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yonemurishiroku · 2 years

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Heyyy what are your thoughts on the title of nico's book and the plot in general (pls i want a rant

I love you conteud btw

Omg this ask akxhakdhsksj hold on just let me show you this. So, this is my post:

And the reblogs:

LMAO believe me this is so funny istg. Why? Because that is exactly how I feel about the title.

- First, I’m gonna be perfectly honest here, I’m NOT comfortable with the Adventure part.

Because the same as @gods-nico, I don’t like how it downplays Nico’s physical and mental trauma as a… field trip. Yeah let’s just go with that.

I’m aware of my enthusiasm for angst materials, but this is just a little too much for me. I have always seen Tartarus as a forever deep, unfixable, indelible scar to Nico’s body and mind (i came up with a disable Nico AU based on that. like, srsly). He suffers from it and never manages to fully escape. It’s terrible. It’s nightmarish. We’ve all seen how difficult it was for Percy and Annabeth to trek through it. Tartarus is not, by any mean, someplace one would wish to explore in a freaking adventure.

It’s like saying all the horrors they’ve gone through down there are actually magical wanders. Or tourist attractions. Something along that line. Please, just. No. Don’t do that to me.

In fact, the sole reason Nico wants to come back to Tartarus is because he loves his friend Bob too much to leave him. It’s a rescue mission. They’re jumping head first in a hellhole to save Nico’s friend, not go sightseeing and definitely not a picnic. 😦😦💀💀

I’m saying this with utmost respect: the fact that the title practically sugarcoats Tartarus and dismisses Nico’s dedication to his friend upsets me.

- However, as much as I ‘value’ Nico’s trauma, I’m also amazed by his strength and ofc, eager to see more of it. That’s to say, I wholeheartedly wish to see Nico conquer Tartarus.

I’ve said it once and I’d say it again: I love both Nico’s sufferings and toughness.

Nico would be powerfully beautiful standing up against one of his deepest trauma, all resilient, unafraid and unrelenting. He manages to overcome his fears and thus, is finally able to heal fully. (Nico di Angelo deserves to goddamned heal)

This is the only scenario in which I indulge a less terrible Tartarus, not because the hellhole itself is any more lenient, but that Nico has become much, much stronger. And with the help of his boyfriend, they’re enough to fight it and win.

It’d be absolutely splendid. And I’m nothing if not a powerful Nico enthusiast.

It’s many things coming at once. Nico’s resolve. His resilience. Will’s support. His love. Their love. All of them get Nico another step closer to his happy ending. And what kind of Nico’s self-proclaimed mother would I be if I’m not forever grateful for that?

When I see Nico win over Tartarus, it’d be thanks to his inner strength and everything he’d managed to gain by himself, NOT because the hell itself is ridiculously nerfed weak.

That’d be the true prove to Nico’s astounding character development.

- Regarding the Sun vs Star part, we’re probably talking pretty lively about it so I’ll just skip it lolol it’s 1:30am.

Moving to the plot.

- I’m genuinely excited to see Bob again, not only because I adore his and Nico’s friendship but also I want to see how his character development would progress, provided that Iedeptus’ memories show signs of coming back. And ofc, how that would affect the friendships he’s made with the demigods.

This is the closest, most detailed I get to see of Nico interacting with a side-character. Exactly what I’ve been harboring a special liking for.

Bob isn’t a popular character. And when some beloved unpopular character of mine gets the spotlight, I’m more than thrilled.

- But again, the title “Adventure” does dump a bucket of cold water on it. I’d be extremely disappointed if Nico’s rescue mission turns out to be a children’s walk in the wild park. Hopefully not.

- Ofc, Will Solace. How a healer like him is gonna fend for himself and keeps Nico from physically/ mentally deteriorating at the same time really intrigues me.

I don’t have specific expectations for Will like plague abilities etc, but still I’m genuinely looking forward to see how Rick and Mark would work it out for him. A well-built background for him would be nice, too - I’m aware a lot of us love Will on a spiritual level - but I’d have no problem to be sufficed by a Nico-centric story.

It’d be lovely if through Will, we have the connection to Apollo/ Lester as the protagonist of the previous series, as well.

- Frankly, Will Solace and Solangelo practically have the most potentials LOL. They are both unexplored/ poorly-portrayed fields that hold a lot of materials to work on. And I know for a fact that a large number of loyal fans would want to feast in it.

I only hope they’re well-written and logical. If Solangelo turns out to be forced and poorly-written I might just bury myself.

That’s all I’ve got to say at the moment, I guess.

For the outro, just let me establish that, while I may have some qualms with the title, I’d refrain from commenting on and spreading information about the book itself - as long as it isn’t published yet.

A title doesn’t say everything about a book, so I’d like to keep the expectations/ worries in check while everything is still veiled. What I rant about the title does not stand for how I judge the book. We’ll get to it when I’ve actually read the final work itself.

Lastly, sincerely thank you, anon, for this ask!!! 🥺🤩👍 I get to rant freely lol. Even when you might have opposing opinions to mine, please feel free to send more asks if you want to discuss more! (´▽｀) I’m open to everything except hate, really.

Have a nice day, and I hope none of us would be disappointed when the book comes out.

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land-of-brains-and-chocolate · 3 years

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Rec list for Eddie and Symby being vaguely to very gay?

I'm sorry for coming to you with my monsterfucker agenda 😔👊 (no I'm not)

i mean, i probably could’ve seen this coming.

venom is dominated by two opposing narratives. let’s call this the “relationship narrative” and the “control narrative”. they’re not perfectly separated, like, you’ll definitely get elements of one in the other, but generally one of them describes what the story, at its core, is using the symbiote for.

now comics are an endless tug-of-war at the best of times, much less the gayest and slimiest of times. there’s a neverending backlash and backbacklash going on between these two takes. what you want is the relationship narrative.

everything very much started out with that take. eddie and the symbiote are two characters who forge an evil alliance because it lets them do what they wanna do (kill spider-man, more or less) and they have the same kinds of neuroses and complexes and syndromes. lots of early comics are also very fun about the merged consciousness, merged identity deal. that’s kind of the textbook relationship stuff.

personally i absolutely think the original stories (venom was created by david michelinie) have romantic undertones, even starting in the villainy days. eddie describes their first meeting as “a shadow moved, caressed me.” he takes the rejection of the symbiote still being “in love with” spider-man really hard. he sobs his eyes out when he thinks it’s dead and promises to avenge it bare-handed. they totally expect to live happily ever after on a deserted island together.

then there’s venom: lethal protector, which is cute on its own, but if you’re reading for slime romance, i very specifically recommend the novelisation. i won’t even spoil it. and then, planet of the symbiotes is the first comic that i would say has outright queer themes, intentional or not.

so all those recs until now are collected in this post.

we're trucking along through the 90s, we explore elements of one take and then the other and sometimes we ignore the symbiote completely, but not too much changes, overall. the next BIG stop in Gay Venom is, of course, the hunger.

miniseries by len kaminski, just venom: the hunger. plenty of people have written their essays on it, but what’s always important to me is that it DID NOT come out of nowhere. as said above, it expanded on themes that were there, it references michelinie venom very explicitly, like you get your SECOND “tenderly touching the green glass tube” scene.

but yes this one is specifically about, like, stigmatisation, otherness, mental illness, meeting all those things with care and empathy and optimism, tentacle sex. again, many essays. a venom comic that can go “look at the twisted deviance of this relationship” and then turn it around into “but how are you looking at it” is good. god how good would it be if they also did that to eddie more. anyway.

a few years later you get the first MAJOR fucking backlash, culminating in the SECOND story titled the hunger. spectacular spider-man: the hunger, from 2003. completely reboots venom and retcons their motivations and backstories, makes very spiteful references to planet of the symbiotes and the hunger, like it is not also called that by sheer coincidence. literally starts out, in a comic that wants to tackle and redefine venom, with the line “the PROBLEM is that you guys are like an old married couple”. so the new status quo is that the symbiote only ever used eddie to be with spider-man, and eddie only ever used the symbiote to not die of cancer.

the “control narrative” that really kicks in here uses the symbiote as, you know, a thing to control, eddie’s demons personified or even a completely foreign force to torment him. if eddie is evil, it’s not because of what he thinks and believes and wants, it’s because he couldn’t control the symbiote and gave in to its inexplicable bloodlust.

this is an unambiguous downgrade in terms of complexity, in my humble opinion, completely fucks up eddie’s responsibility themes, and is also a pretty clearly petty reaction to venom’s absolute oversaturation in the nineties. the bitch was everywhere and most of it wasn’t good. so there was LOTS of “look at this creepy loser” content by writers cringing themselves into self-awareness at the time. the 00s were going to be GRITTY and MATURE.

this of course means that we get to see eddie slit his wrists and bleed to death on panel after selling the symbiote to supervillains as an attempted act of redemption???

wild fucking times! it’s not exactly worth recommending as ~shippy~, but the first real backbacklash to this first round of retcons comes from dan slott, who just kind of ignores it all in new ways to die. drags eddie back to the land of the living and relevant, makes the symbiote refuse to let its new host kill him, telling that host, and reestablishing, that it loves eddie. and then, to keep him living and relevant, slott makes eddie anti-venom.

don’t even worry about it. anti-venom is essentially eddie seeking redemption with symbiote powers, but without the symbiote, except he pretty much acts no fucking different at all, just keeps on being a murderous vigilante with cracked ideas about innocence and guilt. people still act like he’s better now because, in its metatextual ways, the hunger was right.

then fucking uuuuuuhhhhhhh. agent venom. symbiote goes to flash thompson and the us military, and the writer, rick remender, goes really, really, really hard on the control narrative. the symbiote becomes a substance flash is addicted to, gives a voice to his past abuse, it’s dark times all the times.

people very much do like that narrative for flash, like at least from that perspective it was worth it. i don’t like it much for the symbiote. for the symbiote, representing everything fucked up with flash and forcing him to murder kill bite all the time is resolved via the good guy avengers literally lobotomising it so flash can wear it without further resistance or input. imagine doing that to a human person. you’re uncooperative so we’re gonna turn off your higher cognitive functions and wear you like a meat suit. happy ending for everybody! truly we’ve conquered our demons this day.

then! at the same time, there’s a cartoon coming out, it’s called ultimate spider-man. THAT one does the control narrative take with harry osborn, but then does the relationship take with flash, making it the only cartoon to outright redeem the symbiote and let it find friendship and be valued as a person.

and people loved it! so brian michael bendis gets it in his head that he’s going to redeem the symbiote and make it partner up with flash. and he does redeem it by the highly fucking questionable means of having it be “cleansed”, aka brainwashed and relieved of its memories and personality. not that it matters for long. nothing fucking matters in comics. take this with you if it’s the only thing.

so then for fun friendship times you get venom: space knight, flash and the symbiote’s adventures in space! and then that gets cancelled. eddie is off somewhere being toxin and hunting carnage (2016). many good comics but you did not ask for them.

and THEN.

it is time for the next MOTHER of backlashes.

flash gets literally discarded at fucking roadside to put the symbiote back on eddie and turn back time on their relationship to RIGHT before the FIRST backlash happened. you know, all those 2003 retcons. gone. ignored. no more. venom’s themes are now those circa 1996 again. full fucking on relationship narrative. ROMANTIC relationship narrative, and that after the symbiote was turned into eddie’s evil shadow, after he hated it and spent a LONG time seeking to eradicate all symbiotes (and not even for the first time).

the COSTA run. venom (2016). reviled and beloved.

like this comic is fucking ANGRY about symbiote treatment. i HAD to tell you all of that so you’d understand ANYTHING it’s doing. the first thing it does is flip it completely around, puts the symbiote on a military guy who’s making IT do bad things, makes his ability to control it horrifying and abusive instead of heroic and admirable. one of the later things it does (in the follow-up venom: first host) is outright feature a villain who lobotomises symbiotes, ending on a symbiote serving him swift and sweet payback by doing the same thing TO HIM. it’s exactly as unsubtle as the hunger (2003) was about its hang-ups.

comics... are a conversation.

flash remains a symbiote friend but still got fucked over big time by it all, symbiote-focused writers slott and costa also kind of use him to literally, in case anybody hadn’t caught on, literally spell out the REAL story that’s been going on in the writer's room for the past THIRTY YEARS:

you’ll notice i didn’t actually list any of the Gay Shit for you, you’ve probably already seen it or you’ll get to see it for yourself. yes, they are deeply in love, yes, it’s fucked up and flawed, yes, it is real and taken seriously and has ultimately redeeming potential. yes the concept of that nearly knocked me off my feet and in front of the subway at one point. yes there’s mpreg

it’s also fucking riddled with events, which spin off into other comics, so either ignore those and rely on the recaps OR click yourself forward through the “next issue (story)” button on marvel wikia to know what to read.

and after that must of course come the backbackbacklash, as certain as death or taxes. in the next run, we retcon everything once more, eddie just needs to control his darkness, the symbiote was an evil abuser all along, nothing on earth is ever new.

i’m not gonna go through it, i’m just gonna point you to the backbackbackbacklash issue that came out during this time: venom annual volume 2 number 1 - it’s confusingly named, it’s the one that has a blue-skinned space lady on it. this one ignores the backbackbacklash going on very pointedly and goes “it’s not ABOUT control” again, it’s pretty explicitly romantic.

and then there’s also marvel comics presents (2019) #5, which, oddly enough, does not particularly feature the characterisation you’d typically see in the relationship narrative? but it does feature eddie and the symbiote literally fucking, so you’d want to know about it.

that’s the overall, like, frame of eddie and the symbiote being in a relationship (nuh uh) (yeah they are) (NUH UH) (YEAH THEY ARE)

some stuff that’s smaller but still notable, uh.

nova (1999) 6 - 7, that’s the “we’re space married”

venom: dark origin, that’s an ALTERNATE (!!!) take on the character, don’t expect a likeable eddie but it’s very darkly funny and gay so what can i say.

venom: the end, which i would absolutely fucking hate to be canon, i think its characterisation is quite regressive, but the symbiote sure is in love, i guess.

venom: separation anxiety, the dawn of the control narrative but eddie’s characterisation did not have to go so wrong from here, like if they’d just figured out AT THIS STAGE that he's STILL acting like venom without it... i digress. it has the symbiote going eddie eddie eddieee

venom: sinner takes all, this is the first she-venom comic so that’s. hm. interesting. healing symbiote blanket

don’t read venom: license to kill just look at this panel with me

if i think of more comics worth adding i’ll add them.

the subtext slash text is heavy enough to be present to some degree in literally every cartoon adaptation of eddie brock. spider-man: the animated series goes FULL control narrative, in fact it started the “the symbiote corrupted peter” take that we to this day cannot escape, but the first few venom episodes are VERY playful about their relationship.

in spectacular spider-man it’s canon, but horrible. eddie’s in love with it, but eddie's a good boy and the symbiote is played very, very, very abusively. i think this is an evil symbiote adaptation that works well enough, at least it’s an actual meaningful character instead of just a malevolent force to resist.

in marvel’s spider-man, the only venom episode worth watching is venom returns.

i’ve actually got every symbiote-relevant episode listed right here from when we did our communal watch-through.

also watch truth in journalism. idk if it’s exactly shippy just do it

#venom #symbrock #tl;dr i wish i could tl;dr this #no off-site links to please the gods of tagging

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the-trashy-phoenix · 3 years

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Supernatural season 7 review (part 1)

Link to part 2:

I think this season was a lot alike the first ones, maybe because of the amount of episodes representing small hunts that have nothing to do with the big plot (as episode 4, about the Egyptian god Osiris, 5, about witches, 7, about ghosts, 12, about the Greek god Cronus, 13, about the Amazons, 14, about Sam’s fear of creepy clowns, 15, about demons and so on), or also because the plot of the season, the Winchesters fighting against the villain of the season, was quite simple. I somehow appreciate the two features, and I will later explain why, but of course at this point of the show it’s kind of unnatural not to focus on bigger storylines.

I find the “single episodes” pretty original, but I can’t help thinking they’re only meant to increase the number of episodes and create at least 20 of them per season, and that the main storyline alone would’ve requested only at most half of them to get completed. I’d understand if the show wasn’t 15 seasons long, and if the authors didn’t force all the main action to take place in the very last episodes.

Season 7 has a quite plain main plot: the villain, Dick Roman (Latins would’ve said “nomen omen”, which means something like “someone’s name’s an omen”), the leader of Leviathans, plans to conquer the world by drugging and killing people through the food produced in his factories. It is clear that Sam and Dean have to stop him. As I was saying, for someone who’s used to complex plots, this season might result a bit boring, but for me it was even relaxing not having to keep too many details in mind.

Two of the main themes of the season are introduced already in the first episode, Leviathans, which are contained in Castiel’s body and are destined to come out and spread death, and Sam’s hallucinations, which will accompany him for a long time.

I just mentioned Leviathans, new creatures that appear right from Purgatory thanks to Castiel. We’ve left him at the end of season 6 and we meet him again as an arrogant and vengeful God. I found it quite strange that Castiel had become so mean, and even the Winchesters can’t understand his behaviour. It is kind of a lesson of how power can change people, but still at some point I found it incoherent with Cas’ personality, as he has always been so humble and kind to every human, especially to Sam and Dean, and as he suddenly asks for their forgiveness.

When Leviathans take over, Cas dies. It is a very painful moment, as every time someone dies through Supernatural, but it is as if the brothers are sorrowfully getting used to losing people and have so many problems to solve at the same time they don’t have any more mental energy to devote to process grief. They always carry an unbearable burden they never have time to mindfully focus on and that makes them so frustrated they’re often almost to the point of exploding.

This time Cas’ death is the least of their problems, as Leviathans are starting to kill and eat people at a hospital, and in addition they are invincible with the Winchesters’ usual weapons, and Lucifer is trying to take over Sam’s mind. We immediately get to know that Sam’s mental wall is broken, so that Lucifer can torment and play him. It is like Sammy can’t have rest from his demonic side and can’t get rid of it: Lucifer provides him with increasing hallucinations and pain. Dean and Bobby are really worried about him, but they have no clue on how to cure Sam, as it happens most of the time when one of the brothers is “supernaturally ill”.

However, despite all the odds they’ve been and are going through, Sam and Dean finally seem to be happy and comfortable with each other, but their dynamics get complicated in the third episode, when Dean kills Amy, a monster who’s Sam’s friend and has proven trustworthy, of course without telling his brother. The brothers’ relationship is a seesaw of continuous positive and negative moments, and when one of them does something like this I really doubt they’ve been able to build a solid bond based on trust. That is their biggest problem which keeps on coming out without ever being resolved: the typical pattern is that one of them does something he doesn’t want the other to know and the lie goes on until the truth is invariably revealed leading to endless fights (until one of them is severely ill or dead). Sam, Dean, don’t you see that’s how things always go? Wouldn’t it be easier and better and healthier for your relationship to always tell the truth, even if it hurts, because hiding it and knowing it later is by far more painful and problematic? I wonder if they’ll ever understand that, considering that, as they’re approximately the two of them alone against the entire world, it is stupid to keep on lying to each other.

Meanwhile, Bobby studies a Leviathan to find a way to kill him and Sam and Dean meet Frank, a weird old friend of Bobby’s who helps them create new identities, because two Leviathans in the shape of Sam and Dean are committing crimes all over the country. Finally Bobby and the brothers find out that the monsters aren’t as invincible as they seemed to be at first, because they can be slowed down by cutting their head or by burning them with some chemicals.

The mid-turning point of the season is episode 9: the three find out about Dick Roman and his plans, which they try to stop by entering into one of his food factories, where Bobby is captured. I wasn’t worried at all about that, because the Winchesters and Bobby always go through difficult situations, and that one wasn’t surely worse than other times. That’s why Bobby’s death occurred so unexpectedly and hurt a lot more than all the others in Supernatural. An entire episode, the tenth, is devoted to the exploration of Bobby’s mind in his last moments of life, where he’s accompanied by Rufus through his happiest memories. We have an extraordinary view of Bobby’s existence, with his parents and his wife, and of course the brothers. Even in this highly pathetic moment we experience Bobby’s deep bond with his adopted children: he spends his last breath and forces to communicate a fundamental information he’s discovered to defeat Dick. This was really the solemn ending moment, as if the ultimate meaning of Bobby’s life was giving everything, his knowledge, his love and his life, to Sam and Dean, having been loyal to them since forever. As you may see, Bobby’s death really broke my heart: I thought of him as a nearly immortal character, who would have been by the brothers’ side until the end. As it was predictable, this event has massive consequences to the plot and particularly to the Winchesters (by the way, it is extremely meaningful that they seem to be much more scattered than when John died). They face their grief the only way they know, working cases and gathering information on Dick to avenge Bobby. Unfortunately, they lose another precious ally on their way: as a matter of fact Frank gets killed by Leviathans, which was sad both because he had helped a lot Dean in tracking Dick and because he was quite fun and a nice presence in the season.

As if all that trouble wasn’t enough, Sam’s visions of Lucifer become more and more frequent and painful, while Dean can’t find a way to help him. The brothers have to face everything at the same time: the fight against Dick, Bobby’s death and Sam’s mental instability, which is destroying him and Dean at the same time, as what happens to one of them affects even more painfully the other. In addition, another worry comes out: Dean finds out Castiel is alive and has lost all his memories about who he is and what he has done. Dean at first can’t really forgive him, but when Cas gets to have his memories back, he can’t resist his stubborn hate toward his “friend” and finally decides to erase God-Cas parenthesis, also because the angel is so guilty he offers himself to take over Sam’s hallucinations. It is a noble sacrifice which allows the brothers to go back to hunting Dick and establish a new degree of friendship and trust between team free will, after the painful moment of Cas’ death. I think both getting rid of Lucifer and gaining back Castiel give the brothers the hope they need to succeed in defeating Dick, after the previous single episodes of impasse.

In the ending episodes another surprise awaits Sam and Dean: Bobby, as a ghost, manages to communicate with them and makes himself visible, giving start to a weird dynamic where he still helps the brothers as he did when he was alive, but using his ghost powers. This situation leaves in the protagonists and in the viewer a sense of bitter illusion, as everyone knows it can’t end well, as Bobby’s destined to become a vengeful spirit, like any other ghost, and when the moment comes they would have to kill him again, and, doing so, renewing their pain. This kind of “second death” was quite sadistic, but still I appreciated Bobby’s comeback as it was right to give more space to such an important character and explore the afterlife from a different point of view. From the first time we profoundly feel ghosts’ frustration of being isolated from living people and we can easily put ourselves in their shoes, as they’re no more depicted merely as a cruel monster.

I think this process could be included in the new connotation of supernatural creatures that emerges from these seasons on: the absolute dichotomy good-evil which imposes that monsters can only be bad is a bit more flexible (and along with it, also the Winchesters become more and more open minded) and gives space to complex characters and personalities which can’t be defined univocally. The best example of this change of tone is Meg. I really appreciated the growth of the character from season 1, where she seems to be an ordinary demon, to seasons 6 and 7, where she’s developed as a proper round character, an outsider from both demonic and human worlds: here she keeps helping the Winchesters, presenting herself as a good ally against Dick and Crowley and at same time preserving her typical bad bitch attitude. She leaves us a striking message, volunteering to look after Castiel at the hospital while the boys are busy fighting Dick: the strict first seasons determinism is definitely gone, also demons can make decisions using their free will and change the order of things, fighting side to side with the good guys. This kind of sympathy for the brothers can be noticed also in Crowley at some point, as he helps them with the spell to defeat Leviathans, but of course there’s no doubt his only interest is to use Sam and Dean to fight a common enemy.

Moreover, season 7, marked by many painful deaths, is certainly also productive of new characters destined to become permanent for some time. Besides two appearances of Jody, one of the rare positive and strong female figures of the show, who is now occasionally helping the brothers in their hunts, and one of Becky, which gives us one of the funniest episodes of the season, where she makes Sam falling in love with her thanks to a potion and marries him, three new important characters are presented.

First of all Garth, a weird and clumsy hunter, helps Dean in episode 8 (while Sam is married to Becky): after the initial skepticism, he becomes one of their most trusted friends. I find the relationship between Garth and the boys so cute, as they kind of protect him by teaching him what they know about monsters and in return he tries very hard to be accepted in their team and to do whatever he can to help them.

At the end of the season we meet another young male character, Kevin, a normal kid who studies and has dreams about his career, but gets absorbed by the supernatural world as he is chosen as a prophet of the Lord. His skill is to be able to read some tablets containing the Word of God and fundamental knowledge about angels, demons and other creatures (thanks to one of those tablets Sam and Dean get to know how to kill Leviathans). Kevin is such a lovely guy, at first really confused, as every human would be in his situation, and as well hopeful that the nightmare he finds himself into without having a choice would end quickly. We know, as well as the Winchesters, that things like this never end and once you’re trapped in the supernatural world it is forever, and that’s why we feel pitiful and protective towards Kevin. Seen from Sam and Dean’s perspective, he’s another innocent person they have to look after and feel guilty for even if nothing about it is their fault. Kevin is one of those characters that make one doubt about the real existence of free will and self determination, especially for someone who’s devoted to high purposes in the economy of the show.

Last but not least, the end of season 7 sees the appearance of one of the undoubtedly best characters in Supernatural, Charlie. She becomes a fundamental part of the plan of defeating Dick thanks to her great computer skills, but, more importantly, she quickly becomes Sam and Dean’s friend and one of their best allies in some of their hunts. I really loved her as a character and in her interactions with the brothers, as from the very beginning they seem to see her as their little sister. She also brings into the show a small (but still great and quite unexpected) insight on the lgbt community, being overtly lesbian. I loved how Dean in particular was at ease knowing this information, and the fact that the authors seem to get more in step with the times, as the ideas of slight misogyny and toxic masculinity and heterosexuality of the first seasons can’t fit anymore in recent years. It is so interesting to see how the show grows in time through its characters and their complex psychology and personality, even if there’s still a long road ahead in terms of equality and representation.

I have the feeling that this season goes through three changes in mood, the first half (and a bit more) being quite problematic and full of sad events and the last part presenting some positive characters who guarantee hope for the finale. The last episode is a mixture of the two sides, as Dick is happily defeated, but his death has a price: Dean and Cas are sent directly to Purgatory with Leviathans. So the episode ends with our favourite couple having to deal with the third mysterious realm of afterlife (we’ve already been to both Heaven and Hell) and its dangerous monsters.

- Irene 💕

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flowersandskeletons526 · 4 years

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“Aftermath” - Glitra Fanfic Part 4

So this one is once again longer than the last chapter but that’s because it’s a big one. Thank you to everyone who has been liking this fic!

(Trigger warning for brief violence, only this chapter)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

****

Catra clasps her hands in her lap, sitting beside Glimmer on the bench in her window before Micah, Adora, and Bow. Her shoulders curl in as her arm brushes Glimmer’s. Micah straightens in his chair.

“Start at the beginning,” he coaxes after a long minute of silence.

Glimmer and Catra share a look. Catra nods. Glimmer takes a deep breath.

----

“Is this what you wanted?” Glimmer demanded as Catra sat against the wall of the cell. “You finally got the entire Horde army to come and save your ass.”

“I didn’t want this,” Catra protested. “I could manage Hordak but this guy is a psychopath.”

“Hordak was a psychopath.”

“Hordak was pathetic. He hasn’t been running things for a long time. He was too obsessed with getting back on big brother’s good side.”

Glimmer huffed and raked her hands through her hair, sitting on the edge of the single bunk. She tapped her foot as she bit her thumbnail. Catra’s ears twitched with each beat. Flattening her ears against her head, she growled and lashed out, swiping her claws at the queen. Glimmer yelped and jumped back.

“Would you stop that?!” she snapped. “How can you possibly be even more annoying than you already were?”

“You say that like you’re not,” Glimmer shot back.

Catra stood, towering over Glimmer. “I’m no worse than you, Sparkles. I mean really, do you even hear how bratty you sound? Ergh, and your constant whining! I know royals are spoiled but this is just ridiculous.”

“At least I’m not an arrogant, preening murderer like you!” Glimmer shoved Catra as she rose from her seat. The metal wall rang when Catra’s back hit it. “And stay out of my face!”

“Don’t touch me!” Catra snapped. Her claws left holes in Glimmer’s collar as she shoved her back.

Glimmer shrieked and tackled Catra.

They fought for days, coming to blows when one so much as glanced at the other the wrong way. Once, sitting across the cell from each other, Glimmer tried her powers again only to produce a few pink sparks. Catra laughed harshly. Glimmer almost broke her nose for it and came out of the fight with scratches all the way up her hands and arms.

Without the sun rising and falling, they could only guess how long Horde Prime kept them prisoner. Catra guessed it was about three weeks by the time she had Glimmer pinned to the wall, claws threatening at her throat as Glimmer shoved her face up with a palm under her chin. Swatting at her hand, Catra twisted her arm to the side and tried to keep the snarl on her face. Beyond the hate in her expression, Glimmer’s eyes were tired and dull. Growling, Catra retracted her claws and dropped the queen, slinking back to her corner of the cell.

“What, can’t finish what you started?” Glimmer taunted, breathing hard.

Catra snapped her teeth. “Shut up. You know you don’t want to keep doing this any more than I do.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m tired and sick of kicking the shit out of each other. What good is it doing us?”

Glimmer pursed her lips and slid to the floor. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “There’s nothing else to do besides talk or hit each other.”

“Well, I’m not talking to you.”

“I’m not talking to you either.”

The fight drained from Catra each day. She mustered a steady gaze and proud posture in front of Horde Prime, but in their cell, she sat slumped over and curled in on herself. Glimmer held her scowl a little longer until Prime crushed her arm in his grip until she smiled. Catra convinced the queen to let her look at it. It was the first time they made physical contact since they stopped beating each other, and both hated the way they jolted from the presence of another person.

Catra grunted and leaned back against the wall. “It’s not broken. You’re fine.”

Glimmer mumbled a thank you and cradled her wounded arm in her lap, half hidden by her cape. Horde Prime gave them different clothes soon after they arrived. “To represent your allegiance to Horde Prime,” he claimed with a grin.

Catra’s new uniform was the same style, but everything was black and that hideous fluorescent green. She didn’t like the way he changed her headpiece, painting it black and adding more spines around her face. Her collar came up higher than it used to, topped with a green ring that was just a little too tight around her throat.

She was glad that she didn’t look like Glimmer, with her collar decorated in frills and a sickly green jewel resting in the hollow of her throat. He let her keep her crown, but all her earrings were replaced with green diamonds and polished silver. Against her violet eyes and sparkly pink hair, the white, gray, and green looked unnatural and wrong. She reminded Catra of a bruised doll.

“You shouldn’t piss him off like that,” Catra said.

“I thought we agreed on not talking,” Glimmer grumbled.

“I’m serious. It’s not helping you at all. All you’ve managed to do is get beat up. People like him don’t think defiance is charming and they don’t view it as strength. They think it’s irritating and disrespectful and they don’t tolerate it.” Catra huffed and lifted a hand to her head. “Royalty are all the same.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t know how to swallow your pride. You’re not a queen here, Sparkles. You’re dirt!”

Glimmer lunged and snagged Catra’s collar. Catra replied in kind, slamming the queen against the wall as her ears flattened against her head. Glimmer thrashed, but she didn’t have the strength to fight. They slid to the floor together, Catra’s grip loosening on her shoulders as Glimmer held onto the force captain’s arms.

“You’re like me now,” Catra hissed. “I know you hate that and you’re never going to admit it, but you are. If you want to get out of here alive, you need to listen to what I say.”

“I thought you wanted all the princesses dead so you could win,” Glimmer said.

“I don’t win here. I don’t get to make any of the decisions and I’m not respected. There’s no fun in any of this.” Catra returned to her spot across the room, her claws dragging reluctantly over Glimmer’s arms as she let go.

Glimmer studied her and pulled her knees to her chest. “Tell me how to act.”

Catra’s ears perked up. The sound that escaped her mouth was quiet and broken and defeated, but it was the first time she laughed in weeks.

They slept on the bunk that night, back to back. Although Glimmer ended up on the floor in the morning, they fell into the routine to ward off the cold of the sterile ship and, though neither would admit it, it was nice to feel another person.

Horde Prime called on them for strategy meetings, advice on the obstacles of the planet, or simply to taunt them while they ate a meal. Catra hated when he touched them, stroking their hair or leading them along with a hand on the back of their necks. He kept Glimmer at his side as he brought Catra forward to look at a screen. His fingers drummed against her jugular.

“This kingdom here,” he said, pointing. “What do they call it?”

“Salineas,” Catra answered.

“And you conquered it?”

“Yes.”

It used to fill her with pride, but the way Glimmer looked at her now left a sour taste in her mouth.

“Well done,” Horde Prime purred. “What else have you done under my little brother’s command?”

She showed him Dryl and the conquered villages, the Fright Zone, the strongholds scattered around the world. Glimmer crossed her arms and turned aside as Catra talked. Prime noticed, pausing Catra as he turned his attention to the queen.

“Your majesty, you always look so troubled,” he cooed. He grabbed Glimmer’s face and yanked her head up to face him, but that stupid easy smile stayed on his face. “Couldn’t I trouble you for a smile?”

Catra met Glimmer’s stare around his arm. She narrowed her eyes in warning. Glimmer swallowed her fear and smiled sweetly at Horde Prime, hiding her shaking hands behind her back.

“Of course, Emperor,” Glimmer said.

Prime grinned and cupped her cheek tenderly. “There it is.” His fingers left red marks on her face when he let go.

Catra sat beside Glimmer instead of across from her when they returned to their cell. The red marks turned to bruises on her jaw. Catra touched her shoulder, and she flinched. Sighing, she withdrew her hand.

“Good job listening to me today,” she said. Glimmer glanced up, eyes wide, startled by the lack of venom in her voice. “I mean it.”

“I’m sick of getting hit,” Glimmer mumbled.

“It’s going to stop eventually. Now that he thinks he can control you, he’ll stop trying so hard to break your resolve and it’ll only get bad when you make him angry. If you play along with their games, eventually they get sloppy. None of them watch their backs forever.”

Glimmer frowned, studying Catra with a stare a little too intense for her liking. “What happened to you in the Horde?”

“What do you think?”

The floodgates broke. Catra talked about Shadow Weaver and growing up as Adora’s pet, how she needed to be a hundred times better than the other cadets just so she could get a day’s break from the abuse. She told Glimmer how their relationship was crumbling long before Adora left. She told her that it wasn’t Adora leaving that hurt, but why. Why did Adora leave to save strangers when she had tolerated Catra’s abuse since they were kids?

“Do you love her?” Catra asked. “Really, I wanna know.”

“I… I think I did, but I also loved Bow. I guess I have problems distinguishing friendship from love. It doesn’t matter now, anyway.” She paused. “Did you love her?”

“I used to. But, even before she left… how do you love someone that lets that happen to you?”

Glimmer nodded. “Sometimes I wish she would stop trying to protect me so much. I know my mother told her to, but I can’t stand her treating me like a child.”

“Or a pet,” Catra added. “She always thought she protected me, but she never did. Not in any way that would be bad for her. It only got worse with Shadow Weaver after she left, and then I thought Hordak would be better because he respected me, but…”

Glimmer covered her mouth when Catra told her about Hordak’s machine that stole the air from her lungs. They didn’t look at each other, but Catra took her hand and squeezed.

“Why didn’t you just leave?” Glimmer asked. Her voice shook with anger and sadness and sympathy and it made Catra’s chest ache.

“Where could I go?” Catra said. “I spent my entire life working to be the best and all it ever landed me was in Adora’s shadow. Once she was gone…” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t fit in anywhere else. After so much happens to you, you can’t go back on it.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back. “Sometimes trouble doesn’t make you stronger, Sparkles. It just makes you worse.”

Glimmer turned away. “I know.”

Catra watched Glimmer as she talked about her father’s death. It shocked her that someone with such a sickly sweet exterior could hold so much hate, but she understood. She understood how it made Glimmer ready to do anything to win, even ignoring the warnings of her friends, taking advice from Shadow Weaver, using Adora as bait.

“I was ready to kill,” she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m no better than you.”

“You don’t mean that. You were fighting to take back your planet. I was fighting to win. That’s it.”

“Do you remember when I went to your base where you had the pulse bots?”

“Yeah.”

“When you told me to pick you or the bot, I went after you.”

Catra lifts her head. “Really?”

“I was ready to let that thing kill all of us, just so I could get back at you for all the things you did. I… I wanted to hurt you so badly. I wanted you to pay for everything the Horde ever did. For attacking Brightmoon, for all the conquered villages, for my parents…” Her voice broke.

Catra touched Glimmer’s shoulder, and she covered Catra’s hand with her own. “We’re not that different, are we?”

Glimmer laughed, sniffling as she smiled at Catra with watery eyes. “I guess not.”

And though Catra was wrong, though Horde Prime’s treatment only got worse from there and they weren’t friends by any means, the sanctuary in their cell made it tolerable.

When Horde Prime slapped Glimmer and separated them the first time, Catra learned that maybe she wasn’t simply tolerating Glimmer anymore.

She paced the cell, ears flat and face held in a savage snarl until they tossed Glimmer back in with her. The queen groaned as Catra bolted to her, lifting a hand to her head. Catra gathered her in her arms and looked over her.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Desperation leaked into her voice.

“I’m fine,” Glimmer answered. “Are you?”

“Yeah. It didn’t hurt.” Catra pulled her sleeve up around the ball of her hand and wiped the blood off Glimmer’s face. The queen hissed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, thank you.”

Catra pursed her lips. Glimmer hung her head as Catra pulled her into her lap, wrapping the sparkly black cape around her and resting her chin atop her head. “Why would you do that?” she ground out. “I told you not to talk to him like that. What were you thinking?”

“You stepped in,” Glimmer whispered. “He went after you, too.”

Catra bit her lip and looked to the side. “You can’t keep defending the rebellion from up here,” she spat. “It’s been months.”

“He says that they’re still there.”

“We’ve been here for months now. They aren’t coming, Glimmer.”

She looked up at the use of her name. Her eyes were cold with a quiet, crumbling determination. Catra always prided herself on seeing the cracks in people’s facades, and now was no different, but that dying fight is fight, nonetheless.

“I know they’re going to come. They’re going to get us out of here. We can’t give up hope now.”

Catra pulled back and cupped Glimmer’s cheek. Her eyes pleaded with the force captain, and Catra felt it tug at her heart. “Okay,” she whispered. “Come on.”

They slept facing each other that night, with Catra’s arm tossed around Glimmer as the queen curled up against her chest.

A few days later, they woke up to the smell of smoke and the door to the cell gone.

Fire ravaged the collapsing spaceship, massive pieces of metal peeling away from the ceiling and walls. Clones scurried like rats for the closest exit and left behind the mangled bodies of their fallen brothers. The girls watched from the doorway of their cell in awe as the world came crashing down.

Shaking her head, Glimmer set her face in stone and grabbed Catra’s hand. “Let’s go.”

They ran through the destroyed ship, dodging debris and throwing clones into the fray when they came across them. Catra got her hands on a weapon from one of the dead clones.

“Are your powers back yet?” she asked.

Glimmer snapped her fingers. “Not yet.”

“Okay. Keep going. We have to find a way out of here before the entire place comes crashing down.”

On cue, a metal beam came crashing down between them. The walkway collapsed. Glimmer leapt to the other side that was still attached to the wall. Catra yelped as she went tumbling down through the ship.

“Catra!”

The world went dark for a moment. Catra groaned as she came around, bleeding from little cuts and scrapes when she tumbled across the debris. Her vision swam, ears ringing, but she made her way to her feet. Stumbling over the chunks of metal and concrete, she searched for a splash of pink.

“Sparkles,” she called. “Sparkles!”

“Catra!” Glimmer jumped over a piece of rebar-studded concrete and threw her arms around Catra. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine. Come on, we have to-”

The rubble shifted. Horde Prime dragged himself out from under the concrete and steel. His face was twisted with rage, one of his extra eyes missing from its socket and green ooze dripping from his cuts. He bared his fluorescent teeth and roared.

“You!” he screamed. “I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

He grabbed Glimmer’s arm. Catra tackled the dictator, knocking him to the ground and punching him until her fist bled. He barely flinched. Tangling a fist in her hair, he flung her across the rubble, and she landed in a twisted heap. Glimmer retaliated with smashing a rock against the side of Prime’s face. He shrieked in pain and batted her aside. Holding his bloodied face, he grabbed Glimmer by the throat and lifted her into the air.

“You insolent little insect!” he screamed. “How dare you defy me! I should have destroyed you and your planet when I first came upon you.” He narrowed his eyes as his hands tightened around Glimmer’s neck. “It may be too late to destroy your planet, but not to destroy you, your majesty.”

“No!” Catra jumped onto his back and tore her claws through his back. Horde Prime screamed as green blood soaked his robes, and he reached back to grab Catra and slammed her into the ground. Scrambling back, she staggered to her feet between Prime and Glimmer.

Before she could react, Prime lunged. Catra lifted an arm. His claws tore through her forearm before they reached her face.

“Catra!” Glimmer shrieked.

Prime stood over Catra as she collapsed, blinded by her own blood. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and lifted her torso off the ground.

“You are nothing to me.”

His claws dug into her side. She screamed.

A sharp spike of metal stabbed through Horde Prime’s chest.

----

Glimmer’s voice breaks. She leans into Catra, hiding her face against her shoulder. She closes her eyes as tears trickle down her face. Catra lets the queen hold onto her arm and cradles her head with the other hand as her hair falls over her face. She screws her eyes shut for a moment before lifting her head, and the trio sitting before them meet her stare with heartbroken eyes.

Bow covers his mouth, holding back tears. Micah’s face is still, but his cheeks are wet and his eyes are red. Adora watches them with nothing but sadness in her eyes.

“Do you want me to keep talking?” she asks. Glimmer nods. “Okay.”

----

Prime dropped Catra as he fell to his knees. Glimmer stood behind him, and she jumped aside as Prime fell back, driving the spike all the way through his chest. He let go of a final breath and died without a word.

----

Glimmer holds her arm tighter. Catra knows what she’s thinking about, but she doesn’t tell the rest of them how it ended.

----

Glimmer bolted to Catra’s side and pulled her up onto a level piece of concrete. “Catra, Catra talk to me, please,” she begged.

Catra grimaced, one eye stuck shut with blood and her teeth stained red. “Ow.”

Glimmer grinned in relief, tears welling in her eyes as she slung Catra’s arm over her shoulders. “Come on, we have to get out of here before the ship collapses.”

Catra groaned in pain as Glimmer helped her to her feet, but she soldiered on as the queen led her out of the wreckage. They staggered through fire and over rubble, marching through the massive labyrinth. Catra covered the punctures in her side with one hand, trying to staunch the bleeding. Glimmer mumbled assurances through heavy breaths as she led Catra along and ignored the blood staining her own clothes.

Natural light trickled through a hole in the wall of the ship. Catra laughed as they broke out into a crater, sunlight filtering through the black smoke and clean air cutting through the acrid smell of burning chemicals. They staggered out of the crater, hauling themselves over the lip onto the grass.

Glimmer cradled Catra against her chest, smoothing her hair away from her face and holding her tight. Catra laughed even though it hurt, laughed at the sun and the clouds and the destroyed ship and the dead ruler and the grass between her fingers.

“We’re out,” she laughed as her vision darkened around the edges. “We’re out.”

“Catra, you have to stay with me,” Glimmer said as she cupped her face. “Please stay with me.”

“Glimmer.” Catra clung to Glimmer’s shirt. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For showing me that I’m worth something.”

Glimmer held her tight as tears dripped down her face. “Please, hold on,” she begged as Catra’s grip went slack. “Hold on.”

----

“That’s horrible,” Bow finally says.

“We had no idea,” Adora whispers.

Glimmer lifts her head and wipes away her tears, sucking in a ragged breath. “We’re fine now. We got out of it in one piece.”

Micah stands. Catra moves aside as the sorcerer embraces his daughter, holding her close as tears run down his face. “My sweet girl,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry.”

Glimmer fights tears as she hugs him back. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too.”

Bow sobs and jumps onto the pair, followed by Adora. Micah wraps his arms around the trio, and suddenly Catra feels like her presence is an intrusion. She doesn’t belong in this moment, not after everything she did. She stands.

Adora grabs her shoulder. She turns to see Adora’s face calm and steady, even though her eyes well with tears. Micah reaches out to her.

“Catra, come here. You’re a part of this,” he says.

“I…” Her voice dies in her throat.

Glimmer pulls her into the embrace. She bristles for a split second, hair standing on end, before she relaxes into their arms. Glimmer leans her head on Catra’s chest. “We’re okay,” she whispers in her ear.

Catra nods and holds her tighter.

They stay there for what feels like forever before Adora and Bow break off, leading Glimmer off to play some game they set up. Glimmer beckons to Catra, but Micah lays a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll catch up,” Catra says. Glimmer nods and follows after her friends.

Micah turns Catra to face him and gently grabs her shoulders. “Catra, I just wanted to say thank you.”

Catra’s face twists as she steps out of his reach. “Please don’t thank me.” She struggles to speak around the lump in her throat. “After everything I did… I don’t… I don’t deserve it.”

“I know about everything you’ve done,” Micah says. “I am… working on forgiving that. To be honest, I don’t think I ever fully will, but it can’t be changed. I’m thanking you for looking after my daughter.”

With tears in her eyes, Catra jumps into Micah’s arms. He holds her tight until she pulls away, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Thank you,” she chokes out. Micah smiles and nods towards the door. Catra returns the smile and runs down the hall after the trio. “Glimmer! Wait up!”

#glitra #glimmer #catra #bow #adora #king micah #horde prime #the horde #spop #she ra reboot #She Ra #she ra netflix #angst #brief violence

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tetrakys · 4 years

Text

MCLUL 18

The episode starts where the previous one had left: either in Nath’s flat if you decided to follow Amber, or in Castiel’s if you didn’t. Either way, Candy goes to Nath’s place after Amber calls her and the same dialogue unfolds. Nath explains that he has been back in town for weeks because Erik, his cop friend, tracked him down as soon as he’d left and they are now working together to collect enough evidence to dismantle the cartel for good. He’s playing the bait (hence the traffic light-looking attire) and wearing a wire under his clothes. He leaves soon after saying that he will be back once he’s done with this dangerous mission.

The rest of the episode is mostly about university work, the last we will ever see. First, Candy practices her presentation with Rosa, Morgan and Alexy. We assist a fight between the two lovebirds that soon morphs into a sweet declaration of love. Later, Candy keeps practicing alone first and later with Yeleen (if you chose it).

We also attend Rayan’s final class. The first part is about the group work, each group reports their experience. I thought this whole group work sub-plot was going to lead to something, either a mini-arc for Chani, where she learns to be less of a perfectionist and shows her art to the world, or some kind of drama with Melody, or at least something important for the degree. It was all very tepid, almost as if the writers had changed their mind and dropped it from the plot. The second part of the class is, instead, about relaxation techniques in the park. Because it makes total sense in a modern art history course.

After all this, Candy goes to the café to tell Clemence she is going to quit soon. Clemence tells her to not rush into this decision because there’s no job for history of arts majors and she may end up having to keep working as a waitress (charming as usual, but also strangely nice?). Also, an improbable friendship is born when Clemence shows lots of interest in Chani’s magical aptitude.

That evening Nina sends a text saying she’s witnessed the cops arresting her assailant, and Candy and Priya have a discussion about Nath and what that could mean for him.

The day of the thesis discussion Candy is very stressed, but she finds Castiel outside the class and he helps giving her relaxation technique tips. She also gets a little spooked finding Rayan in the class (I don’t see why? Seems pretty normal to me). Anyway, time-skip to the end of the exam and Candy is pretty satisfied with herself. She even buys Chani a crystal as a thank you for her support and encouragement for her own exam.

In the evening Candy attends a party Hyun has thrown to celebrate the end of the academic year. She had also invited her parents and the illustration shows the moment she introduces the LI to them. Everyone except Nath. Having sneaked into the café’s kitchen, his illustration portrays the moment he tells Candy he’s finally free from the Cartel.

The episode ends in the middle of the party.

THE END

Now let’s go into more detail on everyone’s route:

Here, I’m saying it... Nath is always 100% bangable. Even like this, once the problematic leggings and the blinding yellow t-shirt are off, there’s really nothing to talk about.

I found the resolution of Nath’s route very anticlimactic, happening off screen. If Candy got somehow involved however, it would’ve probably been quite trashy and ridiculous so there was really no win in this crazy scenario. It just feels they dragged too long, only to create angst, something that they resolved with just a few words and no involvement on our part. If MCL is indeed ending in a couple of episodes, this was basically the main recurring plot-line of the whole season and it fell short, at least for me.

Him acting as a bait... let’s say it was fine, he showed some courage. But there are two things that didn’t make sense for me (in this episode): firstly, his explanation to why the cartel didn’t simply kill him, because they thought it was easier to pull off a mugging than a murder, especially if the victim was a snitch. REALLY? What does it even mean. These people were really kind drug lords: first hiring a young boy out of nowhere, then beating him up when they found out he had betrayed them instead of killing him, even giving him three days to say goodbye and skip town, and later exposing themselves enough letting him stay in town for weeks instead of killing him on the spot. Also, second thing, shouldn’t he have cut a deal with the police for his immunity BEFORE he helped them? They would’ve given him pretty much anything to shut down a whole drug cartel. I don’t know Nath, you should be so smart, at least get a lawyer next time.

A round of applause to Candy for spilling the beans with everyone about Nath’s dangerous and super-secret plan 👏👏👏

The reunion with Nath, if you are on his route, is cute and pretty emotional. She falls on the floor, overwhelmed, and he kisses her and reassures her. All this in front of Amber. The scene in the kitchen at the end of the episode, however, was a little less emotional than I would’ve liked. Especially the illustration, there was NO NEED to include Amber in it.

I did appreciate the choice to not introduce him immediately to the parents, it really wasn't the right time.

Bae is particularly charming when he laughs and smile. Both a hottie and a cutie, he’s the whole package.

I think BV tried to apologise for the lack of Castiel’s content in the previous episode, because this time we had plenty, well... more than with had the others.

After the scene in Nath’s flat, he takes us to the dorms on every route, but if you are on his route you can choose to spend the night at his place. To find an excuse so they wouldn’t hook up, BV wrote that Candy feels dizzy and they just cuddle. She’s not dizzy on any other route, just tired. And now that I’m writing these words I’m having an AWFUL SUSPICION THAT I DON’T EVEN WANT TO WORD EXPLICITLY, please no... just no.

His relaxation technique was funny, pretending to be super confident, but if you’re his girlfriend he gives Candy a breathtaking kiss right before the final exam that ensures victory for both of them.

His meeting with the parents is super chill, my Candy and him were together in HS, so they remembered him and love him already, not sure if anything changes otherwise but I guess not. Philips goofs in front of him, dancing horribly joking that he should be on his next music video and they all laugh (except maybe Candy, but it’s a happy moment nonetheless).

Crack and Rum, Castiel’s band name according to mom 😂

Now, I left the bad part for last:

Yeleen touches Castiel’s arm while talking to him in front of the café on any route. Even if he’s not our boyfriend I wanted to clock her. B*tch there is a strict NO TOUCHING policy here. But when he’s our boyfriend I timidly told Castiel that the parents were coming AND I LOST 10 FREAKING POINTS!!! What. The. Hell. Should I fight with him too? I feel like I should. This requires a heated conversation!

The green dress is super hot, and Candy is a total snack, but she’s just one small accident away to show her nipples to the world. (Surfboard my ass, Castiel)

As usual there’s very little to say about Hyun’s route. He’s excited to meet the parents and doesn’t realise they were already there, so he keeps blubbering Candy about their summer trip and kisses Candy in front of them. When he figures out he gets bashful, but they all laugh it off.

Honorable mention to Philip for not knowing where Slovenia is. SERIOUSLY??

Look at this fierce power couple, it looks like they’re about to conquer the world or rob a bank. Probably both.

Was it the right moment to spill the beans about their relationship in the middle of a college party. No. But did I enjoy their power walk, hand in hand, in the middle of the crowd? YES.

The parents’ reaction could’ve been worse. Philip could’ve gone ballistic. We didn’t see the “man-to-man chat”, probably because it was a tricky one to write, it could’ve sounded either ridiculous or trashy. Kudos to BV for taking the coward way out and skipping the problem altogether.

Rayan said that he loved her and it was sweet. However, Candy talking about how much she's into him in front of Sweet Amoris knowing that that is my Lys account felt like being sucker punched.

Also, Rayan got a tenure track position. I. Hate. Him. (I’m not envious, not at all)

Priya tearing up when Candy tells her that she wants to be with her completely is probably THE MOST FREAKING CUTE THING I’VE EVER SEEN. Cuter than cat videos. (But less cute than duckling videos. There’s nothing cuter than a baby duck).

The parents are happy to meet Priya, zero drama in Candy’s coming out, I found it refreshing, I don’t think I would’ve enjoyed a bad reaction (even a short one). They even all dance together until late night. The illustration shows Priya accepting Philip’s challenge at a sort of dance-off.

A few final comments:

I didn’t understand aunty’s comments about a masked party at the end of the school year, is that a French thing?

Philip not knowing where Slovenia is, and Hyun having to explain that it’s an European country, makes me think that they’re trying to convince us the game is not set in France. Mph.

I also wonder where Hyun’s parents live exactly. It can’t be Korea since Hyun goes back home all the time, even just for a weekend.

Everything points out to the end of the story being about a new separation, everyone moving away to achieve their own future.

Alexy is probably going to follow Morgan to Washington.

Rosa is moving to the beach house (which is not very far, but not exactly in town either).

Yeleen is excited to live in London. (The girl is going to get a HUGE wake-up call the moment she realises that apartments here are tinier than her dorm room, quite bad and life is so expensive that (if she doesn’t want to accept money from her mother) with a tourist guide salary she’s probably going to afford only a tiny room, in the middle of nowhere, in a flat shared with 10 other people).

Castiel is going on tour.

Hyun will probably want to move closer to his family after the trip.

Nath may or may not go to jail.

Priya wants to go back to India to fight social injustice.

Rayan is the only one staying in town for sure.

I GUESS, after some angst about a possible separation and break-up, the series is going to end with Candy making a life choice that brings her closer to her crush.

Anyway, the end is coming and I’m sad.

#my candy love #mcl #mclul 18 #amour sucré #amor doce #mcl review

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nadziejastar · 4 years

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In the best way you can describe it, how do you KH3 could have been better? (maybe more in terms of story-telling that seems to be KH3's weakest point).

The biggest problem was that all the characters felt like emotionally hollowed out husks of their former selves. KH2 was a lot slower paced, and took the time to devote to its characters. KH3 took NO time to actually slow down. If it did, there would have been another 3 hours of cutscenes, easily. In a series that’s very character and relationship driven, the lack of character and relationship development had a very detrimental effect. None of the characters had much of an inner journey. It felt like there was outside pressure to cut down on the amount of story and only focus on the absolute bare minimum to move things forward.

The theme of KH3 was “Face My Fears”. Each character needed a moment in the spotlight to face their fear and resolve their inner conflict. This problem wouldn’t exist if KH3 actually focused on what it was supposed to: the power of waking. Diving into someone’s heart and getting really intimate with them and healing their pain. Each character should have gotten to use the power of waking and been playable.

Riku

“You’re afraid of the dark! You’re so scared of the darkness inside yourself, you don’t even know what to do!”

The Replica saw what was in his heart as if he could read it like a book. This fear of the darkness inside him—his terror. The Replica was a copy of Riku, body and mind, and he knew everything. But the Replica didn’t know what it was to feel fear. He didn’t need to. He had no self of his own—so he just had to become Riku.

Riku was swallowed up by the Demon Tide and knocked out in the beginning. That should have been the opportunity for Mickey to dive into his heart to wake him up. I’m pretty sure that there was originally supposed to be a boss fight against Riku’s shadow with Mickey playable. When the boss is defeated, it clears up the stained glass station of awakening, freeing Riku’s heart. Riku’s inner development gets focused on. He faces his fears, reintegrates his shadow, wakes up, his gazing eye Keyblade is broken–meaning he’s free from Xehanort following him everywhere now. He’s conquered his inner darkness. Much longer segment of character development focusing on his emotions and bond with Mickey.

Mickey & Aqua

Shadow Aqua: Do you have any idea how lonely it is here? How frightening it is to have no one.

As a Disney character Mickey didn’t get a shadow self. His character arc concludes dealing with Aqua’s shadow. Her fear was being trapped in the darkness alone. Before this battle, the Demon Tide swallowed Mickey up, knocking him unconscious. I think Riku was supposed to dive into his heart and the Dark Aqua boss was part of Mickey’s nightmare. Mickey’s fear was that what happened to Aqua was all his fault. So, Riku is playable in this section. Then Sora dives in the water and enters the real Aqua’s heart. Then in the parallel dimensions, Sora and Riku defeat Shadow Aqua together. Riku and Sora use the combined attack that they used in KH3D.

Carl Jung, on the symbolism of water. Water is the commonest symbol for the unconscious. The lake in the valley is the unconscious, which lies, as it were, underneath consciousness, so that it is often referred to as the “subconscious,” usually with the pejorative connotation of an inferior consciousness.

The part where Sora dives in the water to save Aqua was completely glossed over. They showed him picking up Eraqus’s Keyblade that washed up on shore. And it was meant to be a clue. It was like Kairi’s letter bottle. It washed up on shore in the dark realm. Sora realizes that the realms are connected by the water. Aqua fell in the water and lost her Keyblade. So he jumps in after her.

Of course it’s not gonna be that easy to just dive in there and pull her out, though. If that were the case, why didn’t Riku or Mickey just do it? Their connection wasn’t strong enough to locate her in the deep abyss. Sora wasn’t close to her either, but he had Ven’s heart inside of him.

So, when Sora dives into the water, that should be important. It could have been the time when he awakens all the subconscious memories sleeping in his heart. The ones that were talked about in Re:coded and KH3D. Roxas, Xion, Namine, Ventus. Then, with the unconscious memories brought to the surface, all the characters can be revived who SHOULDN’T return physically.

Xion

“How many days has it been since you got here?” he asked Kairi, squinting his eyes as he watched the sunset. Their training had only just begun.

“Why do you keep asking, Lea? You’ve said that every day.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“And you keep apologizing, too.”

“It’s just…I feel like there’s something I need to remember.”

“Master Merlin said time doesn’t really exist here. Still, maybe it’s a good idea to keep track of the days. Today would be the seventh. But you got here before me, so—”

THIS is when Xion’s story should be resolved. In the novel, Lea and Kairi’s training was a reference to 358/2 Days. They started counting on Day 7. Lea spends all his time with Kairi feeling like he forgot something important and sees Xion’s face in the sunset. Then they watch the sunset together at the end. There should have been some payoff to that.

I'll never forget today's sunset. Even if Roxas and Axel do, I won't forget.

On the 255th day of their training, it’s almost time for them to finish. Show Lea and Kairi remembering Xion when they watch the sunset. Show Kairi remembering the promise she made to never forget on Day 352 “Sunset”. Xion was shoehorned into the Keyblade Graveyard, and had no meaningful dialogue. It’s more natural and emotional if they remembered her while watching the sunset. Plus it gives them both time to actually talk about their feelings. This gives more depth to the Axel/Xion and Kairi/Lea relationship.

Ansem & Twilight Town Kids

Hayner: We can’t be together forever… so we’d better make the time we do have something to remember.

The other character who would be remembered after Sora’s dive is Roxas. There should have been MUCH more closure given to Hayner, Pence, and Olette’s relationship with Roxas from KH2′s prologue. This whole scene wasn’t dedicated to Roxas or his relationships. It was just used as an excuse to insert Subject X into the plot. Get rid of Subject X and only focus on Ansem the Wise’s remorse and Roxas’s bond with his friends.

Once the kids fully remember Roxas, they should have gone to the Data Twilight Town to look for him. There they would find Ansem the Wise. All he wants is to atone to Roxas. Then they can have meaningful dialogue about Roxas. Ansem was the one who prevented them going to the beach. Ansem heard Roxas say their names in his desperation during the Struggle. This scene should have been used to give closure to Hayner’s group, Roxas’s pain during his summer vacation, and also Ansem the Wise.

Then they lead him back to the real world. In an earlier scene, Ienzo set up sharing between the two computer networks. When Ansem the Wise returned in Radiant Garden, it looked like he came out of the Datascape transporter, which I don’t think was a coincidence. It was probably originally storyboarded that way and they just left it like that. Then he meets his apprentices and they can reconcile.

Ventus

Roxas: It’s scary to think I could lose you guys.

Axel: Scary? Scary’s a feeling, man.

Roxas: Yeah, I know I can’t feel, but… It’s still a scary thought.

Sora still seemed to have no clue how to use the power of waking at this point. Aqua should have used it on Ventus in the restored Land of Departure. Then as she’s delving into his heart, that is the opportunity where you confront all of Ven’s trauma, both as a human and as a Nobody. You resolve both Ven and Roxas’s inner pain at the same time.

What was Ven/Roxas so afraid of? Losing his friends. And if you accept that Ventus was Roxas, it happened to him several times. Ven’s heart first collapsed and he forgot everything. Then he met Terra and Aqua. Then Eraqus told him he shouldn’t exist and he wound up going to sleep. Then when he woke up as Roxas, he made friends with Xion and Axel. He forgot them and woke up in the data Twilight Town. Then he’s told by Namine that he was never supposed to exist and he has to disappear for Sora to come back.

Aqua should have had the Vanitas boss fight inside of Ven’s heart. He’s Ven’s shadow. Then in real world, the real Vanitas shows up and Ven would save Aqua from him while she’s asleep.

Axel: Simply amazing, Roxas.

Roxas: Axel.

Axel: You really do remember me this time? I'm SO FLATTERED. But you're too late!!

I think the Respite scenes were some of the only good character moments. Aqua and Ven watching the stars and Sora and Kairi sharing a paopu were both good. But there was absolutely no good reason for Saix to show up on the clock tower when hes supposed to be fully Norted at that point. Instead, Lea should have gone there with Ventus so they could resolve his relationship with Roxas, which ended on a pretty poor note with Axel trying to kill him.

It’s funny to me in KH3 that Lea was expecting Ventus to remember him and continue the relationship they had as Roxas and Axel. He just assumed that Roxas was Ventus, and that Ventus would have all of Roxas’s memories (which I always assumed, too). It really shows that he never saw them as different. His friendship with Ven felt the same to him as his friendship with Roxas. They were interchangeable to him. And that’s how it should have been.

If Ven and Lea went to the clock tower, they could talk about their feelings, their best friends Terra and Isa, and finally get to know each other. Show Lea apologize to Ventus for trying to eliminate him in KH2 and have them make amends. Roxas returns in the Keyblade Graveyard, but he felt like an empty husk shoehorned in for fanservice. His relationship with Axel got no closure. They didn’t talk about anything. Just BOOM! They’re instant best friends again.

The Promise with Terra

A promise Riku made with Terra during his boyhood days regarding the succession of the Keyblade. Terra had promised that if Riku were able to reach the place where he was, he would teach him how to protect the world and those he cared about.

Why is Riku talking with his Replica in this scene? Give him closure to the promise he made with Terra. Show him remembering his childhood. Develop his feelings about Terra.

Eraqus: Terra, you mustn’t be afraid of losing. Fear leads to obsession with power, and obsession beckons the darkness.

Ventus was supposed to face Vanitas in the Keyblade Graveyard. Aqua was meant to face Terranort. Aqua defeats him with the help of the Lingering Will. “I will set this right”. Then Ven should have used the power of waking on Terra after Aqua defeated him in the physical world.

Then after diving inside his heart, Ven would be playable and have a boss fight against Terra’s inner shadow. Something interesting during Terra’s boss fight: he said “You no power over me.” Why is he so obsessed with power? Because his greatest fear was losing. He’s afraid of disappointing others. And he sought power as his way of coping. He needed to deal with all those feelings before he woke up. KH3 spent no time actually developing the characters’ feelings. They all come back or get redeemed so easily.

I thought that I didn’t need you with me anymore. That’s why I sacrificed myself to that man. If you didn’t need me, then I no longer held meaning.

Day 150 is called “Fear”. This is the day Saix started to become nasty with Xion. Isa’s fear was that Lea wouldn’t need him anymore and he was taking it out on Xion. I hate how Roxas and Xion took ALL the spotlight for this fight, even in ReMind. They felt like Gary Stu and Mary Sue.

Once Kairi and Lea defeated Saix in real life, Lea should have dove into his heart. Then you should have gotten to play as Lea as he defeats Isa’s inner shadow and then this whole conversation about how he lost his purpose should have taken place. Lea would helped him confront his fear of abandonment, then he’d wake up. NO time was devoted to Saix’s feelings. He was just instantly redeemed.

Have Kairi be playable when she saves Sora when he’s fragmented. She’s the one who collects his pieces and prevents him from fading away in the Final World. Give her a boss fight, too. We shouldn’t have had to wait for Re:Mind to play as her.

Kairi: You know, I was a little afraid at first, but now I’m ready. No matter where I go or what I see, I know I can always come back here. Right?

Sora: Yeah, of course!

Kairi: That’s good. Sora, don’t ever change.

Then later, Kairi’s heart is the only one Sora doesn’t save from the Lich. So he has to dive into her heart, even though he doesn’t really know how to use the power of waking. Then he has to confront her shadow, Namine. Have Sora finally thank her. Have Kairi face her fears so she can fully merge with Namine once and for all. Then Kairi rescues Sora and they go back to the real world.

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inazumafocus · 5 years

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So many characters so little time

Hello there my dearies, I’m here today to talk about one of the biggest problems we have in the current Inazuma season aka Orion: character development! Simply put, I’m going to show you in details WHEN during OG the members of the Inazuma Japan had a character development and why back then they were able to manage those while in Orion they seem to be a problem. This will be a veeery long list so you can skip to then end where I’ll explain everything further!

Endou Mamoru:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s1e1 establish base for the character, s1e2 first defined characteristics (never giving up), s1e12 first doubts showing his humanity and inner struggle, s1e15 and s1e17 interpersonal relationship with troubled friends, s1e24 we can see him doubtful and troubled about himself, s2e46 the depressed side of Endou and how he comes back to his feet. Overall in both season we follow his growth. MAJOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e83 bettering himself as a captain, s3e88 bettering himself as a goalie, s3e123 ultimately understands what it means the be the captain of a team. MEDIUM DEV

Kazemaru Ichirouta:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s1e2 establish base for the character, s1e15 Kaze’s internal conflicts, s1e16 his own resolve, s2e33 first big signs of distress, s2e45 peak of distress and depression showing the character’s insecurities and weaknesses, s2e63/64/65 deeper understanding of Kaze’s human and dark side. MAJOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3ep77 bettering himself as a defender. MINOR DEV

Kabeyama Heigorou:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s1e2 establish base for character, s1e6 character’s fears and him winning them in the end with newfound resolve, s1e16 bettering himself as a defender. MINOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e89 shows his helping side, s3e95 bettering himself as a player. MINOR DEV

Tsunami Jousuke:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e47 establish base for character, s2e49/50 going in deeper on the character’s difficulties and desires, s2e55 shows even better the helpful spirit of Tsunami. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e70, his resolve to better himself, s3e71/72 growing stronger as a player, s3e89 more insight on his good nature. MINOR DEV

Kurimatsu Teppei:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: mood-maker throughout all s1 which establish his character, s1e15 his concerned and less joyful side are shown when a pillar of the team threatens to leave, s2e45 weaknesses revealed. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e69 bettering himself as a defender, s3e89 helpful side, s3e95 self sacrificing attitude. MINOR DEV

Kogure Yuuya:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e35 establish base for character + shows lots of info right away on his behaviours, sad past and will to play for real, s2e36 conquering a bit of his fears and slightly opening up to others. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e89 his helpful side is shown, s3e95 bettering himself as a player and person, s3e100 during the kappa accident we can see more of his soft side for once instead of his prankster one and get to know his wishes to be like every normal kid and not just an abandoned child. MINOR DEV

Tobitaka Seiya:

FIRST APPEARANCE S3 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: NO DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e68 establish base for character, s3e71 a bit of his past is revealed, s3e73 more insights on his lone wolf personality and ties to street gangs and to Hibiki, s3e75 more about his past and injury to his leg and also why did he decide to change his life + bettering himself as a defender and teammate thanks to Endou + starting to see soccer as a fun thing as well, s3e81 he is now willing to fight for his team + getting back to good terms with his old friends, s3e83 wanting to do good but still failing and being visibly upset by it, s3e84 finally find the power in him to unleash his first hissatsu, s3e85 he proves to have grown quite a lot since he gives supports and encourages Tachimukai to do his best and telling him that it’s ok to mess things up a bit, s3e101 his caring, helpful and intuitive side is shown, s3e113 we can see how deeply he cares for Hibiki and just how emotional he can get. MAJOR DEV

Fudou Akio:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e37 character debut not really valid to establish a base for the character given his altered state. NO DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e70 show to actually care a lot about being in the national and him training far before the others did, this establish a base as him being quite the elusive person, s3e83 debut as a player + playmaker skills + past revealed + beginning to gain trust and give trust, s3e88 him on the same level of Kidou as a playmaker, s3e90/91/92/93 revealed his loyalty to the inajapan + his complete detachment from Kageyama + his helpful cooperative side, s3e105 show his trust in others, s3e110 we can see his hate towards evildoers, s3e119 more of his helping side towards someone that isnt Kidou. MAJOR DEV

Fubuki Shirou:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e32 establish base for character, s2e33 more insights on Shirou’s character + more hint to his other persona, s2e37 Shirou opening up more, s2e38 Atsuya being less aggressive towards teammates as well as kinda protective, s2e39 Atsuya and Someoka find balance, s2e41 first signs of Fubuki being unstable, s2e42 his background is shown + his perfection complex, s2e43 first signs of weaknesses, s2e45 internal conflict + passing out due to an injury after a breakdown + his duality is explained, s2e51 nervous breakdown due to the feeling of not being useful, s2e57 more insight on his breakdown, s2e59 we learn his fear of being alone, s2e61 he is now able to control himself and becomes complete + better himself as a teammate as well. MAJOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: better himself as a player with new hissatsu. NONE

Gouenji Shuuya:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s1e1 establish base for character, s1e2 we can see a bit of his struggle and will to play, during the rest of season 1 we can see him grow more fond of his team and considering them friends + why did he quit soccer back in the days so a bit of his past as well, s2e30 we can see the sadness in his forced decision, hence him caring for what he’s about to lose, s2e52 we can see his new resolve to play soccer with his friends to his heart content. MAJOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e79 we have a clearer view of his past and his troubles with the father, s3e80 his distress is shown by him failing hissatsu during training, s3e81 he’s hasty and makes mistakes due to the pressure he feels, s3e84 he’s finally able to play and discards his worries + his father approves of him keeping to play soccer, he keeps on bettering himself with new hissatsu. MEDIUM DEV

Utsunomiya Toramaru:

FIRST APPEARANCE S3 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: NO DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e68 establish base for character, s3e73 insights on his daily life and helpful willing nature, s3e74 his past is revealed and he is now free to play however he wants because he win his fears over, s3e101 we can see him suffer again because of his mother’s health and by being homesick but also his renewed resolve to play and be a kid, he also keeps on improving himself, s3e126 he became Raimon’s ace shooter. MAJOR DEV

Hijikata Raiden:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e48 establish base for character + we can see how caring he is almost like a father/big brother figure, s2e52 shows us Hijikata caring and helping Gouenji, someone he barely knew, s2e53 his past with Gouenji and his humble and easily embarrassed selves are revealed. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e113/115 we can see him helping a complete stranger again + how much he values family and to what extent he is willing to help them. MINOR DEV

Midorikawa Ryuuji:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: given his altered state the dev is NO DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e69 establish base for character + we can see Mido’s true happy go lucky side instead of his aline persona, s3e73 a bit of his insecurities are shown alongside how he seem to not enjoy soccer to the same extent as before + getting injured because of the pressure he kept his body under, s3e76 more of his insecurities and self deprecating attitude come out as he has a nervous breakdown during practice + he starts to remember what was like to play soccer for fun, s3e77 he is now able to play again to his heart desires with less worries, s3e82 he is shown to still overexerting himself, s3e101 in the letter Midorikawa states that he is now re-learning to enjoy soccer at his best and we can see him being happy with that. MAJOR DEV

Kidou Yuuto:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s1e10 we can see that unlike his first appearance he actually has his doubts about cheating, s1e11 establish base for character as we are shown a more human and troubled side of him, s1e12 actual manifestation of his will to play fairly + detachment from Kageyama’s plans, s1e13 going as far as to be injured in order to get his sister back + his attachment towards Haruna is better shown, s1e17 frustration and sadness over defeat + feeling guilty for his friends going to the hospital but him surviving + more of his backstory and new resolve, s1e18 learning more about a new type of soccer, his ties with the teammates grow into a friendship, s2e35 more of his relationship with Haruna and his soft side are shown + more of the backstory, s2e37 remorse and guilt + him bowing asking for forgiveness for his selfishness, s2e38 more about his twisted feelings for Kageyama are shown, s2e56 his feelings of uneasiness towards his former teammates and fear to not being forgiven + the difference of ties he has with Teikoku and Raimon. MAJOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e82 growing as a playmaker, s3e83 surpass his own dislikes in order to better himself as a teammate, s3e90/91/92/93 more of his relationship with Kageyama and his own self trust issues are shown and then ultimately won, s3e105/106 growing as a player and person, ultimately shown his affection for Kageyama despite everything and the grief after his death, s3e110 more about his affection for Haruna and the new friendship with Fudou, s3e126 is shown how he can cry and be very emotional as well. MAJOR DEV

Sakuma Jirou:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e37/38 establish base for character because we are shown his most inner and hidden secrets aka his low self esteem and how he suffered from always comparing himself with Kidou and deeming himself not at his level + his new resolve to play for himself a good soccer, s2e56 his forgiving and friendly side. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e69 despite not winning to Kidou he’s now at peace with himself and knows his self worth, s3e90/91/92/93 we can see how much he cares and actually knows Kidou + we can see him starting to trust Fudou a bit, s3e119 he is now in more friendly terms with someone he greatly disliked. MINOR DEV

Someoka Ryuugo:

FIRST APPEARANCE S1 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s1e4 establish base for character aka strong willed + not keen to changes but understanding and in the end accepting his own mistakes in judgment, s2e31/32/33 we can see how deeply he cares for people he sees as friends and deems amazing players and again is not so keen to change, but how in the end he is reasonable and can give other a chance, s2e37 ultimate acceptance and newfound happiness despite changes, s2e37 ability to adapt and growing as a player, s2e38 self sacrificing nature, s2e39 we can see that his strong will can be too much and brings him to overwork his body, s2e55 his more tender, loving and caring side surfaces when verbally trying to help a friend and we can also see how easily embarrassed he gets at his own awkward attempts to cheer someone up, letting us know he has that in him but avoids because of social awkwardness, s2e64/65 ultimately we can see his dark most insecure side, the one that deemed himself not strong enough compared to the other strikers. MAJOR DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e70 despite not being chosen he does not resent the decision nor is he angry or sad, he instead decides to work even harder in case a spot on the national will clear one day, throughout the serie he better himself as a player even when in the national. MINOR DEV

Kiyama Hiroto:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e45 establish base for character, despite him still being part of Aliea Gakuen we can see a glimpse of his caring nature since he is worried for someone he doesn't even know, s2e62 we can see again that he worries a lot for others as he didn’t want to release the limiter of Genesis’ players and ultimately understands the importance of friendship, s2e63 despite everything that he has done, Hiroto still loves his father, showing a very high level of forgiveness and unconditional love. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e76 is the only one who noticed Midorikawa being troubled by something, showing us his observant eye and protective nature + how reliable and mature he is given the way he tries to comfort and motivate the friend, s3e100 his caring nature is shown again, s3e112 we can see his hacking abilities alongside his wanting to help strangers once again. MINOR DEV

Tachimukai Yuuki:

FIRST APPEARANCE S2 DEVELOPMENT BEFORE INAJAPAN: s2e43 establish base for character, a shy and intuitive kid who aspires to greatness and is very talented already on his own, s2e46 we can see he has the heart to never give up, no matter how many times he fell and how many times he failed, he kept on practicing until he made it, s2e55/56 his determination just kept on growing despite hardship + we are shown once again that his intuitiveness is very high as he’s quickly catching up on how to perform the new hissatsu, he also grows as a player. MEDIUM DEV DEVELOPMENT AFTER INAJAPAN: s3e89 we can see his determination into learning an hissatsu completely unique in order to differentiate himself + how much he is willing to train and fatigue his body in order to do so, he just keeps on trying until he succeeds. MINOR DEV

SO!

If you took the time to read aaaall this, you may have noticed how the development was redistributed throughout the three season, if you haven’t (which is totally understandable, this was an insane job on my part even if I don’t regret losing sleep for this-) I’m going to explain.

OG InaJapan had 18 players but only FIVE of them had a major character development during the FFI season. 5 out of 18 is a really low and doable amount of work to put in a 60 episode long season, you can afford to spent some time on them because the other 13 have already been covered in the previous two seasons (aka in the previous 65 episode of he whole show) or are secondary character with a simple medium need of development!

Now, if you instead look at Orion, the new InaJapan currently has 23 members (and still one free spot) and the only one already covered with a major/medium development during Ares are Haizaki, Nosaka, Norika and Hiroto because we know about their past, we’ve seen an established base for their character and we were shown their interaction with others plus some development (Hiroto starting to trust others, Haizaki beggining to open up, Norika’s will to fight, Nosaka’s understanding of what’s right and wrong). But what does this mean? It means that only 4 out of 23 players already had some more insights and development, so we are left with 19 characters who need focus to get to know them better. And if we count the OG characters off, we are still left with 10 development-less players! To cover TEN characters is VERY hard, if you want to do it well and if we consider that in 33 episodes we had almost none of them explored (Asuto and Hikaru’s plots are in motion but there’s still lack of an actual character arc and development), it’s hard to believe they’ll be able to do it in the remaining eps. Let’s remember that in OG they covered 5 people in 60 episodes and even if Orion will actually be longer than that, I higly doubt any development will feel less than a bit half-assed because they will STILL be cramped all ten of them together. And why this? Because they went for the FFI IMMEDIATELY after Ares! Think about it, OG had 65 episode before the FFI and they had only 5 characters (Endou, Kazemaru, Gouenji, Kidou and Someoka) with a major development started in s1 and only ENDED in s2 plus one medium development of Kurimatsu and a minor one for Kabeyama almost entirely in s1, only Shirou with a major development in s2 and 6 medium development during s2 (Tsunami, Kogure, Tatsuya, Hijikaya, Sakuma and Tachimukai). S1 had 26 episodes while S2 39 and 65 episodes for 6 major development plus 7 medium ones are very reasonable. But how many episode did we had before the new FFI? 26 26 episodes and only 4 medium developments plus some minors. This stats may have been acceptable ONLY if another season of maybe 40 episodes would have divided it from the FFI one. Sadly this isn’t the case.

All of this to prove a point: if you want to do an all stars season you first need to have done other seasons to explain and develope the majority of the characters you want to put there. And Orion didn’t. Which is honestly super dumb since they already did and all stars season during OG, so they should know how to handle it-

So yeah, if you’re wondering why your fave hasn’t had the spot light yet or why they were put in a corner for a while and their plot left to stagnate... this is why. They have far too many characters in need of an arc and they’re apparently not able to handle them well.

I’ve been Nene, thank you for coming to my extremely long and oddly specific ted talk, I will now go die on my bed.

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glapplebloom · 5 years

Photo

Well, if the comics are gonna continue why not let these two meet?

(image by sonigoku)

Let's pretend that IDW hired me to write a script for a crossover between My Little Pony and Sonic the Hedgehog. Can this actually happen? Well on the Middle Ground we do host Ghost of the Future by Evan Stanley. But that would be like Rooster Teeth hiring me to write an episode of Red Vs Blue because I'm a researcher of Death Battle. Chances are very, VERY small. But in this hypothetical situation, what if I get that shot. For this crossover I'll be following the guidelines of how I presume what Sega allows for IDW. I'm also going to ignore the comics from both sides since I'm going with the assumption people are going to buy this because its a crossover and not because they're fans of said comics. And this will be basically the ideas behind it, nothing concrete. It'll take place after the Coordination and Sonic Forces.

Issue 1 – The Set Up

It begins with Eggman working on a portal with the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic and crew (this being Tails, Knuckles and Amy) coming in to stop him. In one last attack, Sonic knocked Eggman with Cubot and Orbot into the portal, which explodes. Sonic looks worried but Tails reminded him that he was in a similar situation way back and came back. So this isn't likely the last time they've seen him. On the other side, Eggman turns out to be in Discord's realm. Seeing his computers picking up nothing but Chaos Energy all around him, he begins his next big plan. A few moons later, Discord and Fluttershy were having a tea party. Discord doing his usual thing. But the things he creates don't seem to have the same energy they used to. Worried, Fluttershy suggest they go to see Princess Twilight. (Since Discord's realm is so big and he just teleports from his house to anywhere, I doubt he would notice Eggman.)

At the same time, Sonic has been a little restless since there's still no sign of Eggman. Tails told him to relax when Rouge comes in. She asked for their help with Shadow, who is not feeling 100%. When they get there, Shadow still acts cocky but Tails uses his technology to discover Shadow's Chaos Energy is diminishing. If it keeps going like it, he will lose everything. Sonic then makes the connection that Eggman maybe behind this. He's hiding in some dimension where he's draining the Chaos Energy and is likely planning something bigger. So they vow to find Eggman and stop his latest plan. In the Pony World, Twilight discovers the same thing is happening with Discord. And if he doesn't have Chaos Energy, he's going to disappear (like in Discordant Harmony). Discord still has enough magic (with the help from Twilight) to open a portal to his world. Twilight thinks this is something the entire crew have to take care of.

In Sonic's World, Tails manages to recreate the machine and use the Chaos Emeralds as well as a bunch of generators to open the portal to the Chaos Realm. Sonic, Shadow, Amy, Knuckles and Tails will go in to solve the problem while Rogue, Omega and Cream make sure the portal stays open for as long as it can. Because if it closes, its likely they may not come back. With the Ponies, the Main Six are gathered and Twilight and Discord opens the portal. Discord is going to stay behind because as soon as they fix it he can open it again without trouble. Twilight has delegates to keep watch of Canterlot while she's away. Because whatever is happening to Discord can possibly affect all of Equestria. So Twilight, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Spike enter into the Chaos Realm. And as soon as they get in, they are right across Team Sonic.

Issue 2 – The Fight

(Image from Amy Vs Pinkie)

Before the comic, you see a random city background. Then suddenly a big crack appeared. Back in the Chaos Realm, Applejack wonders if those creatures are normal for this world. Fluttershy, who frequently visits Discord, never seen them before in her life. Tails scans them and finds that the seven creatures have the exact opposite frequency of the Chaos Emeralds. That's more than enough for Shadow to go for an attack on them. Shadow goes for a kick but Applejack dodges. This begins the two sides fighting each other. They fight randomly until eventually the party splits up. Sonic takes on Rainbow Dash and after some impressive speed feats one is impressed with the other. Rainbow Dash is impressed someone could keep up with her and says its a shame he can't fly. Sonic then does an impressive stunt and tells her that even without wings, he can still fly.

Tails and Twilight are opponents and while they seem to have a battle of blasts, the fight eventually ends with Twilight commenting on Tails technology. To her, its all theoretical but Tails begins to talk about how it can be done. Applejack takes on Knuckles and between the two of them they're too stubborn to stop fighting each other. Fluttershy, since she's free, is the one who convinces the two of them to stop fighting. Amy takes on Rarity and Spike and she does pretty well against them. Their fight stops when Rarity begins to compliment Amy's outfit. She's flattered and even is open to having modifications done by Rarity. That leaves Shadow to take on Pinkie Pie. Between her own randomness and Shadow's weakened state, he doesn't do well against her. Luckily before he can manage to land a blow, Sonic stopped him. By this point, they got a better understanding of each other and stopped fighting. Shadow reluctantly doing so.

They begin to introduce themselves to each other and agree to work together. Meanwhile Eggman had his security system notice the newly formed team. Eggman has no real concern, but feels he should do something about it. Since he controls the Chaos Energy, he's using Discord's powers to create an army of robots instantly. Cubot and Orbot finds a journal that they think Eggman would like. In it is Discord's plans for Season 9. So with this information, he creates three Metal Versions of Chrysalis, Sombra and Tirek. He gives his three new generals a small army of Badniks and command them to destroy Sonic and his friends. Fluttershy leads the group as they continue to exchange information. Pinkie Pie wonders how one guy can control Discord's Magic and Sonic tells her that Eggman has a lot of experience with Chaos Energy. Then the Metal Villains attacked.

Issue 3 – The Mid-Bosses

(Image from @derangedhyena-art)

Before the comic, a bunch of random islands background. Another big crack appears. Back in the Chaos Realm, the three Metal Villains attack. Metal Chrysalis has her changeling powers, but its more like transformers than magic. And instead of changing into others, she changes into various parts of Eggman robots. Twilight, Spike, Amy and Tails take her on. Spike, Amy and Twilight provide cover as Tails try to hack her. Metal Chrysalis realizes the plan and tries to attack Tails. Twilight stops her with her magic. She's struggles as Tails tries his best to break through her programming. Sadly, its in a chaotic mess and he can't find any sense in it. Before Twilight could lose her hold, Amy jumps on Metal Chrysalis and decides to smash her head off her body. Metal Chrysalis is defeated.

Metal Tirek instead of absorbing Magic he absorbs life energy. Rarity, Knuckles, Applejack and Pinkie Pie take him on. He grabs Pinkie and slowly drains her life energy but a combined punch/kick from Knuckles and Applejack stopped that and restored her. Rarity notices the details of Metal Tirek's designs and instructs the two Muscles to target those parts. They happen to be weak points that help take down the machine. Metal Sombra is basically Sombra. Sonic, Rainbow Dash, Shadow and Fluttershy take him on. To deal with the smoke, Sonic and Rainbow Dash uses their speed to keep him solidified. And with a combination Light Speed Dash and Sonic Rainboom, Sonic and Rainbow destroy Metal Sombra. Shadow wanted to fight but he is growing weaker, so Fluttershy kept an eye on him.

Eggman sees the machines did their jobs: they distracted them long enough for him to complete his latest invention: the Egg Draconequus. With it, he'll finish absorbing all the Chaos Energy in the realm and use it to conquer his world. And eventually all other worlds. The others recover from the attack and try to come up with a strategy. But then they begin to notice the cracks forming around the realm. Twilight theorizes that since Eggman is messing with the Chaos Energy its affecting not only their Chaos Fueled Friends but also other worlds. If they don't stop Eggman, other worlds will be messed up or even destroyed. With this knowledge, they resolve to stop Eggman. Shame for them that they're suddenly teleported to Eggman in his now completed Egg Draconequus.

Issue 4 – The Final Boss

(Image by Combatkaiser)

Random locations, cracks shown. In the Chaos Realm, Eggman begins to show off his powers. He removes the wings and horns off the ponies and Spike, the tails off Tails, makes the hammer too heavy for Amy, Knuckles into a paper cut out (think Thanos to Drax in Infinity War) and Sonic, Shadow and the Earth Ponies stuck in something sticky. Eggman continues to boast saying he is truly unstoppable. But Twilight tells him a friendship speech that activates their Inate Elements of Harmony Powers. With those powers activated, everyone is restored to normal. But that doesn't stop Eggman. If he can't control them, he'll destroy them. This leads to a comic long fight between Eggman and the Heroes, with Eggman eventually getting the upper hand. After getting them all in one spot, Eggman goes for one last blast. But to his surprise it was stopped.

The heroes were protected by a Diamond Shield. The Equestrian Girls Seven (in their human forms) showed up to help. They're not the only ones as Blaze also arrives to attack Eggman's Machine. The comic ends with a splash page of all the Heroes united.

Guaranteed to be in it:

Equestria Girls – Seen above.

MLP Generation 1 – The original classic series. Definitely Twilight, Applejack and Firefly. Others maybe.

MLP Generation 3 – The last Generation.

Sol Dimension – Blaze specifically.

The Future – Silver specifically.

Not sure:

Classic Dimension – They got to have some representation since we're going to have the Classic Generation of Ponies. But if not...

IDW Sonic – Whisper and Tangle to represent the IDW Sonic Comics.

Not likely:

MLP Generation 2 – They don't really have a canon. They just have one PC Game. And even ignoring that, that'll give MLP one more dimension unless we include...

Sonic Boom – For some reason, Sega doesn't want to reference this in IDW. So I doubt they'll allow it.

SatAM – As in just SatAM and not Archie. Super doubtful they'll allow this to be referenced again.

Issue 5 – Endgame

(Image by Dragnmastralex)

All of them fighting the Egg Draconequus. Insert various interactions between generations and interdimensional pairings. Twilight eventually realizing that their best chance is to combine the Magic of Friendship to overcome the Chaos Energy. So the Main Six and the EQ Seven combine their Magic for one blast. But Eggman counters and the two are in a beam struggle. Tails then realize that just because Eggman's machine is absorbing Chaos Energy doesn't mean no one else can use it. So he gets Sonic, Shadow and anyone capable of using Chaos Energy to absorb as much as they can. So we get a bunch of Super Forms from the Sonic Side and Burning Blaze for good measure. With their combined power, alongside the Magic of Friendship, they defeat Eggman. The Main Six offer to give him the stone treatment, but Sonic refuses. Eggman is their problem and they should be the ones to deal with it.

It ends with each pairing giving a goodbye. Sonic saying they hope to meet again and Twilight assuring friendship will last.

And these are my ideas for a proposed IDW Crossover between MLP and Sonic. Think it would work? Do you have better ideas?

#Twist of Fate

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bthump · 5 years

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I'm pretty sure you've already talked about this but, I want to know your opinion on guts letting go of his obsession with griffith? In one of berserks chapters when they ask his opinion about hawk of light he answers with a smile so people think that he's gotten over it

Extremely short answer: if that’s chapter 345 you’re referring to Guts isn’t smiling in a single one of his panels after he gets asked about Griffith, in fact he has a pretty pronounced :/ face throughout, so that’s just inaccurate. If it’s a different scene, then I have no memory of Guts being asked about the ~Hawk of Light~ any other time so idk lol.

Now, here’s the long answer. I wrote it out last night and decided it was too late to post. Now that the new chapter raws have come out, well, idk if anything here is straight up contradicted now (i’m being pretty vague anyway), but bear in mind that I wrote this before seeing them.

This is a tricky topic for me ngl, like this is the exact question that fucks me up when it comes to my hopes and fears for Berserk.

Is Guts going to get over his obsession with Griffith and genuinely move on?

But as of right now my answer is an emphatic no, Guts is not over his obsession yet. After his last climactic test of resolve when he got in a boat on the docks we saw Guts’ residual feelings loud and clear. Guts’ eyes meeting Griffith’s across a vast distance, the Beast of Darkness taunting him in his subconscious and calling Griffith “the true light that burns us,” and Guts thinking to himself on the boat, “when this journey’s over, I’ll…” before flashing to an image of Griffith.

It would just be straight up poor storytelling if somewhere between Guts ruminating on the boat after the sea god fight and landing at Elfhelm he’d conquered his obsession off-screen and now he’s totally “over it.”

What I think is possible, if shitty, is Guts conquering his obsession at some point in the future in a climactic and conclusive way - after backsliding first. Like let’s be real here, all this constant foreshadowing about the armour and the Beast of Darkness and Guts ignoring various warning signs etc isn’t going nowhere. Guts is going to lose himself to the armour and fight Griffith. That’s pretty much a foregone conclusion.

After that happens I will grant that there is a chance we’re headed for something along the lines of the power of rpg group friendship and/or het love saving the day and Guts’ soul, bringing him back from the armour, and then Guts conquers his obsession properly and… Griffith is defeated in some way, quite possibly because after everything he’s failed to overcome his own feelings. Might be an end of his own making, if that’s the case. Could be by Casca’s hand. Guts could still easily die in this scenario, but yk, it’d be bittersweet bc he dies with his humanity intact or whatever.

Conversely, what I want to happen, what I think would be good, emotionally impactful and thematically resonant writing, is Guts being forced to confront and untangle his feelings for Griffith instead of just trying to overcome them. I want Guts’ apparent inner conflict of Griffith/revenge/Beast of Darkness vs Casca/rpg group/humanity to ultimately turn out to be overly simplistic bullshit. I want Guts’ attempt to get over Griffith to have been misguided from the start, another one of his many ultimately futile and misguided attempts to repress painful and complex feelings through the pursuit of a goal.

I think the most satisfying ending is one where Guts finally confronts his mixed feelings for Griffith and untangles them, and finds the positive feelings still have value. I want the remains of their intense world-altering relationship to go hand in hand with the tattered remnants of their respective humanities. I want Guts to emotionally connect with Griffith and his conveniently unfrozen heart during their final confrontation so they can finally understand each other and their feelings and give readers a real cathartic conclusion to their relationship while probably providing an intimate emotional parallel to whatever world changing metaphysical bullshit is also going on.

Like not only do I not want Guts to move on, I want Guts’ failure to move on to mirror Griffith’s failure to move on and be an essential piece of a non-tragic ending. I want Guts’ lingering positive feelings for Griffith to be what save him from the armour, or from losing his soul to the temptation of revenge, or what the fuck ever.

I want their Golden Age relationship to still have a positive impact on the story, basically.

Essentially my question when it comes to the future of Berserk isn’t Will Guts get over Griffith? but rather Should Guts get over Griffith? And I want the answer to be no.

Idk. I can honestly see good arguments either way lol. It’s frustrating, for every great argument I come up with that supports Guts examining his complicated contradictory feelings and untangling them rather than lumping them together and getting over them, I think of an argument that supports Guts getting over Griffith entirely as intended genuine personal growth. And vice versa, for that matter.

But no matter which option is more likely at this point, I absolutely 100% think that Guts confronting his feelings instead of getting over them is by far better writing. It’s less contradictory, it’s more interesting, it’s narratively symmetrical (in that Guts and Griffith and their mutual failed attempts to get over their residual feelings would mirror each other), their relationship’s got more emotional grounding and build up than Guts and a group of people who barely know him, or Guts and a woman who only even entered into a relationship because Miura wanted more Eclipse drama, it’s more thematically resonant*, and imo it’s absolutely necessary to any emotionally satisfying ending.

Also like, I want to emphasize that this doesn’t mean Guts needs to go “oh shit I’ve been wrong the whole time I should’ve been dealing with my Griffith related feelings instead of trying to fix Casca, wow I fucked up” lol. Literally all it would take is a) Elfhelm turns out to be a bust (which I think is very likely anyway), and b) the emotions between Griffith and Guts amount to something positive as they conflict. This can be anything from smthn life saving to a moment of understanding and personal fulfillment to something that affects the world in a more yk epic metaphysical way to saving souls, to one or both dying smiling.

I just need something, you know?

*I use this phrase a lot lol but what I mean specifically here is that Guts and Griffith’s relationship has been our main illustration of the impact of relationships in contrast to isolating dreams, and I think it would be more powerful to maintain their relationship as our illustration of that theme - true light, the impact of being known and valued, love and hate and need for connection, humanity vs monstrosity - than to swap it out with a different relationship in the last fifth of the story or whatever, and depict Guts and Griffith’s confrontation without that intense, complex emotion fueling it.

#Anonymous #ask #a #b #theme: speculation #theme: ending #theme: true light #character: guts #theme: relationships as personal growth

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snootysith · 5 years

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Hierarchy of Tunon’s Court

Note: I wanted to take a stab at worldbuilding in Tyranny and figured I’d start at home, so to speak. Everything here is a patchwork of canon and headcanons and reflects the universe that my Fatebinder, Ru, wanders around in. It’s by no means definitive. I’ll probably add or alter something I hadn’t considered later.

Ever since Tunon the Adjudicator established his Court of Fatebinders two hundred years ago, his wards have cultivated their own little community behind the walls of the Palace of Justice. Unsurprisingly, Tunon's influence can be felt in every social rule, behavior, and expectation.

To be Tunon’s ward is to live in a state of near constant vigilance... which makes keeping attachments somewhat difficult. Relationships aren’t impossible though. It’s almost inevitable that wards will form bonds of family, friendship, or romance living in a communal space together— but there is an underlying fear and risk involved that compels some to put their fellow wards at arm’s reach and save themselves the trouble of heartbreak. If they lose sight of their duties, no amount of affection will save anyone from Tunon's judgment.

Everyone has a role to play and the responsibility to honor their Archon and Overlord through their actions.

Appearances are everything.

TUNON THE ADJUDICATOR

The Archon of Justice and creator of the Fatebinders. Eldest of the Archons in service to Kyros, he has served the Overlord for over 400 years. Tunon's principal concern is the implementation of Kyros' Law and execution of justice. To this end, he fashioned the Face of Judgment, a metal mask that he wears during judgments to eliminate any outward appearance of bias. Over the years, he became a living incarnation of justice, cold, dispassionate, and as fair as humanly possible. As such, he outranks the other Archons and is empowered to judge them and settle disputes that arise.

BLEDEN MARK

The Archon of Shadows and Kyros' executioner tasked with ending the lives of those Kyros deems dangerous. There is no army that marches behind him, no city hails him as ruler, and no great monument that boasts his name. While the other Archons surround themselves with human trappings, he is cloaked solely in shadow. Though he owes allegiance to Kyros, he is often used to carry out Tunon’s judgments as his blade and headsman. Mark is primarily dispatched for high profile or exceptional cases but occasionally, he leverages his skills to train promising Initiates— though few survive his wholly-immersive survival classes with both their limbs and lives intact.

EXECUTIVE FATEBINDERS

⟶ Fatebinder of War - Fatebinder of Balance - Fatebinder of Peace

As of 431 TR, these roles currently belong to the corresponding Fatebinders: Nunoval, Calio, and Rhogalus.

They are the pinnacle of all Fatebinders and well-known faces of the court outside of the Adjudicator himself. Their duties are many and varied but broadly speaking, these three manage court cases on a day-to-day basis— advising Tunon on pending matters, ensuring compliance with rules, policies or guidelines, preparing court orders and notices, taking custody of evidence, making arrangements for security, and explaining procedural and jurisdictional issues to interested parties.

Curry enough favor with them and they might even divulge a bit of court history and their own personalities. Each of them supervises three different domains that regulate court operations (see below).

FATEBINDERS

Judges and executioners of Kyros’ Law, they act under the watchful eye of Tunon the Adjudicator as they resolve disputes that arise between different factions across Terratus. They decide whose actions are best in line with Kyros’ Law, mediate where they can, and order punishments and executions where required. Any citizen in the empire can appeal to a Fatebinder for judgment but doing so is dangerous, as a Fatebinder’s judgments cannot be appealed and some deal harshly with those who bother them for trivial complaints.

Fatebinders commonly dabble in many skill sets depending on their personal interest and the context of their duties but there are instances of Fatebinders specializing in a single field (barring executive Fatebinders), such as the Fatebinder of Lore who researches traditions and beliefs or the Fatebinders of Tribute who deal with the finicky nuances of taxes and quotas.

With enough years of experience and good conduct, a Fatebinder may be installed in another Archon's territory as district judges or governors to extend and uphold the influence of the law beyond Tunon's purview. All must be held accountable and no one is free from Kyros' judgment.

COURT OPERATIONS

⟶ Scholars

Tunon’s judicial administration. Overseen by the Fatebinder of Peace, scholars are the beating bureaucratic heart of the court that contend with paper trails stretching across Terratus. They are the largest of the three groups for good reason. Minutes of all court cases must be recorded, missives, evidence, forms, and daily schedules must be managed and processed, the Archives must be maintained, and every stone must be turned in pursuit of knowledge and truth. Their function isn't terribly glamorous compared to their counterparts but they play a pivotal role in improving the quality of court life.

⟶ Enforcers

Tunon's civil police force. Overseen by the Fatebinder of War, enforcers maintain public order wherever Tunon's seat of power resides. They are the second largest of the three groups and most commonly seen in the populace patrolling streets, keeping down rabble in court, guarding and interrogating prisoners, and protecting loyal citizens and public property. While their limited numbers do not qualify them as an army, Tunon's authority combined with their heavy combat skills make them a formidable foe for those who threaten the peace.

⟶ Agents

Tunon's secret police force. Overseen by the Fatebinder of Balance, agents keep eyes and ears in places most susceptible to corruption-- inside and outside the Palace of Justice. Comprised of spies, assassins, saboteurs, and scouts, they exist to mitigate damage, investigate claims, collect sensitive intelligence, and dispatch potential threats that are beneath Bleden Mark's concern. Their responsibilities often involve toeing the line of Kyros' Law and one misstep can be enough for the hammer of justice to turn on them.

INITIATES

Since Tunon accepts candidates from a wide range of backgrounds, Initiates make up the bulk of his charges. The minimum age requirement for initiation is fifteen-years-old. All candidates who haven’t yet sworn fealty to the Adjudicator must do so before they can pursue initiation. This is quite deliberate as those who do succeed strengthen Tunon's powerbase and those who do not no longer have the option to leave. They can either improve or become a servant. Either way serves Tunon's interests. He dislikes squandering any potential assets, however small, as all must fulfill a function in his court. Anyone caught subverting the system, whether in cheating a test or murdering a rival, face harsh penalties. By the end of initiation, their numbers rapidly decline as trials and tribulations separate wheat from chaff.

Failing the final trials isn't grounds for immediate demotion but in retaking them, the bar is significantly raised each time. Those who do pass their final trials with satisfactory grades are relegated to a domain in court operations depending on their how high their score and which subjects they scored best in— all the better to utilize their strengths. In order to qualify as a Fatebinder, high marks are expected across the board and Tunon has the final word in the matter.

PAGES

Any of Tunon's wards between the age of five and fifteen is designated a “court page”. Those younger than five-years-old have no official title yet. Children born in the court automatically belong to the court and undergo due process as any other young ward would. From time to time a guilty party will promise their child, unborn or otherwise, in favor of a lighter sentence and often Tunon will accept. He has also been known to select children with especially great potential from all corners of Terratus.

Being so much easier to shape to Kyros' great design, every child brought into his vassalage is an investment and are more inclined to obedience and loyalty as they grow up. There are always exceptions, but the rigor of court life and the perks of success and cooperation tend to be enough motivation. In the rare event that a page still refuses to yield and a Fatebinder cannot resolve the issue, Tunon personally intervenes. To date, he has never failed to bring one to heel though some privately claim any unruly page comes away a different person altogether.

Pages are usually confined to the Palace of Justice but on rare occasions, Tunon will permit them to explore outside (with a Fatebinder acting as chaperon). Pages who reach the age of majority (15) qualify for initiation and while their upbringing gives them a leg up over most, this does not lend them any measure of favoritism. If anything, the court holds them to a higher standard.

SERVANTS

Slaves in all but name. “Servants” is the “polite” word to use in Tunon’s oh-so “civilized” courtroom. Nearly all Archons in Kyros' vassalage keep them on hand to perform menial or undesirable tasks and Tunon is no different. Compared to the likes of the Voices of Nerat or Graven Ashe, Tunon's servants live more comfortable lives and need not fear abuse but a benevolent slave owner is still a slave owner all the same and there are no illusions that others consider them easily disposable. Indeed, more often than not, court wards barely pay them any attention and the Fatebinder of Balance takes advantage of the fact, keeping informants among the servants who report back any sign of wrongdoing.

Most servants are scooped up from conquered territories but some willingly enter servitude, chief among them being failed Initiates who see it as a ticket to a stable life— a full belly, a roof overhead, and some measure of protection living in close proximity to the court— or who are disinterested in or unable to endure a high stakes/high stress lifestyle.

MISC. INFO

These roles are by no means rigid. A court ward in one domain may find that their duties overlap with a different domain and when this occurs, cooperation among fellow wards is ideal in order to work effectively. This, however, sometimes works better in theory than practice.

A court ward's combat proficiency is not always indicative of their role. That is to say, those whose skills align with rogues can be found tottering in the Archives as scholars just as much as any mage can be a strongarm enforcer or any warrior can be an agent.

Any court ward who falls out of Tunon's good graces (but have not committed an egregious crime) may find themselves stripped of titles and demoted to the rank of servant.

The Fatebinder of Balance has the unique role of being a Fatebinder of Fatebinders, sharing with Tunon the ability to pass judgment on Fatebinders who may have overstepped their station.

An Initiate's final trials measure proficiency of skills including, but not limited to, recollection and understanding of Kyros' Law, literacy, combat, spellcraft, and conflict resolution.

Scholars play a major role in a page's education, laying down a framework for basic subjects that gradually ease into an introduction to initiation. Well-behaved pages earn basic combat training— with wooden weapons, of course.

#tyranny game #tyranny #tunon the adjudicator #fatebinder #obsidian entertainment #bleden mark #worldbuilding #the next worldbuilding installment i'm working on is about the palace of justice itself #let it be known that ru graduated into a fatebinder by the skin of his teeth #he would have ended up an agent if he hadn't pushed hard for tunon to reconsider his essay because he 'wasn't wrong per say'#tunon acquiesced three bonus points to him and the rest was history #long post

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chxoticpulse · 5 years

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nick robinson + male+ he/him + chaos manipulation.┊ ❛ ━ hey, is it just me or do you hear i’m still here by john rzeznik playing in the distance ? oh, that’s just robin haggis-latierre, a twenty year old student. according to my sources, i heard he can be true neutral and is intelligent, but also apathetic. that’s probably why they remind everyone of the sound of shattering glass, (post) apocalyptic scenarios & worn-out physics books so much ! anyway, whether or not they’re in favor of the supers, crystalline city is keeping a close eye on them ! ( if he had a super name it would probs be PARADOX, but it’s still a draft ).

( There is a TL; DR almost at the bottom bc I honestly exceeded myself )

Poor boy, he didn’t know what he was getting into when he saw his dad closing the door behind him. Robin thought he was just going for the groceries or maybe he was just going to get Christmas presents a bit too early in July... but he didn’t come back. Not that day and not any other, just late and secret phone calls when mommy wasn’t paying attention and for a couple of months, that was the reality.

He was a smart kid ( god bless the Haggis genes! Did you know a child inherits 80% of their intelligence from their mother? ), though, at the beginning he was also very hopeful... but that died with time. Robin didn’t take too long to realize what was happening and out of a little act of rebellion, he stopped calling his dad and he stopped giving bright smiles to his mother. Quite selfish, maybe? But at that age, all a kid wants is a happy family.

He was still young when the revelation of his powers happened. His parents were arguing downstairs and he was watching from the stairs, shrunk and half hidden behind the posts of the rail. A lot of emotions started to ball inside him and when the stress and sadness became uncontainable, a wave of energy messed up the whole living room and caused some light cracks on the walls. HOLY SHIT, THEIR SON WAS A MUTANT TOO!

It took them some time to really understand what kind of power Robin had, disintegration? Energy manipulation? Air manipulation? There were many options and theories, but there was something that didn’t change: whenever Robin touched something, it would cause it to crack, shake or completely break, depending on how strong his emotions were at the moment. Eventually, they found someone who could identify mutations and they resolved that what Robin had was CHAOS MANIPULATION. Nobody really understood what that was at all, since it was a very... generic name, but at least now the had an idea.

Robin was homeschooled for some time, at least until he managed to control his powers the best he could, but as soon as he was enrolled again, he didn’t take time to make some petty enemies. The problem was that Robin was intelligent and he knew it and he enjoyed calling out others on their mistakes and so on.

Poetically speaking, the boy had inherited the good heart of his mother, but the devious thoughts of his father. It was probably this ambiguity and the fact that his parents were the leaders of both factions, which made him grow annoyed and tired of both heroes and villains. He wanted nothing to do with it, he didn’t believe there was something as good or bad; Robin thought that eventually, whichever force was the one to win, would drown in power. AND ROBIN WOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. <------ but I’ll get to this a bit later on.

He eventually managed to enroll in a good university and decided to study Physics, partly ( greatly ) inspired by his mother, but on the other hand, as a necessity to understand his powers even better. Highly studious and ridiculously apathetic, Robin was a discreet sensation, mostly because of the surnames he carried. His mother as owner of Haggis Tech and his father as a renown forensic medical examiner. There was hardly a place he could go without giving away his identity. AND YOU THINK THIS WOULD BOTHER HIM! Oh, no, he always gloated over that fact and he would never doubt to introduce himself as the son of geniuses, but... being somehow related to HAZE and SILVER KNIGHT in any way was beyond embarrassing, since he wanted nothing to do with their secret lives.

Even with all this, Robin considers himself close to his parents, if he’s not doing his homework at Haggis Tech or the library, you can find him in the industrial area training by himself or maybe causing some mayhem with the villains at the back of his mother. I like to think this as the video game Infamous in which karma changes depending on the good and bad actions he does. His current karma is neutral, but let’s see how that changes, I have plans for both his hero and villain versions. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Okaaay, I’m already done, I promise asdlkf;lg.

Oooohh going back to Robin doing something about the current situation of supers... if everything turns out bad and he loses all faith at the hands of black and white morality he is DECIDED TO END HIS PARENTS’ EMPIRES BY HIMSELF. IF THEY DON’T REACH AN AGREEMENT BEFORE ROBIN MANAGES TO CONTROL A BIG PART OF HIS POWERS... I WOULD TURN UP TO WHATEVER GOD YOU BELIEVE IN AND START PRAYING, BECAUSE IT WON’T BE PRETTY.

HIS POWERS:

This is very complicated cause his power is... complicated?? Ofc I can’t have him do everything because that would be insanely off the charts, actually, he can do very little but very significant for now. There are lots of terms and names, but to avoid boring you, what he can do now is disintegration of small objects from afar and bigger objects but upon touch. He can... destabilize some other things, for example, he can create a hole in the ground or damage a bridge support, but he ( STILL ) can’t break and entire bridge. He is fascinated with molecules and is currently working on his thesis of matter alteration in which he could get to rearrange the molecules of an object to create another one and stuff like that. NERD BOY. There is also weather manipulation in his sack of abilities that belong to chaos manipulation ( primarily fire and water ) according to the wiki, but eehh that’s a lot so maybe not for now ( unless his dad offers him to teach him smoke manipulation or smthn like that ), but that’d be for the future. His powers are awfully connected to his emotions! The more he feels, the more power he accidentally releases, that’s something he hasn’t managed to control; that’s also why you will mostly see him very stern or serious. Different emotions cause different reactions, example, anger or sadness cause things around to break or crack, stress ( due whatever reason ) may cause things to float or glitch somehow ( like when in Spiderverse there were things blooming into other things ), stuff like that but to a waaaay lighter level, like a coffee cup glitching and a second cap appearing on the bottom or stuff like that.

IMPORTANT ( and funny ): Due his powers still being slightly out of his control, he tends to have a “bad luck aura” around him most of the times, causing little events like someone accidentally dropping their coffee on their recently printed homework, a dog peeing on you as you wait on the bus stop or tripping down and ripping your favorite pair of jeans and stuff like that. While he is aware of this, he never ( usually ) does him with malice, it actually just requires him to focus a little and the aura can stop, but he usually forgets about, so please, pardon the inconvenience.

TL ; DR. Robin is the son of the leader of the league and the leader of the syndicate. He is annoyed with both heroes and villains, but massively supports supers. Is studying physics, is apathetic and will cause you have to have bad luck. Is planning to conquer the city ( or the world ). Angel heart and devil thoughts.

PLOTS / CONNECTIONS:

Classmates and people he may have good or bad relationships with!

Neighbors. I love good a bad neighbors! Gimme petty neighborhood feuds or super nice friendships! Maybe Robin used to play with them in the local park when they were younger, why did they stop talking? (in vase they did)

Not a people’s person, but still... AN EX! Robin and this girl would have had a burning fire, but it was so wild that it burned them down. Their relationship eventually got toxic and maybe they broke up after she joined one of the leagues ( preferably the villains ). They still talk and the tension is HIGH! Probably end up hooking up every now and then.

Someone he accidentally ( or not ) hurt with his powers!

Villains / Heroes that know him bc he’s the baby boy of the leader (?)

Anything else, really! Just hmu and I’m sure we will be able to brainstorm something <3

#gloryhqs.intro #this is so long I'm sorry #also I didn't proof read so pls excuse my lazy ass #HYYYYYPED AF TO BE HERE!!

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garrisonabel93 · 4 years

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How To Mend A Broken Marriage And Stop Your Divorce Startling Useful Ideas

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How Can God Help Save My Marriage

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#How To Mend A Broken Marriage And Stop Your Divorce Startling Useful Ideas #How To Save A Marriage In

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nayleaharvez97 · 4 years

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How To Stop Blaming Myself For Divorce Wonderful Cool Ideas

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shelleyseale · 5 years

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The Superstar Paradox: 5 Reasons Overachievers Miss the Mark

How overachievers can stop sabotaging their own success or level of satisfaction after attaining superstar status

In today’s fast-paced business climate where nothing is certain but rapid-fire change, masses in business and work life have surrendered themselves to “overachievement” in pursuit of career success. Not just ordinary success, but rather the kind that exceeds expectations courtesy of excessive “above and beyond” effort put forth. Some relent to a life of overachievement willingly and enthusiastically as they yearn to earn, while others grievously succumb to a multitude of pressures (both external and self-inflicted) and work themselves to extremes in order to achieve and maintain an enviable stature and lifestyle overall. Indeed, overachievement is a concept that’s seemingly become a gold standard on how to become a “superstar” in business, career goals and life overall. Just Google search “how to overachieve” and the web will dutifully deliver over 355,000 resources to help propel your prosperity.

The dark side of success

While overachievement certainly has it’s tremendous share of virtues, having induced profound innovation, breakthroughs, productivity and abundance for individuals, organizations, industries and economies at large, there’s oft a dark side to this extreme approach to advancement. For some, yes, dreams come true, but throngs of others miss the mark despite best efforts. “This often happens because they’re aiming for achievements instead of at a deeper understanding of themselves and of what they want,” asserts Keren Eldad, a certified business coach and keynote speaker—trusted advisor to industry-leading executives, acclaimed entrepreneurs and premier organizations like Beyond Capital, Luxxotica, Van Cleef & Arpels, YPO, LVMH and IWC.

Photo Courtesy of www.KerenEldad.com “It’s a silent story shared by many who present a happy, accomplished and enviable image: one of putting on pretenses and internally writhing with angst and anxiety, of never having enough, of insecurity, doubt and dissatisfaction—a state I have coined the ‘Superstar Paradox,’” Eldad says. “The paradox is when pursuing the illusory things we think we want actually produces undesirable results like strain to keep up low self-worth and general unhappiness—and those consequences actually impede our ability to attain what we want. It can become an exhausting and hugely debilitating vicious circle.”

Five foundational insights

Karen Eldad, photo courtesy of KarenEldad.com According to Eldad, the Superstar Paradox is a tough condition to solve because there’s one major, difficult hurdle to get past: admitting there’s a problem. “This requires relinquishing our main armor: that we know everything; that we have things ‘figured out,’” she says. “The key lies in accepting that ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’ and developing the courage and means to swap illusory happiness for a bona fide pursuit of wisdom that can bring true fulfillment, power and possibility.” That’s easier said than done, of course, and as daunting and even enigmatic as it might seem, taking that proactive first step is critical. So, in the spirit of “starting somewhere,” Eldad offers the five foundational insights below to help ensure some of your overachievement behaviors or mindsets won’t actually be undermining your success—or your level of life satisfaction even after you’ve actually realized superstar status.

Reframe your success story

Overachievers often believe that success only comes from power, money or status. Yes, those things are important benchmarks for career measurement, but being successful in life overall should be the true Holy Grail. So, if you are a C-suite executive, or aspire to be, but are riddled with anxiety, stress, pain and dissatisfaction–with relationships suffering in that wake–it’s evident that money and status isn’t proving as worthwhile as it can and should be. To initiate needed change, be brave enough to reframe your personal story, from cover to cover. Life isn’t meant to be one-dimensional or even work-centered, so actually sit down and map out what you would hope for each facet of your life to look like if it were a true success. Sure, start with career goals to get the juices flowing, as that might come most easily, but then do separate exercises for as many other areas of your life that you can break down. This can include marriage, children, extended family, friendships, professional networks, social media/networking, investments, travel, physical fitness, self-care/beauty, fashion and style, transportation, entertainment, hobbies and passions and so on. Life is abundant. You’ll soon see that life fulfillment means—and needs—so much more than what happens on the work front. It can be a means to an end, but there’s much in between. Once you start mapping it all out, you might come to the realization that you’ve been missing out on quite a lot in your quest for career glory. Reframe your success story with a more holistic approach—know what success “looks” like for each facet of your one and only life and commit (for real) to get there on all fronts.

Get out of your own way

Even superstars create self-imposed limitations based on what they originally perceived their goal or benchmark of success to be. Once achieved, it’s instinctive to want to bask in that “place,” both emotional and physical. After all, you worked to extremes to get there. But, overachievers inevitably will want more, and then other kinds of self-imposed limitations kick in that are often founded on what we perceive our own capabilities and opportunities—or lack thereof—to be. Even the most confident overachievers suffer the “can’t rant” internal dialogue. Take heed that "can’t" usually is not a real thing. From “I can’t afford to do what I really want” to “I can’t start over now”—this word usually really means “I won’t.” I won’t try, I won’t make it, I won’t have good ideas and on the self-deprecating dialogue goes. Yes, you worked damn hard to earn your current accolades and are pleased with yourself and where you are, but sometimes a hard pivot is needed to get you where you really want to go. The truth is never that you cannot, you just have to get yourself past the “will not.” Resources like talent, money, conditions, time, etc. are often not a genuine end game, but rather merely obstacles and challenges that CAN be overcome with the right amount of ingenuity and chutzpah.

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

Classify and conquer your “fatal flaw”

One definition of a “fatal flaw” is that which causes an otherwise noble or exceptional individual to bring about their own downfall, which can be their own death—whether figuratively or literally. The idea that any particular fatal flaw is holding us back is a primary reason why so many overachievers become hooked on their actualized achievements and come to rely on fake confidence and aggrandizement versus operating from a place of vulnerability and authenticity. This in an effort to hide or cover up that flaw, whether consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes the phrase “character flaw” is synonymous, with this notion revealing a bit more that the flaw is about the person, themselves, and not really his or her circumstance. One report cites that, “Heroes have a fatal flaw which they wrestle with on a consistent basis. This may open them up for specific conflicts later,” again underscoring that this most sinister kind of flaw can not only hurt you now, but also well into the future. So, to achieve true superstar status fostering genuine, lasting happiness, it’s imperative to discern if you have a fatal flaw and, once identified, work wholeheartedly to resolve it—or learn how to effectively function at a high-level amid it (if that’s even possible). One piece of published research identified “Ten Fatal Flaws That Derail Leaders” that included things like "don’t collaborate," "resist new ideas," and "accept their own mediocre performance" with one particularly eye-opening point of note: that the flaws identified “sound like obvious flaws that any leader would try to fix. But the ineffective leaders we studied were often unaware that they exhibited these behaviors. In fact, those who were rated most negatively rated themselves substantially more positively. Leaders should take a very hard look at themselves and ask for candid feedback on performance in these specific areas. Their jobs may depend on it.”

Course-correct crippling self-constructs

A common obstacle to a "superstar" realizing genuine happiness is their own reliance on self-esteem, which is different from self-acceptance. Self-esteem is defined as “a positive or negative orientation toward oneself; an overall evaluation of one's worth or value” and, for overachievers, depends on external conditions being met (i.e., what they are achieving) and how they then "rank" against the others in their society. Self-acceptance, which is a critical factor in genuine happiness and authenticity, is founded on other key self-constructs like self-compassion—a person’s ability to forgive them self for essentially being human and, thus, imperfect. Overachievers and aptly accomplished superstars are susceptible to being heavily dependent upon the opinions of others, their corresponding status and their perceived stature versus understanding, and primarily relying on, self-acceptance. In many cases, this feeling of unworthiness is what coaches like me consider to be fatal flaws for the overachiever. It’s that “something” about themselves they feel makes them “less than.” That which they feel if others knew in full, it would cause those others to disrespect or outright reject them. For overachievers, what become fatal flaws are often regular imperfections like weight, assets, health, children, relationships and even their home. Anything can be regarded as a flaw to be perfected, really, in what becomes a never-ending and sometimes futile battle. This persistent effort fosters stress, and the fallout can be similar to those with a penchant for perfectionism, though not quite as extreme. Ultimately, this tendency can cause "superstars" to make tradeoffs, preferring "safe" and “lucrative” jobs and titles over pursuing their true passions, resigning themselves to a life in “golden handcuffs” or one that’s “good enough.” It also causes them to settle for mere connection over true bonding, real friendship and even true love (like marrying the "right" person on paper versus the person you actually are in deep love with). Resolution here can be found when an overachiever consciously fights back against the urge and instinct to beat themselves up for not being exactly "done" or for other self-assessed shortcomings, and replace those notions with ideation promoting high self-esteem characteristics. According to reports, this can include “being open to criticism, acknowledging mistakes and being comfortable with giving and receiving compliments,” while also knowing what your values are and living life accordingly. Some or all of which may sound easy, but given these insecurities have forged a well-honed path in an overachiever’s mind over time, it’ll take deliberate and sustained effort to course-correct. But, once the mind starts to habitually recognize internal dialogue promoting low self-worth, combating it will become perfunctory. Truly happy superstars are steadfast with the practice of being kind to themselves; unequivocal in their belief that self-criticism is self-defeating.

Pray for a sh*tstorm!

If you didn’t buy all the above points yet and think (as many superstars do) “nah, I got this,” then brace yourself because a curve ball is bound to present and throw you off your game. But, this unimagined disruption can be a GOOD thing! So many overachievers spend most of their lives working to avoid the pain of uncertainty or problems, assuring themselves with zealous over-confidence that “it’s all going to work out” based on the current approach or way of thinking—and never mind that nagging dissatisfaction and angst. However, I’ve found that when superstars are at their most comfortable or when stress finally boils over, they not only find themselves immersed in a major “issue,” but often a major storm. When this happens, embrace it and open yourself to the series of new possibilities it presents. Yes, it will be uncomfortable and tremendously unsettling, but it can also present an exciting opportunity: the wake-up call to finally recognize where you are and what got you there, what weaknesses and threats have gotten the best of you, and work on thoughtfully-strategized resolutions that’ll make you emotionally stronger and your circumstances better than before. Given these advice-points are based on Eldad’s years of work and research on C-suite executives and entrepreneurs at the very top of their fields, this front-line perspective can be a prudent pivot point amid your own potentially falsely-fixated career trajectory. “There’s been a common starting point with every single C-level superstar, multi-millionaire and just general overachiever I’ve worked with,” Eldad notes. “They all think they know 'what to do' and 'where they want to be' in the world but get tripped up since these doings and places aren't necessarily what will bring them genuine fulfillment.” Statistics seem to confirm Eldad’s contention across departments, including entrepreneur mental health issues; divorce, suicide and anxiety rates; escalating workplace stress and dissatisfaction, anti-depressant use, narcissism disorder data in relation to anxiety and panic disorders ... the ominous list goes on. “It’s time to stop living life for achievements, money, accolades and the validation of other people,” Eldad urges. “It is my hope that those locked in patterns causing anxiety and misery–and a life devoid of meaning, purpose, self-love and happy relationships–seek and find a trusted way to question themselves and find out who they really are and what their authentic path is, leading to genuine answers and clarity. First, you must admit and even embrace the notion that ‘you don’t know what you don’t know,’ which is to say that you have a few things left to learn, and then actively aspire to attain that knowledge and wisdom. In doing so, you may actualize profound happiness—the truest measure of success.” Sources: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FatalFlaw https://hbr.org/2009/06/ten-fatal-flaws-that-derail-leaders https://socy.umd.edu/about-us/self-esteem-what-it https://positivepsychology.com/self-esteem/ Read the full article

#luxelist #achievement #brandambassador #happiness #leadership #merileekern #overachievement #overachiever #personalgrowth #productreviews #selfconfidence #success #superstarparadox #superstars #theluxelist #theluxelist.com

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mysticdragon3md3 · 7 years

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Randomly rambling my interpretation of Date Masamune’s characterization.

Last night I was browsing some old DateSana fan-art from Xiaotakara. (I'm still sad he left Tumblr! ;o;!) And his confident seme portrayal of Masamune was a stark contrast to the more vulnerable "switch" Masamune that I had been seeing in the fandom lately. I had always thought that this discrepancy was caused by the difference between Samurai Kings Masamune and Judge End/videogames Masamune, because frankly, that had been my experience. Despite there being so many portrayals of Masamune, besides the typical dominant seme, and I do enjoy him being secure in himself enough to be a "switch", I just can't fully accept the vulnerable/insecure Masamunes and dorky childish Masamunes. So my mind got to spinning on why that is.

I love Samurai Kings Masamune because he was just so flawlessly admirable. Even when he got his ass beaten, his spirit and dignity remained centered, particularly on prioritizing True Strengths, like Compassion, especially in his ideals about leadership, which is where it counted most. So when I tried to play the videogames or watch Judge End, I simultaneously fell out of love with Masamune and finally understood some of the silly dork portrayals of Masamune, from doujinshi cirlces (like Propeller Shiki), probably drawn with less basis on the 2009 Samurai Kings anime. -.- Gawd...such a dork... While Samurai Kings Masamune took losses, asking if anyone in his army were killed after he was knocked out, Judge End Masamune was throwing off his loyal soldiers and charging them into an unthinking death gamble, just to satisfy his raging temper tantrum. ~_~; When Katakura called him "Bontenmaru" and hit him before he got his own soldiers killed, I could only nod and agree that he should scold that child. At least Samurai Kings Masamune knew better than to displace his anger onto his loyal, worried soldiers, and would rather just berate his own failings in the rain, through endless sword swings. Maybe it's because the writing in Samurai Kings was heavily focused on reinforcing its themes through characterizations, I've always interpreted Samurai Kings Masamune as primarily motivated by Compassion, while the other versions of Masamune seemed more rooted in their "cool and wild" image, which fittingly have earned him that "snarky brat" reputation in the fandom. What is integral to any Masamune's character is being "cool", but with subtle differences in characterizing his core motivations, different Masamunes seem to express different types of "cool" from their foundation, up. Commonly, male anime characters are considered "cool" if they are minimalist in their emotional expression. But why they choose to be stoic and what they choose to be expressive about can vary differently, depending on if he's stoic because nothing phases him since he’s secure in him self and never disturbed, or because he’s unphasable since he’s indifferent to everything, or because he's just really repressed, or because he's afraid to express himself, or because he's trying too hard to be "cool", etc. This especially comes up in shipping fanfics, because romance stories usually have to address vulnerabilities in the characters (for couples to bond over). Everyone agrees that the trauma of Masamune losing his right eye, effected the foundations of his character. But everyone interprets this in different ways, which become more pronounced when writing Masamune in shipping fics.

The most logical thing, would be to hear that Masamune's mother Yoshihime pretty much abandoned him, after he lost his right eye, continually tried to undermine his claim to leadership, and tried to poison him, and then think that he has abandonment issues and anxiety about exposing himself to intimate connections again. In this way, Masamune's "coolness" is more a protective facade. Maybe in some ways, this can be more indicative of self-centeredness and seeking external validations (to counteract his mother’s dismissals), more than an already secure confidence. This may also be what sometimes leads to arrogant and childish portrayals of Masamune. His traumatic experience with his mother would cause him to be protective of his inner self, and to always carry a fear of nonacceptance by others. No matter how small he squashed that fear into, he would still carry fears extending from that trauma of his mother turning on him.

But I think Samurai Kings characterized Masamune differently. Instead of the trauma causing him to protect himself, Samurai Kings Masamune seems to have directed his protection outward. His mother abandoned him, so he wants to make sure no one else is ever made to feel that way again. Like Batman, or something. ^o^ He'll even give up things he personally loves (like duels with his newly found rival), if it will protect his "common" soldiers. He'll even build his battle strategies around protecting his armies, by going alone to spring traps himself. It's why entire episodes of that series are devoted to Masamune refusing to abandon even his "common" soldiers. (Though in that specific episode, Katakura knocked him out so he wouldn't preform the rescue; but Katakura did say rescuing the "common" soldiers was Masamune's will.) It's why the farm fields in Date territory are unharmed and actually still existing, even though most of history has proven that it's virtually impossible to keep war away from destroying your lands, especially farmland (unless it takes place on another continent). But Masamune did it on a small island archipelago country, in the middle of constant civil wars, with enemies from all sides. It's clear that protecting even the "common" people are a priority to him. It's why he opposed Toyotomi saying, "Under your rule, only soldiers would be able to live." Like Yukimura, Masamune recognizes that everyday people and a happy quality of life are worth protecting. War for the sake of war was not his goal. Like Keiji said, Masamune knows the difference between a Fight and a War. His goal was to protect people's ability to truly Live. Masamune knows that conquering the country isn't about leadership stroking one's ego, or dragging other people into resolving his personal issues via winning wars, or validating his over-confidence, or gaining all the wealth, or even using the power to conquer other lands. All that stuff Keiji keeps saying throughout the series about life being about finding happiness and living every day with simple pleasures and friendship? It wasn't just to contrast Toyotomi's obsession with obtaining "strength" (as misguided as his definition of "strength" was). It was the same truth expressed by the 3 primary heroes: Masamune, Yukimura, and Keiji. (All 3 of them were most prominent in the 2nd opening theme's sequence.) Protecting ordinary people's peaceful happiness was something Yukimura instinctually felt (but took a long time to understand how to express as a soldier). It was something Keiji lived and demonstrated through his simple vagabond lifestyle. It was something Masamune understood and prioritized protecting, by seeking leadership. And all 3 of those expressions of prioritizing peace and happiness, point to core motivations rooted in Compassion. Masamune was confident enough about his understanding of Compassion's significance, that he was using his Strength to take leadership of the country in order to ensure and extend that Compassion to the people under his leadership. It's why all his "common" soldiers loved him, why everyone was so loyal and considered Masamune so "charismatic". They could all sense that his every action was rooted in Compassion. Aside from his personal desires for excitement (through Fighting), Masamune's every action in Samurai Kings proved that he was motivated primarily by protective Compassion...as his response to his trauma.

Despite it being more likely and reasonable to learn the repercussions of Masamune's lost eye and characterize that as a trauma that is still his weak spot, the Masamune in Samurai Kings seemed to give every indication that he had gotten over it. Which is aligned with his function in that series to represent "always moving forward" and "pressing onward". Having demonstrated the definition of Strength "doing what is most difficult", Compassion, Masamune also demonstrates the morally inapplicable Strength of being unmoved by others' influences. Unlike Toyotomi who tried to convince himself to abandon all his previously held values, by killing Nene, in order to adopt Matsunaga's concepts of "strength" (which were really just Power in disguise), simply because Toyotomi was intimidated and afraid of being put in that mortal danger/fear again (and that mortal fear was somehow enough to convince Toyotomi that Matsunaga’s ideals were correct). Masamune on the other hand is often unmoved from his emotions and beliefs, regardless of the intimidation or Power involved. (Maybe that difficulty in being moved is why he's so intrigued by Yukimura's capacity to "set him ablaze".) Masamune barely flinched when Oda was about to gouge out his last remaining eye, and was even ready to continue fighting if that gouge happened. He wasn't phased when Katakura repeatedly attacked his right side during their duel, even though the person he trusted the most and who should know the most how traumatic the fallout of his lost eye was, was now the one attacking that very spot. In fact, the only time Masamune made a direct motion towards his lost eye, was when he woke up, after realizing he almost got his army killed. In effect, his weakest spot, was concern for his army. Not only that, but all his actions, without directly referring to his right eye, reinforced his characterization as someone unphasable, so secure in himself (which is why he was able to always be so nonchalant; confident vs arrogant), always moving forward, and wasn't bogged down by internal emotional conflict. His vulnerable aspects were no longer fears for himself but fears for the people he wanted to protect. Whatever emotional conflicts he could have had, were probably honed out of his Samurai Kings version in order to better contrast against Sanada Yukimura's characteristic floundering, striving, and Growing in the Samurai Kings series. Compared to Yukimura, Masamune was so focused on the future and already so decided on his priorities, that he never hesitated when presented with 2 "right"/valid choices, the way Yukimura would hesitate. His ideals being rooted in the future (responsibility over everyone in the country) and external (need to protect others), made his present self seem untouchable, unwavering, and just Strong. A “limitless dragon”, as Takanaga once described him. Masamune’s values, his true self, his heart, were all rooted in places/times beyond himself, so he was able to continue "pressing onward", no matter what damage he himself took. Masamune had already matured and felt wise, which was part of his trustworthiness. The Masamune in Samurai Kings seems to have decided on his priorities, so long ago that he never hesitates, because he already has a standard ideal to measure against anything he encounters. In contrast to Yukimura, Masamune had already completed all his Growth.

Foremost, that series used its characters to demonstrate different aspects of the story's overall themes, so there was no room for characters with conflicting, dual aspects. Masamune needed to perfectly represent the True Strength and leadership through the wisdom of Compassion, which that series advocated. That series was all about condemning warfare, while condoning Fighting Spirit and accepting that sometimes battle was a reluctant and hopefully temporary necessity. Only a perfectly wise, mature, and Compassionate protagonist could embody all those themes. Which explains why Samurai Kings made the slight shift in Sengoku Basara Masamune’s characterization, as well shifting the entire Sengoku Basara story to center around Date Masamune.

#rambling #stray ideas #please ignore my idiocy #characterization #headcanons #date masamune #story interpreation #sengoku basara samurai kings #character analysis

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