#couldve been an easy fix

[389]

the DJ community goin crazy over Grimes mishaps at Coachella

#couldve been an easy fix #oh well

[c3berus]

it wasn’t real. he never really cared for you. god, did it hurt to hear but it was the truth. your ‘boyfriend’ had been using you for months, you didn’t want to believe it. but one look into his ice dulled eyes and you knew he was serious. he had told you what his purpose was in your life, his ultimate goal. he was assigned to bait you in, catch you on a hook and reel you out. and that he did..

“your eyes..they can be so cruel” you croaked out, words sounding like they cut your tounge on the way out your mouth. you shook your head in silent denial. “so this was your plan the entire time ‘ey? infiltrate from the inside? a classic.”

“Its just business, thought you’d understand” he shrugged carelessly. you scoffed, betrayal settling deep within you.

you nodded, a bitter smile overtaking your face, a pained one. you hated to admit it but, you loved him. you are in love with him, but one of you weren’t going to walk away tonight, you knew it.

your thoughts were finalized with the sound of his gun being set on you. your eyes met his once again surprisingly, he had collected a few tears. “‘M sorry, i really, really am b-“

“i gave you everything i had..” you interrupted him, anger starting to seep through you. in one quick breath, you had your gun planted dead between his eyes. easy kill. “should’ve known it was to good to be tru- no, i shouldve acted on my suspicions sooner” confusion and shock painted johnny’s face. your pained smile became one of ease.

“what?..” he whispered.

“I figured your plan a good few months back, had some necks stepped on, some information spilled and soon i knew exactly who you were, well- work for” you spoke nodding your head to his not-very-well-hidden tags. he fixed his holding on his gun, finger resting on the trigger.

“you knew, and you still did nothing to prevent this? w-why..” ‘soap’ asked.

“because this was inevitable, either way, we’d be here” you laughed, gesturing around you two. Johnny grew tense.

“you’ve been lying to me for months” he barked at you. you wanted to croak out the loudest laugh you could manage. you have been lying? god, he’s pathetic.

“no…you dont get to feel betrayed, wasnt that your plan anyway? your pathetic, really” you muttered to him. seemingly growing sick of his own anger, he tightened his hold of his gun.

“you have to die, i have to kill you” he glared, tears brimming his waterline. you exhaled shakily, thinking about what you wanted to say next.

“do as you wish, but i know the truth about you johnny. the truth that you wont ever go and report to your forcemates” you spoke, putting your gun down and leaving yourself vulnerable.

“you know nothing, shut up”

but you do..

“but i do, i know that you couldve killed me way before all of this. i know that no matter how much you deny it, you are and will forever be in love with me. there some things you just cant deny even to yourself johnny.” he slowly started to shake his head no, trying to block your words out for his heart.

“shut up” he muttered.

“i know that once you finish the job youll go back to them— shut. up. — and youll pretend that your heart isnt heavy, that you — stop talking. —felt nothing, that this was just another day in the workplace” you laughed bitterly ignoring his words. “and i know, that your feelings were real at a point, because if i know anything about you johnny, its that you’re a lot of things, but an emotionless man?..you’re not that.”

“SHUT UP, STOP TALKING, IM GOING TO KILL YOU” he wailed, panicking, taking multiple steps towards you until his gun rested right in between your eyebrows.

“there it is.. you’re realizing that im right arent you, that at least one of us can be truthful? right?” you were gambling with a life you’d already been set to lose. time to take the final dice roll. “say it, say you never loved me..that everything you’ve ever told me was scripted”

silence..

“say it”

“i-“

BANG!

a gun sounded off, but it wasn’t johnny’s at all..blood shot out your mouth, coating johnny’s face. before he could fully comprehend what happened, a voice cut through his ringing ears.

“target kia” ghost spoke into his comms approaching him as your body fell. “lets go, the jobs done, good work keeping him distracted” ghost finished patting his shoulder before walking off.

as ghost rounded the corner, into another room johnny supposed, two tears fell. one not belonging to the same person. blinking away the tears that threatened to break him, soap hurriedly ripped your dog tags off. he quickly pulled them onto him self, before taking one last look at you, heart shattering.

a tear, a tear had treailed down your face. upon further inspection, he looked down at your discarded gun, it had been emptied. he realized two things, that you were never going to kill him at all, and that you were in fact right.

johnny’s heart was heavy. johnny felt everything. and today wasn’t a regular day in the workplace, he had lost the love of his life. and he would never forgive himself for it. finally managing to drag him self out of the room, away from you, he felt as if the whole world had gone silent. from that day on, johnny swore to keep living, not because of you, but for you..

because the truth was..

johnny wasn’t an emotionless man, but man who wanted another so desperately that he swore to himself that they would meet in another lifetime.

THEEEEEE END, did we like the angst? anyone want and alternative ending? - s.

#cod mwii #cod x reader #call of duty #ghost mw2 #big boy #i love you #141 headcanons #ghost cod #john price #john soap mactavish #soap cod #soap mw2 #soap x reader #soap call of duty #top male reader #angst #sad ending #tw death

[etoilesbienne]

out of curiosity, what are the common qEtoiles mischaracterizations, and the accurate characterizations you wished people used more? Sincerely, an English speaking fan who is re-learning French!

honestly i kind of consider it a mischaracterization when people like... make etoiles into this team leader who always knows what to do and move things forward. or like that he has a bad attitude to like... match his fighting skills. or like the dark knight brooding warrior. he says he is these things. these are lies. he lies about himself constantly. i wouldnt trust a good 2/3 of the things he says about himself to be true. you read him clearer through his actions than his statements.

in my opinion etoiles is more like. sturdy second in command. he's not there to lead, he's there to fill in the holes where they pop up. he's there as cover. he's quick witted in shortchange scenarios, but that is so not the same thing as a genuine strategist. in another expression, if someone is a leader, the leader is a doctor, etoiles's role is more like... the EMS team in an ambulance. He's not there to fix your problem, he's there to keep your problem covered until you can get someone else to fully fix it. but that doesn't mean his role is any less important when he's needed.

Etoiles is also, like, so very much a team player if he respects and trusts a person. And it is so easy to have his respect and trust. His trust starts at 100% for everyone. he's also so very very very good at reading people (gesture to the bbh clip where bbh moves his mouse slightly downward and etoiles calls him out on being depressed). He read Mousey as enjoying dungeons and pvp way more and wanting to hang out with her. He's also one of the only people who like continuously runs in the girlies group and makes all of them pvp with him and they all love it so he keeps coming back to pvp with them. Thats how he started his whole thing with Tina and pvping with her constantly. Reading other people also, he loves finding other pvpers so he attacks roier constantly now bc he knows roier can pvp.

What else OH Etoiles loves whining (and this is because Rayou loves whining) that dude will just complain constantly. You haven't seen an etoiles stream if youve never seen him whine. Can't say I'm not kind of endeared by it. With this too he loves over explaining things (RIP armor powerpoint wish you couldve been given...) because he wants to help everyone....

OH and he's very over exaggerated too in replying to people in a complaining way and a self deprecating way and also likes to try to push the envelope with people and he does all of that to try and get a laugh out of others. like he's well aware people find him going "Oh so you don't give a shit about me and want me to die ? you want etoiles to die ?" fucking hilarious and also loves complaining in the first place thats why he does that. if your etoiles isn't complaining and whining then it isn't etoiles. the self deprecating thing is... its interesting bc he does have full faith in his abilities but will never say it out loud unless its trying to reassure someone who is worried. pushing the envelope is so specific he won't do it too much and its like........... from what ive seen (correct me if im wrong) heavily directed at non francophones where if they laugh at something wack he's done he'll try to do it again to make them laugh more. shoutout to the time he made bbh laugh so much when he cursed he didn't get languaged by bbh so he kept cursing to try to make bbh do it again. the dudes a total people pleaser.

smaller thing ive talked about extensively already (u can prob find it in my q!etoiles tag if i remember i'll edit a link to the posts in here soon lol) etoiles hates losing he looooooves winning he's very intense about it lol. its cute!

on a final note even if you don't become deeply unwell about etoiles like i am i think this highlight clip video has like everything he's like condensed into like 11 minutes. You should watch it. It's a good starting point.

#qsmp #q!etoiles #asks #hope this helps. Ahehe

[kenlvry]

cheating prank

s : pranking kenny kyle craig and stan wasn't easy, but it also wasn't impossible.

kenny

youve been wearing different perfume for a week now to test kenny, a mans perfume. it was a harmless joke yk its what couples do (not really)

you just wanted to see if he noticed your change in perfume from your sweet scent to a heavy one

you honestly thought that kenny didnt notice but kenny notices, every time he hugs you he sniffs in your scent and recently its gone to feminine to masculine.

your suppose to be hanging out with kenny right now, checking yourself out and fixing your outfit in the mirror you remember to spray your perfume all over, a ring to your bell stops you in your track and you hid the perfume.

"kenny!! hii, you ready?" you said while greeting kenny, his face beamed and hugged you his head falls to your shoulder, face in the crook of your neck sniffing in your scent.

after smelling the familiar scent his smile turn into a frown and tightening his grip on your body "k..kenny" tapping his back violently.

he pulls back with a stern look on his face and walks past you going in your house and searching every inch of your house, you following behind urging him to stop

"ken what r you doing?? if ur looking for something just ask" he stops in your hallway and turn back, running his fingers through his hair

"where is he? its been a week,it seems like you love this man so much to the point you see him before going out with me," he approaches you towering over you. "please, i dont care how many men you want just dont leave me"

you couldn't hold it in and laughed loudly, it lasted about 10 seconds. "you think this is funny?" "IM.. HAHAHA IM JUST PRANKING YOU IDIOT" you continue to laugh while his face go dumb "WJAY, I LITERALLY JUST BEGGED YOU RO NOR LEAVE ME YOU KNOW HOW EMBARASISING THAT WAS??" you laugh even louder at this "WHY WPULD I CHEAT ON YOU STUPIS"

he sulked after that, took three days to get him to talk to you... never again will you prank him

kyle

coming home late wasn't a rare occurrence for you, i mean its not rare you go home past 12 but its 2 am and youve been coming home late for a week and a half now, kyle thought work had taken longer than its supposed to but after a call with a friend from where you work at saying work ended hours ago he goes fuming

hes sitting infront of the door arms cross on the chair he pulled from the dining room. contemplating whether to call you and confront you through call or wait for you

honestly you've been meeting up with your online friend and always forgets the time so really.. was it your fault??

keys clacking he stood up from his chair eyes focused on the door, "oh hi, thought you'd be asleep" you smiled , he opened his arms for his hug everytime you see him but you gave him a side hug and walked away. you had to hold in every urge to hug him tightly

he couldn't take it, if you lost feelings for him you couldve been honest. "y/n, are you even trying to hide it?" he says leaning on the countertop kitchen while you wash your hands

"kyle what?" "i mean if you lost feelings for me atleast tell me so i dont look dumb" he rolls his eyes "the house is yours for the night, have him over, kiss make out heck fuck if you want. im leaving"

you didn't know it'll take this far, your too shook to say anything and hes already putting on his jackets and shoes "wait kyle its-" "its what? a misunderstanding? its not what it looks like? fuck your excuses, i actually trusted you and thought you were at work, i was cooking waiting for you to come home so you could enjoy your meal after a long day at work but your coworker said work ended hours ago so what the hell? i cant even-" "its a prank."

he just stood there, frozen mouth wide open from what he was about to say "im sorry i didn't know i thought it was going to be harmless" you hug the stoned man

hugging you back he sniffles "shit don't scare me like that." your heart shattered when he sniffled fr, after that night you took him out to so many dates ur basically poor

craig

you usually never hide your phone from craig when someone texts you, infact you never did it once. you even let him type back to said person

but lately every time you get a message youd look at it secretly or get up from the couch just to check on it, everytime you put back your phone its facing down and you take it anywhere you sometimes laugh and giggle like a disney princess when you get a notification

now you had to make this believable, youd play your message ringtone and laugh while looking at your settings, texting your friend beforehand so when she replies it seems like someone texted you. to make it work you had to have some effort right?

craig seems like he dont give a fuck honestly but he is so curious he wants to know so bad he is such a busy body, he doesn't really suspect its a man he just thinks its really juicy gossip about his close friends so you try not to let him know

but after telling his friends thinking it was a funny thing hes shocked by the stories, some said that the last time their ex did it, it ended up being a man and they broke up. the other said the last time that happened their ex just randomly broke up with them just to find them taken the next day.

oh now his curiosity has grown from a hundred to a million. he gets it now, why you put your phone downwards or how you immediately grab your phone when his hands go to grab something near your phone.

that night you slept at his house, he's about to sleep, phone on the bedside table and ready to snooze, but you haddd to text your secret lover laughing oh so sweetly while typing back. tbh you were texting your bestfriend and she made to most funniest joke so...

"okay y/n ive had enough" he sits up and looks at you, your face puzzled. "dont play dumb bc i know damn well that you are texting your secret lover" you finally realised what hes talking about and you too sit up, holding back a smile.

"fuck y/n we've been together for 2 years, ive loved you all these 2 years but i guess you haven't. get out. i dont want some fucking cheater in my house" he gets up before you can say anything and rushes you downstairs and infront of the door, you tried explaining but he just wouldn't listen.

just as you're out on the porch you turned around "wait craig its a-" the door slams infront of you. damn. girl u messed up

craig sniffles walking up the stairs, two year relationship gone like that. ding a notification from his phone, he opens it and its you

"its a prank" hes dumbfounded and runs back to the door opening it to find you literally hugging yourself freezing with the cold weather, hugging you he sighs "fuck you"

you laugh "sorry craig"

after that he might have some trust issues but every notification you got you make sure he sees it first so he doesn't get paranoid.

Stan

now stan doesn't give a fuck honestly, he doesn't care who you hang out with what you do with them or what happens, he trusts you ALOT. meaning this prank had to be really believable.

you thought long and hard and finally got it, everytime stan comes over (which is every second) you are going to make a fuss whispering "hide" to make it seem like someone was at your house , genius right?? :)

stan notices quickly, at first all you do is make a lot of rustles, loud noises and eventually the Whispers

stan is immediately curious, you never hide your friends from him bc you know he doesn't care. ultimately his first instinct is to try and search the house but you insist on staying in the living room because your room is 'a mess' but who is buying that honestly?

his suspicions grew and he can't take it, he hears the whispers he hears the loud footsteps up the stairs and he hears you rushing around the house hiding stuff and hes devastated. he cant believe you'd cheat on him

hes had enough, he wouldve barged in to catch you in surprise but you have your house locked, the second you open your door he walks upstairs and you smile and almost laughed, you stopped him saying nothings up there and he shouldn't go in again, using the its a mess excuse but he doesn't care.

he immediately barges in your room and you pause, you walk in sitting on your bed legs cross and smiling

"hes under the bed is he?" "really y/n? cheating on me? you couldve told me you lost feelings, say something or atleast hint at it, fuck man." he turns around one hand on his waist the other rubbing his face. you felt bad and decided to call it off , walking up and turning him around you found him crying. you felt so bad

"stan omg its a prank im so sorry i love you" you hug him and he drops his head on your shoulder arms around you. "you love me right?" he mumbles and you hum "always" he looks up cupping your face and kisses you, his salty tears mixing in with the kiss. you kiss him back and literally curse yourself inside for hurting this man.

your trust in each other grew after a long talk and a whole week of spending every minute together. safe to says hes convinced you love him.

#south park #south park x y/n #kenny mccormick #south park x you #kenny mccormick x reader #kyle broflovski #kyle broflovski x reader #south park x reader #stan marsh #stan marsh x reader #sp stan marsh #south park stan marsh #south park stan #kyle brovlofski #south park kyle #sp craig tucker #craig tucker x reader #sp craig #craig tucker #south park craig

[finnitesimal]

Ordem Paranormal Quarantena fucking knocked it out of the park it was insane Im grappling with so much I'm so insanely tired

There was a funny bit I was thinking of around the whole second bit where I was going Carol you hallmark protagonist fuck

Because first of all her name. that was the main part it's on the same level as Noel and Nick and Holly but there were also certain aspects of her character that in my delirious mind reminded me of the hypocrisy and drama of the typical independent business lady in a christmas movie as well as the I-can-do-no-wrong mindset of a romantic fantasy shoujo romance protagonist

And I thought. Man. There was a very clear path this story couldve taken with these characters and setting if it were not roleplay.

(note: not talking about the ccs or the actual characters but the Tropes the characters fall into and Could've been in generic science fiction horror)

A plucky new scientist with dreams to make a difference in an evil monster-ridden world and prove her skills despite being underestimated and looked down on by her friends and colleagues, and her direct senior with whom she has a negative relationship with due to his demonstrated lack of practical skill but mysterious higher connections to the board and therefore is ranked higher while she falls behind. She has moments of butting heads with him before the disaster breaks out in the facility and she has to struggle to stay alive and hidden until she's rescued by that same suddenly impressive senior with whom there's multiple tight spaces to be stuck with and convenient makeovers and sudden cold they have to share body warmth for. It's overWhelmingly easy to guess the plot

The plot in which None of the gang are mentioned. Because in this hypothetical B-list horror romance, they don't exist as people, but plot devices and tropes

They're there to provide funny moments and emotional weight as well as conflict to the overdone plot.

You have Luis, tank, everyman strongman with a soft heart and unclear but dangerous living conditions (poor). Probably the backup boyfriend in case the thing with Mikael doesn't work out, ends up sacrificing his life to save her due to some completely preventable situation cause she was too stubborn to listen, and gets a future project (maybe even a baby) named after him.

You have Jeffrey, funnyman, scapegoat, coward with zero friends and terrible priorities, multiple jobs (poor). Kind of useless, constantly infuriating and taking up space and meddling with things he doesn't know Anything about when she could've made a solution if he'd handed it over and dies to the zombies for the crime of irritating our protag.

Diego, hippie allegory, lives out of his backpack he literally calls his home, his life (poor) and has herbs (weedhead) that she'd try to be Fixing and eventually succeed in 'reforming' and sending him back to school due to her natural disposition in helping those in need.

You have Lucie, finally another girl, unfortunately in both horror and tropey romance, we Hate any other woman besides our all-powerful and beloved protagonist, so she's the nerd archetype but not the cute, efficient way our protag is nerdy but in the weirdo unnecessarily jargon-filled and Unappealing (unattractive) way. She dies the same way in the movie.

Benito was Made to be hated. It's the sly evil smirk and sunglasses and a beanie with the unprofessional labcoat and talking about things he doesn't understand like he does and taking her accomplishments and mocking her life as a scientist fighting to save the world and how he always seems to be looking down at her and definitely wouldve been the one to hide an infection and endanger the group he's the character whose death you're Meant to starting cheering for when he's dragged kicking and screaming onto the rusty laden, jagged roof and played with and pounced on till his insides squeeze out of him like toothpaste

Mattias was there so our protagonist could have her badass "I'm not like you I won't take a life because you're a coward" speech before he turns and nearly gets the group

Emi and Anderson were there so we could have a real man-to-man fatherly conversation about what it means to protect the ones you love and to pass on the torch as 'Leader' before he succumbs to the virus and begs to die before he hurts his girl, and so they could have wholesome pseudo-parenthood with a confused but reasonable child who absolutely understands that they're doing the right thing because they're the good guys and calls Carol mom when she's in danger near the end

It could've been a zombie survival plot about two arguably well-off individuals facing the consequences of a project they still believe could change the world and their tag-along group of meatshields to throw at the problem until their glorious melancholy escape where they're hailed as heroes for containing and eventually completing their groundbreaking research

and a horrific experience for a group of people who just wanted to make an easy few bucks till the next paycheck. They could've split those 50 dolalrs and jumped each other in the parking lot they didn't need to go through all that

Carol is driven, she's serious, she's ambitious and believes in the good that her research (the team's research) will bring and she's surrounded by people who don't understand that they're the good guys and are trying to find fault in her So she's willing to make sacrifices so she's willing to take it upon herself to decide who the team needs more she doesn't care if she dies as long as the world knows she saved it she needs to hear anything and everything people say in case it's about her or something she might care about it she's got braided hair and easily breakable glasses

Mikael is keeping things to himself to preserve his level of control over the situation because who knows what these guys are really like and he Saved them by telling them everything they need to know and they repay him by chopping his arm off? they're ungrateful and unserious So he kept himself safe while they had numbers and clues on their side They Managed Didn't They? Aren't they alive right now? they don't understand how important it is that he lives no one understands how important it is that Nidere lives he's got stylish curly hair and a fitted turtleneck

They both have a need to be heroes in a sense, to matter in the grand scheme of things they need to be at the forefront they need to be the ones who saved Everyone. Everybody is Only Alive because of THEM.

It's just really fascinating to me how. A different perspective of things kind of switches their roles as protagonists and cannon fodder

#late night thoughts on it #ordem paranormal quarentena #qpq spoilers #jeffrey bacon is my final girl

[lightamp]

let's rate red hood costumes

if i forgot smth lo siento. just let me know, there are so many of these and i am one creature

this is just for fun btw. nothing serious here! <3

now these are all comic canon red hoods (except maybe two? we'll get to them). no alt universes. maybe one day.

now on to the costumes

Hush Jason. Maybe not technically Red Hood but like. c'mon. close enough

i'm giving the rating 6/10

I know the trench coat was probably more for mr. hush himself, but i enjoy it. i'm also a filthy pouch lover so they do get points. also in red! cute. the boots are also neat. the negatives are that ugly robin dress/tunic thing. kinda silly. still it was good for giving bruce a spook.

2. the classic. the og. red hood utrh version!

9/10, easy. the casual outfit paired with the sleek red helmet. *mwuah* wonderful! nothing bad to say. it's recognizable. comfortable. stylish. great job all around

3. titans tower. ah.

-10/10. i would give props for running around in the scalies BUT THE UGLY ASS YELLOW TIGHTS. disgusting. bare his legs to the world you cowards. i'm mad. this could get at least 7/10 for sheer moxy if it weren't for those hideous target brand pantyhose

4. brothers in blood.

he's literally just copying dick, but being unhinged as hell about it.

5.5/10. he looks good. who doesn't in nightwing's fit? though he is copying, he does get points for obsessive weirdness of it all.

bonus?

???/10 i don't know how i feel. i've never known how i feel about this.

5. final crisis

i think he had a helmet in this arc and it broke but dont quote me!!!! pay me to read final crisis again if you have an issue.

he spends most of his time in jeans + leather jacket + just the domino

this is probably the most boring but i give it a 10/10 my boring ass loves it. no dressups just a guy in a shitty little mask. clapping. bravo. there's something ~thematic~ bout it

6. final crisis pt 2

1/10 i hate the red robin suit i hate it i hate it. we finally got tim out of the damn thing even though it came at too high a cost (he's trapped in robin purgatory). it does look okay in wfa, but usually in dc reg comics it looks like ass.

regardless jason looks bad in it too. very sweet of murdery bruce to give it to him but ugh. at least could've given him some ears on that mask. then it couldve been bumped a point

7. batman

the first time jason decided to wear a muzzle. hm.

6/10. there's nothing wrong with it. it's just a bit generically 'what would gun batman look like'. the face part is my favorite, with the weird grater muzzle, pointy ears, and red glowing eyes. it's fun

8. batman&robin

i need to get my first thought out. the little symbol on his chest reminds me of homestuck. i can't really unsee it. i know like theres no connection. but it looks like it could belong on a homestuck human

anyway. 3.5/10. he was willing to try something totally new, so i'm giving points. i enjoy the white. is the red hood goofy af? yes. yes it is. iconic, though? sometimes the upper black part is drawn lower, i've noticed. it doesn't change much for me.

i like the thigh highs going on here. the red guns are sexy!. he looks bad but there are good things here!!!

there is this version, which ditches the thigh highs, gives back the classic helmet, removes the cape for a jacket, and adds belts.

6/10 i think it fixes a lot about the prev costume, though it's really just like they threw utrh's costume and his previous batman&robin costume in the blender lmfao

wow flashpoint. father todd is not a red hood, so we progress.

9. nu52

an update on the og look. i do like the contrasting brown jacket, the prominant thigh straps. sometimes his helmet is drawn suctioned to his face so -2 for any of that cause it's so weird

8/10 not a bad update to the classic.

10. red hood/arsenal

i dont remember when he changed into this actually. in my head it's rh/a but i could be wrong.

i see no one talking about this abomination. his new fit? yah. this one? no?

4/10 the bottom of this is fine. i HATE the jacket. sorry it's just. ugly. his arm bands are also clunky. the matching between arsenal and red hood is nice though. so it didnt get too low. roy pulls it off better :(

11. wingman

hm. i didnt read this. this makes me not want too akdsfhsl

0/10. ugly. looks like a villain in some scifi thing in the 90s. like power rangers. sentai villain looking ass. boring grey, ugly lines and shapes, the goofiest helmet on earth......

ig willis is burdened with this curse now

12. 3 jokers (dubiously canon. i dont consider it so but since dc left it in the air we add it)

he has a helmet for a bit. this one is interesting bc i could actually see it as a futhering of his costume had he lived. sans helmet ofc. it's hard bc i don't not like this, i just feel it doesnt fit his aesthetic in the present day. 5/10. if jason had lived and not become red hood id rank it higher but then we wouldnt be here, would we?

13. batman's gift

i debated putting this, but it's different enough from the nu52 vers

very fun. body armor all over. i like the red arm guards here unlike w/ the prev one that had these (less bulky ?). i like the leg stripes.

it doesn't really do much to change his look, but there are differences

7/10

14. task force z

it's like the above but more just body-armored. really all he's done is remove the jacket and get shoulder pads. 6/10. the negative point is for the lost jacket :(

bonus

7/10 i did say if he ditched the tights i'd rank it higher (twas all a dream through lmao)

15. current

controversial of me, but i think. i think it's fine.

now i do agree his little hoodie is.........well it's not that great. my least favorite part tbh.

the new brown pants nicely contrast, though i have seen this costume with grey pants too?

here we are. The red bandages are fun, i think if they were white i'd hate 'em but the red is interesting. i also like when bits of them are sticking out. idk. cute detail.

i like the muzzle mask as well. that with the hood has given us delightful in shadow!jason where only his eyes glow out. i also like when artists put his white hair tuft out. adorable. probably not what he's going for but that's what the creature no face look is for

really the hoodie is the one thing i'm ??? on. it looks silly in a bad way. there are ways to keep a red hood while giving a better jacket/vest. future state's was much nicer.

7.5/10

this wasn't in the ratings but i do prefer any weapon beyond the crowbar sigh. it starts showing up through a lot of them so i decided to just not do anything about the score.

#jason todd #red hood #dc

[kasumingo]

People who are like, get medicated, get therapy, get help, as if its the easiest most effective thing ever boggle the mind. Like i know they cannot know unless theyve been in the system for any length of time but theres so much to unpack here. Theres LAYERS

Theres the fact that everyone should be aware of by now, that its often expensive and inaccessible to many as well, but thats entry level shit. It goes deeper.

The fields of psychology and ESPECIALY psychiatry are steeped in stigma and dogma and straight up bad info. Everything is depression until proven otherwise. Gender stigma is very very real with autism and ad(h)d and so is actual genuine oppression that can come with those diagnoses and anything "more serious". God help you if youre diagnosed with or suspect cluster A or B personality disorders or ANY psychotic ones. I dont have firsthand experience but ive heard enough to know that often those with ASPD and schizoaffective/schizophrenic get treated as subhuman. Not to mention how severe antipsychotics are as medication, theres good reasons people often dont take theirs.

But even if youve got one of the "easy" disorders, guess what? "Success" is still not guaranteed. Figuring out medication and dosage can be a long and exhausting process, a lot of them have significant drawbacks and restrictions.

And cognitive behavioral therapy can also have negative effects! Especially if ur misdiagnosed! Or do it while youre still in survival mode! Or have alexythimia like myself! Its not an one size fits all cure.

People are so ready to condescend to the mentally ill and say stuff like "get therapy" as if its the holy grail of mental care without a trace of irony. People lapse treatment and lick their own wounds the best they can for so many reasons, A LOT OF THEM RELATING TO HOW SHIT AND INEFFECTIVE THERAPY CAN BE, and instead of that being the focus the talk about it is so often boiled down to them being lazy or incapable of taking care of themselves.

I know this couldve been its own post but honestly with you posting abt it i feel better giving this here directly. It got kind of ranty but just, people who use "get therapy" as the ultimate gotcha BOIL MY BLOOD.

People think that therapist, psychologists, psychiatrist and similar are these unquestioned authorities that always have your best interest in mind and have the answer for anything.

While the truth is that the psych field is filled with incompetent bigots either entering the field for the power trip or having an incredible biased and misguided point of view at best.

I don't personally have the experience with BPD or ASPD myself either, but it's not hard to imagine how they treat individuals they don't even consider people… that the majority of society don't consider ones either and doesn't care what happens to them.

AND YES GOD IT'S INFURIATING.

Especially since in many cases it doesn't come from genuine care, but as a dismissal and denial that many people ARE broken, weird, strange, peculiar, different but they do NOT need fixing, CAN'T be fixed and certainly don't owe strangers recovery.

Modern attitudes I'm seeing in online spaces are only setting mental health of the societies back years if not decades and leads to mental health of all involved unnecessarily dipping even further, only adding to what's happening in the world as a whole lately.

It's frustrating and I only can hope that my yelling in the void brings someone peace or makes rethinking the attitudes they've been carrying up until this point.

#stupidusernamepolicy #answer #thank you toni very based

[im-gonna-squeet]

I still dont know who you are, I only know that I'm still lonely chap 1

ao3 chap 2

The Technodrome changed Donnie, both physically and mentally, and to ease their families worries, they decide to ask their father (Baron Draxum) to mutate them a service dog, much the same way that he made them. Shenanigans ensue.

Ever since Donatello was torn out of The Technodrome, they've been different. They blink less, they move weird (as if their body is alien to them, as if they were used to being something much bigger). They used to have to be working constantly, disliking having nothing to do, wheras now they can just sit. for hours upon hours upon hours. Its like they know something. Like The Technodrome showed them things no mortal mind should ever see.

Of course this could all be chalked up to the mental and physical trauma they underwent that night, but Donnie's family knows better. They've seen how donnie responds to trauma, and this is different.

It affected them physically, too. Because The Technodrome's tentacles were attached to Donnies spinal chord, when they were ripped apart, it was damaged. And now Donnie's legs were... less reliable than before. They still worked, just not very well, and they struggled to support themself enough to stand, nevermind walk or do anything else they used to.

Of course, Donnie being Donnie, they just carried on as usual, using their tech arms instead of their legs, and building themself a very cool high tech (weaponised) wheelchair suited specifically for their needs.

But with their family and friends worrying so much about their well-being, they decided to do something to put their minds at ease; they were going to get a service dog!

But not just any service dog, they were getting one custom mutated by their father, Baron Draxum. Well, if they can get him to agree to it.

Thankfully, they had the wonderful Michaelangelo on their side, and who can say no to that face?

Today, Donnie was at Draxum's to finish work on the lab, which had been going on for almost a year at this point and they ere both very relieved that it was finally almost over. So when they were finished, Donnie decided to ask before they could overthink it and back out.

"Father?" they stopped long enough to know that he was listening, "I have a request," At this, Draxum tried to say something, but was quickly cut off, "And before i state my request, please remember that you tried to kill slash kidnap us multiple times and threw my twin off of a roof."

Donnie had never been good at reading people, but they couldve sworn they saw Draxum look guilty for a split second.

"I require a service dog. But I dont typically care for canines as they are far too needy and touchy and whiny and syliva-y. Therefore I am going to request you mutate one for my specific needs. Also just an FYI, Mikey also wants this and will be really really sad if you say no (two reallys)." They wheeled back and forth lightly, just to do something with their hands in the deafening silence that seemed to last simultaneously an eternity and no time at all.

"Alright."

"what?"

"I said alright, would tou like to start working on the design now, or schedule a better time?" Donnie blinked. This should not have been that easy.

"Um, yeah, now is– now's fine", Donnie confirmed, their monotonus voice and blank face hiding the words' stunning effect.

Draxum nodded and started to walk towards his newly fixed lab, expecting Don to follow. Which, after a split second, the shock wore off, and they did.

After working with Draxum for a while, Dee discovered that they could customise a lot more than they had previously thought.

Of course there was the obvious, like the base breed, and which senses to heighten, but they could also choose its colours and, to an extent, mystic abilities.

Their father assured them that it would come fully trained and ready for service. As much as they loathed to admit it, Donnie had long since given up on questioning mystics, so did not comment on this.

After a while of designing the dog, it started to feel more real, and Donnie progressively got more excited, which was incredibly unexpected, and they started to move more to het it out, wheeling in place and drumming their fingers on any available surface.

In a surprisingly short amount of time, Donnie had finished, and was to leave Draxum to work.

They had decided on a large husky base (purple obviously), with similar markings to Donnie, just lighter (and pinker) than her regular fur. She had A lot of eyes, solid bright green with regular dog-like pupils – though she had a third eyelid which aided in darkvision. With razor sharp teeth and claws to match Donnie's own. She can also change size at will, to fit in donnies pocket or carry them around.

Donnie placed their hands on their wheels, about to leave, as Draxun called them back once more. "Do you have a name in mind, or should I use a placeholder?"

Donnie took a second to reply, because it only takes a second for a dumb idea to latch onto their brain and refuse to let go. "Missile Launcher."

Their father took a second to process this. "Are you certian this is the name you would like to give it? You can wait."

But Donnie had decided, and would not be budging on this particular naming choice any time soon.

"Missile Launcher. That is her name, I will not be changing it.", donnie replied, giggling with anticipation, before quickly adding on, "Evil laugh."

The alchemist sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose before straightening up again, "Very well then, you can leave now, off you pop."

Donnie chuckled slightly at the wording, but quickly obliged. "Okay bye Dad! Thank you! I love you!" They quickly shouted back, mind too preoccupied with pure excitement and what to tell their siblings when they got home to process the words.

~~~~~

"Brethren." Donnie greets coolly as they enter the living room, "The reconstruction of father's lab is finished and also he agreed to make me a service dog. Probably because im the coolest, smartest, most favoriteist child, N.B.D." They announced, smoothly transferring themself onto their beanbag and pulling their phone out and waiting expectantly.

"OHMIGOSH DEE THIS IS HUGE!!!!", Mikey immediately jumped up and started jumping in place, and swaying side to side slightly.

"Right? I have named her Missile Launcher and she will be my colours and will be made to help me specifically. This is So Cool!" Donnie drops their phone and flaps their hands next to their chest.

"Dude this is incredible, and I am not usually one to encourage your rants, but... tell us everything" Leo settles behind his twin, wrapping his arms around their shoulders tightly and squeezing, proudly showing off his 'twin privileges' as he and Don had dubbed them years ago.

"Way to go Donna!" Raph held out a fist, which Donnie gleefully bumped.

"As much as i would adore to talk your metaphorical ears off right now, dearest siblings, I will wait for dinner as to not repeat myself." They explained with an uncharacteristic ammount of self restraint.

So the siblings sat and talked or in comfortable silence for a while until Mikey went to make dinner, insisting that he would do it himself when the others offered to help.

A little before dinner time, April burst through the entrance of the lair with her signature battle cry of "APRIL O'NEIL!!" and was only greeted by Raph, and she soon found out why when she heard Donnie's shout of "I swear to Pizza Supreme, Nardo if you touch my controller..."

Followed by Leo's "...boop." and a loud smacking sound not a second after. As soon as she walked into the living room and nade her presence known, however, the twins immediately ceased their petty slap fight to greet her and tell her how much they missed her. Donnie, of course, in a far less noticable way, though just as meaningful. "Hey guys! Mikey in the kitchen?" At that moment, they decided that they had left Mikey at peace long enough, and collectively decided to go and bother him.

"Ooh smells great!" April complimented the moment she was within Mikey's earshot.

"Hiya April! Thanks, Im almost done! Could you guys set the table for me please-and-thankyou!!"

And of course, they did as they were told, Leo on placemat duty, donnie grabbing the plates and bowls since they could reach easily, Raph getting silverware, and April sorting out drinks. Only it wasnt quite as functional as it should've been.

Though their dining room (modified kitchen island) was large enough to comfortably fit all of them, having to move around it was another thing. Donnie used their tech arms to lift themself above it, olacing the plates wherever Leo used his 'rad skillz' to throw the placemats, with Raph attempting to get around fast enough to keep up with the cutlery without knocking anything (or anyone) over. April had the easiest job, pouring drinks away from the chaos, and then, with her incredible wairessing skills she gained from working in a cafe one summer, carrying them all over at once and putting them in their correct positions.

Practically the moment they finished, Mikey announced that dinner was ready and Splinter came into the room. It took a while for everyone to get into their designated seats, and make sure food was portioned out correctly.

But when it was, they all ate, complimenting Mikey's incredible cookery the whole time. But Donnie had but one thing on their mind.

"'Pril, Papa," they got their attention, "You are aware that father and I finished work on his lab today, correct?" They nodded, "So he can finally start working on projects again. And as we discussed, i requested he mutate me a service dog. Well, surprisingly, he agreed, and will start work on her imminently." They didnt bother to hose the genuine grin that spread accross their face, displaying their large, pointy teeth in a strange show of happiness.

"Dee!" April reached across the small table and squeezed one of their hands in her own, nonverbally conveying her excitement for them, much in the same way Raph did. They squeezed back.

"Well done Purple, I am very proud of you." Hearing this not only from a parent-aged adult, but his dearest papa made Donnie's tail wag so hard it audibly hit Leo's thigh, and sent the entire family into a fit of laughter.

"So, you wanna tell us about her?" April prompted after the laughter died down.

"But of course, dear sister. As many of you know, I have decided to name her Missile Launcher – Missy for short – and she will be based on a large husky, with a dark violet coat and very similar markins to my own in a more magenta colour. She will have many bright green eyes with third eyelids to aid in dark vision. She will, of course, have very sharp teeth, and retractable claws. She can change size to aid in mobility slash balance, act as a weighted blanket or lap pad, and be carried around for easy transport. She will be fully trained because mystics and will act as a pet as well as a service animal. Any questions?"

It was pretty much unanimously agreed that Donnie had covered everything, so they began to pack up and clean.

"Well would you look at the time, I have to go pick up Shelldon & Jr. from Todd's! Guess I'll see you guys later!" Donnie exclaimed as they left the lair, much to the others' chagrin. But they really did have to!

chap 2

reblogs > likes

#rottmnt #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt oc #missile launcher hamato #disabled donatello #nonbinary donatello

[toy-capsule]

barbie movie rewrite because it was okay but i know how it couldve been better

ya so i've only watched the movie once and actively as i was watching it i was thinking of ways to rework the plot.. and i wrote none of it down after i saw it. but i like this website and i should post here more so here's my nonsense thoughts :)

so couple of main changes need to take place for this movie to work as a proper feminist movie in my opinion. making it perfect or overly nuanced isn't my idea of fixing it; I would much rather improve the fundamental message and conclusion so it isn't a specifically flawed intro to feminism because that is a really valuable thing for movie's in this climate to be.

change 1: alan deserved better!

one of the biggest philosophy's of feminism i believe in is intersectionality. alan is in a very interesting spot in the barbie world which i believe makes him uniquely suited for the movie's core conflict- an opportunity that the writers squandered (number one pathetic character apologist here). anyways, from what ive seen in the commentary and reactions this movie has, is that like weird barbie, alan is seen as a bit of a queer icon. but instead of his typical pre-movie interpretation of him just being a gay man, ive witnessed many also head canon them as non-binary as well (I'll stick to he/they pronouns for them here!) because of how much he chooses to associate with the barbies over the kens more often than not. i cannot believe that this wasn't explored more in the conclusion.

this leads me into my main argument for alan- instead of simply inspiring the resolution they should've been a much more important key player. how this might happen starts with the dance off in the third act. i think that pitting the kens against each other here was a pretty low blow narratively, it really establishes a pretty unfortunate theme for the ending which is just division between the two groups. (the barbie movie is really just misogyny but in reverse and doesn't attempt to fix any of the problems it acknowledges.) instead of infantilizing the kens -which was fine at the beginning of the movie for shits and giggles but became less funny and more frustrating as the movie went on- i think a much more productive start to the beach dance-off scene could've been alan trying to talk sense into the kens (like gloria does for the brainwashed barbies.) it would have needed to fail at this point for the sake of conflict but it would have brought in an easy applicable solution for our real life equivalent of misogyny into the narrative - men (and those apart of their sphere socially) talking to and checking their fellow peers when they are doing sexist shit

after the barbies take over the supreme court and do their thing we have a bit of tension to resolve still. even though gosling's stereotypical ken (sken) has discovered that he is kenough, that can't be said for the rest of the ken's. liu's ken #2 (real character name) should probably be the one to try to enforce the patriarchy just because of the preestablished tension. i think it would be a wonderful moment to see sken stand up to him properly here and really acknowledge alan's message here of respecting the other Barbie's as people and friends (shout out ace stereotypical barbie!) rather than objects. additionally they ask for respect in turn (equal representation on the supreme court because that ending was so foul wtf) also maybe some hand holding action because i am nothing if not a poly sken/alan/ken2 shipper- this is still a tumblr analysis what did you expect)

change 2: ruth shouldn't have been god, barbie should've

barbie becoming human at the end was weird and gross. who would actually want to be human? i'm sorry but if i lived as an inspirational concept to little girls around the world i think i would've taken that power a bit more seriously.

i'm so glad ruth was included in this movie and she should still play a key part in barbie's crisis and development. but.. instead of being god i think she should've acted more as a guiding spirit to barbie or a silly (possibly vengeful - literally just for fun i have no basis for this) ghost haunting mattel. after all, all of barbie's power comes from being an idea that can persevere throughout generations, and ruth is well... dead. i think instead of asking to become human when she got agency the conversation shouldve gone a bit more like this : ruth: what do you want barbie? barbie: honestly i don't know, is that normal? ruth: yes honey, (big dramatic monolouge about not rushing to find purpose.. etc) barbie: after everything that's happened i still dont feel like i belong ruth : that's okay too. you have all the time in the universe to decide what you want to be, youre in control of your own destiny barbie: the universe sounds nice actually, but there is one thing i need to do before i go *she fucking obliterates mattel's ceo and thats how she debuts as god*

not the best but better than her going to the fucking gyno as an ending

minor changes!

I think gloria and sasha should have gotten more development, making them mirror ruth and barbie wouldve been a nice touch. maybe an ending or after credits scene depicting the two of them having a similar conversation to the one i just described would have been silly. (also please take sasha more seriously that girl is right about everything and is listened to only a third of the time she actually gets lines. she could've been an excellent dead-pan comedic foil to the more absurdist jokes of the film, under utilized fave) big opportunity to make that conversation absolutely unhinged too:

gloria: you can be whatever you want in life kid sasha: *actively pinning up pictures of warner bros ceo david zaslav on a bulletin board with a big red x and looks directly into the camera* I know mom <3

mattel's depiction was barely passable. i have had enough of major companies being posed as villains but keeping them silly and unthreatening- its unfaithful and disrespectful to real life. start them off as silly and shitty, thats fine. it matches the tone of the movie- but as parallels between real life and the movie converge in the third act, mattel should start acting like the predatory company they actually are.

their investment in reinstating barbie as supreme leader over ken despite him making more money in the name of "feminism" would have never in a star death ever happen. literally the entire board only being men was a joke they really fucking made and still had them supporting women- it ruins the entire thesis of the movie and makes the message muddy. fix that, keep them forcefully trying to pair up barbie and ken but change it so its true life: nothing more than an effort to make more of a profit and bring patriarchy to barbieland. this would've brough the climax to an apex and match the stakes to my barbie god conclusion.

anyways yeah i loved the artistic direction of this movie and the casting but not much else! let me know if i missed anything and thx for reading

#barbie #barbenheimer #the barbie movie #greta gerwig #ryan gosling #margot robbie #will ferrell #simu liu #michael cera #ken #kenough #just ken #barbie and ken #barbie 2023 #barbie movie #movie commentary #barbie review #mattel #fuck mattel #feminism #feminist #nonbinary #alan barbie #not super expecting this to get traction because this movie ahs been out for two months but whatever

[eggthew]

talking about that one scene in the flash im pissed about

I don't want to explain the whole plot of the flash. and also I haven't finished it yet. but basically barry goes back in time and gets stuck there with his 18 year old self. yikes! a lot of things have changed and he has to work with his past self to fix it (I will be calling his past self PB from now on - for Past Barry). and also barry made sure to recreate the accident that gave him his powers with PB, so PB is newly super human. ALSO barry had lost his powers but in the scene im talking about has just regained them

almost every serious scene is quickly followed up with some sorta joke or gag, but I'm mad specifically at this one

the first part, where PB is altering the batman suit, and also when the two barrys are talking

like. PB is 18, freshman in college, has had an easy life and so far hasnt been taking being a super human seriously. understandable!! I dont blame him! He's been borrowing Barry's suit. and now that barry has his powers back and so needs his suit back, PB is designing himself a new one, and like. They really couldve made this into a more significant moment. The two barrys had not discussed this. This is PB stepping up and being proactive and taking it SERIOUSLY and all that, something he has not done yet.

Ugh I had many points in my head that were so clear but theyve all gotten muddy. about how they couldve done this scene better. whatever. this scene couldve been good but theyre so scared to take themselves seriously. keep in mind that PB just found out that the reason why barry travelled back in time was to try and save his (their) mum from dying and also that he just watch barry basically die

like idk. you can tell this was supposed to be more than PB wanting a new superhero suit and him saying "our colours" was meant to mean something but instead of showing that and how he wants barrys approval and Understands barry now, they gotta make it silly n goofy

#youre supposed to make me actually care about these characters. i should not have to be doing this much leg work #egg talks #Youtube

[samarecharm]

thank you for the long response! it was geniunely a very interesting read!! also i did not want to imply that you have to 100% like something or else drop it, that was not my intention (/_;)/~~ i just wanted to know what were the pros that outweighed the cons for you to continue the game!! i definitely have my own rant about the persona 5, as much as i love it.

i'm someone who has sunk hundreds of hours (i think about 400) into persona 5 royal, i have played the original as well and,,,,, i don't remember every bit of it as i got much more into royal, but your response definitely dug up some memories of my own gripes with the game as it was then. i bought strikers once i had a switch!! i was super excited to see ryuji and the rest of the gang again, but due to life stuff and me generally not being a fan of button smashers/combo games, i only got like 3 hours into it before i left it alone. also the lack of akechi was disheartening since after royal giving him more story i was wanting /still want more of him as royal, while not fully fixing his confidant, still improved majorly on his character in my opinion. but i trust your judgment, so do you have any tips to get back into strikers? it's really the gameplay that sticks out like a sore thumb to me, i'm not very dexterous with a controler and i get the hang of things quite slowly,,,, but again, thank you geniunely for responding so kindly and elaborating!! (*^ω^)

You are welcome 😊 I try to give the botd for questions like this, bc I have seen and received some very silly comments wrt to complaints of this game (and others people hold in high regard). Not that I am happy to see that you remembered some gripes w a game you liked, but it is easy to become a bit rosetinted about media you enjoy, and its good to go back and say ‘hey actually, theres some stuff i DO wish couldve been changed to make the experience better.’ At least u were polite about asking lmao

I think I am going to have the same problem I had before, so im going to preemptively put my strikers tips under the cut to stop it from bloating up dashboards 😭

I am aware that the warriors style gameplay is not for everyone; its very repetitive by its nature and it can be really bad on the hands if youre not used to it, so I unfortunately dont have a suggestion for making the combat portion of the game easier. But I am halfway through a ng+ of that game, so I at least have tips on how to make the combat less confusing, and how to spend less time on the actual combat itself.

Stick to one character and ignore literally anyone else in the beginning. I am so serious about this. The upgrades you get for ranking up teammates is used to enhance their combos, and that can be confusing in the beginning of the game. I had to fall back onto normal difficulty until i got the hang of everyones combos, so i suggest you do the same.

The ai for your teammates is surprisingly well done, and they will target enemy weaknesses and heal you before you NEED to be healed, which is always better than them simply forgetting to do so. They buff often, but they are a bit lax about debuffing without manual input (ann has Tarunda as a spell AND as a combo finisher, but she refuses to do either unless its targeting a tough enemy). You should prioritize builds that buff your entire team (so the competent team ai rips enemies to shreds) and debuffing enemies.

Combos are almost entirely optional if youre willing to jump in and out of Jails to replenish SP constantly. Spam spells, and switch teammates to spam their spells as well, then leave the Jail and return. Unlike the mainline games, leaving the metaverse does not pass time; only hitting important plot points like getting to the treasure and fighting the jailer counts towards progressing time, so you should abuse it as often as possible.

Due to [REDACTED] spoilers, you WILL need to at least master or understand three characters and their movesets. I obviously suggest Akira as one, but pick two more characters that work well with your playstyle. Ryuji was personally the easiest to understand; hes resistant to flinching, and his finishers are ‘hold X to kill everything around you’. Haru has a wide aoe for her combo finishers, letting her spin and shred through enemies or spam her grenade launcher infinitely. She has the added benefit of gaining more armor and reduced flinching during her hold finishers, so shes good for fighting bosses.

DONT fight those super hard burning enemies. They arent worth it 😭😭 you need to be at least 3-4 jails deep before u can even fight the one in shibuya jail 😭😭 theyre very easy to avoid, so just shimmy past them or ignore the area theyre in outright.

If you focus on understanding Akira, know that each persona has a unique set of finishers (yes, literally each one). If you are thinking of learning combos instead of just spamming spells, I suggest learning the pattern for executing his combos before focusing on what the finishers actually do. From there, you can test out finishers for each persona, and decide which ones are worth keeping based on that. I will say though, that the finishers kinda dont mean anything until you get to the end game, where high leveled personas will have spells like Concentrate or Debilitate as Finishers; but always know that a finisher spell is ALWAYS a spell that you can just as easily cast with SP. Dont make the game more stressful or complicated than you need it to be.

(As an addon, if you can understand Akiras moveset, then learning the other ones will be WAY easier since they are all virtually the same. The only thing you need to memorize is exactly what spell is used on their finishers; it took me forever to realize that Yusukes last finisher is…a combo enhancer…that makes his finishers last forever… and you would NOT know that unless u started learning his moveset since his ai never uses it)

If youre someone who wants to farm and level up to gain access to more personas, you should find the strong enemies around a map instead of constantly reclearing the entire jail. Unlike the mainline games, enemies do not respawn after leaving a floor; you gotta leave the jail and come back to make them respawn. If you are okay w the repetition, it is easier to memorize the spawns of strong enemies (not the minibosses that are burning) and beat them up for good exp and money, esp since all spawns are static. Silky in the Shibuya jail is the first one that comes to mind, since Ann is able to stunlock her w Agis, AND she spawns very close to one of the checkpoints (its before the underground section of shibuya but i cannot remember the name of it) making it easy to jump in and jump out to replenish SP, and continue farming.

And finally, despite what I just said, dont take the bosses of this game too seriously. They arent easy but they are absolutely doable without insane builds and optimization. Bosses have aids in the form of interactables of their respective weaknesses (Shibuya has party poppers with wind affinitiy thats eventually used on the boss to stun them.) Stock up on healing personas, Stock up on Items from Sophias shop, and target weaknesses whenever you can to force an allout attack as fast as possible. The combat can be overwhelming, but at the end of the day, the combat is really just ‘run around from attacks and spam spells or combos until the thing dies’. I hope that helps a little bit, and if push comes to shove, i will always recommend watching a playthrough instead of fighting through a game that feels like a slog to get through. Most of the story comes from the cutscenes and city interactions, so you arent missing much by watching someone beat up shadows for u lol and bc i genuinely LOVE the characters they introduce, its worth it to learn about them.

It sucks that Goro isnt in the game, but it was made prior to Royal iirc (the japanese release was the only one available for some time). I will say though, the themes of this game fit him so perfectly, and if youre of the mind to speculate and make aus, then you will be joining me in the obsession of making Goro interactions w the team. Palaces were about corrupted peoples desires distorting the world around them, and they were always someone so reprehensible, you were not intended to sympathize w them and even debate if what the thieves were doing was wrong. But Jails serve an entirely different purpose, and the end result is having Rulers with depth to them, and the overarching theme of ‘if you fuck up your life and others over the decisions you thought were correct, can you recover?’ And the answer is always ‘yes. No matter what, you can always start over if you intend to do better and be better’, and I think thats a good reason to see the entire story through :)

#chattin #p5s #its an essay im SORRY #but i like this game and i like giving reviews and advice for the games i like #i want people to enjoy it; but i do NOT want people to waste money yknow? #anyways this was nice. i like talking about all aspects of this game #i am so aware of how monotonous this game can be combatwise #and i try to emphasize that its fun for me BECAUSE of the grind; i played warframe and destiny for years; i am so used to it #and theres some things i picked up from playing these games so often that may not be easy to pick up for some players #thinking of my sister who is NOT used to those kinds of games and figuring out how to help her #like if anon was my sister instead how would i tell her how to make the game easier ? #i wish it had an accessibility feature to let u auto input combos but alas #devs and companies dont really think of those things #also EDIT. i looked up the release dates #and scramble (strikers) released in japan in feb 2020 while royal came out in mar 2020 #scramble released worldwide in 2021 which is a year before i actually bought it #insane its been in my library for TWO years before i played it #so dont let ur dreams be dreams anon; i also waited forever to play this game lol

[kitty-thinks-stuff]

MURDER DRONES RAMBLE ‼️spoilers for eps 1-5‼️

i have GOT to talk about this show bc i have soo many thoughts. a lot of this is gonna be rambling about my pet peeves and plot holes and what i wished happen though (keep in mind this is with the knowledge up to episode 5, i havent watched farther than that)

feel free to discuss these points with me!! id love to hear other perspectives on it!! (please dont give me spoilers past episode 5 though!!!)

ALSO! i am in no way saying this is a bad show. its amazing and i cant wait to see more, plus obviously its an indie show and its got a small budget and all that stuff

so far my biggest pet peeves are the fact that the show doesnt seem to take itself seriously enough, and the way uzi is written

the whole "not taking itself seriously" thing REALLY shows in episode 4. the whole time all this super crazy stuff is happening and the jokes just ruin it. take the moment where Rebecca is crawling back to the campfire, LITERALLY CUT IN HALF

this is a BIG moment, scary, suspenseful, all that jazz. and imagine how terrifying and traumatizing it would be to see your friend crawl back to you, NOT IN ONE PIECE

but the moment gets really ruined by the "forgot name. not popular" joke. it makes what couldve been a creepy horror moment into a lame, kind of awkward joke.

then you have the scene where uzi is chasing all the campers. HUGE, RIGHT? i mean shes become this mutated, bird like eldritch horror creature, and shes "lost control of herself", murdering the people she knows (obviously shes not super close with these people but. murder is big no matter what)

this should be TERRIFYING!! its huge dude, uzi is running rampant, murdering and eating robots, scaling the trees!!!

and it just gets. kind of smushed by the jokes.

i will admit, they did a *little* better with this scene. so props to that! but still. ouch.

now onto uzis character

she could be SO complex. i mean imagine living your life hating the murder drones, only to end up becoming friends with one, and then realizing ur actually really similar to them (needing to eat people blah blah), to finding out you have powers, you have to eat robots, all that stuff

and so much of her big character moments are small and shrugged off really quick.

take her powers for example. she learned to use them like. right after she found out she had them

i could get it maybe if they just alluded to maybe her learning? or at least made it to where it was a situation where she HAD to use her powers (a fight scene, maybe a scene where n was gonna get hurt?)

but it was all stuff she could do herself, like picking up papers and opening doors

so i think its safe to say we couldve kept a whole "idk how to use these brand new powers" thing going for an episode or two.

"but they needed her to use her powers so it triggered the over heating" i hear u and that makes sense. however, they couldve kept this!!

so she breaks the mirror, fixes the bug. fixing the bug couldve been an "experimental" moment with her powers (thanks reeses for that idea) instead of smth she just. knew how to do. all of this couldve triggered the over heat. dont forget, shes new to these powers! she might not have built up the "stamina" for it yet, so using it these couple of times might be too much for her

she has the moment with v, blah blah, leave the powers out until the arrow scene. then her powers trigger again! she was about to get hurt, it would make sense. then boom, overheat again (remember, considering shes brand new to these powers, this is a lot!)

she runs away, maybe opens the door with her powers (though its kinda unnecessary, i could kinda see it considering shes got all the adrenaline going)

then we have the murder scene, which ive already talked about

then afterwards, its all resolved REALLY quickly.

murdering people you know, even if you didnt like them/know them, is never easy on anybody. literally the whole reason she hated the murder drones was because they killed her people. and the whole reason she excepted them now, was because they decided to STOP killing people.

but its just kind of a whole "oh well!" situation and it! bothered me!!!

i mean, they couldve gone SOOO many routes with the murder scene.

maybe a scene where n comforts her and helps her through the trauma of killing someone? maybe where the people around her struggle to except her again bc shes changed?

my personal favorite is where n attempts to comfort her because shes killed someone, and she makes a comment along the lines of "im not like you!" (but yk. more hurtful and angsty and close to home for n)

this could further her isolation, which could build on how she might see this new version of herself

it could also open the doors for an uzi/doll interaction where doll tries to reach out and help uzi, making uzi conflicted on what side she should actually be on.

but, i digress

now lets get onto the smaller stuff that doesnt really matter (its really just personal peeves)

i wish we got more on the murder drones being excepted into the worker drone society. this kinda falls under "the show doesnt take itself seriously"

i mean, these drones killed their family and friends but, "oh yeah, they said they wont and now we love them!"

this couldve been really good development for v and n but they just move on so quickly. also they brushed past all those missing campers super quick

i wish we got to see more of lizzy and dolls relationship. why were they close? did lizzy feel conflicted about working with uzi and the others instead of doll? (idk maybe im biased cuz i think doll and lizzy should kiss but thats besides the point)

i think that might be everything!!! ill probably make a more positive post too bc I DID LIKE THIS SHOW!!! its soo silly and im really liking it

#this was very long SORRY LMAO #i lovveee analyzing things #kitty thinks #murder drones #md uzi #n murder drones #murder drones uzi

[mymagnificentself]

17.02.2024, saturday

today i am grateful

that i got leftover foods to eat

that i took apart my shitty pleather jacket for parts and to reverse engineer how its pockets were made

that i had some more bursts of productivity for like laundry and groceries

that i tacked on the zipper for my coat ive been meaning to fix

and got some more foods and was very brave by trying them out and eating the sandwiches that couldve been big yuck but were actually fine

that im probably not having a heart attack and instead maaaay be suffering from tension, hypochondria, anxiety and whatnot. easy mistake to make tho i fucking guess

that i still have friends and people who would help me out regardless and be there for me

also i guess the realisation that... i want to keep doing life things..

#today was a day #i mean mostly good but it really freaked me out towards the end

[unlimitedhorsepower]

been rotating t&b2 cour2 in my mind like a 5D object...

i wanted to write more comprehensive post to air some of my grievances, and of course finally releasing my exclusive statement on my special beast ryan goldsmith.

however when i started to write this i realized i have a shitton of thoughts and could rewrite the entire cour if i really thought about it, so i actually mention most characters in this self-indulgent essay of mine and you can just skim through if you were interested in my thoughts.

i talk a lot of yuri here even if i went into this thinking that ive already talked about him enough, because he fascinates me...

anyhow, here they are, my more comprehensive thoughts under the cut because theyre not spoiler free:

this is unbearably long: ive bolded some key sentences that build up to something if youd like to skim it instead of reading it. i also suggest you using Ctrl+F to find mentions of characters you care about because ive literally mentioned every single character in this in some way and it genuinely is incredibly long and convoluted.

i talk about some characters way more because i wrote those parts earlier and felt more full of energy. i also talk a lot about ryan. perhaps even more than he deserves! but he is my favourite character, youve been warned. i didnt even mean to make him seem so important because hes not, lmfao.

ill say, it can definitely be a bit confusing if its not being read it order but like, meh... i guess it was also more important for me to get my thoughts out so that i can have other thoughts again.

this entire thing got away from me and at many points devolved to me not only ragging on t&b2 but extensively discussing my alternatives which couldve imo built the entire thing into something more worthwhile...

ive added like three screencaps to make it a little more exciting to scroll through, and if i have energy left im gonna add more images to make it less like a huge wall of text, which it is. but right now i just wanna post it because i genuinely spent 10 hours straight writing this and then woke up today and spent another 10 hours writing it.

i think this is my therapy over yuris arc, because that genuinely made me sick. maybe im unreasonable and just pissed off about that specifically, but who knows. not me!

so, to begin... t&b2 cour2.

hmm.

i initially called it “good” and said i enjoyed it besides yuris arc, but that feeling was born from the sheer emotional turmoil yuris death gave me. in comparison, everything else in the cour was fine- great, even!

there can be missteps and flaws that diminish your enjoyment but that are easy enough to fix in your mind, and then theres a misstep of the sort of a character dying after the narrative spends a lot of time giving me what i can only describe as trauma porn.

i already wrote about that here, so ill skip some of the things related to yuri (i just cant get over it... i keep circling back to him throughout this document because hes such a central figure to what we got and what i thought we would get).

cour2 had such a solid basic understanding of characters, but there was just way too much going on at the same time and way too many loose plot threads. cour2 was like building a house of cards on top of a solid brick foundation and expecting it to hold water.

cour1 isnt perfect, but it was pretty good in introducing us to new concepts, new characters (three new heroes to our ensemble cast, one returning talent from the rising who needs less establishing, and the new villains, and more) and the new plot threads, but i also feel that misogyny unfortunately played a great role in who got arcs and what sort of arcs.

season1 isnt perfect either, of course, but one could imagine a sequel follows up tonally with its predecessor and also improves upon it, especially because this has been explicitly suggested by the creators (like improving on nathans portrayal, for example!).

cour2 majorly failed to follow up on the promises of cour1 and the overall promises of what t&b is like in tone and content. there were too many plot threads and too many characters. i wouldve entirely cut out aurora and large parts of yuris/lunatics “arc”. the latter i wouldve tied into LL audun and a greater plotline of mr.legend and heroism.

speaking of mr.legend, yuris hallucinations of him were excessive and felt extremely cheap. i know i said i wouldnt focus on yuri, but i feel like i have to... mr.legends force ghost saying anything will never amount to any healing or retributive action from the man himself, but i felt like i was supposed to feel it was “good” he knew those things.

i felt that the narrative was telling me that indeed, yuri had loved his father once, and he had positive qualities, but i already knew that. i also never doubted that both of his parents had once loved him- its just that those things dont take away from how poorly they treated yuri in the end.

im willing to extend some sympathy to yuris mother, but to mr.legend, never. in one of the mangas mr.legend in the past asks young maverick to wipe his memories of him ever having powers (even though the memories will return to him in due time since thats a major thing to change) so that he can be free of the guilt he feels.

even without that, i already knew that the real mr.legend most likely felt some sense of guilt over his actions, not just the mr.legend force ghost/yuris hallucination.

i know: i simply dont care! he may have been put into a shitty situation and suffered, but it was his choice to hurt others. it was him who used his status to fix fights and beat his wife and child. he was in a position of power, and he took advantage of it to make himself feel better.

side note, alcoholism keeps being equated to evil by it being explicitly referenced with mr.legend and gregory sunshine even if by itself its a taxing addiction and addicts are people who are suffering, not caricaturish evildoers. antonios drinking habits have been equally worrisome sometimes -if you look at his schedule in KOW the rising, he is very much using alcohol to drown his sorrows- and this briefly comes up in cour1.

in cour2, its played up for jokes: antonio took ivan drinking and ivan drank way too much and did funny things while he was drunk (more on this later). antonios just different actually, because hes fundamentally good.

it was shown to us that mr.legend was very active in the match fixing himself... i think it wouldve been more fitting to show child yuri spying on his fathers discussion with maverick trying to suggest it to test the waters of seeing how easy it would be to manipulate mr.legend into it, perhaps about to offer him coffee to signify hes about to change memories if he needs to, and mr.legend jumping on the offer instead of declining it and shattering yuris high opinion of his father.

maverick not being included just reminds me how yuri is somehow a secret child nobody knows about. we remain in the dark on how yuri ended up taking care of his own mother and what he did to attain the position of a judge.

we still dont know the details of who covered up mr.legends death and why and how. it wouldve only made sense it was maverick, but how the hell did he then not know that yuri must be the one with the powerful NEXT power?.. how did he in general not recognize yuri once he became a judge? was he not distrustful?

more importantly, why did he not try to manipulate yuri? wouldnt it have been a huge boon for him to find a vulnerable child who is mr.legends son no less, and to raise him into a tool like he eventually raised barnaby?

i could see that yuris mother olga (i think its officially translated as origa, but its definitely olga) actually protected him back then. after all, he was the only remaining family she had left, even if she too grew to resent yuri at some point for some reason (and somewhat understandable, given how she was portrayed in s1 accepting mr.legends treatment: she had submitted to her fate and become traumatized).

however, olga has calmed down from her potrayal of throwing plates at yuri in s1 and the change happened without explanation but an acknowledgment from the caregiver, and she is never given any depth as to why she could blame yuri so deeply and fervently in some of her more lucid (?) moments.

in cour2, she becomes just a vessel for inflicting more trauma on yuri, and its her only purpose: shes not her own character. shes a woman, specifically a mother, and thats all we need to know about her.

i know that my tinfoil hat theory of gregory sunshine being yuris biological father is implausible at this point after all that talk about hero blood in yuris veins, but it wouldve genuinely given olga much more depth to give her a reason (not a justification) on why shes been so aggressive towards yuri and blames him specifically, if yuri had been an illegitimate child or somesuch. but i wrote about that already in the linked post and its replies.

back to parental figures, i think laras mother zamira was a great character in cour1. shes not a morally good character, no, but i think her portrayal was strong? it was very clear to me that shes treating lara as an extension of herself instead of her own person. she controls her and her life, and she reprimands lara for having thoughts and feelings beyond her control.

it is her who has set lara on this path to heroism, and it is for her benefit. lara is a vessel for her to life through, and this could be easily contrasted with yuri and his burden about being mr.legends son.

however, in cour2 the entire premise is undermined when zamira is proven to “actually care” about lara. if i dont remember wrong, paolin even says that “she reminds her of her own mother”, which i was meant to understand in a positive way. this is presented in tandem with mr.legend(s ghost) somehow “really caring about yuri” in that odd scene they had together.

its also proven that zamira wasnt an unreliable narrator about her prior tennis partner pamela, because we see pamela easily blame NEXT for existing in the news as proof that she is cruel. i get the sense were supposed to think zamira was just sad and trying her best to raise lara and make sure nobody takes advantage of her like she was taken advantage of.

i frankly dont care! she had, undoubtedly, treated lara the way she treats her in cour1 for laras entire life: shes 14. it leaves a lasting mark she can never take back. “im sorry” doesnt even begin to fix it.

i wrote about yuri adopting lara here, so i wont delve into some very specific AU, but it wouldve felt much more reasonable and realistic for lara to be freed from her mother, not even necessarily in the way my pipeline dream describes, in a way that couldve emphasized yuri and his good qualities.

t&b has never been free of misogyny and other issues, but i feel like this cour really brought a lot of those issues to the surface instead of improving on them... instead of a nuanced portrayal of a fractured mother-daughter relationship, we were given something that just felt like underlining the fact that zamira is a mother, of course she cares about lara in more ways than for her own benefit.

zamira is a mother like olga, and thats what we “needed” to know about them in addition to knowing that they experienced trauma that just made them forget about their motherhood for a moment, but we learn that olga cared too, she even made those cookies. their mother-son relationship is similarly glossed over.

lara -like yuri- is done a great disservice in the process of redeeming abusive parents. shes a kid who killed a villain on accident in self-defense in cour1, and it felt significant. cour2 doesnt bring this up as a plot point in any way.

i was imagining her getting a much bigger arc that couldve overall easily tied into revealing mr.legend as a horrible parent instead of being its own distinctly separate arc.

speaking of mr.legend being exposed, it was ridiculous that yuri revealed mr.legends awfulness to kotetsu and barnaby and it fell fully flat due to kotetsus and barnabys reactions, or rather due to their lack of reactions, which was strange for them both.

its realistic enough to have yuri do something like that, even if it was sudden: it feels like he was under a lot of duress and clearly seeking help in any way he could, justifying it to himself in some “logical” reasoning for it because i dont think he would consciously realize he needs and wants someone to believe him.

before i get into that and how i think they shouldve reacted with far more compassion, i want to say that to me its clear that kotetsus career in heroism has led him to neglect kaede, especially in the past when kaede didnt know that her father was a hero. this is brought up a bit in cour1, and for example is prominent in the beginnings additional scene where kaede begs for her father to show up at the ice rink just this once.

the series shows their father-daughter relationship mostly from kotetsus side, so that we know hes trying his best and really wants to be involved in kaedes life but hes genuinely busy, but if you think about it from kaedes perspective, kotetsu hasnt always been a good father to her and kotetsus business doesnt take away from his failings.

misogyny plays a role in this portrayal, and that i cant blame kotetsu for as a fictional character, but the fact that some of his actions are played for jokes and the fact that he continues doing them bother me, like pretending hes doing yoga like kaede suggested and instead of actually doing it. i wish he was more honest with her, even about those little things!

narratively in the rising, again, kaede is forced to adopt a tomoe-like role in encouraging her own father to continue his hero work, which isnt cute to me at all. its extremely emotionally taxing to have to be more responsible than your own parent and give them advice.. in cour2 she is again protecting her father from the truth that his mother is bedridden (nothing, afaik, comes out of that by the way?).

why is kaede protecting kotetsu, and why does she feel the need to do that? shes a child! she should be able to depend on his father, not feel like she has to protect him just because hes a hero.

those things frustrate me about kotetsu and the narrative around him and kaede, because i think this moment especially couldve used to do something about this dynamic and parenting. however, every parenting-related thing in cour2 was atrocious.

kotetsu has flaws and i think he has done wrong despite trying his best (sometimes your best isnt enough!), but he isnt cruel and genuinely does care about kaede, and he cares about others even if theyre not his family (he is a busybody, after all). he is a single father and a widower whose late wife pushed him into hero work, and his old mother supports him greatly, as does his brother.

despite family being so important to kotetsu, he ends up not reacting much to yuris admission that mr.legend beat his wife and child. doesnt that seem like something he wouldve focused on? good-hearted as he is, wouldnt he have been utterly shocked to hear that someone who “saved” him couldve been so thoroughly rotten?

it shouldve shocked him more than match-fixing and clinging to the identity of a hero: imagining himself becoming a cruel parent (and a husband).

i think he shouldve admitted that his own hero career has caused him to neglect kaede, and that he didnt even properly realize until as of late how much it had affected her- that he has flaws too and cant claim to be special or that mr.legend was an outlier, and that he cant imagine how hard it mustve been for yuri to go through that.

it wouldve been far more compassionate of him, and he really has a lot of compassion for others! i refuse to watch that scene again right now so maybe i remember some part wrong, but still: in my opinion he was a dick to yuri, and very defensive about himself. he didnt try to console him, it felt like he wanted to set himself apart as a better person than mr.legend.

i dont understand why he didnt at least try to find yuri after hes stormed off and hes realized that he said stuff yuri probably didnt want to hear? thats a thing kotetsu does all the time: he meddles. he gets things wrong, sure, but he meddles, and pulls people aside to have a chat with them and to try to help (like he later on does with barnaby).

kotetsu believes in heroism and his ideals of heroes, and its also very personal and family-related to him, so for him to be more shocked by mr.legend clinging to his hero image than the abuse part explicitly was a weird narrative choice to inflict more pain on yuri. i dont think yuri felt understood at all.

i think kotetsu wouldve been able to discern the most important part of this: that mr.legend was a bad father and husband, and he shouldve extended compassion to yuri (even if yuri didnt ask for any). thats what he did with barnaby in s1 as well!

just like kotetsus nonreaction to what really mattered in what yuri told the two of them, barnaby didnt have much to say which made the entire scene feel more callous.

its a deliberate choice, and its as odd as kotetsus reaction.

barnaby saw his parents dead in front of his eyes and was taken in by maverick and regarded him as a parental figure he could depend on up until the moment it was explicitly revealed to him that maverick had killed his parents and used him like a tool.

i could understand kotetsu initially being defensive (hearing someone he was “saved” by being thoroughly awful is not easy!) if barnaby had chimed in and snapped kotetsu out of it, which wouldve also played into the idea that people need others to support them and also to “steer them on the right path” so that kotetsu manages to focus on the most important but also the most painful part even if it also hurts him to think about, including admitting to his own failures as a father.

i think barnaby shouldve immediately been sympathetic towards yuri, and it couldve also signified how far he has come from his first appearance in s1 where he explicitly had closed himself off from others, and perhaps even realized that yuri is acting like he once did and is deeply lonely.

his sudden admittance to being mr.legends son is an urgent cry for help!

canonically, the moment started and ended and neither kotetsu or barnaby cared enough to say anything nice or follow after him. i think it was out-of-character, and they were forced to act like that to make sure yuris downwards spiral would continue. it was cruel.

the plot often felt explicitly manufactured towards a certain endpoint instead of feeling natural and in-character, going so far the narrative took explicit steps to prevent certain things from happening.

the “prevention of things” was especially obvious with ryan.

this is going to be long because not only is he my favourite character, but ever since his introduction in the rising he has occupied a specific niche that couldve played into the theme of questioning who really is a hero and why, and what makes a hero.

because karina forms blue golden with ryan, i dont think i can discuss ryans lack of any real arc without bringing her up, especially because karina and ryan have both been positioned as being more of “main characters” than the rest of the supporting hero ensemble, which is why i especially expected more out of them.

karina has been central ever since the pilot of t&b, in which she is featured: she has a lot of connections to kotetsu including her childish crush, and out of all heroes, it is her who kaede calls when she wants to plan something, and ryan was introduced as a main character in the rising and embodies traits from both kotetsu and barnaby, including visually.

to begin with, ryans themes from the rising arent contradicted by cour1 setting him up as having very personal beef with gregory sunshine, the most prominent antagonist because the heroes never properly meet rosicky and LL audun is a last-minute addition (who wouldve deserved more screen time, more on him later).

in cour1, we come to know that gregory caused ryan collapse a building on himself and nobody helped him, his fellow heroes laughing at him before they leave him bleeding underneath rubble. in cour2, we see more of it and that he didnt only get buried underneath large amounts of rubble, but that he majorly injured (or worse) a large amount of civilians as well.

again, im not sure because im not going to rewatch, but i understood it was supposed to be the same instance as the one where his fellow heroes laugh at him, unless its just a nightmare he has that civilians were injured as well.

regardless, he was personally affected by gregory, and he wants gregory to not to run free, and its a fact that hes actually very emotional and acts impulsively under duress, like trying to leave sternbild the moment he thought karina was going to ditch him as a buddy (because he, like yuri, is actually lonely and wants people to understand him but gives up way too quickly).

he also breaks the door into gregorys apartment without a second thought (this is breaking&entering!), and later on we see him yelling and gesturing at blue goldens manager in a quick background scene about their new contracts.

however, his reaction to mattia allegedly ratting them out to gregory is “slightly miffed” at best, even if gregory was so close to being caught by him. it feels unbelievable to me, especially because i think his loud and genuine emotions are his strength but also his potential flaw.

i think he shouldve acted way more unreasonably emotional about it, instead of only bringing up how anyone can betray you at any time. to take a detour to karina for a bit, it was also ridiculous that karina had nothing significant to say to that.

she has difficulties speaking up sometimes, but karina shouldve been allowed to feel personally slighted by ryan after all the buddy hero arcs being about trusting each other.

it seems that she can only be given arcs that revolve around men and not, for example, her feelings about herself and being able to take pride in being a very hard-working hero, idol, and now a friend too, especially when the new manga shows her reoccurring troubles in trying to balance different aspects of her life like studying and being a hero.

it wouldve stung to hear ryan say that like he was brushing her off: did ryan learn nothing, and was he just saying all that stuff earlier to put her at ease instead of being genuine? it also ties into ryans issue of always being genuine but his eccentric personality making him seem fake/suspicious, like in the rising.

his personality felt utterly stagnant in cour2 with smug quips, however, and he was just positioned as “morally good” instead of the narrative allowing him to reasonably continue his arc and meaning for the narrative by going after gregory as a hero even when its against the law.

some of the themes of ryans character pair off with yuris and any arc he couldve been given with gregory wouldve been perfect to compliment an arc with yuri/lunatic, the truth about mr.legend, how LL audun couldve tied into that.

yuri is positioned as a vigilante, even a villain, but hes shown to save kotetsu on-screen, and he follows his code of justice very strictly. we know his reasons to act the way he does, and he is sympathetic. ryan, on the other hand, is positioned as a hero, but he can be kind of a prick and his idea of justice is remarkably lax in some ways. we can make a good guess why he acts like that, and like yuri, he is sympathetic.

they both are characters kotetsu and barnaby know well, and theyre both more severe than the titular protagonists. kotetsu has bent the rules on occasion to act according to his idea of heroism, but in my opinion ryan is set up as someone who would explicitly break rules for his idea of heroism (or lack thereof).

ryan is a good person and very much a hero, but he isnt the flawed but idealistic hero full of passion like wild tiger, or the humble and pure-hearted storybook hero like sky high, hes the egotistical heracles clad in the golden pelt of the slain nemean lion who knows just how good he is (and thats all he has going on for him, that ego of his).

its obvious that he can be a bit selfish: in the rising he uses his gravity dome to not only to save the building, but he traps all the other heroes in it, including pulling sky high from the air. from the movie commentary track ive gotten the idea that he did it on purpose since he can control the height of the dome he creates.

he also stretches out his dome later, so it begs the question if it was ever necessary to get any of the other heroes trapped in it to begin with.

he does save that building and the civilians within and causes no significant harm because he really is good at being a hero and hes not evil, but the narrative shows that he doesnt treat heroism like the heroes of sternbild do: he lacks the same sense of honorable justice our sternbild heroes have.

being a hero is first and foremost his career, which is why he brings up that “the money is good”, and because hes positioned as an experienced hero, he mustve started out as a child, given that he is younger than barnaby (even if in my opinion is not so much younger than he is).

the rising is strongly themed around justice day and the myth, and its also about him seeing the heroes of sternbild care about each other and their bonds with each other, instead of them all regarding each other as competition like hes used to people treating him, given how unbothered he is by figuring out barnaby didnt only distrust him but outright suspected him of being a villain.

due to seeing the bonds of the heroes of sternbild, he starts to “carry a heart of justice” as per the myth. barnaby suspected that he is a villain and the goddess of the story even if he ended up being more like the people cast aside by the goddess for their selfishness.

in the end he makes a choice: he can stay and keep the central bond between kotetsu and barnaby broken, or he can leave and mend the bond his hiring caused and bring the two of them back together as a duo. in the last shot, the winged lion of apollon media faces away from the camera like the way ryan leaves, while the justice tower smiles.

justice was enacted and she approves of it, and funnily ryan never thought that he could be a part of these bonds which is why he wholly leaves sternbild. in his KOW the rising schedule he meets up with a lot of people but theyre all just acquantaices, and he talks with his iguana. he moves around a lot, its in his title of the “wandering gravity prince”.

he lacks bonds like yuri lacks them, but by giving him a buddy partner in t&b2, he becomes more of a part of sternbild heroes, but its not just going to change who he has grown into overnight.

its intentional that ryan has wings on his hero suit like the ones the goddess is portrayed with, and the rest of his imagery plays into the this theming of the goddess/the sun while echoing kotetsus “tiger”.

lions are associated with the sun, even the zodiac sign leo is ruled by the sun. royals and gods have been linked to the sun in many places, so his old hero suit and title play into it. gold, similarly, echoes this sentiment.

in the opening, ryan “sun” is composed of the streets of the city and missing its center where the sponsor is displayed, but knowing the legend, its where the city was caved in, and it uses the same colours as the illustrated parts of the legend of justice day (in which the sun is displayed similarly, and yes, if you disagree on it looking like the sun, you could be right, perhaps that part is a coincidence.)

yuri is shown in the opening of the rising as well, his slide after ryans and his red moon the central piece of his background and juxtaposed with ryans hollow sun.

and i want to be clear, ryans background changes into a sky full of stars before yuris slide is displayed, which also makes sense for ryan because the heroes of sternbild are portrayed as stars more than once (and its funny for ryan to be the sun because the sun is just a star, its just closer to earth. hes not special, hes just loud about it).

its also significant to me that all heroes are portrayed with slides with a side-view of buildings in the background whenever applicable, even keith who can literally fly: it is ryan who has a momentary birds-eye view.

its the opposite of yuris, in which the lines around his red moon are buildings as if someone was looking upwards from the ground and also somewhat echoes the parts, including colour-wise, where the people are trapped in the cave by the goddess.

lunatic features prominently in the rising once yuri figures whats going on, and kotetsu gets to talk to him about how hes trying to save virgil/andrew from the burden of having killed and whatnot. the entire movie is themed around a holiday called justice day and showing mercy and who deserves mercy and why?

i genuinely thought that ryan being brought back indicates that tiger&bunny continues to question what being a hero really means, by giving the titular protagonists and the narrative someone to contrast with lunatic while ensuring kotetsu and barnaby can stay on the side of “good”/heroes for the sake of them being the main characters.

it wouldve been a purpose fulfilled for ryan to go against the law and becoming a vigilante because of how badly he wants to catch gregory: he has a huge personal reason to do so.

instead of the narrative following the logical conclusion of ryan going rogue due to how badly he wants to see gregory out of the streets, we get a scene specifically to explain why ryan cant follow through with the logical next step of his arc?

what a waste of everyones time, and i get the sense that the writers understand how strongly ryan feels about it (the foundation is there!) because it required both the company owner and manager to hang karinas fate over his head to ensure he doesnt just go on his merry way.

(i dont, by the way, understand that scene, and i cant bear to look at t&b2 scenes again... if you can explain it to me, then please do lol. like i specifically dont understand why ryan doing anything would cause harm to karinas privacy.)

not only wouldve it been meaningful for the entire narrative and ryan, this couldve so easily been used to give karina a satisfying arc that also shows that she is just as capable and deserving of an arc as the guy heroes of the cast, especially as the most prominent woman hero. now, instead, she ends up being a plot device to make ryan feel one way or another.

even if blue goldens buddy arc included ryan realizing that he doesnt need to protect karina, it was immediately undermined by “protecting karina” being his only reason to not go rogue to find gregory?

instead of letting ryan go rogue and giving karina agency in going after him by his own choice, we get that. what was the point?

one buddy pair explicitly going against the (unjust!) law couldve served to put lunatic in a different light and interrogate the hero system as a whole, and it wouldve make sense for it to be blue golden due to their proximity to the titular main characters.

realistically i imagine ryan would have enough respect for karina to tell her beforehand what hes about to do, but unaccustomed to working together with people, he would imply that hes going alone and karina puts her foot down about it: shes not going to stop him, but shes not letting him go alone, because shes going with him.

it is her decision, and it gives her agency and an active role.

they cant have a character essentially say “yeah misogyny and gender roles and that shit is kinda fucked up” and then follow it up with Absolutely Nothing and also give karina an another arc about her crush on a man.

karinas potential as a character is squandered time and time again. in s1 its incredibly easy to miss that shes almost always the 2nd on the hero leaderboard because more attention is paid to her funny moments like her “cutie escape” and general fanservice which is awful by the way, considering that for the most part of it she is a child.

its also realistic for the idol industry, and at times the show comes close to making some sort of commentary out of it but it never quite manages, in no small part because karina is never allowed to really shine.

either way, shelving the heroes couldve been more impactful for muddying the waters about the hero industry. the cartoonishly evil interference from the cops only serves to promote the view that the heroes are acting Morally Good because theyre being hindered by not the hero system and the law but the individually selfish police chief and ouroboros interference, and serves to imply lunatic is definitely Morally Bad for acting outside of the law.

it is eventually agnes who “gets everyone to break the law, together!”, and it undermines any reasonable narrative meaning for the entire thing and makes it feel like our heroes couldnt be heroes for a bit for the sake of a meaningless and boring shock twist included for some shock value because nothing really comes out of it.

having blue golden go rogue and the police going after them wouldve forced their hands into actually fighting against non-heroes and the law, not just being on the run while they try to find gregory. ryan and karina could cause significant infrastructure damage very easily to make sure the police dont catch up, and it wouldve been easy to summarise it as collapsed roads frozen over.

while i wouldve in this hypothetical scenario loved an extensive focus on this because ryan is my favourite, i think the whole “going rogue” part couldve been conveyed without taking up an absurd amount of screentime, and couldve easily been condensed for time by having the other heroes watching a news segment about it which wouldnt have felt an out-of-place gimmick given that heroTV exists as a central thing and the fact that this has happened more than once in t&b...

kotetsu and barnaby, and the rest of the heroes could be watching a live feed, and surprised to spot ryan and karina on the run because its unlike they wouldve announced thi. our hero ensemble, especially the protagonist pair, would know that theyre not evil and that they definitely havent turned against the people of sternbild, no matter that theyve now been labeled dangerous NEXT vigilantes.

they couldve been compared to lunatic, which is a very overt way to make the hero ensemble question lunatics status as a vigilante both loved, hated and feared by the general public.

it would be ridiculously easy to play up ryans “evilness” by including a reporter from that introductory press event in the rising where he just randomly used his power on all people in the room to introduce himself (why did he do that. hes so quirky and random.), and then another shot from the rising where he traps all heroes in the gravity dome and thats feels like proof enough? they couldve also recycled the animation.

the narrative couldve made a statement on positioning medias reaction to the beloved idol blue rose on the run as “ryans bad influence” instead of granting her agency, and maybe some of the heroes couldve thought that as well, leaving it to someone else (most likely kotetsu because he is our main character!) to remark that karinas not the type of person to let ryan talk her into this sort of thing and that she mustve instead agreed with him.

having ryan on the hunt for gregory feels natural, but it couldve also been meaningful for karina.

another established thing about gregory is that hes a fucking creep. and karina has dealt with creeps her entire life due to being objectified idol. in cour1, we see that guy trying to hug karina “just this once!”, and it wasnt made into as much of a big deal as it shouldve been because we focused on ryans feelings instead.

that wouldve been fine if it was brought up again, and its utterly wild to me that it feels like they perfectly paved the way for karina to have some sort of arc with gregory herself with ryan bringing up “hug the gregory”, but then the show entirely bailed on it? why the hug theme, then?

it couldve been plot-relevant for karina and the narrative to question what being a hero means for her when her career in heroism has notably led her achievements being belittled in favor of “cutie escape" -moments and even now the media thinks shes out here because of “ryans influence” and not her own choice.

frustrated karina affirming the media somehow that shes doing this for her sense of justice, not because of ryan when some civilian fan of hers tries to save her, the poor little girl, from this vigilante escapade: what wouldve yuri thought of that?

to give karina cool moments wouldve been more impactful and couldve been plot-relevant instead of the disjointed ~girlboss moments~ of rosicky telling gregory to stop being a creep which equated to so little when rosicky is also killed by gregory.

capturing gregory couldve meant something, not been a footnote, and by showing us that fight with blue golden and gregory, they couldve showed us what they half-heartedly tried to show with the quick LL audun fight scene, with karina being the one who ends up protecting ryan after he was knocked out first?

ryan doesnt even need to have his skull caved in like that, all they wouldve had to do is to give ryan a reason to use his power and not be able to let go by having to continue holding something down with his gravity, calling back to barnaby accidentally letting him get knocked unconscious because he wanted to save schneider, except karina actually saves him.

in the process of capturing/pursuing gregory, karina wouldve had a reason to give us some sort of opinion on what she thinks about creeps without it being shoehorned in and how she has to tolerate them because theres so many loopholes in the law but finally, gregory is the one she can fight back against and its because now other people agree that hes evil!

also i genuinely think ryan wouldve loved to not only capture him but to beat the shit out of gregory because he really is different than our heroes from sternbild (and i think he wouldve been justified to do so too, lol).

to exemplify the themes of bonds, karina couldve stopped him but remarked that she feels like gregory wouldve deserved it, and she couldve vocally acknowledged shes having doubts on whether lunatic is so wrong or not, because has anyone or the hero industry itself ever really protected karina from creeps? no!

lunatic is actually making some sort of point when he kills a guy who is a serial killer of women? a bit drastic but hey. it works. that guy cant kill anyone ever again.

it would mean so much for karina to acknowledge that there indeed is something wrong with the hero industry as it exists now and heroes and heroism isnt just “morally good” by default, which also begs the question whether vigilantes etc are ontologically evil by default.

and personally, i dont think ryan would disagree with her? he is well-traveled and has seen so much more than just sternbild: im sure he has met corrupt heroes and heroes who arent even nice or “good”. im sure some places have very fucked up hero systems?..

they couldve made both ryans and karinas arcs mean something by having them face off against gregory (ive been talking of capturing, but they wouldnt even had to been successful and instead gotten captured by the police themselves or been forced to retreat), and it feels so obvious to me?

both members of blue golden wouldve gained something out of it, the overall plotline wouldve gained something out of it, and the setup of the plot wouldve benefited?

the viewer would also know that gregory deserves anything coming for him regardless of the media/public opinion because he is a freak, and the heroes too could explicitly acknowledge that maybe theyve been too harsh on lunatic by not trying to understand him like how blue golden is now misrepresented by the media without any grace? is lunatic just a killer, or... he does keep talking about that justice, after all.

both ryan and karina have interacted plenty with our protagonist pair, so it wouldve served well to draw kotetsus and barnabys attention to it. continuing to question lunatics “evilness” feels so central!

some of the children already said in the cour1 in that that law class of yuris that they thought lunatic was really protecting them and kotetsu was there to hear it, and then nothing came out of that? are you fucking kidding me? he was just like nope, wrong! its evil, end of story.

its like they were given the perfect foundation to do something interesting and valuable, and they didnt end up do any of that just to punish yuri for daring to exist in the way they forced him to exist since t&b is who made yuri the person who he is... but anyways.

yuri is prominently featured in cour2 for all of the wrong reasons, but his prominence couldve been interesting instead: he couldve been standing there looking over the heroes reacting to two of their friends gone rogue and given a cryptic statement on how it seems theyre no different than lunatic in the eyes of the public now that theyre pursuing their own brand of justice...

and everyone couldve been like alright director petrov:)! but also genuinely considered this while yuri is just there, observing the discussion and wondering how their bonds with the two new vigilantes makes it harder for them to be so sure who is a villain to be stopped and who is not.

unrelated to things i think explicitly realistic or in line of t&bs spirit, if i could choose i wouldve also had ryan and lunatic interact.

i think it wouldve been in-character for lunatic to show up to question what ryans going to do with gregory once he finds the man, with ryan answering genuinely but flippantly while karina is bewildered ryan is just trying to have a casual conversation with an fire arrow dramatically pointed at him.

lunatic questions his end goal, like are you gonna kill that guy maybe, and ryans like i dunno, i didnt think that far. now that you mention it maybe i should lol? and karinas like im sorry what is wrong with you?

we couldve gotten the yuri petrov comedy hes hard to rope into by having ryan act like he usually does with lunatic? you try to be dramatic and brooding when some guy is arguing with his emotional support buddy hero girl? ryans only prior interaction with lunatic is in the rising and saying that he looks creepy: he didnt care about a vigilante showing up because he knew the mecha flying over sternbild was the thing he should stop.

its funny because ryans notable trait is “treating everyone equally”, i dont see why he wouldve acted differently with lunatic, and to imagine karina interacting with lunatic because he showed up and ryan isnt having a normal reaction to it by being concerned. but why would ryan be concerned?.. hes good at insight and im sure he knows lunatics justice is very serious to him, and ryan knows hes not a killer so why would he be concerned right now?

but yes, the barebones idea of using ryan especially as a vessel to force the hero ensemble to reconsider vigilantism and lunatic couldve in my opinion been done without the two of them ever interacting directly, because its about what they stand for in the narrative.

what we needed to see was kotetsu (and barnaby) forming some sort of opinion on this, since we mostly see the hero side through kotetsus eyes: he is the main character, after all. all the narrative had to do was let ryan to go do what he clearly wants to.

my description of this all is very elaborate and keeps the entire thing somehow separate from the other heroes, but i think the idea or something akin to my elaborate view couldve been conveyed in a fairly conservative amount of scenes, because the cour only has limited time!

theres also a huge potential for the other characters to join in on the vigilante shenanigans like what ended up happening in the end in canon with all of them “going rogue”, and ryan and karinas involvement couldve been greater than other heroes but still far more smaller once kotetsu and barnaby get their ball rolling over the matter...

t&b2 has a lot of characters, and i think they couldve made it work, but the scenes wouldve had to been carefully picked without wasting scenes on counteracting things they had already set up?..

i dont feel like i can answer the question of “what narrative purpose did it serve to make sure ryan doesnt try to capture gregory on his own?” without pivoting back to “it had to be like this so that yuri would suffer and die and our heroes would stay morally Good unlike lunatic!”.

like, i LOVE ryan, hes my favourite character! and many of the scenes he was in i couldve lived without, because they didnt really add anything of worth to the overall narrative or plotline save for reminding us that he exists.

the entire thing where blue golden separates from the other heroes to go try to find gregory in the jail itself was similarly needlessly drawn out and condensed all the same?..

i understand it as necessary somehow (for the current plotline) to introduce LL audun, but because ryan and karina dont really have anything to do with the guy, it feels wasteful.

the pacing felt awkward to me overall. i was actually bored in some of the first episodes of the cour! and after that, everything starts happening so fast: the LL audun situation is especially sped through.

in cour1, heroes got progressively taken out until only “the essentials” in completing the arc were left, which was a great idea for the sake of stretching the limited screentime available.

it also had real in-world impact, unlike blue golden getting up a while later even if gregory flaunted that “it was so easy for LL audun to kill heroes”. it served so little purpose and was a waste of everyones time for a cheap “shock” because since it happened off-screen, i easily guessed they wouldnt kill a character off like that.

in cour2, we start knocking out heroes very late to the episodes and its not even semi-permanent. it wouldve been way more sensible to have some of the cast get knocked out somewhat early to let the remaining heroes to shine! they couldve even made to go berserk by gregory, so that we couldve then knocked HIM out and then gotten most of the heroes back for a grand finale of sorts, probably facing off LL audun and accompanied by lunatic.

even in the canon scenario, subaru couldve charged in (his whole thing is that hes hot-headed and a bit stupid even if his heart is in the right place!) and thomas couldve shown up earlier, eliminating many scenes that had little worth and focused on efficiently introducing LL audun.

they couldve had that fight with him and thomas couldve swiftly explained key details about him for exposition and made it natural because we already knew hes a fan. i also think their arcs werent so bad i suppose, but them fighting together was the conclusion to the mr.thomas buddy arc, so getting knocked out for a few episodes because theyre still rookie heroes and a bit silly wouldve made sense...

especially when they already were in the last fight in cour1!

it wouldnt have been a disservice to their arcs and wouldve given others more time to shine, and it wouldve been interesting to have other heroes react that the rookie team is presumed dead? they wouldve been fighting even harder against LL audun!

which leads me to say that the one good thing about cour2 for me was LL auduns character, but his potential wasnt realized. he was so prominent as imagery in cour1, with the twins and thomas both idolizing him.

we also know that mr.legend was a corrupt hero and there probably were others? instead of auroras introduction (it was such a gimmick), and gregory getting so much screentime for being creepy, it wouldve been far more interesting to focus on the fact LL auduns time active in vigilantism overlapped with mr.legends time as a hero.

i keep coming back to this, but LL audun couldve been the perfect setup for mr.legends crimes becoming public? it wouldve added intrique to the viewer too by have mr.thomas presumed dead and LL audun fighting the remaining heroes.

that wouldve made it harder to believe mr.legend really sucked so much by the general public and many heroes! kotetsu and barnaby wouldve felt inclined to share some part of what they learned from yuri earlier?

i feel like this wouldve been such an interesting way to make kotetsu and barnaby realize even more things about mr.legend, the hero system itself, medias part in who gets to be a hero and whos not, and lunatic... in a deeper way than the canon, half-hearted attempt at sympathetizing we got, because i just think its not in-character to have them react like that!

in-show its mentioned that LL audun “started to think hes a true hero around his tenth year in prison” but it felt like pure ouroboros/maverick interference to me (even if the current narrative mightve meant it for real).

wouldnt it have made more sense that LL audun was actually a "true hero” fighting against the establishment of the hero system itself, not because he hates heroes, but because he had figured out it was already rotten to the core becasue of maverick?

his simple nature was refreshing (in the same way i really liked fugan and mugan because they were villains but also funny about it) and kept the scenes with him light-hearted, a quality ive always been fond of in tiger&bunny. i do like intense scenes, but i think tiger&bunny should also be a little bit funny and not hard to watch.

he couldve lost his grip on reality a little bit since he spent decades in solitary confinement and focused very hard on his idea of heroism, or maverick couldve even fucked with his thoughts and made him into a ticking time bomb of wanting to destroy so many random people if he ever got out?

how the hell did maverick, mr.legend and the heroes of that time, realistically defeat LL audun back then? its not explained (again i could misremember) and its not important to the canon as-is, but imagine if the canon had focused on idk, being nicer to yuri and on the angle of mr.legends crimes and what if maverick, with mr.legend in tow, had promised to destroy sternbild if LL audun doesnt let them have their way?

it wouldve been, i feel, very easy to let us catch on that maverick was manufacturing LL auduns crimes and spread them on the media for the benefit of mr.legend and heroTV, and that LL audun couldnt stop maverick because he had been honorable about it, like a “true hero”?

hundred power is extremely versatile since it heightens all senses and weve seen that it can even boost recovery, and he can activate it almost continuously: what was it that stopped him from cracking mr.legends skull like an egg once the man himself had fully lost his power, given the canon itself features mr.legend worried about having to face someone he cant realistically win against?

LL audun outright refusing to kill mr.legend and/or maverick feels like the logical conclusion to the question of why he could be defeated. it would also give kotetsu something to think about, to realize this on the screen as our main character!

mr.legend was the hero who saved kotetsu, and then he learns from yuri that mr.legend was actually an awful person, and then, as i suggest, he sees a buddy hero pair go rogue- and then they all have to go rogue?

and to bring all of that to a satisfying conclusion, he faces off against LL audun, with the man questioning gregorys claims about who the real villains are because theyve all protected each other.

some further exposition later he could learn that mr.legend wouldnt have been able to be so awful if LL audun had just killed him when he had the chance, and that maverick couldnt have manipulated barnaby and been evil overall if LL audun hadnt taken up my suggested deal from maverick to voluntarily get imprisoned to protect sternbild and had gone the lunatic route instead?

kotetsu has always been so against killing people, and i dont think hes wrong to think so (well yes i think he is wrong. i think its morally okay to kill evil people! albeit not without emotional consequences for the person taking up that burden like lunatic. but i think its important for kotetsu to disagree with killing) and he wouldnt have had to abandon that principle of his, but this troubling reveal couldve given the narrative way more depth?..

and when kotetsu talks of the goal in the rising being saving virgil/andrew from himself: couldnt he have recognized the emotional toll lunatics actions take on him, and the emotional toll LL audun has taken due to his inaction?

like a real bit of some gray morality that actually has a purpose!

thinking about it makes me want to break something- i feel like everything was so perfectly set up for something like this, and not even this scenario but the concept of sympathizing with yuri further and helping him heal!

it couldve happened without revealing that lunatic is yuri and letting yuri continue in his position as the director of the heroes after the season has concluded (i wouldve enjoyed this personally so that i can imagine him out there), because i feel that revealing mr.legends crimes wouldve changed yuris position so significantly, and for the better!

kotetsu, as the main chracter, wouldnt have had to reveal judge petrov is mr.legends son either, maybe just lunatic for example! imagine yuri seeing people condemn his father? that wouldve been incredibly cathartic? that people agree that whoever mr.legends family was, they mustve suffered, truly and deeply?

yuri couldve gotten a scene like what kotetsu got at the end of the rising, with heroTV broadcasting random people having various positive opinions on him instead as he stands somewhere, contemplating taking off his mask and killing himself for his sins and his justice and whatnot while kotetsu and barnaby arent able to calm him down?

we couldve had a dramatic scene like that, and one of the manga chapters features that scene where yuri revealed his face to the terminally ill woman who had wanted to know who the man behind the mask is: he couldve even revealed himself to kotetsu and barnaby at least since theyre the main characters and still retained his anonymity by using his fire to shield himself from heroTV.

and on the broadcasted heroTV screen people from across sternbild could thank him for what hes done: could yuri, at that point, deny himself the possibility of being forgiven in some way?

it couldve also given us the hilarious dynamic of kotetsu and barnaby at least (and just for me, as a treat, ideally most if not all heroes) knowing that yuri is lunatic but they have a pact to keep his secret.

lunatic half-bleeds to death before jumping off but he doesnt set himself on fire and we dont see him fully fall but it serves as a momentary death fakeout.

then theres an ending scene of judge petrov opening the door to the hero lounge to give a briefing (returning us to the start of the season with yuri briefing everyone about buddy heroes) and he looks incredibly beat up.

agnes asks what the hell happened to him and he says he “got caught by one of the rampaging NEXT” or something else not unbelievable but ridiculous with a straight face, and none of the heroes contradict him.

like, wouldnt it be on-brand for kotetsu to try to joke about it while barnaby tried to shush him and causing someone like keith to quip that he doesnt really get it, isnt it a secret? and agnes could just scoff because whatever are the heroes talking about now...

my dream scenario is everyone laughing about this with yuri who is also laughing a little in confusion because now he has those bonds he hasnt had before? ngl i dont care i just want to see him happy lmfao<3

anyways see how ive lost the plot of this opinions document? bible-length and ive rambled about various topics, jeez. i also said i wouldnt talk about yuri so much but he just feels like such a central character and i like it- i just wish theyd been gentle with him instead of whatever we got. and yes, im about to talk about yuri again...

its unfortunate that with such a big cast, again, only the titular protagonists are often given scenes to interact with plot-relevant matters personally and with any depth...

of course, kotetsu and barnaby should remain at the centre of it all since theyre the protagonists, but cour2 especially included us seeing tidbits from the perspective of so many random characters, it begs the question why add so many bits from characters when i think its pretty clear the fans are interested in tiger&bunny for the ensemble cast too and want to see more of them?..

sorry to fervent mario the announcer fans or something i suppose, but if cour2 had used its time more wisely, we couldve gotten great moments from various heroes in the same time we didnt get anything done?

wasnt a single writer aware that the fandom adores the titular protagonists but theres also large fandom pockets for the other hero characters AND yuri? didnt anyone think that s2 and its buddy hero premise couldve more effectively been used to give us more lore and funny moments also for the supporting cast?

this makes me, for example, think of the scenes where everyone is deliberating X rampages and gregory things.

youre telling me that weve got all of these characters in a room and youre capable of making them act in-character while interacting with each other, but you chose the most boring ways to do it in pursuit of some sort of unneeded seriousness?

those scenes by themselves couldve been majorly improved by playing into what ive seen as the strength of tiger&bunny, with the way every hero has a distinct personality easy to play up for light-hearted moments without making it unnatural or forced?..

for example, they could be trying to talk of something serious when ryan, kotetsu and subaru get into a nonsensical argument because theyre all so loud and kotetsu and ryan actually get along well, so they couldve argued on purpose to ease the mood, while subaru got really serious about the argument because hes 17 and goofy?

barnaby, karina and thomas are all collectively sighing because of course their buddy partners are acting like this, and this goes on while keith is trying to get a word out on something actually valuable he thought of but hes too polite to interrupt the conversation, so nathan has to raise her voice and be like “boys can we please calm down keith wants to say something<3 you have 30 seconds before i get mad!″

and kotetsu, ryan and subaru are forced to apologetically sit on the floor or something, just to let keith convey an actually good point he came up just now while listening to them argue. expositional scenes dont have to be boring and lifeless?

of course its sweet to have them work together, but giving them light-hearted moments wouldnt have diminished that. theres just so much potential with the cast we have, and while they had a great foundation, the real potential was never really reached.

the way they neglect the strength of their ensemble cast repeats with who interacts with lunatic/yuri. and i know- kotetsu and barnaby are our main characters here, but sometimes i feel like hes in protagonist jail, because there are so many great interactions to pursue with him that could actually add something to the narrative!

nathan was kind of accidentally framed by him in s1, but we dont really get any follow-up on that. and for me, one of yuris greatest moments is in the manga when he saves keith (civilian) from dying while keith is trying to save the two criminals from dying himself, and keith is never none the wiser about it.

but thats more of a self-indulgence than a realistic critique, i imagine. however, from this i can get to talking about the heroes i didnt yet mention, because i can see so many ways to tie the supporting cast into the narrative and not just include scenes for “fanservice”.

the peripheral material has done this and more, why not include some of it in the show?

this is all mostly just a lot of musing on how underutilized everyone was, and how a lot of it felt disjointed and a bit wasteful of the time they had to convey the entire story.

ill start with keith: it was disappointing how he only smiled through the entire cour2, especially when you think about LL audun, who pretty much shares his “simple” worldview on heroism. we didnt even see him fight LL audun at all if my memory serves me right.

he didnt have any reaction to when the heroes get shelved, and keith arguably has pretty much no other life than being a hero, but he never has any sort of thoughts about the matter.

closest we get is firesky reminiscensing on the moments they had respectively gotten their hero suits, and keith remains one of the heroes whose backstory we know absolutely nothing about. i actually thought keith would drop some backstory lore there, but he didnt.

i feel that cour1 did a fantastic job on telling us what sort of guy he is in the episode nathan complains about him to kotetsu and barnaby: he is insecure despite all of his fame and how “perfect” he is without trying by nature, and he still he tries to act even more perfect to make sure other people would like him.

cour2 didnt really give us anything? i was genuinely expecting keith to break down at some point and that he was trying really hard to act unbothered to not make anyone else lose heart, especially after kotetsu remarked in cour1 that its keith and nathan who are really doing most of the advising around here and not himself and barnaby, the real senior buddy hero pair.

it wouldve not only given us a continuation of things from cour1 and given keith some sort of arc for the 2nd cour, but it couldve given us a character-driven moment used to show us why its kotetsu who is the protagonist even if we all know keith is such a picture-perfect hero.

ive always thought that kotetsu is more approachable than keith on purpose: hes a very normal person with normal concerns that are easy for many to relate to, and that is his charm and his strength, and he doesnt particularly stand out or excel, hes in the hero business purely out of his conviction and doing his best.

wild tiger isnt the most popular hero, but he has dedicated fans, okay! hes goofy and easy-going and meddlesome, and hes trying to make the world better, whereas keith could never be the protagonist in the same way kotetsu is because hes just too good, like how nathan found his projected perfection unnerving.

to let kotetsu participate in reassuring keith (since hes the protagonist and a busybody!) besides nathan as his buddy partner couldve served as a plot point to strengthen the idea that kotetsus various flaws are a part of what makes him great, and it couldve been used in tandem to again, interrogate the narrative about what heroism is, who can be a hero, and so on and so forth.

and with regards to my earlier thoughts about LL audun, keith represents the same type of ideal LL audun at least thinks himself to be, and the sort of ideal LL audun couldve embodied if they let me write t&b2, lol.

there couldve been some sort of plot-relevant parallel there that lets kotetsu actually figure out that LL audun is genuinely thinking hes doing the right thing and gregory was taking advantage of him- something to let kotetsu take the initiative in making LL audun question whether he actually is fighting against villains or not, because LL audun randomly questioning it himself was a bit too convenient.

it couldve been a time for kotetsu to shine with what he does best, trying to talk his brand of sense into the people hes fighting against, like how he always has a lot to say when hes facing off lunatic, or how in season1 his entire plan for making people remember who he is includes him showing up in his old hero suit and talking to them.

isnt that part of kotetsus charm as a protagonist?.. and LL audun wouldve been perfect for a discussion, because his personality wouldve lended itself to a very campy “two heroes having a dramatic discussion during a fight”.

i suppose i also personally dont need or want kotetsu be really good at fighting with the most powerful NEXT power, because thats not what makes him a fun protagonist. him goofing off and slipping on a banana peel on his way to an arrest makes him fun, and him talking the socks off of his opponents is just part of his way of being a hero.

kotetsu is into the whole “superhero flair”: heroes need to have secret identities, and heroes need to be a bit campy with thematic outfits and have dramatic discussions while they fight, and thats the spirit of tiger&bunny, isnt it? isnt that what were here for?

i at least never watched tiger&bunny for a yuri petrov suffering arc, when tiger&bunny has had an uplifting message throughout even if it tackles more adult issues due to the adult protagonists?

either way, to return to keith, i just feel like hes overdue for having that sort of very human moment to his character, because his nuance has largely been confined to manga and peripheral materials... it wouldve been nice to see him get a big moment on-screen.

even in cour1, the episode with firesky is largely shown to us from nathans perspective. having keith break down wouldve also been a great way to show how serious the shelving of heroes is and making the situation feel tense because keith especially is always so happy.

it couldve been a tipping point of sorts, where everyone starts to lose heart whether theyll manage to figure out the X rampage issue or not, because despite the boring seriousness of those scenes, i at least never felt a real sense of urgency or huge concern about them not being able to be heroes?

keith confessing that he is having a very hard time with the circumstances and making everyone visibly falter wouldve actually left an impact, and couldve let kotetsu shine as a protagonist by him trying to pick up the pieces.

it couldve also have bit of a callback to that scene where in the beginning movie hes called everyone together and claimed that the heroes and barnaby want to meet each other and everyone gets upset and leaves, one by one, but i guess it couldve been more that everyone leaves buddy pair by buddy pair since the season makes a big deal of pairing them up with them buddy pairs whenever possible.

it wouldve made me sad but not in an utterly desperate way because i know that the heroes will pull through and save the day, it wouldve been a good sort of sad.

this couldve also given nathan more of a spot to shine, because shes keiths buddy hero partner! she wouldve been there for him, but i also dont want to suggest any sort of reduction of nathan to a mammy stereotype-adjacent spot where her main function in the narrative is to take care of others, but more on nathan later.

the scene where nathan offers to hire keith as a secretary especially perplexed me and was left in the forefront of my mind. it was funny and cute, but thinking of keith losing his hero status and not immediately looking into civilian ways to help like finding volunteer organizations to sign himself up for them is so unbelievable to me, sorry...

and because i think cour2 shouldve used their episodes and screentime wisely, any such things with keith couldve been, again, tied to the bigger themes of heroism and such, right on the nose in fact! i dont think its far-fetched to have a moment of hopelessness by having keith break down and then reveal later on that hes signed himself up to ten different volunteer organizations when prompted by kotetsu.

one remark and everyone figures keith is so sad too, but hes still trying so hard to help?

keith is in many ways the best of them, and even if he was so crestfallen and suffering, hes juggling ten volunteer jobs at once even as people have complicated feelings about NEXTs due to the X riots and whatever. hes trying so hard to get people to like him and hes troubled by having NEXT powers and possibly putting people in danger if he lost control somehow (like, is he bad by showing up as keith goodman without admitting first thing he has NEXT powers, and also maybe without admitting hes sky high, as if it was a crime).

it was actually so odd how none of the heroes were ever really concerned about losing control?.. especially the heroes with powers that have the capacity to be really destructive?

and to return to keith, in my opinion he wouldve also suffered with the very human desire to be a hero again: its a huge part of his identity and it occupies almost all of his time! i think he would feel guilty that even if hes helping still in his own way by volunteering, he would specifically want to be reinstated as a hero.

it would feel selfish to him, that he has such a private desire. hes also extremely introspective and he canonically spends a lot of time thinking. he couldve delivered a very neat and conscise but very human monologue on the topic and it wouldve given the other heroes a great character-driven moment to share a bit more about how they feel about the situation?

to have our hero ensemble shelved from hero work and dedicate no scene for them to talk about how they feel about it specifically is such a waste, when it couldve showcased their personas and furthered the plotline by having them remember why theyre heroes in the first place and/or why they want to continue being heroes, etc...

what bothered me with firesky was that they also felt oddly separate from the rest of the cast at times during cour2 and the trailer made their role seem far bigger than it ended up being.

they had a bunch of nice scenes together that very funny and showcased their personalities, but i was very disappointing how those scenes kind of failed to tie into the main plotline so that they were just... there. even though theyve been a part of the main cast since the start:/

they didnt even get a major fighting scene with a big bad because LL audun knocked them out off-screen.

nathan suffers from many of the things keith suffered... she also didnt really have any significant role and well, it wasnt too bad i suppose, it was just oddly disjointed.

the heroes met up at helios energy, i think, but they couldve done so much more with nathans position as the CEO of helios energy.

it has always been a footnote in the show, even if the new manga shows us that nathan is aware of various changes in the hero system before anyone else by getting to participate in the discussions about those changes as her own boss! which is also weird ethically, but i guess its not taken so seriously.

it could have been easy to make nathan more prominent because of her CEO status. what if wed gotten to see the mayor talk to a wider board of people that included the owners of the hero companies etc and nathan was allowed to be there, hearing the talk about shelving heroes and being like wow! that certainly is a suggestion, but!..

this couldve also been used to emphasize that as his buddy partner nathan knows how important keiths job is to him? she couldve even alluded to how some heroes have really dedicated their entire lives to hero work and this is no joking matter!

instead of us getting scenes of the mayor and the assistant or somesuch, we couldve literally had a character there and given her a moment to shine while keeping it plot-relevant?.. she couldve given kotetsu and barnaby some insider knowledge on how to talk with the mayor, too?

i think her being a CEO and a hero is interesting because i dont think “CEO” is a very heroic civilian job, but i dont know if id want the series to ever delve into it overmuch because i dont know how it would be respectful to nathan who has suffered from being reduced to a homophobic/transmisogynistic stereotype before...

not like nathan is the only rich hero either, its just very different to gain income from only from hero work versus being a CEO. the peripheral material sometimes comments something about it like a gag strip making nathan say she wishes the heroes wouldnt go on a strike due to her being one of the shareholders.

what this does remind me of is that i dont think t&b2 really had any significant commentary on how money makes things go around? in s1, it felt kind of prominent. kotetsus old hero company literally went bankrupt and antonio suffers from his unpopularity driving down his sponsors profits.

its why the heroes have to also keep up appearances- its not enough to just be a hero, you have to work to be popular as well. in s1 kotetsu & barnaby cant go to a crime scene because theyre doing an interview and other popularity stuff so their hero alerts were cancelled for the duration.

we get the whole “ouroboros controls everything, actually!..” and a vague allusion to affecting The Economy, but thats it?

anyway, disregarding all of that, i feel like they couldve used nathans CEO status for something. what if she had put her career and status on the line to use her connections and money to reacquire the hero suits of those whose companies had really put them under lock and key...

i also think back to momentarily developing some sort of mega optimism brain rot and thinking that karina couldve had some sort of gay crush plotline with the girl who was trying to pretend shes rampaging and how incredibly sweet it wouldve if the noted LGBT icon of our lineup, nathan, gender-haver extraordinaire, had been able to support karina with that... like yeah ryan wouldve been there for her but... hes ryan. lol

overall, i thought the buddy pairs were fun, but man, i want to see the hero ensemble interact with everyone and not just one assigned "important” character per hero. it also made a lot of scenes a bit disjointed with how buddy pairs were a bit separated, in my opinion... it worked better when it was just kotetsu and barnaby, because theyre the main characters! of course theyll have more plotlines than the others.

one thing i already found a bit strange at the start of cour1 is that nathan didnt talk with antonio almost at all, and we know the new director is a huge antonio fan (which is actually funny to me, and you can see the antonio love shining through).

but.... in prior content nathan has also been regularly paired up with antonio, and i dont mean in a shipping sense (even if that has happened as well but it has only really been to make gags on nathan being creepy because of her poor portrayal before), just that theyve specifically been portrayed as friends before.

so it feels like nathan got sidelined purposefully while making antonio have that entire thing about agnes seep from mainly peripheral content into the main show... (i have a huge brain and am a gay antonio truther, btw.)

it left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth that someone who has some say over the happenings in the show (?) and loves antonio hasnt acknowledged their friendship in any way... and nathans portrayal prior has been unfortunate, so it wouldve meant something to see nathan get to be friends with antonio with the gross sterotypes removed?

its not enough to say things have changed and you want to improve on nathans portrayal: i want to fucking see it!

while their dynamic is funny, the above has made me worry that nathan and keith were paired as a buddy pair because the writers didnt have anything better to do with them and keith is “naive enough” to hang out with nathan without them having to address anything about nathan properly, and cour2 really didnt ease my fear about it.

like one thing nathan has done explicitly in various material is to behave in a specifically “boy crazy” way which i as a lesbian dont really care about, but i think it wouldve meant something to let nathan act in that way without making it weirdly creepy and uncomfortable, and instead let nathan be a whole person of her own.

i am a serial friendzoner of everyone except characters who havent interacted in canon (lmfao) but the purposes of respectfully portraying nathan and proving that the horrible stereotuping is over, i think there couldve been real narrative worth in her being canonically romantically interested in keith and have that relationship develop, to show that nathan is so much more than those creepy stereotypical actions forced on her characterization before.

it wouldnt have to be keith in the case they didnt want to introduce any romance between the hero ensemble, but any romance plotline for nathan couldve been used to show they really did want to improve on nathans portrayal like nathan would deserve.

it couldve easily been used for a scene in which nathan properly brings up their identity because sure, its been discussed some more in peripheral material and the rising improves on what she was given before, but still retains multiple harmful elements... and it just makes me mad to imply youre going to improve on stuff like this and then not do anything with nathan.

as far as i know, her civilian outfit in the rising seems to be inspired by a japanese comedians gag character called “hard gay”, whose ensemble includes a leather bodysuit, and hard gay isnt exactly a respectful portrayal.

i also love to read tiger&bunny opinions online through google translate, from people who would understand nathans identity/possible tropes better than i do by the virtue of being LGBT+ and japanese.

one of the things ive seen raised is that nathans declaration of self-love in the rising is more compassionate than their prior portrayal, but that it unfortunately is somewhat of a trope in itself given the wording of it, which i think further explains how i think nathan wouldve deserved a bigger role?

theres also the recurring issue of misogyny, because nathan specifically says (dirctly copied from netflix translation): “they say a man is made of courage, and a woman is made of love. so what does that mean for people that are gay? we are invincible!”

men being courageous and women being loving is a cliche, which they included as a narrative choice and is not nathans fault... and t&b2 really didnt improve on the baked-in misogyny, which ive already talked about...

and ill be honest, i dont know how nathan romance shenanigans couldve tied into the main plotline lmfao, but they couldve called back to s1 and keith asking the girls for romantic advice, except now it wouldve been keith with the younger girls in tow trying to advise nathan, which wouldve been funny.

it wouldnt even had to have been a fuck you to people who like firesky romantically, because nathans plans couldve fallen through (by for example having the guy have been an antagonistic force in some way, perhaps interested in getting close to a hero after theyve been shelved just for the gossip, like an evil reporter, to make a point about media) and they couldve included a buddy hero scene afterwards where nathan remarks how keith would not do that.

because its true, keith would not do that, and it wouldve given people something fun to elaborate on?..

instead of remarkable improvements for nathans character besides the passive “no more creepy things”, we also get that scene at the end of the skyfire episode where subarus quip comes across as somehow homophobic to me, and i genuinely dont know what im supposed to feel about it. if youre wiser, then please enlighten me.

at this point i realized that talking about each character individually might kill me, because i have so many opinions, and maybe i should focus on buddy hero pairs a little better since thats how they were given to us in s2.

i also probably have more opinions on keith and nathan than the rest because keith is one of my favourite characters and i do really like nathan too, im just frequently haunted by the narratives past crimes against nathan and the currently occurring crimes as well, lol.

talking of subaru, his buddy partner thomas, and his sister ruby, why didnt they do something with thomas and the fact that nathan has been mentioned to have a little sister she cares a lot about? that couldve tied into the plotline?

i was very surprised ruby had no particular role and felt very separate from the rest of the narrative, and how nobody except subaru seemed to notice thomas wasnt present?

subaru begrudgingly (because hes 17 and wants to be independent) asking nathan or the firesky duo for advice because kotetsu saw he was acting weird and pulled him aside to talk about it and directed him to nathan on the subject matter couldve been a fun addition.

it couldve again showed that kotetsus strength is more than just some imaginary scenario where hes the smartest and strongest with all of the answers, because its not true. kotetsu couldve put himself down about it like oh bunny, i couldnt do anything, see! its those two giving advice again!

but barnaby wouldve correctly assessed that its only because of kotetsu subaru is doing this, and without kotetsu meddling, nathan or keith wouldnt have noticed to help subaru either.

mr. thomas overall had an alright arc. ruby was introduced, but much wasnt done with her. i sincerely thought she wouldve been adopted by ouroboros after everything that happened in cour1 and the mentions of orphans.

this drives me up the wall, because yet again, they had an obvious route to question heroism and villainy, and who is a victim of their circumstances and what acts exactly are evil.

kotetsu and barnaby wouldve had a lot of sympathy for ruby just because of their own backstories and personalities, and nobody else wouldve been unsympathetic either?

ruby is reduced to “little sister who loves and supports thomas”, and thats all: she barely has any real agency, even if it was her who sought thomas out. her personality is “gentle and understanding”. she continues the theme of being a woman in the show being reduced to narrative vessels to make the guys of the show do or feel something...

i also talked about them a bit earlier, so i dont have much else to say.

but one huge unresolved plot thread is their entire company? why did they even introduce the owner and manager of jungle when they werent relevant? and why did they seemingly sabotage subaru in cour1 by having his PDA not go off when heroes were called?

i thought it was significant? i thought jungle was sabotaging him?.. nothing came out of that?!

origami rock kinda won... they had a lot of good scenes. antonio was clearly beloved by the narrative. ive also spent two days writing this post so im kinda sick of writing it and this is one of the last parts im bothering to comment about so itll be kinda short, but...

like i mentioned earlier, alcoholism was kind of painted as something evil people do and antonios drinking problem was kind of bypassed entirely, when i feel like its a major thing for him? in the KOW the rising schedule, he really goes hard in on drowning his sadness and loneliness in alcohol.

it was also made into a joke moreso, with antonio and ivan apparently having gone drinking together?.. i feel like a more healthy direction for antonio wouldve been them focusing on things ivan wants to do... like, ivan went out drinking? seriously?

i guess that does feel like a major step for him in the sense that hes less shy and far less mortified by knowing he did silly thinks while drunk which is good for him to be less self-conscious... but its also like... i dont know, just weird me out that antonio would introduce ivan to that part of his life, which i felt was just his loneliness coping mechanism.

last but not least, kid cat... they really got the short end of the stick. they even lived in a dorm together and nothing ever really came out of that? it felt like a waste. i already talked about them a little bit.

paolin didnt really get a separate arc but she did really shine in cour1 at least, and maybe its just me but the whole situation around laras mom and kid cat being shoved into it soured their entire thing for me, especially the part of paolin comparing laras mom to her own mom, again... oof. that shit hurted.

i disliked that paolin was pushed into somehow vaguely motherly/caretaker-esque role with lara with her even looking up those damn parenting books and her fun energetic and somewhat goofy personality wasnt so well preserved. i wish a girl character was allowed to be goofy while still having serious and cool moments: they could do this with subaru but not paolin.

i already talked about karina earlier, but again, even if its actually incharacter and natural for karina to be be “the responsible one” in her dynamic with ryan which i do enjoy, i cant help but notice the narrative forcing all girl characters into that sort of role... i would include nathan (haver of gender) in this, because i feel like being goofy on the occasion is very central to her as well, but hmm.

its not even that i dislike karinas and nathans dynamic with their buddy hero partners, its just unfortunate that all girlies had to do similar things, because i cant ignore it... t&b2 really goofed with that.

it disappoints me personally that even if i dont understand how it wouldve made any sense wrt the narrative, i wish paolin had allowed to show her gender non-comformity somehow?.. i probably had my hopes up after hearing about them essentially saying they want to add a bit of representation into t&b2.

but i suppose that mainly meant ruby mentioning she has two dads and the girl with an ex-girlfriend.

all of the girlies got sidelined, which ive already talked about...

i feel like karina got the most major arc which does make sense because shes more of a main character than the rest, but it was also taken a little bit too seriously in my opinion, i wish the characters clearly treated it as karina being a teen who has a crush on some old guy because teens do that.

it was also kind of like a waste for me... i didnt need so many scenes about it personally. shouldve made karina do things for herself.

i have to admit that for a moment i genuinely thought that karina talking to that fake rampaging girl about her unrequited love for an ex-gf was going to awaken some feelings in karina, lmfao.

another thing about mr.legend i didnt manage to fit anywhere is that we still dont know his name? hes just mr.legend, even yuri doesnt say his name. it makes sense, but narratively, this ensures that mr.legend remains the stuff of myths. it feels like this is what they wanted, but it sucks!

to give him a name behind the hero gimmick wouldve brought him down from his status to that of a normal human. ive always been certain that petrov is yuris mothers maiden name as well, so dropping mr.legends name wouldnt have immediately implicated “yuri petrov” of anything.

nobody even knows he had a family! it feels like maverick scrubbed all of that clean, just in case.

as for mattia, i think his character has worth but is used wastefully: not only is he the one to develop the drug that drives much of the plotline, he gives us more insight to the worldbuilding of t&b and normal peoples opinions on NEXT powers. he doesnt hate the NEXT, but if he could choose, he would have NEXT powers himself.

this sets him apart from other similar characters like ben or saito, who are both normal people at the periphery of the heroes without NEXT powers who have been portrayed heroically in the past, since he explicitly wishes he could attain a sliver of the heroism he sees barnaby have, and he thinks he needs a NEXT power to be able to do so.

this couldve been, yet again, used to reinforce the theme that heroism is so much more than just having a powerful NEXT power. mattia couldve also been used more intelligently, and while connecting him to barnaby is nice to give him a new friend, some of his functions couldve been covered by kotetsu or some other members of the hero ensemble.

it couldve worked better if, for example, the hero ensemble had more strongly reacted to suspecting mattia to have ratted them out. i already said that i think ryan wouldve been more than annoyed about it, but the moment couldve been used to showcase various characters and their reactions to it!

i think the moment couldve been drawn out instead of being immediately resolved, maybe even included something about how mattia needs to prove himself to not to be a spy for ouroboros, not because i think its reasonable, but it couldve meant something to have our heroes be utterly wrong about someone!

i come back to this again and again, but it couldve been used as a point that the heroes arent necessarily right just because theyre heroes, and that mattia couldve worked with saito and proven himself to act more “heroically” (alongside saito!) than how the heroes treated him.

and, unfortunately, the narrative itself undermines mattia because of auroras existence.

she introduces a huge plot hole for me. mattia has worked hard to try to develop a NEXT drug, and has actually gotten results, its just that he hasnt gotten the specific result he wanted: why doesnt he just mail that drugs composition to aurora and have her complete it, since her unclear NEXT power seems to have no limits and gives her a vast intellect without even trying?

in fact, when theres any sort of problem, why dont we ask aurora about it? if shes so important, why havent we ever heard of her before? her inclusion didnt feel natural at all.

i really hated aurora, because her character felt so cheap and gimmicky in every possible way. sure, she was foreshadowed in cour1, but since she obviously didnt exist in s1, it felt incredibly stupid that there conveniently is one single person ouroboros has to assassinate to ruin all relations between people who have NEXT powers and those who dont...

her power makes no sense: if shes so fucking smart and has been Thinking of ways to better the world for literally decades, then why capitalism all over the world?

i do think its realistic to expect she cant force the world to become an utopia, but the way shes introduced and dealt with doesnt really give me a well-nuanced view of her. she looks to the side and saves some lizard species form extinction with an idea.

i think her character couldve been interesting if they had used the whole season to set her up and i guess made the themes of the season somehow align with her and “not being able to fix the world alone no matter how smart you are etc” and included her as the brain and LL audun as the brawns and how neither of them could ever fix the world alone according to their opinions, and only in their bonds can our heroes find the most of their strengths, including connections with other people like how kotetsu could chat with a child in s1 to ease him down from his rampage at the ice rink etc.

buuuut i feel like that couldve been the plotline for some other season altogether. now that we know LL audun, he could get him back later and see how hes doing, etc... in the case he was given more nuance or something and not just sent back to jail, i mean.

theres also the moment where aurora opened her eyes and i guess i was supposed to feel it was significant but i genuinely didnt care. like okay. yeah i noticed that. no i dont care that the day was saved and “she felt comfortable closing her eyes again”.

was that purposeful?.. the implication that shes closing her eyes from the world?.. and she only opened them when she realized she personally was in danger?..

that was so wild to me, i still dont know what the purpose behind that was, but that certainly was how the overall arc felt about yuri. eyes closed, who cares if some guy suffers for no reason.

rosicky was interesting to me, and it was a waste she got shot before she could have any sort of discussion?.. she just felt like a cheap trick to get yuris body fucked up. it couldve been an interesting moment overall, but, well...

not like were going to get anything about yuri reacting to how all of that went down? so it was just... weird.

and then rosicky died and gregory "won” their little squabble, and i wish gregory had fucking exploded because lunatics been making some points and i fucking hate him...

also just to return to the ouroboros ties of the season, they made ouroboros so all-powerful it was stupid and lost a lot of meaning to me. like alright, they can do anything, why are we even fighting, and why is rosicky alone in charge of this operation... makes no fucking sense, its such a forced situation.

the ending of cour2 was... well, it existed. i mean, i dont personally mind kotetsu retiring for good overmuch i suppose, but i think with everything that happened (especially in the way i think things should have happened) he couldve just continued as proof that even people without NEXT powers can be superheroes...

and also as a some sort of proof that it was mr.legends refusal to change any part of his hero image that really did him in: kotetsu could cling to his heroism while accepting hes just a guy without powers and not make it such an issue.

and i suppose if he retires, i wouldve loved to see him take some sort of director-like role instead: i dont think he would be able to let hero stuff go completely, but him being a senior you ask for advice would still give him a lot of things to do.

right now its also a bit of my fear, if they have any thoughts of continuing tiger&bunny in any way ever and yuri had to die so that kotetsu could take over the spot he ended up occupying as a director...:( genuinely makes me make a sad face in real life.

by the point we got to the end they had already fucked up the entire premise and any message they wouldve hoped to send and if they had some sort of uplifting message after yuris death, i failed to understand it. but it felt like a giant fuck you to the fans of the show called “tiger&bunny” to get that last bit of tiger&bunny pair disbanding because of reasons.

i mean, theyre not even remotely my favourite characters and i dont think about them overmuch, but leaving it more open-ended wouldve been so much more fun for so many fans? they really fucked up the shows undercurrent of interrogating who can be a hero and why in the first place, but like...

yeah that shit sucked ass sorry. i dont even have anything to add. people who showed up to see more kotetsu and barnaby content getting that half-hearted discussion about where theyre gonna go from here and then showing their plaque in the “true heroes” hall...

i feel like it undercuts kotetsus character so much, because hes always been the “underdog”, and hes pulled through everything that came before this. they explicitly mention that hes been working really hard to supplement his waning power, and then leave it at that: if i was supposed to understand from that part that kotetsu isnt really retiring or anything, it didnt really come across due to the other circumstances.

and again, i dont even really care about kotetsu! its just that he really exemplifies the tone of the show as a fact, and i like to think i have a modicum of media literacy. and by undermining the uplifting message of the show, they directly undermined him, and by undermining him, they further muddied the spirit of t&b.

i feel like an ending i wouldve killed for is one that couldve included that sort of tour of a museum, but it wouldve showed mr.legend paraphernalia being moved away from “true heroes” and also included our protags being inducted in there if they so wished, but leaving it more open ended... and definitely proving that mr.legend was not worthy of being thought of as a hero.

it was weird that the second league isnt brought up at all during the entire season from what i can remember? i dont even have anything significant to say about it, but i think second league heroes are and have been important, just by existing, to the narrative asking the viewer who really is a true hero and who insnt and what it all means.

they just didnt care, just like they didnt care about that question and yuri. again, they fully ignored anything they had set up before, and kept introducing new characters when old side characters couldve been brought back.

i have some thoughts on the police chief being a younger version of the police chief from double decker... im unsure if the implication is that double decker is more than a spiritual sequel and its not just cameo, or if its something more.

mattia did off-handedly mention that hes developing now trying to develop a drug that takes NEXT powers away if i read and understood it right, which would, i guess, make a canonical disappearance of NEXT powers possible.

i have actually never seen double decker myself, but i understand it references tiger&bunny while being separate and clearly “in the future” from it, and as far as i understand, it doesnt have people with superpowers.

i personally think that imagining double deckers world as a canonical sequel to the world of tiger&bunny sucks, but i dunno what the real implication there is.

i also want to talk about the art direction of t&b2 since im airing out my opinions and complaints, so why not: the art direction kinda sucks. everyone has been smoothed and thinned down and the essence of t&bs charming style has been lost in some ways.

you can really see the jump between older art and the newer art with ryan, for example... ill talk about ryan now because this is my post and i love this guy.

he is downright ugly in some parts of the rising, and i love calling him ugly, but in a serious way, yes, i think hes explicitly supposed to be handsome (because what else does he have going on for him even except being loud and looking good lol).

hes just a different kind of attractive than barnaby who is pretty, and theres various scenes in the rising where you can see that barnaby has more of a button nose while ryan has a sharp, short nose, unlike yuri for example, who just has a large nose overall (and its his charm point!).

ryans most notable quality is that his eyes are drawn to look hooded and deep-set with straight eyebrows that make his strong brow even more prominent, and he usually has a very distinct wrinkle across his forehead.

and what does he look like in t&b2? certainly nothing like that.

i know that the rising has a much larger budget for the designs than the episodic show, and either way they wouldve had to simplify ryans design to translate it into the episodic format. and we all know the goofy parts of season1 they fixed in the bluray release...

that never was a huge problem, and i wouldnt mind it. yes, i guess ryan couldve been changed for marketing, but he looked like that through-out the entire movie and was hugely popular regardless and BECAUSE of how he looks. but its not just ryan, its that the art direction changed drastically, and it made all the characters look so much more generic and samey.

just after the scene i screencapped above, you can see barnaby and ryan from further away with less detail for a scene that passes by quicker, and you can see that less care was used to make them look good but they still were kept distinctive and different. (and sorry to barnaby, i caught him in in the middle of a movement, so he looks extra goofy.)

t&b2 doesnt even have a lot of scenes that i can remember that really let the chracters emote and make goofy faces: kotetsu has always been hugely expressive! i want to see him make a funny face! kotetsu is also the main character, and part of his thing is being an Old Man (even if he isnt even that old for real, but thats beside the point).

he has wrinkles around his eyes in that shot even if its not hugely detailed, and in contrast i feel he was very smooth in t&b2. the art direction felt as aimless as the bullshit plotline, and equally as uncaring towards established characters!

everyone was drawn very samey. another example to me is the scene in cour1 where thomas inspects keiths pectorals is just sad, because hes been thinned down like everyone else. what was there to inspect? absolutely nothing.

this screencap from s1 has more to inspect than the scene where keith is supposed to be noticeably buff. by the way, this entire scene with the girlies and keith has more personality and goofiness than most of cour2.

and heres a screencap of keith from that episode, where his face shape and features are distinct.

ts been a decade and i know that anime production has gone through changes in this time and netflix-style mass drop of episodes may be harder on people in general, but comparing my s2 screencap below to the screencap above just makes me miss the old style because im scared to but s2 keith next to the one above... his eyebrows were so sadly thin and so were his face and body.

you know, lunatic doesnt even have a distinctly large nose, and his eyes arent even particularly sunken and he doesnt have many wrinkles around his eyes like i think is charming for him, because everyone is just smoothed down... and the above screencap isnt even a good example of it, but the charming thickening of lines at some parts is entirely missing in t&b2 from what i can remember? i feel like the linework used to be stronger and more interesting overall.

anyhow, yes, t&b was also fixed up for the bluray release but i feel like the atrocious-looking parts are kind of funny to look back on. i wonder if theyll be editing s2 visually? (and please revise the entire storyline for yuri too, thanks.)

speaking of s1, where did this entire sentiment disappear to? into the ether?

also, i cant help but be plagued by thoughts because the episode i got those keith screencaps from, kotetsu & barnaby are interviewed by kids who are taking the reporting very seriously, and their reaction to kotetsu saying the person he looks up to is mr.legend is lukewarm at best.

then barnaby talks of his parents and robotics, and they light up, which is funny because barnaby is way more popular, but it also narratively, in my opinion, shows that especially the new generation of sternbild thinks mr.legend isnt that impressive and would be more willing to accept that despite the myths around him, he was a man who severely sucked.

theyre ready for new heroes to commemorate, ones that really deserve it, and they (even in cour1!) dont see lunatic as a villain but an antihero who protects them.

oh well.

thanks for reading, even if you didnt read all of it and just read interesting parts or skimmed through it! i guess writing this was like free therapy for me because i need to deal with how deeply yuris cour2 canon arc affected me lmfao.

i dont think ive ever been so blindsided and taken aback by the total surprise i felt at the direction his arc took and that definitely factored into how deeply it fucked me up because if i couldve anticipated that yuri could for example die, i wouldve been a lot more normal about it.

but out of all things, i cant believe that tiger&bunny would do that to me, and make me see all of that pain... genuinely fucked up not going to lie. fugan and mugan and their father being shot to death is one thing because its shocking of course, but yuri has been in the show since the start.

yuri has existed in the minds of people for over a decade, now, so it feels so unexpected they would so callously kill him off, it feels entirely uncharacteristic, and i feel like its not something that anyone couldve expected, and maybe it wouldve been less shocking if season2 had come out like, say, an another year after the rising...

but still, i dont understand how we make the jump from yuris portrayal and the overall themes of the rising into t&b2 and his role in cour2. its wild, i dont know how to get over it.

breathing through gritted teeth how i published a few fanfics with yuri in a huge hurry before cour2 dropped because i wanted to have them started in case some major yuri details drop and ill feel compelled the rewrite the yuri parts of them but huh... well.... cry laugh

i love imagining scenarios with my favourite characters, but i tend to include yuri in the core ensemble cast of heroes: trying to imagine any post-canon shenanigans feels so hard right now like watching a VHS reel that ran to the end and has to be rewound, and actually makes me incredibly sad.

theres that new audiodrama coming out with ryan featured in it and i cant even be excited because i just get sick, like physically... i guess imagining myself casually engaging with tiger&bunny content makes me feel like im spitting on yuris nonexistent grave. woe is me. fuck you tiger&bunny2 cour2. TL;DR - my opinions, this entire post condensed somehow:

the whole arc for yuri felt like a giant fuck you not only to him and all of the fans too, and same with the ending kinda

ryan was brought back for a fun cameo only because he never became plot-relevant really so what was the point lol? screentime waste

plot points set up in cour1 and further before were ignored and scenes were specifically used to counteract them?!

big misogyny moment for all woman characters of the show

hero ensemble overall was underutilized

new characters/excessive focus on side characters like the fucking mayor and the police chief in cour2 felt gimmicky and unnecessary and generally didnt add much worth. i dont care show me my funny heroes instead

they tried to do too many things and lost sight of why t&b has been so great and why the idea of a more self-conscious t&b is so exciting: of course the show has had a lot of flaws, like nathans initial portrayal, and to imagine a show that has the same spirit but improves on those flaws is amazing. its just not even remotely what we got</3

never expected a flawless show but there are flaws that you can headcanon away and there are flaws that undermine the entire theme of the show this far. i dont know how to make s2 any better after seeing cour2 without totally ignoring any of it happened

cour1 wasnt even bad. it was solid. shit just hit the fan in cour2

the art direction was a huge downgrade, but maybe it was just budget constraints, so i dont know how harsh i want to be about it.

leave a comment if you want, lo, i love to talk, its relaxing. i also mightve mixed shit up so dont embarrass me too much if you notice any overt mixups since i really did marathon the cour once and i dont know how i can bear to look at it again. i also have some confusion over some parts of the story which i detailed above in my manifesto so if you wanna educate me, please do, lmfao...peace out...

#tiger and bunny #tiger and bunny spoilers #meta #t&b2 #t&b

[sonny-d]

i hate saying its a fix it fic bc no im not fixing anything im changing it to be more comforting to myself but the way the show was written its supposed to make u think it sucks fucking ass bc thats what makes it good is all these moments where everything couldve been fine there was such a simple solution that no one saw and it ended in heartbreak and tragedy my favorite example is in the episode that lancelot comes back and he gives gwen the bracelet from morgana and it wouldve been so easy to say oh gwen didnt mean it lancelot wasnt real and the bracelet was enchanted but they didnt bc as the series goes on it gets more and more real and thats why i love it is bc its so real

#merlin #bbc merlin #whisky thinks things

[stillqueerstillhere]

still thinking about yesterday ep of vice versa and trying to get my emotions/ideas in order, i really enjoyed the ep, but i am a little concerned about the next one because if im honest the ending felt like a good ending for the series? and the preview left me worried not just because they seen to be travelling between universes again (and i cant not deal with the chance of puentalay being separated again), but because one ep seems like too little time to build up a conflict and resolve in a way that honor puentalays journey (although i am very happy at the chance to see auo, up, job and the others again)

and i kept coming back to how easy it could have been to have this be the end for the series and it connects to what ive seen some ppl talking about the tesstun side of the story, which is true, theirs is also an interesting story and we need/want to know what happened between them

so i keep thinking how they couldve included tesstun + ended the series at the same place considering there is still one more ep and what i came up was:

- ep starts the same talay and tun talking and realizing only half managed to travel back and them cut to puen meeting tess thinking he is talay etc

- then we get intercut scenes of tun and tess explaining what the last two years were like with some actual scenes of ohmnanon + they reacting to their friends thinking they are together (we should at least get tun having to deal with that, like no only he got thrown into another universe with his asshole crush but now when he gets back his friends think he is dating said crush and they work together? thats too much to not be talked about)

- then we could have talay going back to the association and explaining to job what happened, this info could help other travellers right?

- then we can kept things as they went, talay at the beach cause i would change nothing about the masterpiece performance sea delivered + puen checking on tess and trying to go through his days while he waits for talay

- the ep could end with talay waking up in his bed and his mom calling for him

- then the last ep could focus fully on them getting back together and the conflict of their lifes being different here, talay gets back, cant get to puen, fixes the mess made of his life, they reunite at the glass house, we get some sweet domestic moments and even get into how puens fame affects their relationship

- i dont think they could fix all the challenges in one ep but they also wouldnt need to, it could have a sort of open ending where they are together and happy but are aware that things arent gonna be simple but they'll deal with whatever comes as a unit

anyways i know this isnt a perfect idea and i have confidence in the series to deliver a good ending, but i cant stop thinking about how different things could be if they used these two last ep to focus more on the effect of the travel on the characters' lives instead of adding another conflict

#okay i had to get this out of head #vice versa #vice versa ep11 #vice versa ep 11 #puentalay #tesstun