for the Fresh Meat instead

The episode starts out kind of suggesting that maybe Sora ended up in the Digital World by accident, but as the episode progresses it gives out suggestions and hints that maybe Sora didn’t come by accident after all until she finally gets her Digivice. This is foreshadowing for the idea that none of the Children came by accident, they were brought there on purpose and for a reason.

We learn that while the kids can make the Digimon evolve, the Digimon will revert back once a danger is cleared

Episode 5: The Holy Digimon

Koushirou can remain calm even when swallowed by a Digimon, as long as he has his comfort item (tablet); foreshadowing for later

Koushirou can be a little bit shy, embarassed to repeat himself saying that maybe they were meant to meet

Tentomon really loves Koushirou

We learn that Orgemon (whose name we learn in this episode) can’t speak very clearly, which probably implies he’s not very smart; not all Digimon have the capacity to full-speech it seems

We see the super ominous silhouette of a yet unnamed villian sending orders to Orgemon; we have a hierachy, and this guy is at the top of it

We learn for sure that the kids are being specifically targetted and being tracked by the dark Digimon, the troops being lead by Orgemon and some small surveilance Digimon (SoundBirdmon) that can control other Digimon with the power of sound, as well as send messages between Digimon

The Holy Digimon tells us that the warriors that fought in the war long ago were reborn, Agumon, Piyomon and Tentomon being the reincarnations; the three take notice of specific Digimon in the Holy Digimon’s vision (themselves no doubt) and the sight brings them to tears; although they can’t remember anything, their souls/hearts can, and what they experienced must’ve been sad

Agumon doesn’t remember evolving into Omegamon, despite remembering meeting Taichi; this must imply that evolving to Omegamon was a blur even for him

There once was a large city in the location of the temple, with beautiful, artistic architecture; the former civilization here was truly prosperous

The rainbow glitter wasn’t as much of a mountain as it was a desert (or a mountain range, hard to tell which)

We learn that this land mass of unknown size (is it an island or is it a continent? Never stated) isn’t the only ones, there’s oceans at least one continent beyond it, its name being Cloud Continent

We see a small village in the middle of the forest, the houses looking sort of like hollowed out pumpkins with palm leaves coming from the top; while major civilization has crumbled in this post-apocalyptic Digital World, with most Digimon seeming to live on their own like, minding their own business, some Digimon do form communities

We learn the name of the Digivice

We learn that the statues at the temple are depictions of certain Holy Digimon, and that with the last of their powers they had left a message for the children from beyond the grave as they’ve passed a long time ago

The Holy Digimon had had a premonition that human children equipped with Digivices, also known as the Chosen Children, were “a power” that could surprass the natural law of evolution

It’s not quite explicit, but we are vaguely introduced to the evolution stages and their names (the natural law of evolution)

We gain confirmation that the feathers we have seen through out the series so far are indeed connected to the Holy Digimon

We learn that the Holy Digimon were ones that “governed the good of the Digital World”, most of them and the city that once stood in the place of the temple perishing in a great war between light and dark when dark Digimon disturbed the balance between the two.

The major parties on the side of light in that war were a great army of holy Digimon, eight special holy Digimon, six warriors and even Omegamon, who managed to vanquish the darkness at the cost of their own lives

We do learn that the six warriors turned into eggs, and are told that the Chosen Children would appear to guide the ressurected souls once the enemy would make a move once more

We learn that Taichi and co must go find the Holy Digimon of Light and Hope at the Cloud Continent as they will fight along side them against the dark Digimon

Although the Network is tightly connected to the Human World, the Digital World isn’t; disaster taking place there won’t affect the Human World. We also learn that monitoring the spread of dark in the Network is impossible to do from the Digital World

Episode 6: The Targeted Kingdom

We’re introduced to Mimi, the queen of Mimi Kingdom, the village we saw in the previous episode that she took over between being spirited away and Taichi’s group arriving.

Mimi, much like Sora is pretty cool with the situation she’s in. Ehile we do learn she was lonely after being stranded in the DW alone, after Palmon joined her side she’s been seemingly a-okay, not afraid at all of being (as far as she knows) the only human in a different world. In fact she is super into ensuring her kingdom remains peaceful and her underlings well-fed, as she has put great efforts into making sure Tuskmon don’t come and steal all the fruit the Tanemon live on. Mimi has a kind heart, and that she hates seeing others suffer.

We also learn the Tachikawa Industries we had heard about was her family’s, her grandpa being the chairman. Mimi’s grandpa must be important to her as hearing his words on video touched her, reminding Mimi she has to do what she can, which to her translated to taking care of her adorable underlings. Those same words later inspire her to leave her beloved kingdom behind to help the other kids

Palmon adores Mimi a lot, acting in a kind of enabling way, playing into and encouraging the whole Queen-thing just to make sure Mimi’s confortable and happy, feeling loved.

The Tanemon have a signaling system to pass messages on; whether this system was set up and taught to the Tanemon by Mimi or if they have invented it before Mimi took the kingdom over is unclear

Although Orgemon seems to lack intelligence based on his very basic speech, we do learn that he is a Digimon of honor, and losing his horn has gravely hurt his honor

This landmass does seem to be mostly forest as far as the eye can see (aside from the rainbow mountain range/dunes and the lake-area)

We learn time passes at a different rate between the Human World and Digital World, the DW being much faster, the time becoming more distorted the deeper into the Network you go (the Digivices somehow bypass the distortion to ensure communication happens at the same rate)

We see what a near-death Digimon looks like; colors washed out, glitching in and out a little, but evolution will instantly heal the Digimon from that near-death state back to full health

Episode 7: That Boy is Kido Jyou

We learn Mimi likes tea and has been teaching Palmon how to make tea; she also seems to enjoy things that make her come off like she’s a KIND, LOVING pampered rich kid, as indicated by her cup and chair etc

We learn that Palmon was familiar with the area and was able to guide the kids to the ocean (something Agumon and Piyomon couldn’t do)

Jyou is so serious about passing his exams it’s kind of becoming an unhealthy obsession for him, to the point he might somewhat lash out and take his anger out by beating up trees and even self-harming. This kid, is super stressed out, the weight of his family’s achievements (everyone being doctors) really pushing him down. Due to this, he is super unwilling to go save the world, all that matters to him is making sure he can study and pass his exams so he can have a prosperous future. Jyou also doesn’t seem to like himself much, as he asks if Gomamon was disappointed by what his partner human was like

Jyou is studying for his exams, as he has priorities set straight and nothing will stop him from passing his tests, not even being spirited away into a different world all alone. While seeing other kids did make him somewhat glad, it was only because he assumed it meant there was a way out of this world so he could get back to his life.

Although Jyou said he wouldn’t participate in the world saving business, he did keep an eye Gomamon, and seeing him get hurt did send Jyou running; while Jyou tried to seem like he didn’t care, he did, a lot

Unlike Jyou, Gomamon is super willing to go save the world; if Jyou’s duty is to study, Gomamon’s duty is to save the world, and Gomamon would like it if Jyou realized they share their duties. Even without Jyou, Gomamon is willing to help as much as he can, even if he’s alone

Gomamon is super observant, seeing how and why Jyou is struggling, and he just wants to help Jyou too, Gomamon even “nursed Jyou” back to health after finding him passed out in the DW

We learn that Taichi, Sora and Jyou (as well as Koushirou) do go to the same school, its name being Musako Elementary

The hut we’ve seen was either built by Gomamon (which implies that Gomamon is super crafty), an unknown party or was always there; Jyou didn’t build it as he woke up inside it after Gomamon brought him there

In the Human World we see it is now evening, the kids having been spirited away sometime around noon-afternoon.

We do see that Jyou has spent at least one night in the DW, which could mean the other kids have as well, if not even more

Episode 8: The Children’s Attack

Ikkakumon is strong enough to swim across the ocean while carrying 4 kids and 3 Child Digimon

We learn Jyou gets motion sickness and that he can’t swim

Jyou is somewhat irritated and/or imidated by a kid 3 years younger than him having so much info and being more aware of the current situation, which ties into his need of trying to be in-control of the situation and lead the group; this leads to Jyou trying to be responsible and ensure everyone survives unharmed by surrendering to the enemy (his heart is in the right place)

We learn that Yamato has been on his own this whole time; considdering the other kids were brought to this world, scattered around a little, it is possible Yamato was brought directly onto the Cloud Continent

Yamato is charmed and touched by the other kids and the Digimon cheering him on and believing in him, despite him being so cold to them; he is super tsundere

The first thing we see of the Cloud Continent is a beach with high cliffs and a lone fortress guarding it. On the outside the enemy fortress looks like old and realistic (in the sense that you could probably find a fortress like this in our very real world), but is straight from a sci-fi movie; the enemies have access to some advanced technology

With this episode taking place over night, we are moving onto at least Day 3 (if not further)

We see the Black Miasma for the first time

#Psi #Text post #Me? Posting researched content in 2020? That's just unheard of #For the record I have completed the rewatch and written the notes for the remaining episodes (up to ep 19 since that's what I was rewatching #I just need to read through the notes and edit them so they're like legible and in a comprehensible order #And cut out unnececary commentary #So yeah I have gotten started on the second part of this but it's not done and IDK when it'll be done #Depends on when I decide it's a good time to procrastinate #Also I doubt I'll do this for the rest of Psi because it does take a lot of time to do #(To the point I was actually rewatching Psi at double speed so I could get through the episodes faster)#(Which is valid because I take forever to write notes and I don't have all day to do this)#Also the purpose here was to come to a conclusion of the writing in the first arc or two (hard to divide them rn)#And I do think I have come to a conclusion about it already #But I'll save that for later

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captainshazamerica · 3 years

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dude I have no chill when it comes to asks 😅

5. Fav character(s)?

15. Dark trinity or trinity?

17. Teen titans or Young Justice?

18. Fav animated show and/ or movie? (BTAS is supreme to me lol)

22. Fav Robin! ( this is so hard but also not I feel like dick gets it just cuz he was the first )

31. Do you like the character of the joker?

38. Who do you think is the most over looked and under used character?

51. Justice League or League of Assassins or Justice League Dark?

🎪I haven't started wayne fam adventures yet but it looks sooo good and is everyone there!? It seems like everyone's there just from what I've saw on tumblr but I don't remember seeing steph? Please say alfred is there!?

random side note just cuz you like jonny there's DC fear state coming out over fall and scarecrow is the main villian messing s*it up in Gotham and the batfam, I ain't gonna be reading that for a while tho cuz I've put a cap on comic purchasing because I'm making myself broke 😅 but it looks quite cool tbh

Dude I love that you have no chill with the asks omg xD Its so great, I get so excited when I see you do it hahaha

2. Do you like the arrowverse if so what's your fav show? (Mines flash but legends is so so chaotically lit it's a dumpster fire of awesomeness highly recommend that even tho they did my fav kinda dirty they had no need to do that to her but hey) Same, my fav is Flash, tho Im not caught up at all/havent caught up since like mid to late season 4, I got too busy during college and I was kinda getting bored with it, but now that Bart is in it, it makes me wanna watch it again! It was also before I got super into DC so Im sure Id love it even more now. I actually havent fully seen the others, just some episodes here and there and the Crisis crossovers! LoT looks like a chaotic lovable mess though, Ive heard that several times xD Who is your fav that they did dirty?

5. Fav character(s)? I mean its me so I can never chose just one xD Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Gar Logan/Beast Boy, Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Edward Nygma/Riddler are my all time favs!

15. Dark trinity or trinity? Dark trinity as in the 2nd Red Hood and the Outlaws? (Jason, Bizarro and Artemis ) Then def dark trinity haha, I love those 3 misfits so much omg

17. Teen titans or Young Justice? AHH this is soooo hard omg. Like the shows or comics or groups in general?! Like imma go with Young Justice show but Teen Titans overall. They overlap though soo

18. Fav animated show and/ or movie? (BTAS is supreme to me lol) Ahh I actually seen all of BTAS! Ive just seen the first couple episodes and seen random ones here and there but like know everything about it xD Hmmm, for show I gotta go with the Young Justice cartoon, and animated DC movie, a tie between Justice League vs. Teen Titans and Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (the Damirae ahhhh). Though oooh also Under the Red Hood is also a classic and Jasonnnn

22. Fav Robin! ( this is so hard but also not I feel like dick gets it just cuz he was the first ) Ahaha I knew you would say Dick!!!! xD I was gonna ask and be like, its Dick isnt it xD This is like the hardest question ever oh my goodness. While they have all been my fav at point point, Jason and Tim have like been tied for first for the last couple of months. Like I love them both so freaking much. But if I absoltly HAD to chose one, ahhhhh, im going to have to go with Jason, Im so sorry Tim D: But Jason's character is just so complex in every version and his comics are sooo good(tho I love Tim's Red Robin ones too) his arc as a character is just SO interesting to me and his constant battle with himself and how far he fell from being robin and its all so sad but makes such a good character ahhhh

31. Do you like the character of the joker? Ahaha, this one is hard/I have mixed feelings. I have always liked him as villain even before my Batman obsession (and of course use to say he was my fav dc villain hahaha) and tbh I still think he is a pretty darn good villain and there is a reason he is so popular, even though he is an abusive piece of poop. Id like him a LOT more if he didnt abuse Harley so much tbh. And I think DC over uses him waaaaayyy too much, though I do like every version of him, excluding Leto's version, and think the acting is always amazing. So yeah, I guess I do like him but he isn't my fav, but I can appreciate him and his pop culture impact and how good he is as a truly evil unhinged villain who is interesting to watch.

38. Who do you think is the most over looked and under used character? TIM DRAKE!!!!!!!! And Riddler!!!!!!!!!!!

51. Justice League or League of Assassins or Justice League Dark? Gotta go with the classic justice league man

And ahhhh yes you have to read Wayne Family Adventure, its pretty much literal perfection. Here is the official link if you need it! https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-life/batman-wayne-family-adventures/list?title_no=3180&page=1 It comes out every thursday! (tho you can pay to read ahead a few weeks) But yes, Steph is in it too! Her and Tim were being the disasters they are <3 And yes, Alfred is freaking great in it omgggg, you will love him in the 2nd one ahhh

Oooooh, I didnt know that!!!!(its soo hard to keep up with dc comics omgggg) I thought I heard something about that the other day but didnt know what it was/anything about it! Thanks so much for telling me!! I hope they release it digitally on DC Infinite!!!! Cause sameeee

#batanon #i love them #thank you so much love #dc asks #ask game #meredith gets an ask #ask #anon #meredith thoughts #batman

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rachetmath · 4 years

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Optimistic Realism: Support Character Purpose

This may be my last rant about this show. As usually it’s my opinion and if you agree then like or reblog, your choice. If you want to add on to this or have a question then comment. If you disagree, fine, but afraid to leave a comment. Read this at your own will and time.

I know I been talking about RWBY a lot, mainly about Jaune Arc, however I am going for a new approach. I am going to discuss what I feel should have been implied in the show between team RWBY and JRN from the beginning and how it should have played in volume seven. And that is with in the title, Optimistic Realism. It’s basically a combination of optimism with realism. But, before we discuss this, let us first know what they mean individually and see who fits in with that definition.

Optimism as stated on the internet, "Is believing no matter how bad things get there will always be a bright future ahead." Basically, staying positive. Team RWBY fits this definition considering each of them are based on characters with these traits. We have seen that in volume one through three on their missions and during the fall. They always go with the flow and stay positive even when things seem impossible. Even in volume four and five they had to regain some of their courage in order to continue forward but to win the battle at Heaven. In volume six, even put their positivity to test, considering what they learned about their world and Salem. Knowing that information crippled them allowing the Apathy to take over, and them barely making it out alive.

Now for realism. Basically "Having to deal with a situation at hand, to the best of your ability." Team JNR fits this well because their based-on warriors. Warriors in order to get stronger they must train, and gain experience while going through hardship. In volume one to three Jaune had to get stronger because of world he chose inhabit. Pyrrha had to deal with being outcasted by her peers and teachers. Ren and Nora do to the fact that they have no home to return to, being hunters was the only thing they had going for them. When the fall happened Pyrrha died leaving team JNR broken. In volume four, Jaune mourns over Pyrrha just like Ren with his home. In volume five, team JNR were ready to fight Oscar the moment he mentions Ruby’s name and Jaune still attacked Cinder, all for realistic reasons. And in volume six, team JRN like team RWBY were upset with the information they were given, and in order to continue, they realistically have no choice because one; Pyrrha died for this. Two; they came to far to fail. And three; might as well not let the next generation have to deal to with Salem. Even volume seven they act real. Jaune and Nora may have stated facts about James’s actions but due to the situation at hand they still followed orders.

Now before I continue let me explain what I believe a support character's job is. Support characters do not just heal or defend the main character. The support characters help the main characters by being stronger, smarter, or have a better since of their emotions than they do. They do not have to be cool or invincible. Zoro, from One Piece, is Luffy’s second in command because he asserts authority. And Nami is third because she can make a plan for the crew to follow. Luffy is too carefree to do any of that. Edward, from Full Metal Alchemist, has Scar, Winry and Mustang. Scar because he knows more about alchemy than Ed does. Mustang considering, he is a soldier of the military, knows more about the complications of city affairs and knows when to take necessary action over being pacifistic. And both are more powerful than Ed and Al are. Winry despite not doing much continues to encourage Ed to get stronger, to see his goal through, and goes anywhere Edward may be to help repair his arm and leg. Basically, the support character's job is not just to be some cheerleader, but serve as guidance and guardians, people who act in the main characters best interest even when he or she may not know it yet. Or if it is mixed in with their own.

Now with that out the way, let us discuss how optimism and realism could affect their actions in volume seven. Yes, James was acting like a nice guy, however it ran the risk of us hating our main characters for their actions. To me, volume seven was like Clover said, "The right choice is the hardest to make." However, his words hold no weight when we the audience had no choice but to side with James because the other two factions were doing nothing but stealing and lying in his face. So here is how I would in some levels re write volume seven.

In volume seven, let us keep half of everything the same. The group become professional hunters, Penny is framed, Jacque still wins the election, Robyn goes criminal and Yang still tells her everything. Instead of team RWBY and JNRO thus far doing nothing, they should have been more active. Now after Yang tells Robyn the truth and lies to the Ace-ops about her getting away, returns to Atlas to their dorms, only to have everyone waiting for them. Ruby decides to talk somewhere private where James or anyone outside their group could not hear them. Truth of the matter is Ruby and the others were already suspected of Yang and Blake, since one, Yang never backs down from a fight and two, Blake has a history of rebellion. The two know they cannot hide, so they admitted to what they done. This led to an argument amongst them with Weiss and Oscar taking Yang's side and Ren and Nora, not so much, until Ruby and Jaune silence them, demanding they return to their dorms and discuss the matter tomorrow.

The next day, early in the morning, Ruby and Jaune decided to talk about the matter themselves. This led to them arguing with each other. Jaune using levels of facts while Ruby uses levels of reasoning and opinion. Both continued to yell at each other until they reach a conclusion. Ruby and Jaune both agreed what Robyn is doing is wrong, but they cannot deny James recent actions to be affective either. So, they made an idea to mix their teams together with Jaune going after Robyn and Ruby staying in Atlas trying to talk with James. Jaune teams up with Nora, Yang and Blake considering all three of them want to help Mantle. Ruby gets Ren, Weiss and Oscar, since Weiss knows Atlas, Ren sides with James and James will not let Oscar out of his sight. Now the real fun begins.

Jaune and his new team JNBY, goes around the streets of Mantle along with Penny to fight grimm and come up with a strategy to capture Robyn and the happy huntresses. However, Jaune wanted to be clear that he is not trying to arrest her but persuade her to surrender and go talk to James. He tells them while Ruby and Oscar tries to reason with James and investigate Weiss's father, they will be watching for Tyrian while chasing down Robyn. Basically, they are trying to make two factions come together and fight against a common enemy. Jaune and his team later manages to capture Robyn only for the citizens to shame them and demand they let her go. Jaune does release them out of their cuffs, however, remember, Jaune is representing realism, so while the crowd is cheering and Robyn celebrates her victory, Jaune makes it clear to her on what is happening. Jaune using facts, expressing his experience and asking questions in which Robyn could not answer, made her think for moment that something big is coming and she will not be able to protect the people from it. Basically, Robyn was sorrowing up in the air, only for Jaune to slam her back into reality and making her choose a realistic approach to solving a matter, even if the people may not agree with her. Putting her in James’s shoes.

Ruby and her new team RWRO, goes on missions to defend and find resources for the new tower. Oscar would continue trying to talk to James but also trains. Weiss tries to figure out if her father had cheated the votes only for Jacque to stop her at every turn. Ren was still being true to James, reports to him but keeps their secret about Jinn and Salem from him. At first, Ren was about to squeal but when James heard what team JNBY were doing, he became skeptical about it and order his men to keep an eye on them. Even willing to fight them if they pose a threat. When Ren heard this, he started believing James may not be as noble as he thought he was. So, he kept his mouth shut and informs Ruby on what is going on. Ruby then informs Jaune in return that way James's soldiers do not get in their way. Finally, when she hears team JNBY captured Robyn and persuaded her to talk to James, she was happy but after the links James went through, because of his suspicions, she decided to tell him the truth. Once he heard everything, he was furious and more importantly scared. However, Oscar using his words persuaded him to see things through. James accepts the truth and was willing to talk to Robyn. Good timing too because team JNBY were about to fight the Ace-ops.

This is when we can consider James a villian or an anti-hero. James turns from being a reasonable man to an unreasonable dictator when him and Robyn meet face to face. Robyn agreed to his demands to return all the stuff she stole as long as James continues to protect Mantle. However she still wanted the wall to be repaired, and the security to be moderate as Atlas so no one can gain control very easily as they did at the rally. James refuses, believing it to be a waste of time. This is where Ruby and Jaune get angry. Jaune tells James what was on his mind about Robyn, believing what Robyn states is fair considering half of the soldiers down in Mantle are robots, and she was willing to return what she stole and maybe assist them in capturing Tyrian. But James believing in his military might does not listen. He then told his Ace-ops to take Robyn away, only her to pull off one last trick up her sleeves. She fired a heavy flash arrow grenade, blinding everyone and escapes.

After that, Ruby and others were in the training room, trying to practice, only to feel apathetic. They felt defeated. Qrow and Maria tried to cheer them up but decided to let them be. Ruby apologized, thinking she never should have told James anything, only for Yang to say the opposite, stating at least he knows what’s at stake. Jaune questions her statement based on what they already saw so far, feels James has no clue at all, only for Oscar to calm him down before he goes too far. Weiss asked what they are going to do now. Nora suggested they just leave and go to Vacuo, Ren suggested maybe stay in Mantle and try to keep it safe, only for Ruby to tell everyone to be prepared for the worst. The gang were surprised and turns to Jaune, only for him to nod his head in agreement. Jaune stated facts, if they turn on James, they will be wanted national criminals. If they go about recklessly it could makes things worse than they already are. And if they do not know what Salem could be planning then they might as well be setting Atlas up to be destroyed. Everyone despite how cruel they feel, understood and decided to keep training and prepare for the next day.

And that is all. Salem never shows up, James still wants to continue with the new tower, Robyn is relevant and RWBY and JNRO are now fully active. Basically, what I hated about the seventh volume is it was completely one sided. James was the only good guy, the main characters were not active but reactive to their situations, and Robyn was just some nobody who could have served a purpose in story. Nobody but James was given any sort of character. And those who did get some character, did not deserve it. Like Yang, who was supposed to have more of a problem with keeping secrets especially from James.

So, what do I want out of all this? Simply, give everyone a role to play other than the main characters. The main characters do not have to do everything. If team JNRO can relate to or handle a situation better than team RWBY can, then let them do their jobs. Team RWBY can still be stronger than them but they cannot always be wiser or more decisive than everyone else. They can be reckless but give a group like Jaune, Ren, Oscar and Nora an ability to grab them by their hairs or the collar of their shirts and know when to tell them; Jaune to Yang: "Calm down and think."; Ren to Blake: "Focus."; Nora to Weiss: "It's okay."; and Oscar to Ruby: "Slow down and listen." Team JNRO unlike team RWBY suffered the most out all the characters. Jaune lost Pyrrha because she was stupid to go back to fight Cinder. Ren and Nora lost their homes and families because hunters were never there. And Oscar literally had to leave his home behind and may never see his aunt and uncle again, since he could die or fade from existence. What I am saying is give support characters room to breathe and grow so they can continue to do their jobs. Which is to act in the main characters best interest.

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trying-write-fanfics · 4 years

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Favorite villian favorite student and favorite hero list em!

OOF THATS HARD

Favorite villain? I gotta say Overhual because I think his arc could have worked in so many ways like he was a good arc villain. By different ways I mean like, Deku could totally be out of Ua and being an official hero and still work. If BNHA is gonna be a long ass show, I’m glad they had Overhauls arc to get the viewers to see more in depth how hero society works and what organize crime is up to these days. Not only that but Overhaul was a pretty interesting character, he wasn’t evol for the sake of being evil, and he knew the debt of the person he was paying wasn’t seeing it but was like “I’ll do it anyway and you’ll see” interesting character. I know the other villains will get depth and have been explain but Overhaul just had that spark of you know what o mean. His design was ahead of its time, and I think like everything about him really fit the look, the behavior the voice. He was terrible to Eri (that’s what makes him a villain and other things) but idk if you’ve ever been ask this but “if one child has to suffer to obtain utopia would you allow it?” And he said yes and I’ll do it myself. He really stood behind his decisions and I thought he was beautifully written as a villain. Also it’s hard to write villains who aren’t looking for revenge or avegning something and yeah he kinda was for what the heros done to organize crime, but his main thing was “I’m gonna cure the world”

Dabi and Toga are second because of what the fans done to them.

STUDENT?? Before I even watched the show I just really liked Tsu for her design. Since watching the show I’m not too close with the students, but I like Momo because she reminds me a lot of my friends who were taking advanced classes who excelled at being smart and talented but had troubles dealing with their shortcomings. I also like Mina because she’s funny. Favorite design is Shouji, favorite to make fun of is Bakugo, but I think my favorite character for who they are might be Kirishima, he hasn’t had a rough past but made mistakes that he’s getting over, has had short comings but is working on them, is a friendly bridge guy, he just seems like that chill guy who you might tutor but always gets you a lunch as a tip to the tutor bill

Favorite hero? I liked Miss Joke, all Might is pretty funny but the show is gonna take a dark turn I bet, MT lady is pretty cool, I also liked Fatgum cause he’s like a jolly avatar Kyoshi (they’re both hella tall and powerful) Santa Klaus Kyoshi.

#ask #rambles #bnha

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goblinconceivable · 4 years

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It’s cool, I can fill my own sails

Finishing the last few eps of s7 OUaT helped. At the very least, it brought up issues of family inclusion and exclusion, which was a heavy theme with Regina back in the day and reexploring that a little with Wish!Hook is intriguing. And the nod to romance being nearly absent from the season gives license to delve into the negative space and supports the reading that Regina/Rogers are on a (very very slow) trajectory.

I don’t know how and when to refer to Wish!Hook/Rogers/whatever, so I’ll just go with Rogers because it’s easier to type, and where the character ends up.

Frankly, there’s about 5 gifs of Regina/Rogers and most of them aren’t shippy in canon. Pulled out, they create a fanon narrative, and that’s great, but I always like to start deep in canon compliance and build/reinterpret from there.

One of the best points in favor of the ship, oddly enough, is the stack of prison books. Which are ordered, intentionally. Snow and Charming are next to each other. Henry and Regina. Alice and Robin. Lucy and Cinderella. And Captain Hook is next to Regina. I don’t know why Zelena/Robin and Hook/Alice are so far apart but that the 4 new characters are on the bottom.

I will note that this season IS a compressed and thematically focused narrative, defined by our 4 returning characters and primarily the parent/child love. Rumple is completing his own long arc, we’ll ignore him except that he is the one reminder of true romantic love in a season otherwise largely ignoring it with the mains. Yes, Henry/Ella begins, but their function is giving birth to a child and starting a family together, rather than their own story as a romance. Which leaves Regina and Rogers, who are all about their kids. Who do find love, next gen starting out with the fresh start their gone-evil parents have undergone change to give them.

They each do get a love interest, insofar as that exists. Rogers had a recurring interest in Tiana, and while she flirted a bit, she shows greater interest in Naveen. Regina had Facilier, more explicit, though he shows greater interest and investment than she does. What this gives us as an opening where Rogers and Regina are both open to romance, though it takes a back seat to their children. True love, for either of them, would be the end of a long journey, rather than the instant-fall we often see. Older, more experienced, more bruised. They both had that already, with first loves, lost it, became villians, and villians, typified by Rumple, get more love journeys.

Regina is more open, she knows how to love and be loved, though she isn’t desperately seeking more because she is content - though she’s realizing she has more to give. She mentors Drizella, she fights for Wish!Henry. Rogers wants more, but he’s in an emotional place Regina was at back in season 2 or so, albeit gentler.

A cool thing about Wish!Realm is that happy endings often don’t exist. The stories are darker. I don’t have much to say about that right now except that rather than losing family, Rogers gained one - and lost it, but he gained love and redemption. Arguably more painful.

I was drawn to 2.5 scenes at the end of the show. The first is right after the curse was broken and Gothel was defeated. Families are reunited, happy. Regina and Henry, Regina and Robin, Cinderella and Lucy mixing in. Alice has Robin. Even Tiana and Naveen run in, holding hands. In the background, largely ignored, is Rogers. This had to be a specific choice, especially since everyone there knows a hospital will not help his affliction, yet someone must have called them. He’s not a part of the larger family of interrelationships, and moreover, is watching Alice become a part of it. His ties are only to Alice, and to Rumple, who is an outlying character (yet STILL part of the group, in his way.)

The .5 is when Regina, Henry and Rogers are together. Rogers tries to join Regina to find Rumple, and she tells him to stay (he does tend to obey her immediately, see her admonishment to find and help Alice at the station.) Later he tries to go with Henry, and Henry knocks him out. He’s TRYING to be helpful, be part of the group, and no one needs or wants him.

The third is at the war table. Again, everyone is sitting around the table, together and despite there being chairs, Rogers stands back, outside the circle. This time, his exclusion is distinctly a decision he has made, how he feels. But something shifts. Charming, the family patriarch, reaches out, with “and a new friend... who feels like an old friend.” Despite having just met him, he accepts him as one of them, and Rogers is surprised but appreciative. It’s particularly touching because Rogers has been with Henry et family (Regina and Zelena etc) for years and never felt that.

The next point is Rumple sacrificing his heart and saving Rogers. It’s the first time someone has sacrificed for him, it’s validation. He’s one of them, annointed by the crocodille. Literally having his heart creates ties to the group, puts him back with Alice so that physical distance is no longer an excuse or reason. It’s is linked to emotional distance, as his quest to cure his heart for Alice, for their relationship, is now over, and he can take a next step.

What happens next? Rogers, the only other active character at this point, explains the situation. He moves from “to save me” to “to save all of us” - he’s considering himself an us, not just his admitted friendship with Rumple, but that perhaps he’s part of the whole. He and Regina were the two tightest with Rumple, so it’s fitting. Regina is 100% about Rumple, double proves he was beloved. It IS his moment, the whole scene was about him. But Rogers is on his own little journey, and he takes Regina’s oblivious hand. Why?

We’ve seen Regina touch him occasionally, more of a distant sympathy or comradery, but human touch is yet important, look at how much Regina hugs her family, and how much Alice and Rogers want to hug and be near each other. Aside from Alice, Rogers never reaches out,

Though as a side bar, when he reaches out to Tiana, to go with her to storm the castle, or hire Alice, she accepts, which probably explains why he likes her. Conversely, trying to manufacture an adventure for Henry goes wrong, and see his recent attempts to help Regina and Henry are rebuffed. All told, dude doesn’t have the best time of it.

So anyway, he takes her hand, and while she doesn’t acknowledge it, she doesn’t reject it either, and that is family. Sometimes you’re just there, behind someone, supporting them as they go through their own thing. And while sometimes you’re pushed away, you just keep trying. Which as Hook with Emma, though I have my own issues with that. They are the same person to large extent, so the tendency is worth mentioning.

Finally, the coronation. Frankly, they had to pan to all the mains and Rogers/Alice/Robin are the least important group -to the show as a whole, the full 7 seasons which this scene is acknowledging and honoring. But they do leave him as Rogers, suit and fake hand. Distinguishing him from Original!Hook. Which again is functional, so grain of salt and shippy eyes. He is not yet integral, but the future is open. As Regina says, see what’s next, indeed.

TLDR; my attempt to find a canon ships fails, but there’s potential if you look. This is a story of an individual journey on Rogers’ part to GET to that point where he can open his heart, and romantic love can follow that. Regina proves she’s now completely comfortable with who she is and who she has, and is open to additional love. There may not be romance in this book, but as to the next...

Addendum because I’m doing the obsessive searching thing: apparently there’s a deleted scene where Rogers asks Henry if he got Regina’s crown. FFS that’s useful information, it means Rogers IS a part of the group, and in fact a larger part of Regina’s future. I mean, he’s there with Alice and Robin. Henry swings by. They’re not just in on the surprise, they’re planning it. He has a role in the new world. ... Deserves it’s own analysis when I process.

Addendum 2 because still tracking down meta: so a reason for Regina looking to Rogers and his nodding could also be that they were talking and he let something slip at some point about... I dunno, something that didn’t make sense to her but now she’s all “oh, so this is what you were talking about?”

#meta #OUaT #hooked queen #captain hook #regina mills

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Hickman’s X-Men One Year In: Part 2: The Dawn of X

And we’re onto part 2. Since it took me a while to talk about Hickman’s Series outside of Giant-Size and the setup here, that’s in part one if your curious, I split this little retrospective into two parts, with this part here talking about the rest of the books. This isn’t to say they aren’t great, many of them are, it was just easier to do this as a two parter so with HIckman himself out of the way how did his hand picked batch of talented writers handle the lofty status quo he set up?Find out under the cut. Pax Krakoa baby.

Mauraders Okay just to get this out of the way this is my second faviorite x-book running, after X-Men itself and it often equals it and far and away the best tile of the run and restored my faith in Gerry Duggan. Duggan is not a bad writer and I blame the messy finish of his otherwise awesome guardians run with infnity wars on marvel trying to cram other characters into it and then a weird mash up idea that while cool, kept the guardians out of their own damn event and from confrting a now mad gamora, but that and deadpool made me forget the guy is a good writer and can do great things. Maruaders however won me back to him with intrest. A unique concept, the x-men as pirates helping ferry goods to krakoan allied states and ferry trapped mutants from hostile ones, is fucking awesome. The only thing missing is nightcrawler and it’s clear hickman has other plans, though I still feel he shoudl’ve been on the boat as he has both the relation to kitty pryde and pirate pedgree that fit in perfectly. Speaking of kitty after years of writers misusing her due to having a crush on her as a kid and shoving her into half baked romances with peter quill and her ex peter rasptuin, the latter failing so badly that marvel pulled the plug on their wedding because fans clearly didn’t want it, and battling my own reluctance ot see her front and center again, Duggan makes good use of her again: Kitty is given the unique hook of the portals not working for her and no one, even her old friend Doug after he gets back, being able to figure out WHY. Though I do hope Doug does show up here and explain it more, as him being kitty’s best friend once is rarely brought up since he got back and it’s silly it hasn’t been. But rather than take this on the chin Kitty strikes up a crew consisting of big sister Storm, first class graduate x-man, badass gay and kitty’s friend and ex iceman, bishop who reluctantly joins as her bishop more on that in a second and the best of them by a mile: Pyro. The original, finally brought back and given some intresting backstory: he was the first mutant brought back and felt good about it..t ill he realized that despite sacrificing himself to save a, if your familiar with the various cartoons this will be baffling but trust me, reformed senator kelly as Pyro himself was dying from the legacy virus, only to find out they did him first because they considered him expendable basically and naturally was upset over that, drunk a bunch of the liquor kitty smuggled in, for logan naturally, and passed out and then joined in on the rescue mission that formed the team because why not and stayed because it was a great offer. Speaking of offers with a new purpose, Kitty accepted her old enemy Emma Frost’s offer to be red queen, which includes a seat on krakoa’s council and was basically emma’s way of saying fuck you to her old cohort who she was forced to bring back on to handle the seedier side of Krakoa’s dealings via his underworld connections, sebastian shaw. Emma is the fincical backbone of krakoa, having the shipping connections to get the flowers in and out and now having kitty to handle the stuff she can’t and do some of the shipping, as well as again tell Sebastian, who naturally wants both gone and is pissy at Emma being so far ahead of him, wants gone. And while he’s seemingly succeded with kitty I not only have every expectation that while ressuection is failing to work on her she’ll be back, but that trying to murder one of the most beloved x-men whose consdiered family to among others three of krakoa’s captains, bishop after this series, four of their council, five if you include Doug whose best friends with both his left arm which is also a deadly space robot and the very place they live on. The only reason he’s not going to die 80 times in increasingily horrifying ways is because the five can’t take on that kind of workload and one murderous ass beating from half of krakoa and krakoa itself is close enough.

Emma is easily one of the books best parts, being written back as she should: An anti hero who while quick with a cutting quip, truly cares for her charges, and mutantkind as a whole and has grown from the monster she started as or even the kind of person who’d use a therapy session from a desperate man having issues opening up emotionally after apocalypse used his body as a rental car to convince him to fuck her. And yes that’s how things started with Scott and Emma and yes it’s really fucked up and yes the story treats it as such, though I still wish Scott would get actual therapy, but as Linkara recently pointed out in his House of M Review the Marvel and DC universes weirdly lack therapists for the most part and thus it was left on my mind the last two weeks.. and yes I know DC tried but when your final product at trying to serious tackle mental health is heroes in crisis.. I award you no points and god have mercy on your soul. But while Emma and Kitty get the lions share of the focus the rest of the group is enjoyable, well done and intresting, if not given many arcs to themselves, but still have enough character moments to counterballance that. The standout of the rest of the crew is easily Pyro, taken from “why is he still dead despite being super popular and used in a heavy role in X2 that’s garnered fans of that version to this day and bafflement he became a foot note in the next movie and used in every adaptation” to fun side character with a skull on his face and a love of booze and setting things on fire. He’s finally given the respect he deserves sorta and while I hope more is delved into his ressurection angst, he’s a ton of fun and it again makes me wonder why it took 20+ years to bring him back, but i’m glad the right person did it. The rest of the crew are fun with Bishop being another standout. That being said part of the reason there isn’t a lot of focus is simply because in additoin to our brave crew the book is juggling a LOT of characters.. the morlocks and calisto, both given a proper treatment after wya too long, jumbo carnation a minor character from morrisons run who was introduced in the same issue he died is emma’s designer, shinobi shaw and christian frost, the latter I question why a main relative of one of marvel’s a-list mutants who was one of marvel’s earlier gay characters hasn’t been used in a big way till now but no time like the present, Sebastian and the people he shares his big bad spot with Homines Verde aka those tweens who ran the hellfire club during jason aaron’s run because the man is nuts and who I only seemd to liked, brillinatly revamped as a racist replacemnt for the hellfire club and so far a clever threat. The book is just stuffed iwth good characters, beautiful art, and a great tone that combines spectacular humor with really good story and worldbuilding. It’s also a nice contrast to hickman’s stuff: don’t get me wrong I love hickman’s writing style but it’s nice to have something JUST as good.. but with a cheerier tone and less weariness to it, while still not lacking weight. I can’t wait to see where this goes.. it’s a pirates life for me.

Excalibur: Like most of the dawn of X-Line outside of fallen angels, more on that in a minute and even then that had an intresting new directoin for betsy braddock, I was pumped for this one. A team I loved: While I struggled to find a run I loved with Claremont’s run having Brian Braddock be a raging dick whose terrible to his girlfriend and gets away with cheating on her and Claremont not really bothering to explain Saturnyne or other characters and their history with Brian well to us yanks who never had the chance to read those tales.. though why stories by alan moore and chris claremont haven’t been republished properly or in epic collections is beyond me. Warren Ellis, who I now loathe for being a scheming weasel who treated women like garbage, had a decent run with plenty of warlock, in a weird phase where he thought he was doug, Moira and Wolfsbane stuff I loved.. but also had 30-40 something pete wisdom shacking up with 18 year old at most kitty pryde, with Pete at the time being basically Warren Ellis badass self insert character, and given recent revelations i’m pretty sure he damn well knew kitty was just 18 and even if he didn’t having his own fanfic character deflower her is just all kinds of EWWWWWW. He also had Colossus, fresh of being a villian for a while for understandable reasons, nearly beat pete into a coma in a jealous rage over the ex.. the ex he dated while she was still a minor, and left because HE , and editorial, was uncomfortable with it for damn obvious reasons. I can see why fans like to see her as bisexual and pair her with Illiayna.. I mean why the fuck not? They have better chemistry than most of he hetrosexual intrests and are paried because of that and not because the writer wanted to make out iwth kitty as a teenager and forgot “oh yeah she’s fictional and i’m 40!” Christ thank god for Gerry Duggan. But yeah moving on from that I was still pumped as a magical x-men book with Besty Braddock now captain freaking britan, and apocalypse on the roster. And rictor and jubille? nad rouge and gambit I guess.. I don’t knokw if they fit but whatever. Sign me up. The actual result is a mixed back. I do like Tini Howard’s work here to a point: Betsy gets good character stuff and theres actually good tension from the fact that the new captain britan is no longer primarily a british ctizen, and the book brought back a character I felt marvel needed to do more with: Jamie. if you don’t know, Jamie is betsy and brian’s, her brother and the former captain britian, older brother who went insane due to his powers and thus just goes around in his underwear convinced reality isn’t real and he can do what he wants and the tension with Jamie refusing to have anything to do with his brother for no good reason is really good. Rictor and Apocalypse are likewise good sensable additons: Rictor turns out to be a natural to being a druid which is a nice twist and makes sense given when he lost his powers the biggest issue with that was loosing touch with earth after having a connection to it be a vital part of him for years. Apocalypse as an ominus chess master slowly securing magic for mutantkind with some goal we’re about to get answers to is really investing and adds a layer to his character, that much like doctor doom he’s as much sorecer as he is scinetest and given the guy’s immortal, it dosen’t feel like it was pulled out of nowhere. The problem is the other half of the cast.. dosen’t really work. I fucking love Jubilee, a faviroite of mine as an xman despite not being a huge 90′s x-men cartoon fan, just feels kinda shoe horned in. Her son becomes a dragon and she worries about him constantly, but her worrying about her son possibly not being a mutant on mutant land could be done in any other x-book, and fraknly I feel her personality would fit better with the maruaders, and it’d be intresting to see kitty and her on the same team since both really haven’t interacted. Here she just feels like “well tini wanted jubilee and no one else did soooo I made her son a dragon to justify getting her”. I feel more could be done and hope Tini has better plans for her. Rouge is one of my faviorte x-men and All New X Factor and Kelly Thompsons work with him and Rouge made me like Gambit again, and I DO love their marriage and it was a way better idea than the one Guggenhiem had planned.. but while the idea of Rouge being reborn is intresting and all, she still dosen’t really get to do much and like Jubilee just feels weirldy out of place while Remy has that plus he’s annoying, as while he’s the only one rightfully supscious of apocalypse he also won’t shut the fuck up about it for five minutes. Ig et where he’s coming from but it dosen’t make him less annoying. These aren’t bad characters, but sof ar they just feel weirdly out of place in a magic based book and unlike Rictor tini hasn’t made any of htem but Rouge feel in place.

That being said I could ignore that more.. but the villians are also week. So far at least, as the return of Satyurne has given the book it’s first good antagonist.. but what I feel drags the book down the most from it’s potential is the bad guys; Morgan Le Fay is the first antaognist, being mad at apocalypse’s intrusions and corrputing Brian.. but her motives are just so boring: She wants power and to rule, she hates mutants... while “hates mutants” is a qualifier for every other antagonist so far, she just feels bland.. Tini just dosen’t make her feel like a good antagonist and it’s a shame as mutant hater or not she’s something DIFFRENT from the throngs of mutant hating conspiracies, mostly from russia in the other books... she’s just so bland it dosen’t work. And after her is Cullen Bloodstone who as far as I can tell is written out of character.. haven’t read his book but I had both a friend confirm it and having read his marvel wiki entry, it just seems like an odd turn to have him be a racist asshole. But even with all my problems and underwhelm here.. I still WANT the book to get from okay to amazing, and feel it genuinely has the potetial. I’ve seen books sharply improve after a rough first arc, Duggan himself showed me that with his Guardians run. Sometimes it just takes time for something to truly blossom and I have a feeling even with my issues, with x of swords coming up howard’s going to flip it all on it’s head and leave me standing there gasping like a moron. I have hope for that. And if nothing else the book is at least UNIQUE. And not in a trainwreck way: by giving mutants a piece of the magic pie and having them tackle far weirder threats, it’s at least doing something new and it probably lands for other people if not me, and if nothing else it does brian 80 times better than the claremont run did. not a high bar but I do like the character and it’s nice to see him take such an intresting path, and the same goes for Betsy. Tini’s still got magic to do, and I have a feeling it’s going to take me by storm very soon.

Fallen Angels: Now for the other half of the coin as it were. Some fans weren’t happy about Betsy getting her old body back, and yes Psylocke wasn’t orignally asian but a white british woman bodyswapped iwth a japanese assasian and yes that’s as ludicrious and unteitonally offensive as it sounds, because horrible implications of said Body Swap or not, Psylocke was one of the few asian superheros of note. So to compromise , Hickman and co decided to split the diffrence: Betsy would come back and get a rank up to captain britan, while Kwannon, said assasian, would take over as Psylocke. Hence Excalibur above and fallen angels here and I was excited about it. The Body Swap thing went on a decade too long and this way fans got the character they knew as Psylocke in another book while the face they recognized would finally get some fleshing out. I was excited about that and while probably the least excited about this book of the intitial 5, it did have an intresting lead, two characters I did like (Kid Cable I grant was only under hickman who turned him from that brat version of cable who killed the one I really love to a good character in his own right), and an intresting antagonist in a sentient machine. In practice it was okay. The best I can say is that writer Brian Hill DOES do a great job taking a mostly minor x-character and really fleshing her out and making her engaging and Kwannon’s quest to save her daughter is really compelling.. but the premise of those who don’t fit with krakoa dosen’t work with the roster given. Laura Kinney is not only sticking with the x-23 name after dropping the wolverine mantle for no reason previously, something Hickman fixed as soon as he realized how fans felt for her apperance in the main book, while Cable feels nothing like the far more fun version from Hickman’s X-Men and later Duggan’s Cable. Add in Husk and Bling who do deserve to be on a team but feel out of place here, and it just.. is okay. The book has an intresting angagonist and a great lead, but just dosen’t work as a team book and would’ve been better off being JUST about kwannon herself, who is far and away the best part about the book and i’m glad she got fleshed out. Not TERRIBLE but nothing special and it’s a shame given the antagonist, whose name I can’t even remember at this point, is intresting and ties into mutantkind’s greatest enmies being man and machine accoridng to house and powers.. basically a decent concep twith a flawed execution. Maybe hill’ sbatman and hte outisders run is better. I need to get on that. That being said the premise and idea is so far being done well in Hellions which we’ll get to, even if I’m being cautious really getting into the book with Zeb Wells track record. But more on that in a bit.

X-Force: Time to make noise, bad guys leave us no choice.. you know the rest. But yeah X-force. The concept here grabbed me, having X-Force rather than just be the black ops squad but be literal black ops for krakoa, was really great and fit the brave new world.. what worried me was the writer, Benjamin Percy. Now a lot of x-fans probably knew him from the much beloved “Wolverine: The Long Night” podcast, which i’ve heard is utterly fantastic as is it’s followup.. but I hadn’t heard it, and had only heard of Percy from DC comics where under his belt was an okay teen titans run and a not very good and politcally unsubtle green arrow book. And i’m not against politics in comics it just wasn’t done at all well there and the “oliver queen looses hif ourture due to a shadowy conspiracy thing” was already done better by jeff lemire. So yeah I was going to give this a chance but figured like those books it’d start strong and then peter out. I. Was. Wronnnnggg. X-Force is easily one of the best of the dawn of x and uses said premise well. It started a bit roughly, mostly becasue the first arc idnd’t make clear x-force didn’t exist yet but was a great origin story: a squad of military commandos working for a shadowy consirtum who become x-force’s big bad, plunge onto Krakoa and massacre a bunch of mutantas and assinate charles xavier. He comes back, though it’s trickier for obvious reasons, but it’s clear from this, and from wolverine and kid omega’s sucessful investigation and finding domino, that this can’t go on and thus X-Forces is formed; The intellegence and black ops arm of Krakoa and the one arm of it’s goverment exempt from the ‘dont’ kill humans rule”. What followed was nearly a years worth of fast paced adventures with good character stuff: Wolverine is in his element, kid omega, while I had my doubts due to quinten being way overused , turned out to be a perfect choice basically being a more compitent teenage sterling archer, cocky and loving this but also really good at his job, while Domino gets a great arc dealing with her trauma over her mutalation and having some of her power stolen by the shadowy masked dickheads while Colossus deals with his trauma over what went down when he rescued some Russian mutants, with the book slowly building up new threats and towards a showdown with Russia, something that’s also been built up by conflicts in Wolverine and Mauraders, which again makes the world of x feel more like an actual world instead a bunch of comics in one cast herd. Jean Grey is good for intellegence, though by now seems to have noped out as she couldn’t take the toll, it’s not for everyone and most notably after 5 or 6 years of being treated worse and worse and written worse and worse and becoming a bigger and bigger piece of shit Beast is FINALLY put in the right spot: his darker turns aren’t ignored but he’s back to being an actually intellegent hero as X-force’s director, still a bit greasy but now for good reason and without a god complex or some such bullshit and with a tiny bit of his humor back. Not much else to say really, X-Force is well paced, enjoyable and gritty, getting the spirit of the team at it’s best down right while doing something fresh with it.

New Mutants (Ed Brisson) Last one, New Mutants is the odd duck of the dawn of x line in terms of how it was launched. Fallen Angels ended up being a mini series both due to Hill being busy and it’s cast being needed elsewhere but will presmibly get a follow up later, but it’s not the ONLY mini series in the line with Fantastic four/x-men, the giant sized one shots and now Empyre: X-Men all debuting in wave 2. New Mutants however is the first book to change writers and said writer STARTED in the middle of hickman’s run, partly due to scheduling delays but even before that it was partly by design and those issues haven’t been collected yet, with hickman’s short run being collected first. So you have a run that builds off what Hickman started but with it’s own ideas that started insidei t and suprisingly it .. really works. While I do think there are better books in the line Brisson’s new mutants is enjoyable, combining humor and character work. New Mutants focuses on the sextant, which was first brought up in hickman’s run, the series of habitats for younger mutants on krakoa that the new mutants look out for, and while the original new mutants are in space, Armor decides to try and bring some old friends in to join in paradise with the help of Glob Herman, that big pink guy with a visable skeleton and eyes, and Maxine and Manon, who in the tradition of layla miller were created for an event and not great htere but turned out amazing under the right writer.. who I think also wrote that event but whatever, a pair of empaths and telepaths who have trouble grasping the right ethics for using their powers. The four go to get one of my faviorite x-men back: BEAK! I missed him even if he’s weirdly suddenly repowered. Beak and his wife Angel only haven’t joiend in with their kids because his dad’s sick, and things soon escalate when a bunch of criminals try holding them all hostage and it’s up to boom boom, bored since everyone left her alone, to save the day! After that we deal with Magik rangling them and the team’s new mission statment: not wanting ot mess up again like she did with beak, who did join them but not without loosing his dad and then his memory of his dad thanks to the twins misguided efforts, Armor still wants to try welcoming new mutants in with the vetrans help, and thus we have our puprose: focusing both on how these younger mutant 20 somethigns of various ages from early to late work together to make a better world nad help their own get back to this world. it’s intresting.. I’m not in love with it like mauraders or x-force, but it’s still pretty good and their first big foe so far, DoX, a blog that well.. doxes mutants that haven’t arrived yet, seems to be intresting. Not much to say just pretty good and and better at mixing comedy and character stuff, and getting the cast right. Ed Brisson had already proven himself on old man logan, but this cements him as one of the hottest new x-writers around and i’m glad he was given a book here. He’s also succeded in making me actually like Glob Herman so that’s a plus.

Fantastic Four/X-Men The first title of wave 2 and easily one of the best, right up there with mauraders nad probably JUSST behind it and ONLY because i’ts a mini series, giving the X-Men their first real step into the rest of hte marvel universe. Sure the 4 had cameoed in the first issue and there’s been mentions of krakoa in other books and one off issues but mostly Krakoa really hadn’t impacted anything.. but that first issue also set things up with Scott’s conversation with Sue Richards

Yeah and in case those who haven’t been aware of what’s going on with the FF lately and either remember franklin as a 6-11 year old or wondered why the hell he was suddenly a teen when they read this crossover, it’s actually simple; At the end of secret wars the Richards family was put on a bus, also so marvel could shove the ff as a proper team out the door due to the whole fox rights thing, and when Dan Slott had brought them back.. and cleverly had more time pass for the richards than for the 616 proper, so he could age Franklin up to his late teens and Valeria up to her early ones, allowing the richards children to actually age since Franklin’s age always had to stay vauge due to marvel’s vage and wobbly time scale. This way they get both consitant ages and more agency. But the return also came with a price as Franklin, who if you didn’t know is so powerful he can create whole universe and shape the sturcture of the universe, had his powers break saving his family, and thus since he came back, he’s onlyg got so much of them left in the tank before they run out entirely, and it’s been an issue for him in Slott’s run as he worries about being the normal human in a fantastic family and comes to a head here, though rather than Hickman himself, who as mentioned last time has a marvelous track record with the family or FF series writer dan slott Hickman choose a wild card for this, though had both Hickman and Slott’s permission to do whatever he wanted: Chip Zdarsky, a modern marvel for marvel who’d writtne the four in marvel two in one but for some reason didn’t get the main book and this book makes me hope whenever Dan Slott bows out he gets his turn and while this is his first x-men work, Zdarsky proves he’s just as good here as is in most of his work on Howard the Duck, Jughead and Star Lord.. a weird selection I know but all classics.

With this power outage, Franklin is worried his dad is, at least subconciously, not really trying to help him and to make matters worse teh x-men show up to offer their help.. and Franklin his birthright. The arguments made by both sides are great and I will be covering the series in full soon but in a nutshell the four dont’ want to give up their son/nephew, Reed dosen’t trust Xavier and feels he wants to use his son’s powers while the x-men feel it’s franlin’s choice and he’s old enough to make it, he belongs with them and he’ll be safer there. It also works because Franklin understandably isn’t swayed by either as neither is reallyt alking to him more at him, especially his parents .. and only tries the gate when Kitty Pryde, the two bonded back in the 80s and a young franklin stopped her from comitting suicide long story but really moving, is the only one to tell him it’s his choice. This dosen’t go quite well though since Reed Richards, father of the year, decided to make a device to mask his son’s mutant gene and no one, including his own family, is happy about htis. Naturally Franklin, with Val’s help, runs away.. and then as if it couldn’t get worse DOOM shows up wanting to help so now it’s a three way dance between them for hte fate of franklin. The series has gorgeous art form the dodsons a really damn compelling story and great setup for further stories for both lines and feels like the best of both franchises. It’s the x-men’s first huge impact on the rest of the marvel universe,a nd it feels like it with the ending showing that and showing this might not be the last time both sides crossover. It’s everything you could want from a crossover and i’m only being so brief because I want to review it soon as a huge fan of both groups. Easily one of the best x-men stories of the line and one of the best stories for both groups period.

Wolverine: We’re onto the final two, and Percy’s second book and the first solo.. and it’s logan again! Makes sense though: Wolverine only just came back from the dead, and while both is daughter and alternate future self carried the woverline banner for him, the original hasn’t gotten his own ongoing in some time. And so far.. it’s pretty good> the first issues a bit messy due to it’s lenght, but overall the book is intresting and has Logan graple with being the best at waht he does and if he can be better or if he deserves paradise while also delivering a compelling solo mission teaming Wolverine up with a federal agent who resents mutants. it also does some good world building, explaning why Krakoan drugs have things like wait lists (they want to control production closely both to avoid having the flower taken away and for quality control), and expanding the russia subplot while using Dracula of all people as a major antagonist, which is clever especailly since this isn’t his first rodeo with the x-men. Just a fun book wiht loads of promise.

Hellions: NOt much to say here as it’s hard to judge after two issues, buti f nothing else this series brought back the delightfully batshit Nanny, who just with last weeks issue offered to nurse Greycrow (who had his name changed from scalphunter because of course marvel did why wouldn’t they) and falling down. It combines humor with an odd but well thought out cast and makes Alex Summers intresting without making everyone else assholes, a hard but earned feet. If it continues to be good.. I dunno, especially since i haven’t been impressed by any of zeb wells other works especially his new mutants run, good god that one’s am ess, but so far he’s winning me over with a clever concept and roster full of deep cuts. Final Thoughts: I won’t be covering Empyre: X_men, though I did enjoy it and i’l save that one for next time. For now this has been a hell of a year of x-men comics, with even the weaker books still having something intresting and none being outright terribule and only one had a bad grasp on some of it’s cast and for a line this big and expansive, that’s a gold medal achivment. After YEARS of stasis the x-men have finally risen again better, bolder and stranger than ever. IS every book A+ gold star etc etc, no, but what’s important.. is that it’s all DECENT. There’s enough standout books to make it work but as i’ve made clear what isn’t the best of the best is still good or decent. There’s nothing bad, no one phoning it in or not giving an effort, everyone is trying thier hardest and succeding on SOME level even if not completely and that.. that’s truly amazing and I look forward to more of it as this line continues. Pax Krakoa and hopefully i’ll see you again.

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