#Dominic is still very much a villain that does a ton of bad stuff

[just-ornstein]

In an isolated system, entropy can only increase.

#the sims 2 #ts2 #dominic newlow #deputy duncan #isaac rossum #the sims #sims #sims 2 #the sims 2 psp #sims 2 psp #strangetown #lizzy plays sims #rewrote some aspects of how I portrayed these two over the years #But also wrote this PSP AU in a way that flows more naturally with the PC game #With some personal touches of course... #Dominic is still very much a villain that does a ton of bad stuff #I also won't redeem him this time around as in my previous Strangetown #Instead making Duncan and his own flaws + ego his eventual downfall

[dalekofchaos]

Why Voldemort is a terrible villain and how I’d improve Voldemort as a villain

As much as I like Voldemort, when you look back on the books. Voldemort is a terrible villain. Yes he has the Horcruxes and has loyal followers...but that’s it. In this post I will be examining why Voldemort is a terrible villain in Harry Potter and how I would improve Voldemort as a villain.

Let’s look at Voldemort’s track record

No clear motivations. The movies do absolutely nothing to flesh out Voldemort, but that's understandable, they're the movies. But even in the books, there is no clear reason for Voldemort doing any of the things that he does. During the flashbacks in the Pensive, Tom is a disturbed child who has a tendency to torture animals, lure other children to creepy caves and steal stuff - all of this is bad, yes, but why? Why is Tom Riddle "evil"? I know the explanation that the canon somewhat provides: that Voldemort doesn't know love/friendship/connection because he was conceived under the trickery of a love potion, and his mother was abused But, even if you accept that explanation, that does not justify Tom Riddle being innately evil and monstrous. Why is he racist/supremacist? If he really is a natural genius with a detachment from human emotion, shouldn't he also be detached from things like blood supremacy, ancestry and mortality? Just because he's a sociopath doesn't mean he will automatically turn into Hitler.

Wages a Wizarding war, but couldn’t even conquer his own Wizarding Nation

He couldn’t become Minister Of Magic. Instead he dicked around in Borgins And Burkes and instead wanted to become Defense Against The Dark Arts Professor.....for reasons. He could’ve used his power as Minister Of Magic to gain followers, especially the fanatic pure blood families and the impressionable Slytherins and cover for his Horcrux murders. But nooo.

When Voldemort DOES take power by force during the second Wizarding War, he does barely anything with it. Voldemort owns the government and has an army of evil. Where does he plan to launch his attack on the world? At a god damn highschool. Yes I know he attacked Hogwarts because of the last Horcrux. Didn't need to get that far if he didn't act like the world's worst Bond villain and monologued for enough time to let Harry either escape or for the Deus ex machina to arrive on que. The first two times it happens, yeah I get it. You're a villain who is up himself, shit happens. But by book 5 when he is still doing dumb shit it's unforgivable. How hard is it to issue a kill on sight order to your hordes of evil? I mean FFS you have legit werewolves on your side, who can sniff out a drop of blood miles away and yet you do nothing with them? Not only do you fail to kill a defenseless baby but you can't evil kill the kid when he's locked up in your second in commands basement.

He isn't particularly charismatic or a decent leader. He does have tons of followers, for reasons. Seriously, except for fear and opportunism I can't understand why anybody would want to fight for him. I mean, I get that he is basically magic!Hitler, but actual Hitler could at least hold speeches. Actual Hitler had arguments why his rule would be good for the German people. Voldemort doesn't. Voldemort treats his followers like shit and tortures or kills them if they aren't useful any more.

He didn't do his homework and doesn't knows the magic lore good enough. He manages to kill himself two times because of lore he really should have known about. The first time he fails to see the magic love-charm, the second time he doesn't recognizes the arcane rules of wand ownership. Those are stupid, avoidable mistakes for somebody that is supposed to be the greatest dark mage of his time.

He isn't even a particularly good mage. He manages to get statemaled by Harry and defeated by Dumbledore. He never does anything truly remarkable with magic that we haven't seen other characters do the same or better (the cave in book six is pretty good, but that's already has best showing). All we see is “AVADA KEDAVA.” Cool, I’ve seen every damn villain use that stupid fucking spell and yes it is a terrible spell.

His plans are... well, they are shit. If your plans get permanently foiled by a bunch of meddeling kids, you should think about retirement, not world domination. The plan in "Goblet of fire" only works out because of dumb luck. "Orden of phoenix" works out because of Harrys incompetence. The plan to kill Dumbledore only worked cause Voldemort used logic and had one of his followers do the work for him. The rest of his plans fail gloriously.

Voldemort's goals. He... wants to be immortal, but why? Because he's afraid of death? Why is he afraid of death? He literally spent his childhood cutting open rabbits. He excelled in all fields of academia and is arguably very intelligent; intelligence tends to negate superstition. Okay, fine; let's assume he's afraid of death. But even if we look for another explanation: maybe he wants to live forever in order to stay in power.

Voldemort wants power...Why does he want power? Why does he want to, quite literally, take over the world? It makes no sense. He has no reason to care about any of that. Even if he's prejudiced against Muggles, what exactly gives him the willpower to actually gather followers, build a legion of darkdoom evil squad and kill everyone? His motivations are never explained, and he is introduced to the story as a 2-dimensional "bad guy". Even from the 4th book onward, Voldemort is never actually fleshed out. He simply goes from bad guy to "extremely bad guy/"super fucking evil". It's shallow. It's a bad character. He isn't even a character. He has no depth, nuance, relatability or layers to him. He's just a textbook douchebag who exists simply to give the protagonists something to do, because otherwise the stories would just be about magic school.

Let's look at the closest and most obvious reflection: Adolf Hitler. It's painfully obvious that Voldemort's movement is based on Nazism. But if you read Mein Kampf, Hitler actually believed what he was doing was justified, and provided reasons for it which he thought made sense. Even if it was objectively flawed, he believed it. That's what makes a good character in fiction; even if they're actually batshit fucking insane and critically evil, you can make them relatable if you go inside their head and show the audience why they're doing what they're doing. Even if the audience doesn't agree with the character, the audience understands why the character thinks this way. Unlike Hitler's diary, Voldemort has no level of self-introspection, no actual justifications. He's a walking plot device, and that's ridiculously bad for a 7-book-long story where he's the main antagonist. I don't remember a single interaction, scene or exchange where Voldemort is shown to have any degree of self-awareness. The youngest we ever see him is when Dumbledore visits him in the orphanage, and by that point he's already evil as balls, for seemingly no reason. Even when Harry is talking to him in their final fight, Voldemort only hisses and spits out superficial threats and a shallow understanding of the events around him, and actually has no idea who he is, or why he's doing what he does. . If he were a realistic character, this lack of self-awareness would build up over time, would create self-doubt in him, and he would go through a character arc where he "found himself" and learned what he really wanted. And then, maybe he comes back and does some crazy shit, but this time he does them with glorious conviction, and has no shame in admitting it. The audience knows him now, and he's a great villain. But that's not what we got. Remember the 13-odd years Voldemort spent floating around like a puff of gas, possessing rats and squatting in Quirrel's turban? Why did his character not develop? HE HAD THIRTEEN FUCKING YEARS TO REFLECT ON HIMSELF. He literally had nothing else to do. He could've become such a complex character. Think about it: a bland, textbook villain gets cucked into infinity and now can't actually do anything but bide his time. It would clearly affect his personality, especially if it lasts 13 goddamn years. But when Voldemort is revived in book 4, he's still just "look how evil I am.exe". He had literally no character arc of any kind. That's actually impossible. No sentient human being can have the same personality, goals and motivations after over a decade of exile. He's a badly-written villain, plain and simple.

It seems like a very poor decision to make the antagonist of 7 thick books this unrelatable and bland. It also makes no sense because Rowling has written consistently excellent characters throughout the series. Why not make Voldemort a real character?

So here is how I would improve Voldemort as a villain

Motivation. So since it's universally accepted that Salazar was against Muggleorns because he grew up in a time where Wizards and Witches were being burned at the stake. What if Voldemort had similar intentions cause he grew up in a time during WWII and the Cold War and saw how powerful and dangerous the Muggles were becoming with their nuclear weapons and wanted to protect magic kind from the Muggles and viewed the Muggles invading a possibility. So he became Lord Voldemort and formed the Death Eaters to finish Salazar Slytherin’s work to protect magic kind against Muggles and Muggleborns. It could’ve started out as noble, but turned racist and evil in the end.  

As Tom Riddle, he becomes the Minister Of Magic or given a position of power secondary to the Minister Of Magic. The Lord Of Magic. It’s important that prior to becoming Lord Voldemort, he should hold a position of political power within the Ministry Of Magic. In Hogwarts, it is said as a student Tom was charismatic, charming and a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So why not use all that for politics? He could use his charm and political power to turn the Ministry Of Magic against the Muggleborns and against the Muggles. He would write a book explaining in detail why he believes in what he believes and that gives him the following he needs. The Book in question would be called “Magic Is Might!” The old Pure Blood magical families and impressionable young Slytherins would follow him like moths to a flame.  He could use his newfound political power to research all forms of magic and even the dark arts. He could make Horcruxes in secret. As Voldemort he would gather allies who were rejected by society like Werewolves and Giants. But despite what the Horcruxes do to his face, he could use magic to keep up appearances. He wouldn’t just be seeking to wage war with the muggles and muggleborns. First Voldemort has to take over the Wizarding world. 

Treats his followers like allies. Voldemort does not use fear and the threat of death and torture on his most trusted allies. Tom Riddle’s the Knights of Walpurgis hold key positions in Tom Riddle’s administration and then the Death Eaters are born and Voldemort treats them with respect and admiration. In a sense, he treats the Death Eaters like family.

The First WIzarding War should have been about Voldemort waging war on the other Wizarding nations. This would truly show how terrifying and powerful Voldemort really is. Would also explain why the other nations did not interfere in the second war, cause they were that terrified of Voldemort. The Order Of Phoenix was barely able to win and drive Voldemort from power. 

Voldemort’s fall was because he was desperate. He was ousted from power and Dumbledore, the OOTP and Aurors are on his trail. His body is failing him, so he desperately needs to create a new Horcrux. So he kills The Potters. He fully knew that Lily used the love charm to shield Harry from him. So He saw a way out. Voldemort purposefully destroyed himself so he could gain a new Horcrux. 

Plus, we can have Voldemort hide the Horcruxes in the nations he conquered. So Voldemort can hide them in -Russia -Germany -America -Hogwarts -France Obviously Nagini would be by his side at all times and well Harry is the last one. For context of how Voldemort conquered these nations. Imperio, subterfuge, and mass hysteria. He took out the Wizarding governments and implanted them with his thrawls.

Make Voldemort as hated as Umbridge. Here’s how.

In my hypothetical scenario where Voldemort hides the Horcruxes in different Wizarding Nations, make 8 books. Book 7 ends with everyone graduating from Hogwarts and the fall of the Ministry. 

This way, after graduation, the Ministry has fallen and it ends with the Big Seven on the run. In Book 8 they are all on the hunt for the Horcruxes. Not just for Horcruxes, but international allies to unite the Wizarding world against Voldemort. It ends with the final confrontation being at the Ministry. Voldemort's endgame plan is not just to wipe out the Muggleborns, but wiping out the Muggles. He has the Magic equivalent to a Nuclear bomb. Voldemort wants to destroy the Muggles and recreate the world in his image. Magic Is Might! He plans on using it and Harry has to stop him before it's too late

Voldemort fails because the Horcruxes are failing him. It isn’t immortality, it is only temporarily longevity and every time one of his Horcruxes gets destroyed, his body breaks down and his soul is in an even worse shape.  When Nagini is destroyed, it is over. Voldemort thinks if he can kill Harry, he will live forever as the prophecy states “only one can live forever.” so he believes if he could just kill Harry, he can win. But Harry deflects his curses and sends it right back at him. Voldemort dies as he did in the book. Powerless, alone and human.

#Harry Potter #Lord Voldemort #Tom Marvolo Riddle #Anti JK Rowling

[maddie-grove]

Would you be interested in sharing your list of twelve objectively nasty but enjoyable heroes? (I do not know if Crispin Burke, a personal favourite of mine, would make the list, given the standards for male nastiness in some of these romances, but thank you nonetheless for introducing me to him.)

Good news! Our man is indeed on the list. I guess that one unspoken factor is that it’s harder for a villainous hero to be enjoyable if he does the very worst stuff. Still, there’s plenty of appalling behavior on my list of problematic faves.

I’m going to do this by category:

Heroes Who Could Easily Be Villains

Sebastian from To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney (1995): Easily the worst hero I still like. I enjoy how he decides to be nicer largely because he’s sick of his own Sadean bullshit. Plus, neither he nor the narrative ever acts like his behavior is justified or even sympathetic before he reforms.

Allegreto from Shadowheart by Laura Kinsale (2004): he does some theatrically messed-up stuff, but it’s the early Renaissance and a kinky proto-Machiavellian bastard has to hustle! Plus, he has some top-tier angst, and the heroine gets to play rough with his junk and become a queen in her own right, so things work out!

Valentine from Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt (2016): A repeat blackmailer and kidnapper, yes, but also the funniest bitch in romance. He charmingly thinks the heroine is a beautiful angel.

Crispin from A Lady’s Code of Misconduct by Meredith Duran (2017): An MP without principles who menaces the heroine, he certainly benefits from getting amnesia early in the story and getting to re-evaluate his life a la 13 Going on 30, but I loved him from the moment that he admitted to himself that his cruelty to the heroine was (despite his pretensions) indistinguishable from that of her grotesque relatives.

Felix from The Luckiest Lady in London by Sherry Thomas (2013): A lightweight, especially for this category--his main issue is that he’s a cold fish--but how could I fail to recognize the man who tricks the heroine into thinking her most promising suitor is in an incestuous relationship with his half-sister? All because he wants her to marry him instead? Also, the best dirty-talker in the genre, no contest.

Bad Personality Gang

Rand from The Firebrand by Susan Wiggs (2001): A sexist banker who holds all the most boring, condescending sexist opinions of his day (1870s Chicago) for half the story, Rand has one of the most convincing and satisfying changes of heart I’ve ever seen. But, lord, he made my blood boil to begin with.

Reuben from Crooked Hearts by Patricia Gaffney (1994): A lazy, rude, emotionally immature con man, and yet what can I say? I’m charmed by his pleasure-seeking, borderline-cowardly ass. I think it helps that he refreshingly doesn’t suck in ways that are common to historical romance--he isn’t domineering or sexist--and he’s at his best around the heroine.

Oh, Honey, No

William from Libertine’s Kiss by Judith James (2010): Sometimes a romance hero isn’t a bad person, exactly, but he’s got a ton of issues that you know will never be resolved. William is a wormwood-bitter alcoholic who’s based on John Wilmost, the second Earl of Rochester, and he’s got an nasty attitude towards everyone except for the heroine, whom he thinks is a beautiful angel. This is charming, but I finished the book thinking, “Girl, he’s never going to stop drinking.” But I can’t help loving him, any more than she can.

Bentley from The Devil You Know by Liz Carlyle (2003): Sometimes, a romance hero is an absolute sweetheart, but he’s so self-destructive and has such poor judgment that it’s like, yikes, dude, you’re almost thirty, and you need to stop getting in situations where everyone’s pretty sure that you murdered a woman (he didn’t do it) or where you semi-accidentally seduce and abandon a debutante you consider a family friend (he thought he’d left a note, but the wind blew it away). And, look, this is a lot more relatable than most problematic heroes, and a lot of it is trauma, but I don’t like having to make so many excuses. 

It’s Complicated

Tom from The Hostage by Susan Wiggs (2000): Definitely has the most solid and sympathetic reasons for kidnapping a heroine that I’ve ever seen.

Ewan from A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole (2017): He put years of hard work into getting his torture degree at torture college, and now everyone’s like “oh torture’s bad,” “it’s ineffective,” fuck off. Also, it’s on Confederates, soooo. Seriously, I am very anti-torture, and I’m not comfortable with the idea that it’s okay on people who are horrible enough, but...it’s on Confederates. In the middle of the Civl War. Ewan also has conflicted, if somewhat detached, feelings about it, and it’s interesting and uncomfortable to be in his shoes. 

There’s Just This One Thing

Will from Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer (1989): Will is largely a kind, gentle, hardworking, openminded hero, but his backstory is that he killed a woman and he doesn’t feel bad about it at all. Which, okay, it was a freak accident that she died, and he only shoved her because she was threatening his friend with a deadly weapon. I don’t expect him to feel that bad, just regretful that it turned out that way. But, damn it, Will, she was a human being! This is most likely a reflection of the book’s larger hostility towards women who are sex workers and/or have “too much” sex; their “promiscuity” is always paired up with objectively wrong actions (violent/predatory behavior, blackmailing when not strictly necessary), and then everybody’s glad when they die. It’s fucked up.

#romance novels #thornfield13713 #tw: rape #tw: torture #tw: whorephobia #tw: sexism

[william-ba]

Gumdrop Angel Review

Hey all! I’m writing this a few days after I got Gumdrop Angel, but this will be posted on May 4th. Anyway, yeah I’m one of the first three or four to get the story early! Pretty cool, right? As always, with these reviews I will be going into spoilers for them, so be warned! Overall, while many may be wary of the first story, Gumdrop Angel is a superb book that stands out from the rest as the best in the Fazbear Frights series.

For my The Puppet Carver review, go here! For my previous The Cliffs review, go here! If you want to read these in order, go here!

For the rest of the review, keep reading!

Gumdrop Angel - It was mediocre. Everything just kinda happens, and like Lonely Freddy we’re left in the dark about nearly everything going on in regards to the Gumdrop Nose, and like He Told Me Everything it's more strange biology-altering substances. Angel was an okay protagonist, and most of her actions toward her step-dad felt justified, however I hate how she treats her step-sister, Ophelia. Ophelia is five, and she keeps trying to include Angel instead of being truly spoiled and keeping everything to herself. She wants to include Angel, and Angel responds with anger and violence. And her taunting Ophelia after eating her Gumdrop Nose? Why act like that? Dominic felt like an obvious twist villain, so I’m glad that he actually cared about Angel and cried for her. Still, this story was so predictable it was boring.

Sergio’s Lucky Day - I personally liked it, but I can totally understand why others won’t. I do think this story is meant to be a dark comedy, so maybe that’s why I’m not as harsh on it. I mean, Sergio literally crashes a car because the woman he was breaking up with for trying to be nice and give him gifts grabs Lucky Boy and threatens to throw him out the window. He’s kinda like Matt, but different. Matt is very confident in himself, but all that comes from this is him failing relationships and getting pissed over a video game. Sergio lacks that. He wants validation, especially after becoming Project Manager and having a shit ton of stress put on him. When Sergio finds Lucky Boy, his luck finally begins to get good, and he wins $600,000. The difference between people giving him gifts and stuff is that Lucky Boy doesn’t directly tell him what to do. Sergio decodes his words and comes to his own conclusions. It makes him feel special. It makes him believe he can tell Dale that he’s quitting only a few weeks after getting the job. It makes him believe he has a right to track Sophia down and ask her out. So, I think this story was extremely good. Only flaw is that without Lucky Boy the scenes with Sergio are very much unpleasant.

What We Found - I love this story. Hudson is a pretty tragic character, and I can’t help but feel bad for him every time something bad happens to him. Especially when he’s being forced to relive the parts of his life that has terrorized him for years and is desperately trying to move on from. I also like how his friends, Barry and Duane, stick out for him and stay by his side as much as they can. Springtrap in this is a definite improvement from In the Flesh. The hallucinations in this story are very interesting, as we can’t quite tell what is real or fake sometimes, and I like that the story makes you question it. For example, I’m pretty sure the Chica in the vent is real. I love Fazbear’s Fright. Much better than how we see it in the games and makes more sense than some random hallways. This story does the whole “it’s close to canon but not quite” thing better than Coming Home. My only real complaint was how little Springtrap actually did anything. Sure, he was a threat, but it was mainly hallucinations and sneak attacks. I’d love it more if he was more direct. But, this story is still superb.

#five nights at freddy's #fazbear frights #gumdrop angel #sergio's lucky day #what we found #balloon boy #lucky boy #springtrap #BA Reviews

[dreamworksconvict]

She-Ra: Racism Problem Pt. 1

Thanks to this post by @dyke-ra​ for inspiring me to write about this topic, I’m going to have to split this up cause there’s so much to talk about.... 

I worked a bit on my thesis today, which is about LGBTQIA+ representation in kid’s/young adult’s cartoons, and as soon as I got home I stumbled upon a post on my dash (reblogged by @highqualititty​ who has Very Good Art so check them out) and I was like!!!!! This is exactly what I was writing about with VLD and Steven Universe!!!! It reminds me a lot of this image by @racistz

So I want to point out some of the problems with She-Ra that I’ve noticed and that other people in the fandom have noticed as well, and talk about them in the context of Hollywood history, tropes/stereotypes, and well... colonialism. 

There will be spoilers for She-Ra Season 3 so be warned. I’m also writing this kinda stream-of-consciousness-esque so apologies if it’s a bit jumbled.

PART I: Character Design - 1. Catra

Ok, so let’s start with Character Design. I want to focus on Catra and Mara for this. If people want I can talk about some of the worries I have about Huntara too. 

Let’s start with Catra, and let’s do a little comparison. 

Catra and Sugilite share a startling number of design traits. Pay particular note to the fact that they’re both seen as wild, misguided characters. Neither of these characters is coded as white. I would say Sugilite is pretty obviously a racist caricature of a black woman, not that Catra doesn’t have these tropes as well, but that Sugilite’s design and character traits have been widely discussed, especially in the really excellent article “All These Black Characters and 0 Done Right — How Steven Universe Fails Its Black Fanbase, Part I“ (there is no part II, as I believe the writer, Riley H, got essentially bullied into silence). In actuality, however, both of them have a lot of similarities. I’ll be using a lot of evidence about the coding of black women in media primarily, but there are a lot of other tropes you can find about other ethnic or racial codings as well. A lot of these tropes are also defined as being in the past, but there are still clear reverberations of them in the present, as I try to show here.

Riley H notes the Jezebel stereotype in the article I mentioned, which Catra seems to fall into somewhat. The Jim Crow Museum at Ferris State University says that “The descriptive words associated with this stereotype are singular in their focus: seductive, alluring, worldly, beguiling, tempting, and lewd. Historically, white women, as a category, were portrayed as models of self-respect, self-control, and modesty - even sexual purity, but black women were often portrayed as innately promiscuous, even predatory.” While Catra’s design does not have the same obvious extreme-hourglass shape that Sugilite’s does in its emphasis of hips and chest (jesus Rebecca Sugar, what were you thinking), Catra’s chest and hips are still accentuated with triangle designs that point to those areas; Catra’s hips are also decorated with strappy belts. Her pants are also ripped at the thighs, and she doesn’t wear shoes. She also wears skin-tight clothing; compare to Adora, who gets a big baggy coat, a long-sleeved shirt, and non-ripped pants (and shoes). Catra is also wearing red, a color associated with passion; while Adora’s jacket is red, she is most often seen in white, a color associated with purity. Plus, check out Glimmer’s fantasy imagery from S2, which is supposed to be a reference to the OG She-Ra but does not take into account that THESE ARE STILL TEENAGERS???: 

Also note that Catra’s arc thus has far has focused on her losing self-control and self-respect, while Adora’s arc has focused on her gaining those traits instead. 

Two other stereotypes are important to acknowledge here: the Sapphire stereotype, which “popularly portrayed black women as sassy, emasculating and domineering. Unlike the Mammy figure, this trope depicted African American women as aggressive, loud, and angry - in direct violation of social norms,” and the black brute stereotype, which typically referred to black men but stereotyped them as “animalistic and brutish.” Catra is literally made animalistic by being part cat--if your defense is, “oh, well that’s just how she was in the original,” 1) things can you know... improve over time 2) it’s still really, really bad even if it was “used in the past series” and 3) she’s also covered in scars on her arms, which is an addition to her design that makes her seem like she gets into more fights than Adora and other Horde soldiers and/or had a rough past, making her more “brutish”/prone to fighting than the others. (Contrast to Adora’s now-revealed past where she was a Magic Baby Destined Hero from the Savior Planet.) 

Plus, she still falls into the Sapphire trope. Adora was the favorite of the Horde, while Catra was the rebel and “too outspoken.”  Catra is also punished more than others for failing to succeed in missions--Hordak even attempts to have her executed, despite the fact that most of his generals have also been failing just as much. Catra still talks back to him, and rarely is shown afraid--more often than not, she’s shown making “sassy” quips and talking down to others. Adora gets many more scenes of emotional vulnerability and growth. Both are/were members of the Horde as well and grew up traumatized, but Catra’s trauma villainizes her (although she may still get a redemption arc at some point) while Adora’s does not. 

She is also very masculinized (is that a word?? oh well) when with Adora. She even takes the role of the “male dance partner” in the ball episode when they dance together, and is wearing a suit and tie (untied, to still depict that “wild” side). Look to Riley H’s article which discusses how Garnet in SU often takes the more masculine roles in fusion dances--there are clear parallels. While this inherently isn’t a problem, it’s a common trope that PoC women characters are made to be more masculine than their white counterparts. On top of this, much like how Pearl (white-coded) is the only one who can get through to Sugilite once she’s gone “out of control” (see the episode “Coach Steven”), Adora, the white savior (I will get to this problem later), is presumed to be the only one who can “get” to Catra or influence her behavior (although Scorpia made attempts, but she is also white...). 

In summary: Catra is portrayed as animalistic, wild, prone to fights, and masculine especially in comparison to white-coded characters. Her arc thus far has made her a foil to Adora, but in doing so has followed a lot of stereotypical tropes and has heightened Adora’s position as a White Savior, especially post-S3. 

(I didn’t talk about the “evil lesbian” trope, but since there are so many queer-coded characters on both sides, I am not sure if that trope applies here. I may make another post regarding that specific trope though if people would like. Essentially we’re getting dangerously close to that potential premise.)

2. Mara

Ok, so if you haven’t heard, Mara (the previous incarnation of She-Ra) was whitewashed in the earlier seasons of the show. Let the images provide the evidence, Season 3 vs prior: 

Yikes...

I have seen an apology floating around on Tumblr from someone who worked on the show who claims they just didn’t notice this... which like, ok, maybe. There is also speculation that maybe they decided to design Mara this way last-minute. I’ve also seen some theories that She-Ra’s “form” is a white woman regardless of who wields the sword but that would be Super Yikes so let’s hope it’s not that. 

There are plenty of resources available about why whitewashing characters is bad, although it’s somewhat unusual for this to be a discussion in animation. (Typically the discussion happens when Scarlett Johansson plays a character who isn’t white or cis for the ten billionth time.) But something similar did happen with Voltron: Legendary Defender on the cover of one of their comics. Check out this nonsense:

Like how to do you mess up, that bad?!!?!?!?

In any case, I believe a reprint was issued (much) later for this particular cover, but the fact remains that this is becoming enough of a problem that people should be checking for this. This whitewashing took place in the actual She-Ra episode and wasn’t caught beforehand by editors? Suspicious, and embarrassing...

Also, this doesn’t necessarily have to do with character design or whitewashing, but I am Suspicious that Mara had to sacrifice herself to save the planet while Adora did not... remind anyone of Allura? Anyone???? There is a whole problematic history regarding that which I can get into on a separate post as well. But since we don’t know exactly what happened to Mara yet, I’m leaving that alone for now. 

----

So that’s the gist of the character design piece of the puzzle! Next I want to talk about the White Savior trope in She-Ra and how it’s really similar to Voltron and Steven Universe in that respect. 

IS this all a bit of a reach? Maybe some of it?! But I doubt that ALL of it is. (The whitewashing definitely is not.) And the fact is that there has been a ton of problems with holistic representation in cartoons, and She-Ra isn’t trying to do anything different to counteract the bad stuff that’s been done before. In fact, it’s kind of following the same pattern as its predecessors. Characters, even non-human ones like Sugilite, are coded a certain way, and those codings are based off internalized systems of how we view the world and interpret it. So if you have a writer who’s not really closely examining those beliefs and systems without challenging them, you end up with stuff that follows all these problematic tropes and stereotypes. 

I’m planning for my thesis to go over why I think this happens so often (mostly a lack of intersectionality). essentially I’m in way over my head and will have like, a 100 page thesis plus a creative piece too by the end of this and it’s due this fall cause i deferred it oooooh my gosh. Anyways! There will be more if you like. 

#she-ra #racism

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Nine (25.71% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Twenty-six.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

For a movie which is pretty much wall-to-wall fight scenes...I love it. I always start out going ‘maybe I overrate this movie, maybe it’s not as good as I remember’, but by the end, I’m right back in there.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Wanda apologises to Natasha for lying. It’s a close call.

Female characters:

Pepper Potts.

F.R.I.D.A.Y

Gamora.

Mantis.

Wanda Maximoff.

Natasha Romanoff.

Okoye.

Nebula.

Shuri.

Male characters:

Ebony Maw.

Thanos.

Thor.

Loki.

Heimdall.

Bruce Banner.

Stephen Strange.

Wong.

Tony Stark.

Peter Parker.

Ned.

Peter Quill.

Rocket.

Drax.

Groot.

Vision.

Steve Rogers.

Sam Wilson.

The Collector.

Thaddeus Ross.

James Rhodes.

T’Challa.

Bucky Barnes.

Eitri.

Red Skull.

M’Baku.

OTHER NOTES:

Heimdall had proven himself too much of an MVP in previous films to be allowed to live in this one. Bastards.

Heimdall and Loki, both dead before the opening titles. That’s how you know this movie means business, it’s not faking at high stakes.

I also am from space and have come here to steal a necklace from a wizard.

“Mr Stark, it smells like a new car in here!”

“All words are made up.”

Not gonna lie, when I saw this at the cinema and I realised that Captain America had arrived? My heart LEAPT. It was intense.

Depressed Thor is a great touch - after all previous films with Thor had him so bland, and then Ragnarok made him funny but essentially glossed over any of the difficult emotions it was dredging up, I’m glad to finally get something real and meaty from the character. If characters go through all manner of Hell and don’t show any signs of labouring under that weight, you’re doing character development wrong.

Nice callback with Red Skull.

The sacrifice of Gamora on Vormir is a really well-balanced piece; it was asking a lot, to make the emotion of it land despite how little of Thanos we’ve seen before, and without genuine emotion at it’s core it’s just the killing off of a female character for shock value. I feel like they got the pitch just right (most thanks to the music).

As much as I enjoy Thor and Rocket’s bantering, the side-quest for Stormbreaker feels like an unnecessary and over-the-top distraction in an already stuffed-full film. Easily the weakest part of the plot.

The fact that Quill fucks everything up with defeating Thanos on Titan because he can’t keep himself under control for two seconds certainly does not endear him to me in the slightest. Like ok, you’re upset, but if you can’t stop yourself from getting violent that’s on you, that makes you a dangerous person with serious issues, that’s not normal and it’s not ok. Also, literally half of all life in the universe was at stake. So there’s that.

Listen, I’m very susceptible to heroism (and that’s why superhero movies work for me), so every time someone comes to someone else’s rescue, I have feelings. 

I had convinced myself that somehow, Thanos wouldn’t succeed with his whole plan in this movie, that he would get all the stones but that he would like, go to a special place or something before enacting his plan, so that the good guys would have a chance to regroup and race to stop him before it was too late, all that jazz. So (even though Thanos had already snapped at that point), when Bucky Barnes disintegrated before our very eyes, I was SHOCKED. That got me like a smack in the face.

Considering I’ve never really been a fan of Tom Holland’s Spider-man, it’s a credit to his work that Peter’s death scene is so effective. That’s acting.

So, what makes this movie work despite being so heavy with bombastic action? The short answer is: it’s because the good guys lose. I’ve made no secret of being a fan of the ‘hour darkest before the dawn’ in storytelling, so this is playing to the sweet spot for me there, but it’s not as simple as just making everything miserable and hopeless. In this case, specifically, the lead-up to that ultimate failure is key; it’s gotta still feel like a superhero extravaganza, even as it takes an increasingly dark turn. The action works because it’s part of what we signed up for (the best camouflage for subversions of the traditional model), and it works because it’s all carrying the story forward - the Infinity War is comprised of multiple battles, and because of the way the pieces of the narrative are separated, the characters don’t know how any of the other battles are turning out; everyone is just trying to fight what’s in front of them and defend the stone in their midst, they don’t have the option to sit around doom-and-glooming and restrategising as news of each defeat comes in. Rather than dragging us wholesale from Point A to B to C in ever-escalating stakes and complications, the writers have had the good sense to spread things out and let things fall apart for our heroes (and the universe) in multiple smaller pieces until they reach a cumulative critical mass. Consequently, instead of feeling as though we’re sitting there watching things go from bad to worse, the audience forms this false sense of security in the action; it’s a superhero movie, after all. We expect them to work it all out in the end, to build toward a moment of apparent hopelessness (a darkest hour before the dawn), and then to rally triumphantly for the big win. As such, we perceive small victories (i.e. the defeat of Thanos’ various ‘children’, the creation of Stormbreaker, the way things draw out in the battle on Titan) as if they are more significant, as if they are signs leading us to that big win; without those small, expected victories, the ultimate failure would not hit as hard, because after two and a half hours of watching the good guys get wrecked without a chance, what surprise would there be in the snap?

Of course, plenty of viewers knew about the snap already or expected an ultimate failure of some sort based on the fact that we pretty much all knew that this was the first half of our grand Avengers finale (my mother, who is not a superhero movie fan, did not know what she was getting into and was...very shocked), so it’s important that the film still works to engage us on a character level so that the good guys losing in the end can hit like a ton of bricks even if you knew it was coming (and even though you no doubt expected to get the big win eventually, once Endgame came out). After all the fighting and the bantering, all the usual stuff we expect to see our heroes go through in the course of an average adventure, having them then watch their beloved friends/allies/whatever literally disintegrate before their eyes in a quiet, drawn out scene of devastation is a magnificent piece of cinema, communicating the shock not only of the event itself, but of the complete disruption to the superhero status quo. It’s not just that good guys don’t lose like this, it’s that they don’t lose with a whimper instead of a a bang. It’s not only that the cost of failure has never been this high; it’s also that they have never been forced to watch it play out with such inevitability; they have never before been rendered so powerless. If the entire film had the tone of the last ten minutes, it wouldn’t work so well, it’d just be a drudge and the audience would be desensitised by the end. By the same token, if the rest of the film had not planted the seeds of the finale so thoroughly in all its smaller losses and smokescreen victories, the ending would not be so horrifically fitting.

Neither, of course, would the ending be so affecting, if we were not as attached to the characters as we are. We have many, many films worth of history with most of them, or at least one solid encounter in which to become attached, and even in a movie chock-full of more characters than any other before, everyone gets a chance to show their personality and remind us why we care if they live or die. I’m not going to argue for this being an incredible character piece (nor is it pretending to be one), but it plays its very large hand very well, putting emphasis where it needs to be without overloading or unbalancing the story. As I noted above, I was particularly impressed with the way Thanos was handled, considering our exposure to him previously was very minimal and it was left up the this film to build his ethos as well as his relationships with his ‘children’ almost from scratch, creating complexity and simplicity without falling into the trap of trying to make the villain sympathetic; Thanos isn’t necessarily relatable (nor does he need to be), but he is understandable in that we’ve all probably encountered at least one person who holds the same limited worldview and is somehow convinced that they could ‘fix’ everything, given the power. Thanos isn’t actually aiming for universal domination in the traditional sense, and it makes him more disturbing and more realistic as a villain, because his evil is not nebulous or purely self-serving; he is a true believer, and his delusions have an all-too-familiar ring about them, so as we watch him lumber and pontificate around the story, we get a clearly-drawn image of someone possessed of such basic and humble flaws that he is - again, without being treated as sympathetic - quite significantly humanised, despite all of the non-human elements that make up both his character, and his situation. Even as it planet-hops and draws upon cosmic magic, the narrative is grounded by a centrepiece of plain, ungodly fallibility. 

Now, I recognise that in all of this praise for the way this film was executed, there isn't really anything to be said for it regarding the purpose of this blog; on the female representation front, it's not really doing anything (the fact that it juuust manages to pass the Bechdel and juuust over a quarter of its cast is female does not win it brownie points; its better than not having either of those things, but that's not a genuine achievement). The two female characters who were more prominently positioned in this movie are Gamora and Wanda; Gamora largely in context of her relationship with Thanos, and Wanda as Vision’s significant other and the means of his destruction. Notably, both women’s arcs are accessories to the arcs of male characters, which is not what we’re aiming for in good representation, though it does not exclude the possibility of quality content; Gamora’s role may have a lot to do with Thanos (not least, after he kills her), but it is still distinctly her own story, rich with emotion and coming to a surprising and depressing end which I felt struck the right chords to be compelling rather than an enraging disposal of one of the few female characters around (more on this after Endgame). Wanda’s presence leaves less of an impression, in terms of screen time, plot complication, and audience engagement, but all things considered I don’t think that was a terrible choice; Wanda and Vision’s relationship had been a somewhat sparse subplot in previous films and the chemistry was not strong, so I don’t think it would have been to the film’s benefit to try and expand on that relationship further than they did. As it was, there was enough there to sell the emotion, and nothing extraneous, and as much as I enjoy this movie, I wish I could say better things for its female representation than that. It is stuffed-full, and definitely not perfect, and space could have been made to pump up some of the other female characters’ roles more (the Earthbound characters get the least attention in the movie, and since basically all my faves are there it is a testament to how well this movie works for me that I enjoy it so much anyway, but a little more attention there would not have gone astray, especially since that’s where most of the female cast is). That said...I still really enjoy it, man. As far as popcorn action goes, this is top shelf.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #Avengers: Infinity War #female representation #Bechdel Test #MCU

[light-of-being]

a very fkin long and incomplete exposition of my flaws as a human being

I've not really spoken about the probably most consequential event in my recent life (the ending of a long term relationship), and that's because I haven't really thought about it very much. At least, not in a clear-headed space not entirely filled with rage, fear, or initially, longing. So, I've mostly just been waiting for the intensity of those responses to wear out before I can go back and make sense of things in a sorta 'safe' way.

(These days it's mostly anger and/or hurt. Sometimes twinges of hatred, but those fizzle quickly. I know that attitude isn't 'true'. I tried to hate him, I really did. Things would be so much simpler that way — an obvious villain of pure evil, a mistake worthy of contempt. Put him behind me as someone I regret meeting and consider everything only as a flashing warning sign of what to avoid next time. But real life never is that easy, is it.)

Regardless, reading about miscellaneous psychological ~stuff, I realised that I know for sure now that there are sides of me that only come out in a close relationship, as they postulate. It's unfortunate that my exposure to this was only in such a toxic environment, and I'm not sure if or when closeness has any chance of happening again.

I suspect, based on what I have/haven't felt with him vs others, that I can (at least at this stage of my development) only really feel 'seen' by an antisocial/narcissist/schizoid (or something in that general direction), just hope to god it's a mature one next time. I might want to interrogate and possibly change that fact, I'm not sure it's at all a healthily arrived preference. But...

there is a degree of normalcy and social belonging in others that becomes a wall

I can relate superficially, cognitively and even 'deeply personally' (tho is all y'all's deeply personal shit necessarily relational?), have a good time and even feel 'connection' but there are parts that seem simply insurmountable.

The lack of relating to many things is the unifying factor between me and the specified groups: the shared experience of not having shared experiences

But yet, a more acute awareness of superficiality, and the drives and mechanics of human interactions, attitudes, identity and constructs, not taken for granted as default but built from the ground up (Most often out of either necessity or a desire to manipulate them, but still).

Actually, most straightforwardly, the shared experience of experiencing oneself as an outsider to society — whether people personally, accepted norms or expected attitudes towards self and other.*

Anyway, that was a whole semi-tangent I went off on (useful and relevant to the initial thought but not the point I was planning on).

Important point was...ah yes, insights!

...into how I behave under genuine relational circumstances. Due to aforementioned toxicity, I'm not sure how generalisable they are to relationships overall, but they should generalise to feeling-states.

1.

(a) Fear. Defensiveness.

Switches off my brain. Obvious? No. I have been actively strategic while having a gun pointed at me. I thought I had that down. Turns out, I cannot dissociate myself out of an argument most of the time.

Turns out, just the fact or even prospect of arguing activates panic and brain goes out the window. Which is really fucking stupid as an occurrence because how many of these could be prevented with a bit of mindfulness and thoughtful responding. But getting emotions to chill out for long enough to do that is tough.

(b) I am a stubborn dumbass. Kid me argued until they were attacked so harshly that they absolutely could not continue. The alternative presented was to just keep silent, one I did not then and do not now accept. Discussion where both parties partake in good faith have generally been fruitful, only neither of these situations were that. Both involved one person trying to dominate at all costs. To which I suppose keeping silent for the moment and then running tf away is an appropriate response. Idk. I'm not sure if this is a 'normal situation' to which I respond unhealthily, or an 'abnormal situation' in which you just do your best to survive. Arguments are normal. Idk if other people have a less aggressive approach that is less outright terrifying, in which I can modulate, but it does seem like people want to prove you wrong and get angry, which I perceive as aggression.

2. 

Which brings me to boundaries. Can I shut things down when I'm overwhelmed. In the present case, the answer was no. They both didn't stop and the fact that I asked for this was interpreted as admission of defeat.Oftentimes, getting out of the situation was more of an ordeal than dealing with it. [We stayed at a hotel the one time and he did things that made me very uncomfortable (in like a “things that I shudder at thinking about even now” kind of way; not sexual btw which this has made it sound). I thought I was as clear as I could’ve been by saying, “I’m going to legit have a breakdown if you keep doing that” but apparently it came across as a joke (gotta improve on communication as well). He stopped and apologised when he realised I was crying, but later blamed me for not being more assertive and laughed at my ‘exaggerated’ response and “meltdown”. At this point I wanted to leave and go home, but he withheld [my copy of] the key. He insisted and manipulated and coerced for discussion, said I could have the key if I “really wanted it, but do I actually want that”, until it was just easier to give in. The helplessness and feeling trapped of that evening haunts me to this day, and I want to be very sure to never be in any situation where that is even a possibility again no matter what.]

I need to get better at knowing what is and isn't okay and being strong enough to enforce that.

3.

(a) Attachment is a bitch. Utterly unfamiliar sensation, one I don't know my way around at all. The rarity of relation makes it seem so fucking precious, so fucking necessary to protect even to my detriment and his. Dare I tip the boat or will it sink. Should I be the dancing monkey to keep it from sinking. Should he.

(b) The feeling of giving a damn what someone thinks of me is also foreign and difficult. It also seems hella intensified by virtue of not existing elsewhere. Disapproval feels devastating. Criticism becomes attack. Everything feels like a continuous effort to establish worth. I'd imagined acceptance could be taken for granted, but I questioned it the whole way (obviously doesn't help when he demands changes).

(c) I have trouble distinguishing between personal issues and insecurities and legitimate reason to be upset. I think this is typical. But with trial and error, one can probably pick up on what you carry with you across differing people and circumstances. I don't have that data. I have nothing to compare against. I also suspect some parts of this is him treating legitimate reasons as being my distorted perceptions, which I'm pretty sure did happen for a few things that I believe are 'objectively' shitty.

5. 

I trust. Too. Fucking. Much. I take shit at face value. This is very often dumb and...bad in literally every sense, but I don’t yet know how to identify preemptively when that's the case. I also fail to be adequately 'suspicious' I guess to be alert to minor inconsistencies later on. Lies are especially devastating. I built my reality around you using that fundamental premise. Now you tell me it was false all along. Where does that leave me? I go back to substitute and nothing makes sense. I don't know if the initial statement was a lie or the claim that it's false was. I don't know if everything I remember is just distorted somehow. I don't know what to do. (aside: gaslighting? I’m inclined to say “effectively, yes”. The best explanation I have is that for many things he rewrote the narrative in his own mind and does not remember the things that blatantly contradict it. For other things, I cannot see that being possible and am forced to think it’s just pure lies). All of this could have been prevented if I accounted for people being dishonest.

6. 

(a) I lose sympathy. Genuinely did not ever expect this to happen. Enough hurt, enough deception and I stop trying to understand why. I assume malice. I expect malice in future interactions and misread situations as a result. In the beginning I made fucktons of effort to be understanding of things far from my typical range (hello, admissions of past violence and present homicidal ideation. Hello, talking someone out of real intention of ruining a person's life over a minor slight). Honestly, I think I overreached. Some of these things were not things I should have tolerated, accepted even. When I started walking on eggshells to not have him ruin my life, too, that was probably when I should've gotten out. He claimed that the people he cares about are exceptions. That's probably true, otherwise I would currently be in a ton of shit. But at some point I did stop believing it.

(b) I don't really think that most of the things that happened were malicious. Some, he admits, were. But mostly he wasn't out with the intention to hurt me, but he also didn't make the effort...not to. Even with me repeatedly complaining about things, he was defensive or dismissive, considering me talking about an issue to be me creating issues in his life. This is super shitty, his damage is caused by a stubborn ego fixation and sheer passivity, thoughtlessness (he has agreed to all of this in our final conversation), but it isn't exactly intentionally malicious. If he genuinely didn't believe there was a problem, that is an issue, and the fact that he utterly failed until the end to even consider the possibility of a valid complaint, is a very real flaw. He is bad insofar as "he is lazy and incompetent at being good". Which I can understand but nevertheless protect myself from. Ideally, sooner. At the point where I start feeling like someone is being shitty more often than not, something needs to happen. A discussion, a reconsideration, a run-as-fast-as-you-can... Something.

Idk. This isn't everything. But yeah.

.

.

.

* These 3 PDs are often used in illustrating the idea of pathologising difference: few of the criteria are about subjective distress and many about extrinsic value judgements of what a person should be like (lol, my clinical psych final had an essay question on this). I don't necessarily agree but it does speak to a shared thread of...something. That said, this characterisation is tbh still too broad for my liking. Importantly, it is definitively applicable to autistic people but I do not in general relate to that in the same way. Some specific manifestations of it, yes, but I have seen far too many excessively... 'human' autistic people to include the whole category. There are probably folks in the PD categories who are also like that but I think much less common.

#personal #emotions #reflections #relationships #personality disorder #possible tw abuse idk #if you're actually interested in reading probably best to do so tomorrow #not sure why I'm posting now in the first place #will reblog when I update #also needs links those are important

[positivelypetty]

A REALLY long rant on the Joint Training Arc.

Okay, so since the Joint Training Arc is basically done, I thought I would share my various opinions and adress certain issues that A LOT of people had with this arc.

But, before we get into the actual rant, I think I should distinguish the difference between an opinion, criticism and just plain antagonism.

Here is an example of just misinformed toxicity:

This is just being TOXIC!!! You can’t shelter these horrible comments by saying “it’s just an opinion.” Please don’t act like after 4 years of really enthralling writing, he’s now the worst writer ever. Instead, explain why you don’t think this was the best story choice, instead of being clearly misinformed. It’s nothing absolutely terrible, but just a simple example on how people can be so demanding and completely inconsiderate to the creator.

“Forbidding” Horikoshi from writing is actually ridiculous. He WROTE AND CREATED your “precious sons” that you love so much. So, if you claim that the manga is now utter trash because it doesn’t personally cater to you, please abandon or take a long break from the manga/anime to maybe clear your head. Thank you.

We don’t need any more toxicity in this fandom than we already do.

Now with that said, let’s talk about the arc! (Also keep in mind that these ideas spurred from Reddit so, I decided to expand on it)

1-B vs 1-A situation:

I've been reading a ton of comments too, the good, and the bad and it's fine, everyone has their opinions and that's cool, but for me, it didn't seem it was about who won or lost, it was more about how each class was taught. And this boils down to both Vlad and Aizawa.

Vlad has obviously been pushing his students and their quirks to the max in regards to working in teams. This shines through in all of the fights they all work together very well and know the strengths and weaknesses of each other as well as their enemies. They go into a battle with a plan and are ready to execute the plan flawlessly.

Whereas Aizawa I believe has pushed for more individualist thinking style, and I think this comes from his basis of fighting villains. No one will come to save you, you have to be able to handle yourself whether escaping or defeating. He doesn't coddle his students, and he does push them to the brink as well. What's interesting is Class A has had more hands-on experience. With Aizawa’s teaching style I think they sometimes have a harder time working with one another and they can fall apart with their teamwork. HOWEVER their real-life experience has taught them that the best-laid out plans can not go as plan, and they are able to utilize their 'individual' thinking to fight regardless of a plan falling through.

I found it really interesting and I think there's value in both ways of thinking for Vlad and Aizawa. For Class B, they will have to learn how to abandon a plan that's not working and strategize on the fly, and Class A will have to hone their teamwork for long-running battles.

And let's be honest, these are just kids, pushing their bodies and minds to the limit, I don't find Class B to be 'trash' just because they lost, they still fought hard and worked better together in the long run then Class A. Class B didn't have any dead weight with their battles, everyone was utilized and contributed to all their fights. People are so set on who “won” or who “lost” the battle, that people overlook everyone’s overall individual quirks and techniques. I personally believe that many of the 1-B students were amazing and are forces to be reckoned with. It’s just that 1-A knows how to handle themselves when things don’t to go to plan rather than 1-B (as mentioned before) which gave 1-A the upper-hand in most of the battles, but I can definitely name a few fights where Class A's members were carried by their team.

Now to address the Shinsou thing:

To everyone who was PRESSED that Shinsou didn’t win....

What do you expect from Shinsou? I feel like people were overestimating him. Even with those cloth bindings and his quirk. All you need to do is shut your mouth, grab his cloth bindings (at best he has a few months training) keep focusing on him,restrain him, and boom you're done.(I obviously know it’s not that simple, but basically) I love Shinsou, I really do, but he’s basically Aizawa (I love Aizawa too don’t get me wrong). Aizawa mentioned that it took FIVE YEARS for him to truly master his quirk, and even though since this is the younger generation, so he’ll probably get the hang of it sooner, how long as he really been “training” his quirk under Aizawa? Definitely not long enough for him to go 1v1 with someone who is a close combat fighter. (It really isn’t that shocking that Deku won, he could probably win without Black Whip). Don't get me wrong Shinsou has improved MONUMENTALLY but not to the extent of 1-A who has direct experience in fighting villains. I just think people are mainly mad that 1-B lost is as because they think Shinsou won’t get into the Hero Course. Like chill. One of the main reasons 1-A won in the first match was because of Shinsou, so I think that proves that he is MORE than capable to get in to the Hero Course.

The whole OP Deku thing:

First off, I honestly don't expect him to ever match All Might at his prime in terms of consistent pure raw strength. Deku isn't a giant man of pure muscle, so I don't think he'd be able to go 100 and maintain it like All Might could. Deku is more of a person of different techniques and strategy, rather than brute force. Like, I don't know if Deku is going to be throwing punches that can blow away a city block.

That being said, each generation is getting stronger. Like, Endeavor will be surpassed by Todoroki by the time he graduates (if it even takes that long). Iida is already faster than Gran Torino. In the very beginning of the manga, they mentioned Deku will be the strongest holder of OFA, since it gets stronger each generation. Deku will have formidable rivals if the other strong students also reach their full potential. Hell, those rowdy kids we saw at the makeup exam already had really strong quirks at their young age. Generational power creep means that everybody around Deku will get way stronger than the current pros.

I understand the sentiment that Deku doesn't need more quirks, but Deku's quirk development was already approaching a plateau in terms of being able to fully control what power he could handle. He'd just work on his technique and slowly get stronger and stronger. Sure, he's gonna eventually be able to punch/kick hard enough to shoot himself around in the air, but we've already seen that stuff (plus Bakugo does that too). I know Horikoshi is creative and will develop some cool moves for Deku, but Deku's struggle to control OfA was mostly over. All he had to do wast master OFA steadily and he’ll be good. More quirks means that he may unlock more quirks when he's able to use more %. So instead of reaching 30% and just being X amount stronger physically, he may unlock a new tool to try and master/incorporate into his combat toolkit.

If this is a negative turn for the story, we won't even be able to tell until many, many more chapters are released. We may look back and decide that this was a bad move, but we shouldn't assume that's the case when it was literally introduced TWO WHOLE CHAPTERS AGO. (even though I don’t think it was a bad move AT ALL)

What I hope to see in future Arcs:

I think what fans would really enjoy and we could all use some real Deku character development. Deku’s my favorite character, but I feel like people can’t connect to him as much as someone like Todoroki, because his lack of emotional development. He’s indeed way more confident then he was in the beginning, I still feel like he has low self esteem. Someone needs to tell him that he’s worthy of this mega powerful quirk. ( he needs it 😭)We know so much about him, but rarely see him living his day to day life outside of training, costume updates and the occasional villain attack. Last time we got anything close to development in was only told through Aoyama's development.

These next few chapters will definitely give us something, but only as it relates to One for All. I'd honestly like to know Deku's thoughts about his situation, he seems determined that's for sure. Does he feel stressed, uninformed, unprepared, scared...resentful? We can infer a bunch, I'd just like to see him talk to All Might, Bakugo or his mom about it.

In Conclusion:

Honestly, to me,It never seemed to matter who won or lost any of these matches people were gonna complain regardless. When Class A wins they call it predictable and when class B won they say call it BS or plot amor. Even when it’s a draw people got upset saying Todoroki was disappointing. Some people wanted the matches to be fleshed out over a couple of chapters rather than rushed, then a few weeks later complained that it was taking to long. Bakugo wins his match quickly and those same people lose their minds about how they wanted the match to be longer. People complained about Horikoshi not letting the girls shine in battle after the second match, but conveniently forgets Tsuyu was the MVP of the first match and Kendo and Mushroom girl made 1-B win the second match. (AND WE’RE NOT GONNA FORGET HOW URARAKA AND MINA DOMINATED THE MATCH)Then you have the people who say all of 1-B is worthless and then Juzo and Tetsutetsu prove otherwise. Now we have people think Deku is OP but in this new chapter it seems that he much has a limit to using these other abilities but I’m sure that won’t stop the myriad of complaints. Every week the same people come to see the spoilers and complain based off of a fragmented non-contextualized summary of the chapter and wonder why they enjoy the chapter itself less. Maybe going into a chapter with a negative outlook will do that. The part that irks me is that virtually everyone whose binge-read this arc seems to enjoy it only seems to be us week to week readers with a issue. Either way I hope the discussion going into the next arc are far more level-headed constructive than they have been.

I think this will be one of the arcs that played out better once it was animated. Individual panels maybe favored over the anime, but overall pacing will surely favor the anime. Waiting week in and week out, over analyzing every short chapter has really done no favors for fans and Horikoshi.

#mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #deku #midoriya izuku #bnha #mha 213 #mha 214 #mha 215 #mha 200-215 #mha 216 #thanks for coming to my ted talk #yall are so annoying #i stg #rant #anime #manga #manga spoliers #bnha spoilers

[fostersffff]

Complete Black Eagle (read: Edelgard and Rhea) Thoughts

Now that I’ve finally finished both Silver Snow and Crimson Flower, I feel like I can put all of these thoughts out without worrying about a last minute twist. It’s entirely possible based on how much I’ve seen people talk about route differences that once I play Golden Deer and Blue Lions I’ll have changed my opinions, but barring some really wild and extreme stuff, I can’t imagine changing all that much. A ton of text under the break:

Edelgard

There was a Korean poll that was published recently where Edelgard was voted the #1 most disliked character in Three Houses... and also the #2 most liked character in Three Houses (behind Lysithea). It’s not a surprising result to see considering that she is the inciting antagonist, and that you don’t really understand why she does any of it unless you happened to start with the Black Eagles, but even then, IntSys felt it necessary to split Black Eagles into two routes, just in case you still didn’t want to side with her. But that’s what I think I found to be the most compelling thing about Edelgard: that she is a decidedly morally gray character, and how you feel about her comes down to looking at all of the things she does and asking “is this worth it?”

Part of what makes her so compelling to me is that no one understands her role better than Edelgard herself. She has no delusions about what she’s doing, and she never even makes an attempt to sugarcoat it to anyone around her. I made a post back when I first started the game about how I thought it was weird that her first support with Byleth ends with her talking about how she’s prepared to go down in the history books as History’s Greatest Monster without any context, but as the blanks fill in and time passes, it’s clear that she’s completely and utterly true to her word. "The ends justify the means” is the best description of her philosophy, but unlike a lot of characters (and people) who use that to justify their actions, she doesn’t take any solace in it, or use it as a way to offset the responsibility for all of the lives lost in the war. The end may justify the means, but it doesn’t make the means any less horrific, and even if the end result is a better world, it’s a small comfort to the countless people who died for it.

I think something crucial to sympathizing with Edelgard is that as far as she is concerned, she didn’t “initiate” hostilities with the church. When she kills Dimitri in the Crimson Flower route, she says “if only we were born in a time of peace, you might have enjoyed a joyful life as a benevolent ruler”, which sounds comically hypocritical in isolation coming from the person who declared war in the first place. But it’s because as far as she’s concerned, the systemic oppression resulting from the Church of Seiros’s influence on every Fodlan society means that true peace simply hasn’t existed since long before any of them were ever born. To Edelgard, there’s been a cold war between the Church of Seiros and humanity for a thousand years, and she took it upon herself to finally make it hot.

“Cold war” might sound exaggerated, but there’s something to that idea going on the evidence we’re presented with. At best, the church is ignorant to and/or idle on the suffering of the common folk and the corruption of the nobility all across the continent that exists because they grants noble status and political power to families that happen to have Crests. At worst, the church is intentionally passive about those problems because preserving the status quo and their absolute control is more important, and to act in any way to try to fix those problems directly could threaten their status as the center of power in Fodlan. Speaking of their control: isn’t it odd that the Church of Seiros was involved in each war for independence, maintaining their foothold in the old nation while also branching out and ensuring they were the dominant religion in the new ones? That the only time the church acts on their own (outside of an immediate threat like bandits) is when they are made aware of heresies, however mild, at which point they act decisively and without any shred of mercy, sending a sign to anyone who would dare try to cross the church? That, with the exception of Seteth and Flayn, the most devout members of the Knights of Seiros and the church have a fanatical devotion to Rhea specifically, and not Sothis or the doctrine of the church? The most insidious thing is that even if someone with the power to pose a threat to the church wanted to fight against them, the only people who could realistically muster up enough military might to challenge the Knights of Seiros would be nobles, and the fall of the church would also mean there would be nobody to legitimize their claims to nobility. Nobody would be willing to risk their noble status, and all of the perks that come with it, like that.

Except Edelgard.

This is actually what I like most about Edelgard, and why I was right to compare her to my favorite Fire Emblem villain: Zephiel. Zephiel’s goal in Fire Emblem 6 is the complete eradication of humanity and giving the world over to dragonkind, because he believes that humanity is a blight. He never says “I will lead this new world of dragons” or “My followers and I will live on to see the world of dragons”, which always led me to believe that he would eventually turn his sword on himself*. Edelgard, like Zephiel, does not intend to just conquer Fodlan and then just enjoy the spoils- once all of her affairs are in order (dismantling the church and nobility, re-establishing the church and turning nobility into a meritocracy, eradicating the Tunnel Snakes**) she finds a suitable successor (read: not her child) and then retires into the sunset (at least in the ending where she marries Byleth). And, if you don’t like Edelgard- or even if you do- this happy ending might rub you the wrong way, because even though her resolve was unshaken and she walks her path to the very end, it was still an incredibly violent path. This leads to another question that I’m sure people can argue forever: does Edelgard deserve to have a happy ending?

I’ve seen Edelgard described with a lot of terms that I don’t really think apply to her- like, at all- but I’d never seriously argue that she did nothing wrong. She is a dictator, and a warmonger, and regardless of which route you chose a tragic amount of life is lost as a direct result of her actions. Her alliance with the Tunnel Snakes is an entire can of worms of its own, because despite the fact that she has no control over what they choose to do on their own time, she is effectively still condoning their actions by relying on their power. The worst of it, as far as I’m concerned, is lying to her own people about who caused the destruction of Arianrhod and the loss of life there to prevent an internal conflict. I think with all that in mind, there are a lot of people who are locked into the conclusion that no, she doesn’t deserve to have a happy ending. 

But! To create the world she envisioned, one where Rhea was no longer manipulating the world from behind the scenes, a world that would improve the quality of life for everyone in future generations, she was never going to have a choice in how she did things. Think of how openly and casually Rhea talks about how enemies of the church must be eliminated, without any room for discussion. Would a diplomatic call for the Church of Seiros to disavow the current system of nobility based on the possession of crests and for Rhea to step down as archbishop be met with anything other than hostility not only from the church, but from the Kingdom and Alliance as well? Even something as simple as publicly renouncing her own faith to try to motivate a cultural change just within the empire would’ve probably had Rhea dispatching Catherine to cut her down for heresy, just like she did for Lord Lonato. And the final, most passive alternative- returning to the empire after graduating from the academy, ascending her father to become the next puppet of the cabinet, hoping that she eventually bears a child with a major Crest or else watch her own children undergo the same torture she and her family went through. That’s just completely unacceptable, especially when that kind of self-sacrifice is only to the benefit of the nobles and the preservation of a rotten status quo that also only benefits those same nobles- and Rhea, of course. No matter what, she was going to have to sacrifice, and while what she chose would involve the most bloodshed, it also had the best chance of making things better for the greatest number of people when all was said and done, so her getting to have at least one ending where she is completely successful and is rewarded on a personal level doesn’t strike me as inappropriate at all.

A lot of what I’ve talked about with Edelgard has to do with the church, which is inescapable considering every single action she takes is motivated by the church. So ultimately, one of the most important questions to consider when asking “is all of this worth it” is “is Rhea really that bad?” Well...

Rhea

This bitch is fucking insane holy shit.

It’s kind of a nice feeling to feel suspicious of a character from their introduction, only for things to actually be way worse than you could’ve ever expected. For what it’s worth, this isn’t a case of me hating the character on a writing level, it’s just that I find everything about her character to be loathsome even under the best possible circumstances.

What makes Rhea so despicable is how simple and selfish her entire motivation is. Every single action she takes and emotion she expresses can all be traced to an obsession with her mother. It’s not that she believes she needs Sothis’s guidance to deal with a problem that neither she nor the whole of humanity can’t deal with on their own, or that the world will only be at peace if Sothis is around to protect it, it is literally just for her own sake. And on its face, I can deeply sympathize with going to crazy lengths to want to see your mother after she was tragically taken away from you. I also love my mom! But there’s a bunch of lines- both explicitly stated and implied- Rhea sprints past at an Olympic pace that I (and hopefully most other people) would not cross. These include:

Having twelve children*** and trying to turn all of them into your mother.

Having a grandchild and trying to turn them into your mother.

Maintaining direct control and influence over multiple sovereign nations over a span of a thousand years so you can continue to try to bring back your mother without anyone bothering you.

Keeping your closest friends/relatives/allies out of the loop on all of your completely unethical experimentation because deep down inside you either know how fucked up it is, or that they would try to stop you.

Ordering your subordinates to burn down the city full of innocent bystanders you are currently occupying to try to kill the grandchild who you put your mother into.

The one that disturbs me the most is what’s implied by the ending of Crimson Flower. In Silver Snow, Rhea tells Byleth that they were stillborn, and that their mother begged Rhea to put the Crest Stone into Byleth to give them a chance to live. But at the end of Crimson Flower, Rhea’s death causes the Crest Stone on Byleth’s heart to fade away, which should result in their death. But after a few moments, their heart starts up normally and they go on living as normal. They lose Sothis’s power in the process, but they’re just as healthy as they were before they obtained it. This leads me to believe that Byleth may have actually been born healthy and that, after their mother had passed from complications due to childbirth, Rhea placed the Crest Stone on their heart anyway. Or- it’s even possible that Rhea killed the mother herself, removing her Crest Stone heart after sensing that Byleth might be a better vessel because of their parentage. After all, Rhea is the only person who truly knew what happened in there. Jeralt had no idea about the exact nature of Byleth’s heart, only that they had no heartbeat, and Seteth and Flayn didn’t know about anything at all. Obviously, that’s all just speculation, as far as I’m concerned something like this is totally in line with Rhea’s character.

Now, to revisit the question of “is Rhea really that bad”, Edelgard doesn’t know about any of Rhea’s personal fucked up shit. What she knows about is what the church has done and what has happened under their watch and thus with their implicit blessing, that Rhea is actually The Immaculate One, and that she has been the sole driving power of the Church of Seiros since the church was initially founded. On a personal level, her own life and the lives of all of her family members were destroyed by the Church of Seiros’s influence on society via crests. And it should be noted that Edelgard’s not stupid; she’s very likely aware that the Tunnel Snakes are the ones who performed the blood reconstruction on her and her siblings at the behest and/or with the consent of the Empire’s cabinet and Lord Arundel, and she even addresses how awful they are and that she really wants no part of them when she approaches Jeralt and Byleth as the Flame Emperor. But, back when I first suspected that Edelgard was the Flame Emperor, I made a joke about how she has to deal with the fact that the Tunnel Snakes are dabbing on a mountain of corpses while Rhea is cripwalking on an even bigger mountain of corpses. But that wasn’t accurate- it’s not just that Rhea’s mountain is bigger, it’s also composed of people who are still alive, but suffered because of the Church of Seiros: Dorothea’s childhood spent as a wretch because she was born a commoner, the abuse Bernadetta endured from her father to make her noble wife material, Caspar and Sylvain’s brother being shunned from their families for the crime of being born without a Crest, Lysithea suffering the exact same procedure as Edelgard to increase her family’s noble standing, Hanneman’s sister dying from trying to bear a child with a Crest, to say nothing of the characters I haven’t seen the stories of yet. In the grand scheme of the game’s universe, this is only a sample of about 30 characters: what about the potential hundreds of thousands of other lives with stories similar to- or possibly worse than- the main cast? And what’s more, Rhea is not gloating about how big her pile is. She’s so utterly preoccupied with her mother that doesn’t even notice the mountain beneath her, and that might actually be worse.

Both

Finally, I want to briefly touch on the way both characters interact with Byleth, and how they handle things when they’re made into the villain. No matter what route the player chooses, Byleth does something for Edelgard that she has never experienced before: unconditional protection. She was prepared to fight the bandit, and she saw him coming from a mile away so I imagine she could’ve handled it, but Byleth still jumps in front of her to protect her. This is why Edelgard puts so much stock into Byleth, much to the chagrin of Hubert. It’s not that she doesn’t trust that Hubert and the rest of the Black Eagles are capable of helping her, but to them, she is Edelgard von Hresvelg, heir apparent of the Adrestian Empire. Even if their friendships with her would suggest otherwise, there is an ocean of difference between them because of their stations. But to Byleth, she was “simply Edelgard”. She has never experienced that kind of interaction in her entire life, and especially not when there was danger involved. This is so ingrained in her that even in the route where you most directly oppose her, after having spent a full year getting to know and understand her and still choosing to fight against her, her last words are “I wanted to walk with you.” Even that phrasing- that she wanted to walk with them, not that she wanted them to walk with her- says so much about how strongly she feels about Byleth. Is it waifubaiting? Oh baby is it ever, but it doesn’t make it less solid

On the flipside: something I really genuinely hate in games (and stories in general, but it crops up the most in games) is when people have unflinching, unwavering faith in the player character for no good reason. It’s why I think Persona 4 is a worse game than 3 despite being better in almost every other meaningful way. This almost certainly has to do with me not liking Rhea from the start: appropros of seemingly nothing, she is as dotting as any mother would be, she entrust you with an entire class of students lives with zero credentials, and in addition to that she is constantly assigning Byleth the most important tasks because she just has so much faith that they’re destined for greatness. Unlike the situation with Edelgard, helping fight off some bandits is not reasonable precedent for trusting someone this much. And the biggest reason I appreciate Rhea as a villain is because all of this turns out to be a ruse. All of this is in service of currying Byleth’s favor, to get them to trust her, to make them feel special, so that when she asks them to sit on the throne so Sothis can take over their body, they wouldn’t think anything of it. And you know it’s all been a ruse because of how unbelievably fast her turn is if you side with Edelgard. There’s no consistency between the Rhea who gently stroked your hair and sang you a lullaby when you were recovering from your trip to the shadow realm and the Rhea who calls you a failure and is going to rip your heart out of your chest.

*I’m extrapolating a lot of information about Zephiel and the world of FE6 in general because we just don’t have access to as much lore as we do in Three Houses, but I think what I’m saying are reasonable conclusions

**I call Those Who Slither In The Dark “Tunnel Snakes” for a number of reasons: it’s shorter, it functionally means the same thing, and it’s funny to me

***I refer to the vessels Rhea created as her children because that’s what I understood them to be when I first played Silver Snow, but upon rewatching the cutscene what she actually says is “I tried to bring her back by creating a body, and then burying a Crest Stone within it”. This could mean her own children that she bore, but it could also mean a number of other things, like vessels “created” from normal humans she acquired. For my own headcanon, the utter detachment she shows for Byleth when they side with Edelgard leads me to believe that they are, in fact, her biological children, but she refers to them so clinically because she felt nothing for them except disdain for not being able to house Sothis.

#Fire Emblem #Fire Emblem Three Houses #FE3H #Edelgard #Rhea #Nintendo #video games #seriously this is the most analytical writing I've done since college what the fuck IntSys

[dragon-cookies]

So I was finally able to sit down and watch the finale of MLP! Check out my thoughts as we go under the cut below here! BEWARE OF SPOILERS and just me rambling about ponies (mostly Discord because I love that noodle horse). 

- Really kinda bummed out that they just retconned Grogar into being Discord tbh. He seemed like a really interesting villain who actually wanted to try a different tactic when it came to defeating Twilight and her friends. And man poor Discord, the writers really don’t want him to change too much it feels. I did like him being a bit irresponsible but well-intentioned to begin with, but even Applejack’s calling him out on it now and I cannot blame her. 

“For all the time you spent with us, you really haven’t picked up too much in the way of friendship lessons, huh?” THAT’S COMPLETELY FAIR TO SAY AND I’M SAYING THIS AS SOMEONE WHO LOVES DISCORD. The writers are really doing him dirty here oh man. 

- okay but this is also very good:

thank you hasbro for providing fuel for my little gremlin raricord shipping heart. Rarity loves to toy with his beard and no one can take that headcanon away from me

- OOH DISCORD YA DONE GOOFED NOW

“What do you MEAN you sent the baby to another dimension for a PLAYDATE.”

- “FLY YOU FOAL!” Okay painfully obvious LOTR reference aside, that’s the first time I’ve heard Discord sound genuinely terrified and I feel for him. For the first time he’s actually powerless to do anything and he can only hope that Twilight will know what to do. 

- Cozy Glow is also such an odd villain because I feel like I want to like her more than I actually do. Villains that are just absolutely balls-to-the-walls diabolical are usually a ton of fun to watch, but the fact that she’s got basically no backstory as to why she’s so evil just kind of makes her pretty uninteresting in my eyes. If she just likes being evil just because, she sort of just comes off as a spoiled brat. Like she sees having friends as  a way of manipulating people into doing what she wants, but why? Did she have a bad experience with friends when she was younger? Why did she want to get rid of all magic in Equestria? Why does she want total domination over Equestria? Where are her parents?  Why did they redeem a cult leader but send Cozy, an entire CHILD, to Tartarus. That one still just sends me reeling every time I think about it, but that’s neither here nor there. 

- Oh nooo Discord legitimately apologizing my heart. 

- And then the Mane 6 just glare him down OOF. I always have such complicated feelings towards how they treat him tbh because on one hand yes his behavior should be acknowledged and be made clear that its not okay but ON THE OTHER HAND they’ve definitely all given him some major stink eye every time he messes up and I don’t blame him for getting defensive at times. Like yeah he’s not perfect but the Mane 6 aren’t always the nicest to him either when he does make a genuine mistake. This is sort of something I’ve noticed ever since Keep Calm and Flutter On. It’s not that I think he should be coddled and forgiven every time he makes a mistake, but the way the Mane 6 treat him sometimes feels like they’re just more annoyed with him than wanting to actually help him become a better person. Tbh it’s no wonder he attached so strongly onto Fluttershy, she’s the only one who gives him an actual chance.

- So none of the villains know how to use Discord’s chaos magic? Tirek absorbed Discord’s chaos magic before and seemed to have no problem but eh I digress

- DISCORD CALLING OUT TIREK’S DADDY ISSUES OOP

-  Oh shit they’re actually threatening to rip Spikes wings out that’s INTENSE. 

- And of course friendship saves the day! Taste the rainbow motherfuckers

- Oh look my dorks are standing next to each other again. Nice

- Pinkie is the only pony who can somewhat wield discord’s magic. I am not surprised because Pinkie but now I can’t help but wonder if she’s got some distant, distant draconequus family genes somehow 

- Tia, Tia that face 

Scheming couples? Sign me up 

- Oof, I do feel a little bad for Cozy and Tirek. Just turned to stone while cowering in fear. Does Equestria just not have any sort of trial system at all? I could see turning enemies into stone as a good method of neutralizing them, but as far as I can tell these guys aren’t ever brought back for a trial. 

Also Discord YOU were turned into stone. You seem all too excited about making someone else suffer that same fate

- So we flash forward to several years later. I really love Canterlot seems to be way more integrated than it was before! 

Is that dragon giving that pony a flower. oh my GOODNESS THAT’S CUTE

- Oh god oh LORD I don’t like that adult Spike design. Why couldn’t he have stayed chunky 

- DANG Twilight you got TALL. Is the height just like a thing that you get when you become a royal or??? Either way it just looks odd to see Twilight looking like that imo

- OHHH THERE ARE THE GIRLS

- Aaaaaaaa Pinkie’s little daughter is so cute 

- Oh?? Rainbow and AJ seem to living together?? Not my personal ship but nice

- Tbh of all the ships that they could’ve made canon (besides Lyra and Bon Bon) I’m glad they went with Cheese and Pinkie. Those two were perfect for each other ever since they met 

- Okayy hasbro you got me that last song is really goooddddd. Overall, I think this was a good conclusion to the MLP series. Not perfect, but definitely solid. I’ll most likely be picking and choosing some stuff when it comes to my canon, but I’m overall happy with it

#dc watches mlp #if you read the whole thing give yourself a pat on the back #please enjoy my half baked ramblings on these candy colored horses that i love so much

[primrose-path-of-dalliance]

Lotor’s end (?) in s6

i gave in to my terrible impulses and wrote a three-part essay about lotor. it's literally >9k and i ignored all of my other projects for this for over a week. rip.

in these three posts, i talk a lot about lotor from a sympathetic pov. so if that's something that makes your fandom experience uncomfortable, go ahead and ignore this post because it's not for you. stay healthy, and i can only promise you that i hold lotor accountable for every shitty thing he's done (especially when it comes to withholding info from allura because seriously, what bullshit). on the other hand, if you are a person who hates lotor as a piece of evil garbage because ???? fandom and purity culture thought it would be a great idea to hate him without looking very hard at the work the writers put in to make him more complex than the actual pure evil bastard zarkon himself that we already have... i challenge you to read on. do it. i dare you. (at the very least so you might hate him with a better understanding of why.)

so tl;dr: this is the "in this essay i will" meme followed through, if i started talking about how lotor's not a pure evil bastard and is instead the perfect example of a protagonist gone sour through 10,000 years of poor coping choices, oppression, and a lot of actual resentment, as well as a neat talk at the end where i break down lotor's breakdown.

toc 1: i shake out some salt and talk about the altean colony | 2: i question why people keep insisting lotor was "evil all along" | 3: i talk about my favorite parts of lotor’s breakdown

i take a lot of my knowledge and inspiration from @radioactivesupersonic, who writes some awesome meta. (seriously, thank you clockie. you are amazing.) so while i might specifically cite posts of his throughout these three posts, expect his ideas to be everywhere lol. please check him out if you have the time, he's much better at this meta thing than me. (for safety purposes, i'm gonna disclaim: i did not consult with him on anything. so while i synthesize with a lot of his stuff, my thoughts are not necessarily his and i take full responsibility for that shit.)

anyway, i don't make meta posts a lot nor have any good idea of what a good structure for one would be. so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"even after season 6, you still like lotor?"

fuck yeah my pal.

"but why? he's clearly terrible and evil! he killed thousands of alteans and said he was going to conquer the universe, destroy voltron forever, etc.!"

i mean, yeah. but i'm gonna soapbox for a second.

number one: nothing precludes me or anyone else from loving the shit out of an evil character. we're not personally invested in the story in the sense that we have real stakes involved. they're fictional characters, and we are the audience. nothing they've done has any bearing on our reality (barring general patterns that can be established by media as a whole) and therefore it's not our moral responsibility to throw down terrible judgment on a person who isn't real, even if they've done horrible shit.

i'm not saying one can't acknowledge or dislike a character who's a bad person. lotor himself has done terrible things, and if you could not give less of a fuck about him, that's highkey your prerogative and i champion your freedom to have your personal preferences.

but we're not the characters who live in that world. we're spectators to a fictional story, and one thing that means is that we have no obligation to anyone to personally hate a villain, no matter what they've done because put simply, nothing they've done is real. no one has ever been harmed by a singular fictional villain.

the purpose of the villain and their actions is not to be hated by the audience, but to help tell a story. hopefully, they're also helping to paint a picture of the variety of people, perspective, and experience in a respectful manner.

there's a strong trend in fandom now toward purity culture, where we're expected to hate anything that isn't perfect, and that's such a goddamn lie. nothing is perfect. nothing ever will be. we can't reasonably expect that level of performance from content creators.

and what does "perfect" even mean? social justice is an extremely nuanced topic, colored by individual perspective on what's right or good. there's never going to be an ideal piece of media that hits every spot perfectly because there are an infinite number of spots, and what they are changes in importance with every person.

so when it comes to storytelling, we need to focus more on what's practically possible. what's practically admirable. for me, ideally, that's "what have they accomplished? is this story illustrating the richness of human (or alien) experience? and how?"

this includes villains.

number two: i don't believe lotor is a villain in the sense that he's Evil or even necessarily irredeemable. from a personal perspective, i'll direct you to this post (link), which basically sums up my view on forgiving people who've done bad things. but from the third-party perspective as well, lotor isn't someone to find reprehensible or evil—at least, not to the level a lot of other people seem to be compelled to. let's break this down into more questions.

"lotor has killed people for his own personal gain! abused countless alteans, who already experienced a genocide!"

(allura is right there with you guys.)

yes, he did. i don't deny his crimes a single bit. the personal gain point may be arguable, but it still doesn't really make it better.

firstly: this is also addressed to those people who are stalwartly defending lotor's goodness by saying that romelle must have been lying. i haven't read any of the posts myself and only heard some of the points secondhand, and that is because the theory sounds like a load of bollocks (link).

this isn't something out of character for lotor, as much as i might want to believe so. it's really, really not, and i fully acknowledge that. we already know that lotor will do anything to survive if he finds himself caught between a rock and a hard place. that was what happened to narti.

lotor does have good morals. he has an absolute shit ton of them that, honestly, i don't know how to explain in detail without making this post twice as long as it's already going to be. he cares about individual life. he campaigns for conservation. he values people's cultures and would much rather work alongside them than dominate them. he's not cruel or sadistic like many of his peers in the galra empire, and he favors those who are discriminated against. and no, i don't believe any of these were an act. i can point to word of god for the most supportive proof—that "part of Lotor, a portion of Lotor, maybe all of Lotor, is coming from a very genuine place" (link).

(if you want deeper explanations about why these conclusions are accurate, please check out my #voltron meta tag and @radioactivesupersonic. especially him.)

but as it's been established, lotor is willing to break his morals if he feels he's faced with an ultimatum: survive, or die. victory or death.

"but that's a galra chant! he said it during the trials at oriande, and he was unworthy because of it. doesn't that prove he's really selfish at heart and will destroy anything if it means he gets what he wants?"

no. and also another no.

those two links go to really good arguments against that line of thinking. but let me sum it up: lotor has lived 10,000 years with an abusive father in an empire that considers his half-galra status lesser and despises his altean blood especially, and spent much of that in disgraced exile.

"victory or death," to him, doesn't mean that it would be better to die than to accept a loss, as when it's used by his galra peers; it means that he has to win, or else he is left to the mercies of his foes. and none of his foes have ever been merciful. he can never trust that one will ever be.

survival is lotor's most important victory in an empire that has been either apathetic to his existence or outright antagonistic. it represents his entire struggle of living—that he has to stay alive in order to win, and to a lesser extent, that staying alive in his universe is winning.

of course, lotor has larger motivations than merely surviving that he will protect just as ruthlessly. from a general perspective, one can hardly blame him for that. surviving isn't exactly living and being happy, especially in a universe that oppresses people like him, and he wants an escape from the corner he always seems to find himself boxed in. to a slightly lesser extent, he wants to create an escape for the countless societies oppressed under the empire as well. that's where his desire for infinite quintessence comes from.

"so you're telling me that he felt trapped in a corner and forced to break his supposed morals to use countless numbers of his own people as a fuel source. how the hell does that make sense? what trapped him? didn't he have other options? and how does this justify what he did?"

i'm not claiming that lotor was justified in any way. that is a fair grievance for people to have, and frankly, what he did was horrible and ugly and made victims of an already fragile colony, including romelle and her family. understanding the 'why' of what someone did is, shockingly, not the same as justifying them. (and i don't believe people look for the 'why' enough, when understanding the 'why' is an important step toward preventing the 'what'.)

maybe lotor had other options. there's not a lot of exposition that happens in this show, in-story or in interviews or otherwise. there isn't enough information about the canonical process of quintessence collection, or about quintessence in general, to say for certain if lotor could have done something less egregious in his treatment of the altean colony.

either way, he had to harvest quintessence. the likely possibility as to why? the galra empire was limiting his resources, both because he was an exile and because he knew they (particularly haggar) might be watching, and he couldn't let them piece together his plans to usurp power. he needed quintessence in which he controlled every part of the creation process, and he needed to hide as much of how he was using it as possible. the easiest way to do that was for him to get his own source.

contrary to that assertion, i don't believe lotor first created the altean colony with the intention to use them as a quintessence farm. i believe he genuinely cared about preserving what was left of altea, similar to how he cares about preserving culture in general. this would be consistent with his previous characterization as well as lm and jds's assurances that he was coming from a genuine place. most importantly, even according to romelle's story, the second colony is never depicted as an idea lotor conceived from the start. it came much later, after the first colony was well-established.

it's likely that lotor originally had other sources of quintessence, since throk mentioned his possession of multiple colonies in s3e1, or that he hadn't yet come up with his plans in their entirety. maybe haggar or zarkon caught wind of certain plots and thwarted them, destroying his sources in the process. (we certainly get the impression in s3 and s4 that lotor coming up with rebellious plots isn't a new thing to either of them.) maybe his ambitions and travels gradually revealed themselves to need more quintessence than he'd expected. purchasing quintessence from any suppliers would have required an income, a relatively time-consuming and unreliable endeavor that might not have gotten him much in exchange. any quintessence supplies he might have acquired using his identity, if he could acquire any, would almost certainly have been monitored—how much he took, where he received them—to the point where use of them would be incredibly risky. he might have also morally disliked using empire-produced quintessence, since they would've been harvested using empire methods (i.e. "caring about colonies whomst?"). at least with his methods, he would know he wasn't destroying them without regard. either way, whatever previous sources of quintessence he had became too limited an amount for his operations. he needed more.

i get a strong impression that people don't understand what he could be using quintessence for. but we see it everywhere in the empire, in voltron, and in the castle of lions—it's the primary energy source of vld's world that powers machines, fuels ships, assists in experimentation, heals injuries, even prolongs life. nothing else compares. lotor wouldn't have needed it personally for the latter purpose, but one can't exactly travel the universe on an empty tank. without quintessence, he would've essentially been dead in the water. additionally, considering that the quintessence shows up in places not explicitly related to lotor, the fact that we see galra soldiers accompanying lotor on the altean colony when we know he was in exile, and the amount of resources he must have been supplying to the colony in secret, it's also possible he was using it to bribe people into doing things for him and staying silent. it probably would've been effective; it's described as an especially powerful form of quintessence, and he was the only source.

anyway, lotor needed quintessence he could control entirely without having to fear discovery and subsequent destruction. the altean colony was his only colony that he could be reasonably certain the empire would never find. and in true lotor fashion, the first defense he asserted was that he saved what was left of altea from the empire, despite the horrendous crimes he was committing, and could now stop his quintessence farming with his access to the quintessence field. technically, we don't even know whether all of the alteans taken to the second colony are dead (link). the man romelle saw there was still in the tank, as many others must have been.

lotor might have been planning to eventually heal them by using the quintessence field. of course, even if that's true, lotor still took away years of their lives, lied to them and their families, and drained them to near-death. the experience must have been traumatizing. and who knows how well they would be able to recover, if at all. it's little comfort.

(editing, i feel compelled to plug this analysis by @radioactivesupersonic of lotor's arc and relationship with allura as a vampire story because it's interesting as hell, pounds out what i've just said further, and is something i read prior to writing this up so i may have unconsciously stolen from it. (i can only promise that i completely forgot about it until i went looking for all my links rip.))

nevertheless, lotor's first priority for the altean colony was always to preserve them—even if he eventually, essentially started treating them as a renewable resource with his farming's effects on the survival of his people and culture as environmental impacts. make of that what you will.

"if lotor is such a decent person who loves altea and wants to end the galra empire, why didn't he team up with voltron from the beginning? he was around before season 3! why didn't he show up earlier?"

that, my friend, is a good question i've puzzled over too. i have an answer.

number one: lotor has been in the habit of effectively working on his lonesome for about the past 10,000 years and canonically displays a wealth of paranoia and trust issues. teamwork isn't usually the first idea that comes to mind to someone like lotor.

number two: we get a very dramatic hint toward this in the climax of s6 (can't wait until we reach that part!), as well as during his invasion of puig in s3, but i believe lotor didn't have much confidence in voltron's capabilities during the period of s1 and s2 or for some time afterwards. he's a very cautious and careful player, learned from millennia of working against the interests and conventions of an extremely powerful empire.

and if we all remember correctly, voltron lost 10,000 years ago. granted, alfor sent the lions away rather than risk zarkon gaining control of the black lion, but it was still him and the other paladins against zarkon. victory should've been within reach, and yet they lost. so 10,000 years later, voltron appears to have returned, and none of those fears have been assuaged. who are these random newcomers to pilot the lions, and how could they possibly succeed where the original paladins didn't, when they don't even have the might of armies behind them? zarkon could still retake control of the black lion. additionally, lotor's own feelings towards voltron (and symbolically, king alfor) as a savior are extremely complicated. (you cannot believe how excited i am to talk about that. just wait.) he's not going to risk everything he's worked for on a wild card he's incredibly unsure will manage to make a dent. it would even make zarkon stronger if they lost, and therefore his father, one of the people he most wants to avoid the attention of, would be coming after them in a frenzy.

even after the s2 finale where voltron critically injured zarkon, he finds them insufficient. they create the coalition, yet he can essentially retake puig in the span of an hour with a team of five attackers.

clearly, they still weren’t well-equipped enough to stand against the galra empire. it would be in lotor's best interests to avoid voltron like the plague unless he was certain they wouldn't be crushed. so he did just that.

i suspect that before the voltron coalition grew into its own, lotor was planning to independently start a coup of some kind. it would've been pretty easy with unlimited quintessence. but after he was declared an enemy of the empire to be killed on sight, when voltron had gained significant strength and organized rebellion against the empire alongside liberated planets became a genuine and effective possibility, he joins them—right after their surprise attack liberates a full third of the empire and shocks the galra off his trail. the coalition was finally a basket he felt secure putting some of his eggs into.

(part 2)

#voltron #voltron meta #vld s6 #lotor #readmore #long post #prim post #prim says some things

[glorious-sea-pancakes]

To people wondering why Captive Prince is beloved

Alright so I know a lot of people think that captive prince, the book series, is problematic. The whole thing is hotly debated. 

As someone who loves the series fiercely and doesn’t think that it is problematic, I wanted to put in my two cents to the debate... because a lot of people who explain why it is a good series often fall short and don’t really explain adequately in my opinion. If I were someone on the fence that read a lot of the explanations I've seen, I wouldn’t be particularly convinced or happy. So I’ll do my best to articulate what I mean.

EDIT: wow this is long. Sorry? 

EDIT EDIT: And in retrospect the only thing I see with Captive Prince that actually does bother me is the lack of female characters. This is very much a male dominated story. But you know what? That’s a pretty small gripe because I’m cool with a boy-focused story. Plus it has an awesome gay power couple as the main characters.

HOKAY so first: A lot of people try too hard to avoid any kind of spoilers that they keep it TOO vague. So, without spoilers, I’m gonna be a little clearer 

Thing One: The premise.

Damen is a warrior hero to his people, and the rightful heir to the throne of Akielos. But when his half brother seizes power, Damen is captured, stripped of his identity, and sent to serve the prince of an enemy nation as a pleasure slave. Beautiful, manipulative, and deadly, his new master, Prince Laurent, epitomizes the worst of the court at Vere. But in the lethal political web of the Veretian court, nothing is as it seems, and when Damen finds himself caught up in a play for the throne, he must work together with Laurent to survive and save his country. For Damen, there is just one rule: never, ever reveal his true identity. Because the one man Damen needs is the one man who has more reason to hate him than anyone else…

With this alone, I can see why people get the wrong idea. At a glance you think it’ll be a Stockholm syndrome kinkfest with tons of rape and Fifty Shades of Grey consent issues--hence it being problematic.

However, I am telling you right here and now, the two main characters hate each other’s guts. Laurent would sooner break his own fingers than touch Damen. The two main characters have sex and a romance eventually, but it isn’t until they develop real respect wwwayy later. Ridiculously later. By the time those two hold hands you’ve been screaming for entire books kiss already!

Sooo, the first thing that I assumed when I picked Captive Prince was that there would be immediate hate sex, but I am halfway book 2 and the sex is nowhere to be seen and instead I am so caught up in the political intrigue that I don’t even care-- cosetteferaud

They are physically attracted from the beginning, true, but they hate so strongly that they couldn’t be bothered to take much interest in pretty faces.

Damen frowned. Laurent was a nest of scorpions in the body of one person. Torveld looked at him and saw a buttercup.

So, no, this isn’t a stokholm kinkfest.

Things in this summary you should focus on: Not just the pleasure slave thing.

The real focus is on the political intrigue and twisty politicking with EXTREMELY slowburn romance on the side.

The first book is widely known as the darkest of the three. In places it is hard to read but you DO have to read it to fully appreciate the second and third books. You must know what is at stake, get plot threads going, really see what they’re working so hard for. Gotta meet the villain and understand why they’re so bad. You need that dark first book understand why they end up loving so deeply. You need to see them at their worst. And on that note, their worst…

Thing Two: Their hatred.

I mean it when I say they have anger and hate. The chasm yawning between them is an ugly one.

So Laurent haaaAAATES Damen. He treats Damen like garbage. And Damen hates him because of it. Laurent is actively TRYING to be a dick. He’s aware that he’s doing things that are mean. Laurent is trying to put down someone he genuinely sees as an enemy. So, yeah, Laurent does Problematic things. However that’s… to be expected? When you hate someone’s guts? If your goal is to make sure someone hates you there are some pretty clear ways to achieve that. He doesn’t want to like Damen. If you wince and think that, ouch, that was cruel and charged with a lot of ugly implications: know that Laurent is fully aware and is eyes open trying to create distance between them by using those things deliberately. You won’t completely know the why until later in the series. 

A thing to remember: you don’t yet know his motivations.

To me, the most important thing is not what the characters say or do but how the author frames those things.

When Laurent does something conniving or insults people: the reader, Damen, and the author all understand he’s being a dick. The author isn’t glorifying Laurent’s behavior. That means everything. She NEVER excuses them for what they do. You’re meant to look on the bad things that happen and agree that oh, no, that was a bad thing.

Characters should be able to do bad things otherwise what is the point of the story? Not every book can be conflict free coffee shop aus. If you only want to read problem free stories like that, this is NOT the series for you.

More than that, there’s value in discussing the dark things like the ones that this book discusses. There’s value in seeing people hate and attempt to destroy each other. I’m serious!

When Laurent says something nasty you’re meant to be like OOF LAURENT OW not ‘Oh the author believes this and wants people to be like this.’ Because that would be dumb? People should be able to talk about real life issues and problematic stuff without being equated as sermons. Because if you believe that even depicting the Bad Thing is gonna spread it, then you’re silencing education about the Bad Thing that could allow people to avoid and learn from it. Censorship does not encourage equality, it encourages ignorance. Censorship and purist ideology just denies that people, good people, can do bad things. It also denies the knowledge that Badguys are human.

One of the reasons I love storytelling so much is because it is the number one way to think about and discuss difficult topics that happen in the real world all the time. I’m sorry, you can’t escape reality. It is out there. Constantly. We need to think about and see these bad things and create a conversation about them to understand them. On a cultural level, storytelling is how we learn and frame opinions. We started out telling myths through oral tradition around campfires to explain and teach—what makes novels any different? Novels are one of many modern-day oral tradition adaptions. You must appreciate that for what it is.

Captive Prince is no exception.

Thing Three: The Virtues (AKA why you should read it)

-Srslyarts

This is a mature book. It discusses sex and has graphic smut. It discusses rape. It discusses pedophilia. People die. The author condones NONE of these things. But, more than anything, she also managed to capture delicious, thorny, complex, hard to explain pain of emotional conflict. Which is so hard to write. And that emotional pain and complexity is so interesting and beautiful.

This is a book about hurting others the way you’ve been hurt. It’s about abuse, recovery, redemption, forgiveness. Its about privilege, growing up too quickly, entitlement, sexual objectification, slavery, having no choice, responsibility, putting your past in perspective, realizing the people you hate are human, realizing you were wrong, realizing people aren’t who you thought they were, that you’ve made mistakes, realizing you don’t like the person you used to be, learning how much you’re willing to give up. It talks about abuse survivors who don’t get sad but become angry instead. It’s about the long-term effects, the vulnerabilities, of abuse. It’s about good people doing bad things. It’s about falling in love with someone who has done the unforgivable and being terrified of it. This novel does not take the easy way out on anything.

The emotional complexity in this book is gorgeous. I’ve heard so many people say they were moved deeply by Laurent because they saw themselves in him.

More than that, this book is intelligently written. All the political intrigue, the focus of the story, is SO SMART. Seriously. I predicted so little. Normally when I crack open a book I can generally see where a story is going and what is implied way before the reveal. But these characters are wickedly smart and four steps ahead of you as a reader. And you get to see their thought process!! I’ve noticed a lot of authors will tiptoe around the How of characters outsmarting people because they can’t figure it out themselves. Myself included. Not this story. You see every step of Laurent’s spider web being woven and the hand Damen has in it. Pacat is incredibly intelligent and it shows through her characters.

Laurent is quick as a whip and sees through everything—I never would have noticed half of the things he sees. Nor would I be able to prepare and respond so well. It is so cool seeing him explain what is happening politically.  

Its even better because you’re reading from the perspective of Damen. Damen is a prince and a strategist. Damen is a master military man. However social subtleties aren’t his forte and a lot goes right over his head but not yours. Damen is notoriously honorable and oblivious. He thinks he knows what is going on but you will stop and squint. Even still, in the end both you and him are shocked silly by what actually happens. Moreover, Damen is a wonderful person and it is really cool being in his head. He’s every bit the noble prince who is quiet, thoughtful, serious, and honorable to a fault. He’s also a brat and inwardly very snarky despite being so good natured. 

The writing style is delicate and eloquent. She remains consistent with lingo fitting for the time. And, honestly, the humor is super dry and I flipping love it.

Lastly. It is a truly good love story. For how ugly their relationship started Lamen ends up becoming one of the healthiest most loving and sweet I’ve read.

PS: We don’t deserve Charls the Veretian Cloth Merchant or Damen’s left cheek dimple.

-typohime

And, finally, a word from the author:

#Captive prince #discourse

[babiewonho]

thoughts on shownu nd wonho

[audio of calebcity’s anime villain laugh bass boosted plays] WOW….amira u truly want me dead askfjaskfj wow…Hyung Line…i’ll start with mister wonho bc that’s where my brain is takin me   Buckle up!! [this is 2k words when will i die]

my favorite fake maknae…mister babie..something i find very unique abt him is even tho he was supposed to be the leader   he also has a lot of youthful naive charm that matches more of a Follower type of personality. like while we saw him be a leader in no mercy, and he did an excellent job esp with gun being covered up for his lack of dancing skill, i think that is a very unnatural state of being for him, and he exerts an unfortunate amount of energy trying to lead others. he has the skills necessary but i think he overextends himself to employ them. his natural state of being is more of a follower in that that’s where he’s more comfortable. he stresses too much about keeping everybody happy at once and takes too much responsibility. he’s naturally a workaholic and sacrifices his health for the sake of work. 

so honestly i’m really glad he didnt end up being the leader and i’ll get more into leder shownu later :D but i take it as a blessing that he’s allowed to take more of a backseat and speak up when he wants to rather than always being in charge. tbh wonho is kinda Out Of It all the time and while i think if he was a leader he’d fight to stay in the moment i think he needs that time in his head to decompress. tbh it’s really funny that he cld have been the leader to me in no malicious way just bc he’s never There askfjasf like when minhyuk said he always needs to go looking for him bc he just wanders off and he’s getting coffee and he’s like what :D and he needs extra explanations and stuff all the time and minhyuk n the others need to direct him in what he’s doing all the time. 

that’s why i said the fake maknae thing bc in many ways he has a really youthful kind of innocence to him like just a silly child. like when ck took the glass away from him at the awards show so he wouldnt break it kasfjsa and then the bottle   like a big brother would do  and wonho was like :/ okay…and wiping his tears. we rly see a shift from him as a Hyung to someone who the others end up taking care of in a very natural way. there’s a big reverse dynamic there, in particular with him and changkyun. which is rly interesting! changkyun kind of steps up to be more mature in situations with him. it’s really cute…

when i think of wonho in the position of a hyung, i think it’s in a non traditional way. when i think of him i think of light blue and him being a Healer. he is a big reminder to stay in touch with your emotions and feel them. at the taiwan concert…i believe at least! that it was that one…when everyone was holding back their tears wonho was like just cry!! to hw in particular he said that there were a ton of people there to hug him and support him when he cried so he should just do it so he didn’t regret it later, and he has a very nurturing heart. he makes this one face…it’s like a mix of a pout n a sad smile?? when he pities another member…it’s a very gentle and empathic facial expression…i’m not used to seeing men make that face. 

so i think he DOES offer a form of guidance/wisdom as an older member but it’s not in a structural way if that makes sense like minhyuk saying “walk over here” or ordering them around it’s like a Healing presence..a calm spirit to offer Peace and Serenity. being in touch with his emotions i feel also creates an openness within the group where they feel better about expressing themselves, at the very least bc they cld use him as a scapegoat, which i dont think he’d mind. like wonho cried first!!!

part of his openness with his emotions is what makes him seem childish not in an unlikable way but rather…like he never got that Hard adult shell that makes people fear expressing themselves and their true thoughts. when he is happy he is brightly adorably happy he’s literally :DD just delighted and that brings out protective instincts in those who are around him which is another part of why he’s a fake maknae 2 me…he gets teased like everyone else but i dont think anybody cld have the heart 2 be mean to him his eyes are just too sparklie…also his LAUGH…is so loud and genuine and beautiful and it makes me feel such joy and it makes the others happy too  nothing is really funny to me until wonho laughs that’s like the official comedy stamp his :D smile n HAHAHAHA laugh  n his wheeze

he’s also really stubborn like a child which i find endearing but i know cld be frustrating sometimes but i find it funny askfjas he’s a baby…he asks for opinions n then doesnt care bc he already made his mind LMAO

he is also!! just so so full of LOVE. his heart is so big…he loves his family and monbebes and his members and he’s so transparent about it and it’s absolutely precious. he radiates love and puts a very beautiful calming blue energy into the world and everything about him is very gentle like body language wise. he speaks very softly even though he’s Loud sometimes the words come out soft if that makes sense. the way they are pronounced in spite of volume. he doesn’t spit out words and i think that’s kind of why he stutters so much they’re so soft n undefined they blend into each other. they need more shape…but he also holds things gently and doesn’t exert a lot of pressure in his fingertips. he’s very cautious and not aggressive and is not prone to anger, though he can get frustrated.

i really thank him for his honesty with fans abt how he’s feeling etc bc i think it creates a very nice friend like relationship. he rly cares abt keeping up updated and it’s so precious i feel genuinely cared for lmao…i literally take care of myself sometimes bc of his tweets like dont forget to eat etc and that’s so special

there’s more things i cant think of right now but u know…i cld happily do this forever but MISTER SHOWNU…ur time to shine (forever…)

NOW…shownu is the official leader which is also unique because nothing about shownu besides perhaps his powerful body commands Leadership our eyes are drawn to him because of this quiet power he exudes but he doesn’t have that dominant personality type in fact i find him a very passive person he’s not fussy at all and seems to value group harmony over his own personal feelings

i think sometimes being a leader is burdensome to him for the reason that he has more of a quiet let things happen personality but that’s what’s interesting. the members don’t respect him because he Commands their attention. they follow him instead rather bc they just respect him and Know he’s the leader. 

even though leadership doesn’t come naturally to him in the traditional sense and minhyuk often assists or does more tradition leader things and has to remind him to speak, he has a whole different form of leadership where he’s quiet but when he Does say something everyone just respects it and doesn’t question it. i feel ppl follow him out of respect and affection rather than anything like intimidation if that makes sense. they just look up to him and admire him and respect his wishes. 

he was a leader during no mercy and ppl followed him without question mostly. he’s really good at having a friendly personality but still making sure people focus during dance practice. ppl might think this form of passive leadership is bad but i think there’s no need for him to interject generally bc mx flows very well with their dynamic and doesn’t need to get adjusted much. he also imo has kihyun and minhyuk as co-leaders which happened naturally and not out of his inability to lead efficiently, so i think if he’s lacking in any way, they’re there to cover that up and i think this also helps remove stress from him.

shownu is also just so likable!! on running man they said when ppl dont talk much, strangely you want to pay more attention to them and i think that’s happened to shownu his whole life. people are watching him without knowing and then when he speaks they’re so pleasantly surprised because he’s so funny and most of it is said in such a flat way, like deadpan humor. he’s a comedy genius because what he says is so unexpected most of the time but also so powerful. if shownu said like…”legs” i’d pee myself laughing bc something abt him is so fucking funny and endearing and goofy and HIS laugh itself makes me laugh too like …he invented comedy lmfao he’s absolutely not boring that’s a misunderstanding of his personality  he definitely needs to get comfortable somewhere before his real personality is revealed but he’s gotten a lot better at that which is why he’s been advancing through variety and im so proud of him for that and impressed

also adding to him being so endearing the members just genuinely adore him and i think when he went to law of the jungle a taxi took him to the location and ck said to the cab driver “take care of him/drive safely” which is very sweet and just shows like the Depth of their affection for him. everything he does the members just find so cool and funny and endearing and he brings them a lot of happiness

he’s also such a good fit for the group because he’s so CHILL like minhyuk cld be gnawing jooheon’s leg off while wonho fights changkyun over a piece of shrimp and hyungwon is getting dusted by kihyun and shownu’s like :) i love my family and HE LOVES THEM SO MUCH LMAO like he genuinely adores his members and you can feel that too like not even just things like him giving up lines (hw in beautiful) or splitting his commercial earnings among his team which he didnt even want kh to say but he imagines himself doing things with them in the future like going on trips and he really sees them as his friends/family rather than coworkers and it’s so lovely and beautiful he’s just so goddamn fond of them lol

also hyung line with each OTHER is so precious bc wonho is rly like a little happy kid around shownu n shownu is so calm n chill and wonho is like :DD hello!!! n shownu pretends he doesnt care asjfsafj  it’s so funny wonho is just going around hoping for shownu’s love like he said in that fansign note n shownu ignores him n teases him asfkjasf it’s so cute when shownu teases it’s so funny it rly shows just how fond he is and shownu always laughs when wonho laughs and humors him?? and by humors him i mean wonho babbles a lot n makes little silly side comments and if shownu is within hearing distance he always tries to reply to those and he makes wonho giggle and it’s precious and he listens and shownu just really Understands the member’s personalities like when he said he likes when mh talks a lot etc he understands them and just doesn’t want them to change bc he loves the way they are like i kno that sounds fake deep but it’s true…

wonho is just so cute…n youthful around shownu i love the dynamic it’s amazing how similar they are in age like a year apart n yet wonho seems so young around him and shownu just teases him n theyve known each other for a long time n are so comfortable with each other n they work out together like…we love strong muscle men with hearts of gold …also this is just random but wonho pronounces “shownu” so cute n also i love hearing shownu say hoseokie like it’s just adorable shownu always calls the memebrs by their real names n fogets to say the stage ones like   who is even calling changkyun “I.M.” at this point   who is that….

#asks #analysis

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Thor: Ragnarok review

Thor has had the worst track when it comes to the MCU. His first outing was an okay-at-best adventure that took place with a cast of boring, unfunny humans instead of on Asgard where cool shit happened. When you start out your trilogy with someone like Kenneth Branagh directing and even he can’t make it cool, you know you’re in trouble. Then we come to his appearance in The Avengers, where he does decent but still gets outshone quite a bit by the rest of the cast. Then we get to Thor: The Dark World, one of the worst superhero films ever made… the less said about it the better. Then comes Age of Ultron and Thor’s overall role is negligible, especially with his weird cave dream sequence which doesn’t amount to too much. All of this build’s Thor up as one of the least-interesting Avengers, which is a damn shame, because Chris Hemsworth plays the role with such charm and enthusiasm, it’s sad to see his efforts go to waste…

...And then comes Thor: Ragnarok, and it blows all that bullshit out of the water by doing a soft reboot to the whole Thor series. Sure, the bullshit before is still canon, but Thor got dumped by his human girlfriend so we don’t need to put up with those fucks anymore, the movie takes place mostly in the cosmos which were the best parts of the other Thor movies, and best of all we have a director who knows what we want to see and gives it to us with cheesy 80s and Jack Kirby aesthetic: Taika Waititi. More than anyone before him, he seems to really GET what makes Thor so cool in the first place, and what makes comic book movies cool in general. The other Thor movies are naught but a whimper to this film’s epic Led Zeppelin metal scream. But how? How did this film fix the fatal flaws of the films that came before?

First let’s give you a rundown of the story: It has been two years since Thor has left Earth. His girlfriend has dumped him, he has found no Infinity Stones, and as soon as he returns to Asgard he finds out Loki has hijacked the throne and hid his father, Odin, on Earth. And just when things don’t seem like they could get any worse, Odin dies and releases the wicked Hela, his firstborn child who was banished long ago for being an evil bitch. She makes it to Asgard and starts trying to dominate everything, while Thor and Loki end up on the planet of Sakaar… though Thor is stuck fighting in gladiator battles while Loki, who through temporal bullshit showed up a week earlier, has sucked up to the grandiose ruler known as the Grandmaster and landed himself in a cushy position. Soon enough Thor is up in the gladiator arena against his old pal, the Hulk, and from here Thor tries to figure out how he can get back to Asgard and whoop Hela’s ass. Can the mighty Thor manage this impossible feat, or is Ragnarok finally upon him?

The reason this movie works so well is that the film has moved away from dull Earth settings and into cosmic realms with a heavy 1980s sci-fi and Jack Kirby influence. Earth was not a very interesting setting for a character who is supposed to be a mighty physical god; the earlier films never really played to his strengths, as evidenced by the main villains being meek and unimposing in comparison to a swaggering viking like Thor. This is not much of a problem here, where all the foes Thor matches up against are more than able to measure up. Over the course of the film he does battle with the fire demon Surtur, his evil death goddess sister Hela, and of course the not-so-jolly green giant himself, Hulk. These are foes that actually give Thor a realistic challenge, and while there are obviously still scenes of Thor fighting mooks, there are actually antagonists that can put up solid fights themselves. It’s a real breath of fresh air!

Speaking of the characters, and continuing on with how moving away from the structure of the old film’s was a good thing… the previous supporting casts of the Thor movies were one of the greatest weaknesses. They were good actors (and Kat Dennings) in awful roles. But in THIS film, we get a supporting cast worthy of Thor! Gone is the dull Natalie Portman and the horrendously unfunny Kat Dennings characters that have bogged down the films in the past! Say hello to the new supporting cast of characters, with the badass Valkyrie and the charming goofball Korg! Valkyrie is an awesome, badass, worthy partner for Thor, who has a solid backstory and good characterization for her first film. Korg is just an absolutely lovable doofus; played by Taika Waititi himself, he exists mostly to add a bit of levity to the proceedings, which is easy to do as he is a hulking rock monster with a very soft, pleasant voice. These two are highlights of the movie, worthy newcomers and allies to Thor, and I hope they pop up more in the future. The interactions they could have if they meet up with the Avengers would be astounding.

Of course, we also have villains to take into account here, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Not in terms of quality mind you, because the performances are all well-done, it’s just that the villains tended to be underutilized. Hela is the chief example; yes, she has plenty of scenes where she’s badass, Cate Blanchett is perfect as her, and by fucking god that scene where she kills all the valkyries in flashback is one of the most gorgeous scenes I’ve ever seen in superhero cinema. But she’s a bit underutilized and barely deals with Thor until the very end of the film after their brief meetup. Still, she gets some cool fight scenes, so it does even out a bit, I just feel she deserved some more attention, especially with her interesting backstory. Surtur is quite a victim of this problem too, as instead of serving as a big bad, he’s relegated to a plot device after his defeat in the opening – a plot device I shall not reveal any spoilers on. Needless to say, he’s cool in his appearances, but he could have done a lot more. Thankfully, these two characters could possibly return, as their final scenes do leave things a bit open-ended.

But there is one antagonist who I can heap nothing but lavish praise upon: The Grandmaster. This is Jeff Goldblum dressed in the gaudiest clothing imaginable just… Jeff Goldbluming it up. He is absolutely perfect, hilarious, delightfully weird… it is everything I could have wanted from Jeff Goldblum in a Marvel film. There is not a single scene he’s in that’s unenjoyable, and I can’t wait for him to show up again so he can potentially interact with his equally scene-stealing weirdo brother, The Collector. Benicio Del Toro and Jeff Goldblum weirding it up onscreen together… It would be the stuff legends are made of. But yes, Goldblum, he’s a highlight of the film.

Now on to the returning characters: Odin is okay. Anthony Hopkins does a great job playing Loki pretending to be Odin, but his death scene is a bit rushed when taken out of context of the Thor series as a whole. It starts so near the beginning and wraps up the arc from the previous Thor film so quickly I just ca- oh, wait a second, Thor: The Dark World sucked ass, so why do I care if it’s stupid plot points get thrown out the window? Then we have Loki, who here just goes through the heel-face revolving door so many times it’s hard to really tell whose side he’s on at any given moment. As usual, his interactions with Thor are fantastic and enjoyable; they really do feel like bickering brothers who deep down do love each other, and Loki also gets some of the most hilarious moments during the Thor vs. Hulk gladiator fight. He’s solidly done, and Tom Hiddleston also gets a few scenes where he gets to ham it up, which is a big plus.

And then we have Doctor Strange, in a very brief cameo appearance that builds off the stinger of his film… and this scene is fucking awful. It’s supposed to be some goofy, lighthearted jokiness but it’s just so forced, awkward, and shoehorned into the film; it’s clearly only there to beat you over the head with the fact this movie takes place in a shared universe with other heroes. To be perfectly frank, the entirety of Thor and Loki’s trip could be cut out of the film with zero effect on the plot. It is just utterly irrelevant fanservice. The joke about Loki falling for thirty minutes though, that was funny, and it almost makes the scene worthwhile. Credit where credit is due, I laughed.

And now, the big one: Hulk. This is Hulk’s absolute best film appearance yet. He talks, he gets some personality to him, he gets good chemistry with Thor, and all his fight scenes are a blast, finally pitting Hulk against worthy foes (hey, he and Thor both finally get to fight people who are a good match)! And if you think Hulk’s the only one getting in on the fun, Banner shows up too and gets in on the fun; after two years stuck in Hulk form, Banner is a bit loopy, and gets tons of goofy, manic lines and great chemistry with Thor. Ruffalo is at the top of his game here; let’s see him keep this up in his next appearances.

Every fight scene is awesome, the score by Mark Mothersbaugh is awesome, every time “Immigrant Song” kicks up it’s the absolute peak of awesome… there’s nothing about this film that doesn’t scream “AWESOME!” Okay, well, there are a few things, as I’ve mentioned, but the pros heavily outweighs the cons. The awesome 80s Saturday morning cartoon sci-fi aesthetic fits Thor like a glove, giving him an enjoyable identity rather than the gloomy, overwrought, and often half-baked tone that has plagued his films in the past. This is a Thor film worthy of being a Thor film, and while I can’t say this is Marvel’s best film yet (I still like the Guardians of the Galaxy films and Civil War more), this is easily top ten best Marvel movies material, and one of this year's finest superhero films, and this is a damn good year for superhero movies! This one gets a recommendation for me, especially if you love throwbacks to the awesomely trashy and cheesy 80s sci-fi of the 80s… and boy fucking howdy do I love that shit.

This is science fantasy at its most fun, and I pray to all the gods of Asgard that Taika Waititi gets to keep the reigns of Thor for the foreseeable future. This man knows how to show us a good time; let’s let him keep doing it for a while longer. We need a bit more making up for the first two crappy Thor films, y’know?

#Review #Movie review #Disnovember #Thor #Thor: Ragnarok #Marvel #MCU #comic book movie #Hulk #Jeff Goldblum #superhero #superhero movie #Loki #Hela #Asgard

[fmlfpl]

Lineup Lamentations - GW3

Our Transfers, Captains, and Starting 11s for the week!

—

WALSH

TRANSFERS:

OUT: Aubameyang

IN: De Bruyne

Pretty straightforward swap here removing Aubz after the Wet game was always the plan before GW1 and feel fortunate to be in position to execute the plan. Kevin on pens was the deciding factor over Raz as I had it down to them two as my City guy to get.

Not sure what Raz will be up to with Jesus out now...up top or same spot, but either way Kevin still should be doing the same shit. Hopefully that bonk on the head was nothing much and he's ready to go this weekend.

Probably not a spot I will play with too much unless he gets injured but it feels nice to just get Kevin in nice and early here. Debated many different hit options and in the end nothing looked too attractive. .5 in the bank for a rainy day...we'll see where that belongs next week.

GK:

Ryan (MUN)

Maybe he'll get some saves in this game, unlike the previous. Never feel good for a clean against ManU so I'd take a 3 pointer or something.

Brighton dominating Newc was very promising though - pretty happy that I stuck with Ryan GW1. Could see owning him for a long while and possibly even through my first WC whenever that time comes.

DEF:

Dier (NEW)

Welp.

A clean would be most, most welcome here after no cleans through their first two. They look genuinely all sorts defensively so far and seem to just be all hands on deck throughout their games. Wondering if the disruption of the Thursday games is really fucking them, and I will be watching this one closely. Letting in two to Soton was kinda lucky - it could easily have been three or four - so it would be nice to see a suffocating performance against a team that just managed 0 shots on target last weekend.

Realistically, as long as Dier is starting, I probably won't bin him.

Shaw (bha)

Dunno how I seem to end up with thiccboi in my GW1 team every year but it feels like I do.

He's a really tough player to watch when you own him...very frustrating and just a bit shit. The rumors with Telles intensifying doesn't fill me with hope for the future. Again, like Dier, as long as he's starting I probably won't spend a transfer here and just need to back my preseason thoughts that Mou and ManU would be good for cleans.

Brighton looking a pretty tidy outfit so far this game should be good. Not really expecting a clean, unfortunately, so maybe get lucky with an assist or something.

Trent (ARS)

Trent looked back to being Trent against Chelsea. No Hendo is a bit annoying again so we'll see who is starting on his side.

Arsecast been pretty conservative setting up but we know how teams like to overload Trent to neutralize his attacking impetus which may well happen here.

Either way a win to nil is always on the cards for Livp and Trent is a great player. Good boy Trent.

MID:

De Bruyne (LEI)

Great player gets to play a shithouse team. Love it. One of the few (only?) things I got right last year was picking Kevin early and holding him. Will try to replicate that now. To the first of many happy returns Kev.  

Salah (ARS)

Still a livewire despite his blank last weekend I'm pretty happy to have Mo.

Definitely my safety blanket in FPL and hauls are always around the corner. Looking good and primed to bang. With the sudden increase in penos makes him even that more attractive. Not an easy fixture by any means but it doesn't really matter. Let's go Mo.

Trossard (MUN)

Spent a lot of mental energy on this wee lad this week. Done nothing but impress through two and return in both with the post last weekend away from a huge haul and yet I still am looking for reasons to sell him. I came full circle and despite the rough immediate fixtures I'm going to stand by him. He looks dangerous and even though there are f0dens and podencios around him, he's the one I have and he's the one I shall hold.

ManU were utterly diabolical last weekend and if Matic is out they could still be got at.

Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa (AVL)

Zambo did the business for me last weekend with the assist and with no better options he gets to go again against Villa. Dunno if Lemina comes in or something with Reed maybe he gets to push up a little more but ultimately he seemed to have a more or less free roaming roving role in the center of the park last weekend...and he bossed it. Absolute class player, Zambo is, and I really enjoyed watching him. He's definitely not showing much to be an actual starter in FPL...but needs must.

Certainly need to upgrade my 11th man soon, but with this good fixture maybe he gets something again.

Fernandes (bha)

Come on Bruno. Nothing would calm me down and my feelings about my team this weekend more than with Bruno points. I am expecting space so hopefully he doesn't get hockey assists but gets actual assists in this one. Feels weird that they played 90 and didn't get a peno as well.....time to revert to the mean with one this game probably too right? Yes.

FWD:

Werner (wba)

Werner been looking good and rested during the midweek so should be raring to go as he still searches for his first Chelsea goal. Hopefully Jorginho is out so he has pens in his locker this weekend as well.. but really just feel good with him in this fixture.

West Brom are bad and I am backing Chelsea to find some goals this weekend. Werner has been looking good, even if his team has not, and I'm just hoping that they click into some sort of gear against the weakest opposition they'll be facing in the league to date.

DCL (cry)

Tough fixture against the team they are tied for first place with in the table.

We will probably do’em but DCL, with the way he's looking, always a shout for getting in and around it. Not expecting a ton here, but am keen to see what Woy does with the lineup at home now that Eze and Bats have been around for a couple weeks. Maybe we play some attacking stuff and are there to be had? Who knows. Either way, DCL - great pick great guy.

BENCH:

Mitchell (EVE)

Brewster (ARS)

Ferguson (lol)

CAP:

Werner (wba)

I'm trying this new thing this year where I back myself for captain picks. I was on him last weekend when I looked at the fixtures and the games so just going to stick with that.

West Brom are bad, and a lot worse than Leicester (even tho Leicester suck), so I feel better about trying to expose heem than go with Kevin. 4 or 5 is possible against WBA and Werner could fill his boots. Playing the fixture here, we'll see how it goes.

—

ALON ON WILDCARD

TRANSFERS:

OUT: wildcard

IN: wildcard

I don’t even know what to write here. I’ve done two pods and a three hour stream today largely dominated by my Wildcard team. I’ve said all that needs to be said! Ended up here and feel pretty ok! Let’s go.

GK:

Martinez (ful)

Like him and rate him and hoping the Villains can be a tight ship and get some cleans. Duno.

TBH didn’t put much thought into this spot just gonna go Emi and not use a transfer until maybe second Wildcard popping 30 gameweeksish from now. GLHF Emi!!!

DEF:

van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold (ARS)

Great guys, great friends, and the epitome of set ‘n’ forget geniuses. Also planning on no transfers here until second wildcard. Keep dominating boys. Up the reds.

Dunne (SOU)

Temporary start over Lamptey’s much worse fixture in my opinion. Hail-mary of a Duon clean here and I think Lamptey ends on 0-2 points. Lamps is also sorta knocked so who knows what goes on there.

Maybe Burnley will sell Tark and Dunne’ll be a guy but mostly just fodder for rest of season...

Lamptey in general is my start every week guy and he is the “pressure point” of my squad for sure but also I’ve LOVED the fuck out of him since he came on the scene with Chelsea. He’s just great. Backing the boy.

MID:

De Bruyne and Sterling and Foden (LEI)

Going in big dick swinging with the City triple up for what should be back to back thrashings in Leicester and Leeds where I know I’ll want as much of their attack as possible and, crucially, the arm-band.

Foden minutes should get a large increase with no Kun and no Jesus and Kev and Raz are world class, not much else needs to be said. Going aggressively for the best attack in great fixtures and then we’ll reevaluate going to other premiums etc for future captaincy and what not.

Rodriguez (cry)

Did fuck around with Rich instead of Hamez but I’m just sticking with the extra 0.5 and my guy... I think it’s possible Rich distances himself from Hamez and has the best season of his career but also just Hamez is such a FML FPL player... oozes class, so confident and smooth and sick, just love him, and love owning him. Sticking by the guy. He’s coming for the assist crown lookout Kevin :P.

FWD:

Werner (wba)

Rolling with Timo and the incredible fixtures. He has a three match window to decide what to do with him and I love him for wba, CRY, SOU, so just letting it wash over me. Still rate him very highly and the goals and hauls are just around the corner. We’ll see if they come now or they come later. Willing to risk it for him before moving to maybe Tony or others.

Calvert-Lewin (cry)

So much love for DCL <3<3<3... Don’t think I need to add much he didn’t leave one single tinker for one second. And hasn’t left a tinker since the game opened pre-GW1. Good sign.

Wood (SOU)

Ole faithful. Not sexy. Not new not shiny not smooth or slick or an attacking team or anything. Just consistent and good... If you’re after MoTD highlight reel Vine merchant legendary screamer thunderbastard kinda guy then Wood isn’t the guy for you... But if you’re looking for a cheap guy to just blindly hold for 30ish GWs then hey Chris Wood is your guy. Good numbers, good consistency, great guy. His cheeks are just soooo red. Let’s go.

BENCH:

Anguissa (AVL) - Nailed and good.

Lamptey (MUN) - Gonna start almost every week for me. Great kid, looks incredible, is incredible.

Mitchell (EVE) - Hey. Whatev.

CAP:

Sterling (LEI)

I guess that I’m the only one concerned with Kev getting an elbow to the head? Fine with that.

Maybe Kev gets swaddled up in bubble wrap and subbed off early once this one is done and dusted? I don’t know man it’s enough of a reason to not captain Kev for me... If both guys were 100% fit I’d probably go Kevin here but Raz is also incredible and is actually 100% fit so I’m going Raz.

I expect complete domination and destruction and yeah that’s that. Didn’t really consider anyone else.

Go on City do the thing.

Wildcard team... ya got this.

#fml fpl #fmlfpl #fpl #fantasy premier league #premier league #fantasy sports #sports #fantasy soccer #soccer #fantasy football #football #podcast #lineup lamentations

[saintheartwing]

Fallout is the Bomb

I can't believe I've only brushed over this series before. There was a whole, beautiful, irradiated world to explore within its boundaries that I never knew of! Lemme explain. Fallout is, well, post-apocalyptic. That alone had me worried. I'm not a big fan of the post-apocalyptic setting because of how it essentially gets so misanthropic, and assumes everyone turns into the kinda scumbags you'd see in "Violence Jack". The good news is that Fallout actually has a sort of "out". You see, in all of the series...well, most of it, anyway...you play as a Vault Dweller, someone who was sealed away along with others in big, social experiments set up by the government before a great war between China and the USA over resources that ended in nuclear fire. The Vaults have everything you'd need to survive for decades, even centuries! But not for all of them. You need to leave your Vault eventually, either to get a much needed Water Chip that will ensure your people can survive, or to find the "Garden of Eden Creation Kit", or you're forced to leave because the head of your Vault is a big fat jerk, or you leave because your SON has left the vault long before you while you were essentially frozen in suspended animation, and you've gotta track them down. In New Vegas, it's different, but I'll get to that later. Fallout 1 and 2 introduced the factions that basically dominate the universe. The Brotherhood of Steel, who sealed themselves away and hoard technology, hoping to someday come back up and revive the best of mankind in better days. The Super Mutants, mutated humans infected by a virus made by a lunatic who thought that as long as there were differences of ANY kind in humans, we'd keep tearing each other apart. Hence, why not make a race where everyone looks and sounds basically the same, AND is super strong, AND can easily withstand the radiation-filled wastes that fill America? There's the Enclave, the remnants of the previous government, heads of corporations, the rich and powerful, who helped MAKE the Vaults, and who basically think any life that's out on the Earth at the moment isn't really human because their DNA isn't like the "old world" humans anymore. Even if it just means people just have an extra toe or the like, they think you're a subhuman mutant as bad as the two-headed, skinless cows that now walk around. There's Ghouls, people who are heavily bombed to s--t, their skin burned off, looking like they've been flayed alive and yet linger on, some who are very intelligent and still retain their personality, others who are feral and twisted and evil. And then there's the NCR, the New California Republic, founded by war heroes and remnants of the army who are trying to sort of rebuild America or at least, what it stood for, out primarily on the West Coast. Their leadership's too concerned with bureaucracy and the amount of red tape and incompetence can be a real issue, but you can clearly tell most of them, the soldiers included, are just trying to stick together and do as much good with as many people as possible. In the first two games, it's a sort of isometric perspective. In the third, it switched to a sort of first person shooter mechanic, and the series has kept it like that, with RPG elements throughout. You have "perks", abilities like being able to carry a ton more, being able to avoid fighting with wild animals because they all like you, having a random, mysterious, gun-toting stranger randomly pop up to help...and you can choose how you want your character to look and act, like in most open world games. Now, which one is the best? I'm not sure for everyone, but for me? New Vegas is the best blend of old school and new. You play a courier who's lived out in the Wasteland. It was your job to deliver a "Platinum Chip" to Las Vegas or, as it's now called, New Vegas. But you got caught by some fancy dressed mobsters, shot and left for dead. It didn't stick. Now you wanna find that Chip, find out WHY it's so important, who the hell killed you, and maybe...or rather, most LIKELY...get revenge. There's a problem, though. For one, you don't know where the mobsters went. And you've got to contend with raiders, the NCR who aren't sure if they can trust you, wild mutated animals, and everything in between. AND...a new, Roman-themed faction that's raping and pillaging every town they find, selling the women into slavery and following a mad lunatic named Caesar. And I do mean Roman-themed, they wear Roman armor, have centurions, the whole shebang. The Legion's boss, Caesar, actually gives a damning condemnation of Democracy in the game. After all, it was Democracy and electing the idiots that were in the govt that cared more about the Red Scare than people having fresh water to drink that led to the war. Might makes right. The good news is you can play someone who's both good and bad, someone who's a blend. There's not merely morality, but "reputation". You can have a good reputation with the Brotherood, but be HATED by the NCR. Or idolized by the NCR and despised by the Legion. If you're smart enough, or charming enough, or have the right perks, you can talk your way out of almost anything, or, if you've the skill, blow the beejbus outta anyone you want with a ROCKET LAUNCHER! HAHAHAHA! KIBBLES AND BITS! It's fun watching baddies explode. And there's a lot of funny moments too. Take, for example, a subquest at the Atomic Wrangler, as you try to earn money to gain access to New Vegas, for you need 2000 bottle caps to get in, and that means you need to either sell a lot of highly valuable stuff...which you probably don't have...or you've gotta get dirty and do things like be a pimp for a whorehouse. Which I had to. The boss says we need a ghoul cowboy, a charming older lover, and a sexbot. Then when you tell him you've got the sexbot, he's all giddy like a schoolkid, making it abundantly clear the sexbot was for HIM. Which he tries in vain to pretend isn't true. And of course, the guy who shot you has a talking droid. Because of course he does. His name is Yes Man. When you tell Yes Man you're the Courier his boss shot? Yes Man: Hahaha! I know that's not true, because you still have a head!

Courier: I'm serious. 

Yes Man: Hahaha! That's... not funny... you getting shot in the head. I really shouldn't have taken so much pride in how I set that up, huh? ... I feel really bad right now. Yes Man has a lot of great lines. Oh, and did I mention Elvis Impersonators run a good chunk of the Strip? Because of COURSE they do. Of COURSE they do. Guess what they have to say about their HQ? "Near as I can tell, it was some sort of religious institution. Oh, I know it says "school" out front, but everything in here seems to be related to the worship of some guy from back in the day. People used to come here to learn about him, to dress like him, to move like him. To BE him. If that's not worship, I don't know what is." Hey, if you're gonna imitate ANYBODY, why NOT the King? And yes, in Camp Searchlight...deep breaths... THERE IS...a set of HOLY HAND GRENADES in the Church.  The sign just reads, "Pull pin and count to 3." And the grenades will make a bigger boom when you count to 3. Don't believe me? Look for yourself!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZUFKe-uYw&feature=youtu.be It's too beautiful for words.  ^_^

hbomberguy on Youtube did a really good analysis of the themes of Fallout. And as he said, “FO1's villain is 'the future', represented by mutations, evolution, technology and so on. The Master embodies this by being a mutated machine-man. The old world is gone, and the future is coming to get you.

FO2's villain is 'the past', in the sense that the largest threat to the world is the stuff that destroyed it the first time. People are trying to move on, inventing new money, but the real threat is that we haven't changed enough, and are still doomed to destroy each other. Hence the theme of newly-invented drugs, money troubles and so on. You're chasing an artifact of the past to survive, but that past killed the world. How much of the past is it good to dig up? The Enclave dream of a return to the prelapsarian america that already had its chance and got blown up.

Horrigan (the main villain) embodies this. He 'is' the ideology of the past, personified. He wants to kill you because mutants must die, and you must be a mutant because he's been ordered to kill you. Symbolically we're seeing that humans have a thirst for purity, and this thirst is itself our greatest flaw. You also HAVE to kill him with violence. It's not possible to talk him down, and the real challenge is how you deal with that fact. It's a nice final twist. Your first proper conversation allows you to claim you believe peace is always possible - and the last one is a counterpoint, saying - but the other person has to be willing to try this too.

The game criticisms mankind's inner violence, but then points out that to escape this, violence becomes necessary - it just has to be used differently from before. Being able to recruit some Enclave soldiers AGAINST the main Enclave soldier is a fun moment. The military industrial complex is bad but can be wielded against itself.All FO's main villains and central characters are rendered 'faceless' by masks or armor or mutations, because they represent something prevalent in humanity itself, more so than any one person. it makes them larger than life, like you're battling a concept. The Master is a monstrous creature-machine, Horrigan is always behind a mask, as is Lanius, and the burned man and Ulysses are similar too. This is one reason why making the villain of 3 just 'some guy in a jacket' really annoys me. Make me contend with the faceless monster that is the darkness in man. Don't make me shoot some southern-talkin' dude.Even then, I can see that being a really cool twist on the formula. But it's so badly done. Poor Autumn.”

Indeed. The main “villains” of New Vegas are sort of “faceless” and represent greater concepts. Mr. House is, in many ways, a refusal to let go of the past. He wants all of Las Vegas to be like his snowglobes: perfectly pristine and preserved under a glass bubble, unchanging. Caesar’s idea,, the LEGION’S idea of the “future” is a take from the past as well, a sick, dark past, the ROMAN heritage, embracing the past’s more cruel elements in the name of a greater organization and unity. Sort of similar to the Master’s Unity, but this time not coming from looking to the future, but to the past. The NCR is the present, and they are, in a way, a problem as well, something to contend with. Because people are suffering here and NOW, and they’re stretched so thin and so tied up with red tape that people slip through the cracks easily, or they just use outright violence instead of better, smarter solutions. They can’t see ahead properly, and aren’t learning from the mistakes of the past. Cassandra Moore, in particular, is a good example: every solution she has involves killing someone or a group of people. She refuses to open up to the idea of diplomacy. She’s as closeminded and narrowminded as the idiots who helped cause the bombs to fall to begin with. By only seeing other factions as enemies and never considering they could be allies or friends, or dealt with more kindly, you close yourself off to better, more moral, or smarter solutions.

The Brotherhood of Steel are similar: they want to preserve the elements of the Past, but they can’t see that their refusal to really help those in the present is dooming them. They’re well-meaning, they CARE, but...they’re wrong. They’ll just die out if they just stay inside their bunkers. They need to take a more active role in the world outside.

So what I'm saying is...play Fallout: New Vegas when you get the chance. Check out the Fallout series. There's a lot to love in there that might surprise you. I know it surprised ME.

#Fallout #Fallout 3 #Fallout 1 #Fallout 2 #fallout: new vegas #fallout 4 #philosophy