#for the sake of hte story

[sanjisboyfie]

one piece smau: vacation edition

— strawhats being a cute friend group once again

— male reader, everyone having the tiniest crush on him too but thats only if u swuint (im a very selfindulgent writer sorry)

— also i imagine robin, franky and brook to be older than the rest of hte crew, but not like crazy older. its probably not really relevant, but like mid twenties insead of their thirties and forties LMFAOA the rest of the crew is young twenties

liked by ._.[name], princesanji, and 10k others

dni_nami: pre-7hr flight question, how long until we all start killing each other? everyone place your bets

tagged: ._.[name], freeluffy, and princesanji

uso_pp: we barely made it through the airport without losing luffy, so i'm placing my bet on one hour.

[liked by ._.[name], roro.zoro, and 20 others]

-> dr.law: i'm surprised you even made it through airport security....

-> freeluffy: TOORRAOO YOU SHOULD'VE COME IT WOULDVE BEEN SO FUNNNN!!!

-> dr.law: hard pass. good luck everyone else.

._.[name]: i think it's gonna be fine !!! what's the worst that can happen tbh

-> dni_nami: i could list 100 reasons why this is gonna go bad and all of them involve luffy.

-> robinkills: [name]'s right, i think this trip is going to be very fun !

liked by roro.zoro, robinkills, and 11k others

freeluffy: [name] rented bikes for us, but he won't let me drive :/

tagged: ._.[name]

SUPERCOLA: good job [name] for saving his life, much appreciated

dni_nami: i'm begging you two to not crash and make the expenses of our trip go up even more

-> princesanji: always thinking logically, nami, this is why i love you so much <333333333333333

roro.zoro: pick up some sake otw back

-> ._.[name]: yesyesyes we all know thats the only reason why you came anyway, i'll pick some up

-> roro.zoro: what. no way. i definitely wanted to be sat on a hours long flight next to luffy and be living in a small apartment with all of my friends who dont know how to speak quietly and wont let me sleep even when its already early morning. what. i am so excited to be here.

-> uso_pp: alright we get it please stop

liked by princesanji, SUPERCOLA, and 8k others

robinkills: thank you [name] for winning me the prizes :)

tagged: ._.[name]

._.[name]: anything for you robin <3 aka the person thats keeping all of us sane right now <3

princesanji: HOW DARE THIS BAFFOON STEAL YOU AWAY ROBIN PLEASE LET ME TAKE CARE OF HIM, I WILL MAKE SURE HE NEVER BOTHERS YOU AGAIN

-> uso_pp: when is sanji going to accept the fact that [name] is actually apart of this friend group and that he is also more favored by the women we interact with

-> ._.[name]: dw usopp he only puts on a hard front, he ltr begged me to room with him so he could cuddle w me at night. he's just being shy rn

[liked by dni_nami, roro.zoro, and 40 others]

freeluffy: [NAME] [NAME] DID YOU GET ME THEONE I WANTED TOO??!?!?! REMEMBER I SHOWED YOU

-> ._.[name]: yes luffy :) we are otw back and i have the one you asked for as well.

-> SUPERCOLA: [name] the absolute goat in dealing with luffy and his absurd requests so the rest of us dont have to

liked by freeluffy, roro.zoro, ._.[name], and 9k others

uso_pp: morning debrief where we all share embarrassing stories, like how [name] almost stripped completely naked drunk last night because an ice spice song was playing on the karaoke.

._.[name]: alright genuinely why the fuck did that have to be the caption you put on the internet for the whole world to see

-> roro.zoro: no dont be embarassed [name] it was funny watching you try and copy her signature pose

[liked by dni_nami, robinkills, and 90 others]

-> dni_nami: don't think about even crossing me in the future, i have a video of the whole thing bby

-> ._.[name]: GOD FORBID A GUY HAS FUN

skullnsoul: i found [name]'s dancing and singing quite endearing

-> ._.[name]: thank you brook :') you're so sweet

-> skullnsoul: yes, although i feel like you're much too old to be wearing underwear with hearts as the print, [name]. i suggest buying new pairs of boxers :)

-> ._.[name]: what the actual fuck

liked by princesanji, uso_pp, and 11k others

dni_nami: i really wish you could hear sanji cursing [name] outin this photo

tagged: princesanji and ._.[name]

._.[name]: me when im literally following the instructions that hes telling me and i somehow still get yelled at

-> princesanji: do you even understand hwo cooking meat works? everyone would have gotten salmonella and food poisoning if i didn't teach you how

->._.[name]: yelling is never the answer sanji

-> freeluffy: I THINK [NAME]'S COOKING TASTED REALLY GOOD

uso_pp: they acc cookeedddd tho like our food was so tastyyy

[liked by princesanji, ._.[name], and 9 others]

robinklills: sanji almost shoved [name]'s head into the griller, it was funny

-> ._.[name]: HE WHAT ??!?!?! I DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE THAT HE TRIED DOING THA TWHAT THE FUCK

liked by princesanji, ._.[name], and 12k others

roro.zoro: [name] told me to post this photo he took.

tagged: princesanji and ._.[name]

dni_nami: awww look all the boys finally getting along

[liked by robinkills, uso_pp, vivi, and 50 others]

-> princesanji: i would have much rather been in your presence my queen, i love you so much

-> ._.[name]: sanjii give up the bit for fucks sake

uso_pp: where was me and luffy's inv ??? ig its like that now ....

-> roro.zoro: you guys were playing mermaids in the pool at the apartment and explicitly told us to not interfere with your serious business

-> princesanji: and then you started getting mad at us for invitig you again right before we left

._.[name]: damn zoro u lookin mad fine in this photo shiiiitttt #smash

-> roro.zoro: i need you to make sure your door is locked later tn or else i cant promise you will wake up the next day

liked by dni_nami, vivi, roro.zoro, and 12k others

._.[name]: thank u nami for the photos

tagged: dni_nami

._.[name]: btw nami made me post this w that caption so it could "scare away the hoes"

-> dni_nami: im doing them a favor, they just dont know it yet cuz ur fucking insane

-> uso_pp: LMFAOAO

purrrona: can i bite it?

-> ._.[name]: BITE WHAT?????

-> purrrona: so is that a yes or a no?

-> uso_pp: professional dick rider alert !!!!

roro.zoro: why is your thirst trap the first thing i have to see when i open this app

-> ._.[name]: why are you acting like you weren't the first person to like this post???

[liked by dni_nami, robinkills, and 57 others]

portgasace: WHY THE FUCK WAS I NOT INVITED ON THIS TRIP?????

dr.law: id also like to thank nami for the photos

#≡;- ꒰ ° smau series ꒱ #one piece smau #one piece imagines #modern one piece #modern au one piece #smau imagines #one piece x reader #one piece x male reader #x male reader #male reader #male reader imagines

[sweet-potato-42]

I swear if the admins allow tubbo and fit to use the short term time travel thing one day i would be so hyped. It owuld be so fun. Like i doubt they will but imainge if they did.

Like in the middle of a crisis they use the last resort trick and turn back time for liek a minute to avoid a death maybe

Id see it as a like hte admins allow them to use it once thing for hter sake of a cool story

chekhovs 3 million item chest time travel trick

#qsmp #qsmp tubbo #tubbo #qsmp fitmc #please please please #its such a fun concept that they invented time travel

[theozma]

IF YOU THOUGHT I WAS THE KIND OF PERSON TO CENSOR THE MAGIC WONDER FLOOFY CLOUD HEARTY RAINBOWS OF NATURAL CHILDBIRTH YOU WOULD BE WRONG!

hwoever. i am nice.. i made them 3 across in case it might gross you out. i tried to add a 'warning' image but it kept messing up with evefrything else (why do my pictures load most recent to oldest on tumblr? i want them to go the OTHER way for the sake of my story. jfc.)

the way i was changing the free camera at the end made the baby disappear. it was HILARIOUS

also i'm 99.99999999999% sure this isn't hte dad. he's the backup dad. he's still in love with audrina AND a doctor. he's super useful for birth from home when i need a romantic partner and a doctor.

#simblr #sims4 #sims 4 #the sims4 #thesims4 #the sims #ts4 #the sims 4 #sims #thesims #simmer #my sims #show us your sims #sims 4 aesthetic #sims 4 cc #sims 4 community #sims 4 custom content #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 maxis match #sims 4 simblr #sims 4 stories #sims 4 story #sims aesthetic #sims gameplay #sims community #zemfer #audrina zemfer #100 baby challenge #theozma #the ozma

[hirokiyuu]

thinking abt trey.......... thinking specifically abt his labwear story where he like. doesnt care what he feeds riddle as long as its good. it doesn't need to be made with love it has to satisfy riddle's demands. and then the way he misrespresents the pastry as being like........ something he put a bunch of work into getting and yet he isnt even wrong he's just completely pretending its smth else (ie he woke up and went out of his way to get it, which he didnt, and instead he gave jade the strawberries that are in some ways even MORE difficult for him to have gotten and then made jade be the one to get his hands on the tart for trey's sake) and like

just the way trey is as a person is so. fascinating to me. im trying to figure out how to phrase it. blueberry shot kind of guy where he's like. he enables riddle partially bc he cares and feels guilty but also partially bc its just the easiest thing. guy who can get dragged into things w/o a second thought bc putting up a fight is more trouble than its worth. will have an entire conversation w/cater abt cater's wishes and never breaches the surface and the moment they're apart will think with Genuine Deep feeling abt how he wishes he could know cater's real wishes but will never express as such to the guy himself!!!!!!!!!!! what hte hell is wrong with him the more i think abt him the more insane i start to go

#i was fully trey neutral for so logn and then i talked abt rook/trey to alm for like fifteen min and now i cannot stop thinking of him #if i reread every event w/trey in it to try to grasp this mans cahracter you have to understand #i dissect men daily. its not my fault #twst stuff

[canmom]

Comics Comints 3: Animal Man

Previously on Comics Comments: [The Incal] [Solo Levelling]. (Yeah this name is kind of terrible isn’t it? Part of me is like ‘for god’s sake change it’ and part of me is like ‘commit to the bit’.)

I think you could say I tend to like three different sources of comic. One is webcomics. The second is manga (and also manhwa). The third? Comics written by a wizard in the 1980s.

You see, most of the real ‘classic’ comics from this period are by some sort of wizard. Alan Moore? Famously a magician and really looks the part. Grant Morrison? Chaos magician. Alejandro Jodorowsky? Read the last first post in this series lmao.

It’s not actually all that surprising since comics are an incredibly densely symbolic medium which give you a pretty direct line of attack on the collective unconscious, if you believe in that. Being a wizard is probably pretty good training for writing interesting comics. Or maybe Alan Moore’s success just kicked off a fad of trying to find more British wizards to move comics off the shells at DC - pretty much Morrison’s own account of their introduction into the world of comics.

And that brings us to...

Animal Man

(1988-95, written by Grant Morrison, pencilled Chas Truog, Tom Grummett and Paris Cullins, inked Doug Hazlewood, Mark McKenna, Steve Montano and Mark Farmer, coloured Tatjana Wood and Helen Vesik, lettered by John Costanza and Janice Chiang, covers illustrated by Brian Bolland... phew...)

So. Animal Man! Basically the story as Morrison tells it in the intro to the collected edition is...

In 1987, at the height of the critical acclaim for Alan Moore’s work on SWAMP THING and WATCHMEN, DC Comics dispatched a band of troubleshooters on what is quaintly termed a “headhunting mission” to the United Kingdom. The brief was to turn up the stones and see if there weren’t any more cranky Brit authors who might be able to work wonders with some of hte dusty old characters languishing in DC’s back catalogue. As one of those who received the call that year, I had no idea who I might dig up and revamp. On the Glasgow to London train, however, my feverishly overstressed brain at last lighted upon Animal Man. This minor character from the pages of STRANGE ADVENTURES in the ‘60s had always, for heaven only knows what murky reasons, fascinated me and, as the train chugged through a picturesque language of Tudor houses and smiling bobbies on bicycles, I began to put together a scenario involving an out-of-work, married-with-children third-rate superhero who becomes involved with animal rights issues and finds his true vocation in life.

You can read the full introduction here. It’s pretty funny.

In fact, Morrison is leaving out a little of the story. The ‘headhunting mission’ took place after Alan Moore decisively cut ties with DC over issues related to royalties (particularly for merchandising) and a proposed age-rating system. He stopped writing for them after finishing the last few issues of V for Vendetta, and DC went looking for someone new to fill his niche of ‘left-wing British guy, good at prose, wizard’. Along with Morrison, they found...

Jamie Delano, who was approached by DC as the writer of the Swamp Thing spin off Hellblazer; Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, who collaborated on the Black Orchid limited series, as well as the famous and acclaimed Sandman; Peter Milligan, who launched a new Shade, the Changing Man series; and Scottish creator Grant Morrison, whose pitch of an Animal Man series was approved. Later British creators to work on American comics include Mark Millar, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis and Paul Jenkins.

This also comes in a time when American comics are getting more and more literary aspirations: complex characterisation, more naturalistic dialogue, less emphasis on superheroes. Which can perhaps also be attributed to Alan Moore. The ‘British invasion’ might be compared with the rise of gekiga in Japan in the 60s and 70s, although here the change was happening not in alternative magazines like Garo but the most mainstream comics. Putting in a pin in that, because I need to learn more about this period.

I came to Animal Man knowing really only one thing: that it gets increasingly metafictional, culminating in an arc where the protagonist goes and meets Grant Morrison themself. This does indeed happen and it’s cool! But before that a bunch of other stuff has to happen to set up the thematic significance of this metafiction...

What follows: a lot of art and story breakdown.

Morrison is a very interesting figure who I’d like to learn a lot more about. I thought of them as another example of the ‘spend years making sequential art instead of transitioning’ archetype, but it seems maybe a little more complicated than that - I think I need to do more research before I try and say anything definitive about the many noticeable ways trans girls figure in the imagination of comics from this period, and it doesn’t factor much in Animal Man compared to say Doom Patrol.

Indeed, main character Buddy is an almost parodically Normal Dad, a blonde white man living in an American suburban house with a white picket fence and... well, 2 children, not 2.5, but you know.

Into this world comes all sorts of weird stuff because it’s a Grant Morrison comic, and a lot of the humour in the earlier parts of the comic comes from the idea of shining a look at the fringes of the DC universe away from the central superhero battles, with a local low-tier superhero making TV appearances and becoming a minor celebrity. I think ‘everyday life in a world where superheroes are real’ has been done a lot since then, but it’s done well here. Being a superhero for Buddy starts out as just a day job; obscure superhero teams from Morrison’s encyclopedic knowledge of DC comics history are made into obscure superhero teams in-universe as well.

I don’t read American comics nearly as often as I read manga and webcomics - working on filling in the gaps there - so it’s hard for me to comment on Truog’s art in contrast to other comics. Which means what strikes me is probably more traits of ‘American Comics’ than this one specifically, but what ho...

The immediate thing I noticed is the immense anatomical precision, particularly when it comes to drawing muscles - something I’d also been struggling with at the time I read it so I was paying attention lol. Peter Chung made an interesting remark in an interview which I’ll quote here...

I think a lot of illustrators realize—and you see this a lot in American comics as well—that if you draw costumes realistically, it's very difficult. You end up spending all your time trying to create believable drapery. So the tendency is to draw skin-tight costumes that mold around the body. This allows you to use the body more. You see this with classical sculpture, and dancers. You try to use the expressive qualities of the human body more—that's why sculptors prefer to work with nudes, as opposed to trying to make the clothing look accurate. Otherwise you end up concentrating on the clothing and not the person. 

Fairly early on, Animal Man’s outfit is updated to include a leather jacket, and there’s a solid sense of how to handle the cloth. Here’s an action scene from fairly early on with Buddy fighting against a rat monster created by the tragic villain B’wana Beast (more on him in a bit)...

You can see how the cloth stretches at the elbow and bunches up on the inside fold. This also shows a few other aspects of the art: the shading is completely carried by hatching in the linework, with the colours being flat, either pastel or highly saturated. I think this is in part a limitation of the printing technologies of the time. There’s occasional use of screentone, as you can see on the top right panel there (which downscaling has turned into a moiré pattern...)

In comparison to manga, beyond the general differences in character design, it’s interesting to see what’s different in how action scenes are conveyed. The panelling is generally very regular and rectangular, but there will occasionally be layouts with figures overlapping the border. Some of the ways of conveying motion, like dynamic unbalanced poses, or replacing lines with perpendicular hatching, is also widely used in manga; some aren’t, such as the motion arcs you can see in the page above. There usually isn’t a lot of exaggeration or extreme perspective distortion.

I think the colouring weakens it. The colours mostly serve to separate out different volumes, but they don’t really convey much in their own right. Out of curiosity, I tried putting the page above through desaturate and threshold filters to see what it would look like uncoloured. Here’s a threshold, which is what the inked page would look like...

and here’s a desaturate, which replaces the colours with pure value:

So you can see having some values to separate different elements helps, but honestly I think I prefer it desaturated lol. Still, it’s much better than the overly rendered hyper-contrast style that became popular a decade later.

The other big thing that’s different from what I’m used to in manga is the large amount of narration accompanying panels, typically but not always first-person. This is apparently something Alan Moore is responsible for establishing with V for Vendetta. I think the potential drawback with this approach is that your eyes may go straight for the text boxes, and skip the drawings entirely.

There are absolutely good sequences though, such as when Buddy and his friend the physicist

Despite these small complaints, the art generally works very well. Where it gets interesting is later in the comic when things start to get very meta, so you get a character’s deterioriation represented by using unfinished art (sketches or uninked drawings), and later messing with the formal elements like panel borders. There’s a sequence where a highly advanced Buddy fights an evil version of Superman from another timeline during a massive reality breakdown provoked by a character who is aware of all the discarded storylines and timelines in the DC universe and wants to save them, and thus you get pages like this:

Animal Man’s villains are rarely ever especially villainous, and the tone of a lot of the earlier stories is Buddy finding out about the situation and trying to prevent a tragic outcome and usually failing. Morrison used the comic to some degree to soapbox for animal rights, with early arcs dealing with animal experimentation labs and sadistic dolphin hunters. At one point he even pops by the UK to help out some hunt sabs. But it’s more using this as a source for stories than something purely didactic, and leans into conflicts like Buddy’s ambivalence when his ecoterrorist allies kill a firefighter during an attack on an animal lab as part of a broader arc of his life going to shit; he is, superhero or not, just one man who gets swept up in larger events most of the time.

Speaking of larger events, Morrison’s run on Animal Man coincided with one of DC’s periodic massive crossover events called uhh (*looks up*) Invasion!. Basically a bunch of aliens show up, so Buddy’s helping fight them; then off-screen a ‘gene bomb’ goes off which scrambles Buddy’s powers. (This also played into Morrison’s run on Doom Patrol, which I’m still reading at the moment, so more on that in the future!) The storylines associated with this event - one about an alien artist who wants to terraform the Earth, the other about a washed-up suicidal supervillain - are both good, and ‘aliens show up’ is really not far outside the usual sort of things that happen in Animal Man, but it’s funny that Grant Morrison, at the time ‘just’ an up-and-coming new writer at DC comics, is now probably the only reason that this whole event is still remembered in 2022.

Anyway, let’s get into the metafiction stuff. The story is full of DC deep cuts, and Morrison seems to be very interested in how fictional characters are constructed, how they relate to their readers, how their stories are affected by the outside world...

The first movement in this direction is the story about Wile E. Coyote, which sees him rebel against God for creating a life of ceaseless violence for cartoon animals - only to be punished by incarnating him as a werewolf in the real world. Over the course of that story, Wile E. Crafty is run over, shot, crushed, and blown up, becoming a kind of Jesus-like figure whose suffering is supposed to save the animals. It’s a wonderfully batshit idea, and it works well in context - apparently this comic sold like mad so Morrison was encouraged to take it further. Animal Man’s role in this story - as in quite a lot of stories - is to witness Crafty’s death.

Thus over the course of Animal Man, we encounter a pair of aliens who find that the general trends in comic writing of the day - the emphasis on more complex characterisation for example - is increasingly straining the fabric of fictional reality...

The aliens stage an intervention to try and use Buddy’s memories to repair the timeline (or something??), but this ends up unleashing more chaos down the line, as more and more characters start attaining a fourth-wall breaking awareness. The next arc sets up some unexplained weirdness: a strange ghostly figure of Buddy attempts to communicate with his family, while meanwhile we’re introduced to the character of Highwater, a Native physicist who’s drawn into the mystery of an Arkham Asylum patient who seems to (for our outside eyes) have fourth-wall breaking knowledge.

So after the incident with the aliens, Buddy meets up with Highwater, and they go into the desert and have a peyote trip which leads to some fun imagery, hero gets power up. Meanwhile, government/corporate goons kill Buddy’s family. He gets back, and we find out the cause of the ghostly Buddy: distraught, he tries to time travel back to save them, but when his means of time travel doesn’t make that possible. The guy from Arkham Asylum meanwhile summons a bunch of DC characters from various discarded storylines and alternate universes; the aliens intervene, and Highwater ends up sealing it all off again, in the process becoming a mute Arkham inmate.

Buddy demands answers from the aliens, but they peace out; nevertheless he finds a strange door which takes him to a metafictional plane where he can - much like good old Crafty! - go and demand explanation from his creator. He soon finds discarded fictional characters in a realm where nothing can form stories, and is given a dying monkey with a typewriter that’s writing the comics script, and instructed to carry the monkey to the mythical city of ‘Formation’. (So I guess it’s still kind of animal related!)

But like all the other people Buddy couldn’t save, the monkey dies, and his journey takes him back to the start. After all this he finally gets to meet Grant Morrison!

The final issue has Morrison talking to both Buddy and the reader - giving acknowledgements, telling the story of their childhood imaginary friend Foxy, and explaining the craft of comics-making to Buddy and musing on the differences between comics life and real life.

Which is a fun little dialogue, because while it is drawing our attention to the constructed and arbitrary nature of everything in the story, it also at the same time has to function as a story. Buddy’s reactions - panicked incomprehension, questioning - have to continue to feel natural. Even though the comic is turning to us and saying ‘this man is fake’, it does its level best to cue us to think he’s real.

I like metafiction, but after you’ve handled the ‘character discovers they’re fictional’ scene, you need to figure out what it’s actually for. In this case, it’s part of the comic’s general theme of powerlessness and futility. Here’s the key page:

...which literally leads to a panel where Morrison turns to the camera and tells you to join PETA, something that hasn’t aged especially well. Morrison agonises a bit over why we use real death and suffering as entertainment - why they’d think about using their own cat’s death as material for this story - and then leaves, resurrecting Buddy’s family on the final panel.

So! Long summary over (thanks for bearing with me, I wanted to get it all straight in my head).

At this point, ‘fictional characters discover they are fictional’ is a pretty heavily done narrative, so you have to have some kind of very strong reason to use the device. I think that was way less true in the 80s - Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winters night a traveler was only published ‘79 after all!

In this case, its use is to provide a little reflective monologue on 1. living in a cruel and nihilistic world, in contrast to fictional characters who have a creator they can confront 2. Morrison’s position as an outside writer being pulled into the vast machine of the DC universe. Their intervention is... an interesting kind of critical, seeking to update rather than simply write out dubious past storylines, so the story acts as a kind of critical commentary on its predecessors. This is most apparent in one storyline which sees the old character B’wana Beast, a Tarzan-like figure who gets animal powers from a special helmet and is known as the ‘White God’, passing on his powers to a Black anti-apartheid activist. A lot of others simply deal with nostalgia, getting older, the world moving on and becoming more complicated.

Morrison describes their final storyline as an anticlimax. Which like... on the one hand, how could it possibly be? Buddy has uncovered the truth that no character in the setting can know. But on the other hand, by heavily emphasising everything is arbitrary, it does indeed dismantle the tension; there is no way it could be anything other than a final storyline.

Buddy spends much of his narrative under Morrison being unable to do more than stand by as terrible things happen around him. He tries extremely hard to be caring and empathetic, and this is often appreciated but rarely enough to save anyone. In the end he ‘realises’ that ‘he’ has even less power than that - he’s just an instrument of Morrison and whichever next writer (who would apparently choose to turn it into a story about quantum mechanical weirdness, but I stopped at the end of Morrison’s run) so not only are his efforts futile, even his motivation is also not under his control. All pretty solid as far as ‘pseudo-existential’ stories (in Buddy’s words) go.

And yet, as Morrison notes in their conversation, ‘Buddy’ will likely outlive Morrison themselves. To elaborate on that, we can see the figure of ‘Buddy’ conjured in our minds by the prompt of this book lasting as long as it continues to be printed, read, and iterated on - a meme, egregore, etc. etc.. This is the very hollow form of ‘life’ given to dead people who pass into memory, but it isn’t nothing; to create a character who’s not forgotten is quite an achievement.

Morrison’s theme of limited, even disabled characters for whom things never seem to go quite right is the whole impetus of Doom Patrol, so I guess I’ll pick up this thread when I finish digesting that one. Even so early in their career, they’re a very witty writer with a real knack for coming up with compelling, thematic scenarios and convincing characterisation. (Morrison had been writing comics in the UK for 5-6 years before that, so it’s hardly like this is the first time they wrote for a comic, but they were still younger than me at the point they began Animal Man.)

All in all, Animal Man is a compelling story that still holds up very well in 2022. If you want to read it, ComicExtra has the most complete collection of scans I found - scroll down to the 30th anniversary deluxe edition, which is annoyingly uploaded in reverse order.

Next up we’ll be doing a manga! I recently caught up with the absolutely delightful Witch Hat Atelier by Kamome Shirohama, and I can’t wait to dig into all the brilliant techniques she’s using in the art of this manga. See you then.

#comics #grant morrison #animal man #comics comints

[dykeyote]

jedidiah 4 the character thing :3

GOTTA GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT!!!!!!!

fav thing about them: ohhhh man theres so much . id have to say how Real he feels . like he can do and say some awful mean things but it never feels liek conflict just for the sake of conflict or him just Decidin to be cruel it all links back to his feelings and his guilt and his fears and like . hes just so Real in a gutwrenching way both for the better and for the worse

least fav thing about them: i mean . the ableism . thats kind of a copout answer though so instead of smt basic like "i dont like that he avoided sydney" or whateva ill say that i think he shouldnt have gotten together with sydney as soon as he did that fucker needs SOOO much healing first . but i think thatll be explored given that they have a couples therapist in s2 so thats not like a writing flaw i dont think unless its fumbled which i doubt it will be

favorite line: "I couldn’t handle the body. I can’t handle the body. I walk away from the body. And most nights I don’t think about it… but sometimes there’s a rumbling under my desk, cold and distant like metal wheels through the mountain, spinning like the hands on the clocks that — if I could just know if I could just know if I could just know if I could just know if I could just know if I could just know—" girl that is ocd!!!!!! u suffer . anyway i genuinely had to pause the ep and take a break after this line something about it . oh my god

fav friendship: i LOVE LOVE LOVE his friendship with yvonne i think its so fun and whimsical i love gamer girls bonding . also him having a queerplatonic relationship with juniper is one of my fav hcs hehehe

fav ship: you KNOW its sydidiah . you KNOW . second place is jeddieann and soridiah (obvs to anyone whos spoken to me for longer than five seconds) but i am literally deranged about sydidiah

least fav ship: i havent seen one that exceptionally bothered me . people dont Ship jedidiah that much with people besides sydney from what ive seen . like i could be like "oh tid be shitty to ship him w elijah or wahtever" but like that seems like im making smt up to get mad at lmao if anyone ships that or anything else id be annoyed abt ive never seen it

random hc: hmmmmm. in sydneys major huge homestuck phase he spent a whole all-nighter listening to an absurd amount of homestuck fansongs in an attempt to like . shoot an understanding of the story into his veins without having to Actually read it all the way thru bc its so fucking long . this just made him way more confused

unpopular opinion: whatsss an unpopular opinion i have . taps my jaw and thinks and ponders . people ignore jedidiahs ableism a lot and the pervasive ways it relates to many many Many aspects of their dynamic but thats not so unpopular of an opinion so ill be a little spicier about it and say that i think even among the people who DO comprehend jedidiahs ableism and the way it impacts their relationship theyyy. kinda ignore the ableism of literally any other person besides lucille? like jedidiah becomes kinda the scapegoat for all the ableism in the narrative and like yes we should discuss the ways jedidiahs ableism impacts the narrative thats true!! however if youre going to discuss that but not talk about say elijah or salem or once s2 comes out likely adam as well or what have u . what is tha point . this is not me defending jedidiah or saying oh people are too harsh on my blorbo ): ): ): we SHOULD discuss jedidiahs ableism but i feel like its not That unpopular of an opinion that we should acknowledge jeddies ableism even if some people dont really follow through on Doing so in Practice yk

song i associate with them: oh my godddddd cry for judas . oh my God is that hte jedidiah song of all time

#u can tell im insnae abt him bc this is fucking forever long

[whetstonefires]

Thank you so, so, so much for that Tony Stark post. Because, yes, exactly you hit the nail on the head: he is not personally controllable with legislation and he is definitely suffering from guilt and self recrimination but that DOES NOT MEAN you get to hurt others. He is painful to watch. I've never seen anyone articulate it so well, thank you. I ended up writing an essay in my notes just agreeing with you a lot because he cannot use his pain as an excuse for the scale of damage he does.

Where is the essay nonny??? I cannot find it. Show meeeeee.

💖 Thank you for the positivity! Ngl it’s always scary criticizing a popular character, you never know what’s going to happen.

I’ve tried a lot of times to respond to this ask without going on another tirade, but they keep building up, especially whenever I see someone tearing Steve down to build Tony up, and I go from zero to a full head of steam so fast.

I’ve avoided engaging about it, but it fucks me up so bad every time, it’s crazy.

Because I didn’t think I was all that attached to Cap, I don’t even really consider myself a fan, but he. Right up until that unintentionally appalling ending they derailed his character into, he worked so hard to be good.

He doesn’t want to kill anyone, but he doesn’t like bullies.

He spent his entire life under conditions of extreme suffering, and unlike Tony he refused to let it warp him into something vicious and selfish that lashed out at others to comfort himself--or rather, he bound himself with adamantine chains to make sure that when he used violence, even as a coping mechanism, it was only ever against people more powerful than him, individually or in aggregate, who were doing something harmful he could interfere against, and who had the freedom to walk away.

Tony never bothered with any of that. He doesn’t have to. No one expects anything of him, in his life or ours; our standards are in the basement and we’re super willing to identify with him, so even the manifestation of the awareness that he did something wrong is cheered like heroism. He expects ‘points’ for remembering there was a connection between Pepper and strawberries, even if she’s allergic and he thought they were her favorite, and he gets them.

All he has to do is turn away from being his worst self, no matter how many times he completes that rotation a full 360 degrees, and we’ll cheer for him.

Which is a great character design strategy! Honestly! Except they walked it into the ground.

Tony was introduced as someone learning to be better, but then he wound up getting worse and worse and worse. His redemption arc derailed really early, because Marvel Studios were lazy or afraid or didn’t trust their audience, idk.

He sacrificed so many people to his own gaping emotional wound, that hungry maw of egotism turned Byronic and recharacterized as heroism, as goodness or at least its sketch.

Jumping on the grenade is so much easier than reining yourself in every minute, not abusing your power, respecting the lives and needs of others and treating them as real.

Nothing Tony ever achieved moved the dial away from his narcissism, and very little of it did anything about the toxicity of how he inhabited that narcissism. And a heroic death would be nothing in the face of his personal crimes even if it had been one that was a little more rationally necessary, and not one that took several hours of movie and the contrived failure of every other person in the setting to even be possible or relevant.

(And even if you’re willing to hang onto suspension of disbelief and pretend that dropping 3.5  billion refugees into a world that just barely patched itself together in the face of 50% mortality somehow isn’t going to result in a staggering death toll.)

Unlike Vader, Tony Stark died as he lived, and so the death means much, much less.

With great power comes great responsibility, and with his billions Tony was always the most powerful Avenger, because Thor never took his throne when it was still tall and golden and untouchable. And he spat on that principle every day of his life.

And when people act like his ‘suffering’ somehow justifies that, it’s like every single piece of the warped rich-white-confident-male-centric empathy gap of our culture leaping into life and strangling all ethical rationality and justice. I just.

I know it’s just superheroes. I know it’s not serious. Except superheroes and cinema are mainstays of our shared cultural sense of right and wrong. The Violence Against Women Act exists purely because of the shift in public perception created by one movie about one real woman.

So when a massive superhero film franchise has a moral narrative that I find repulsive, and I see that reasoning echoed out in the world, it feels important.

I am attached to Steve, small angry starving Steve looking Death in the face every day he drew breath and refusing to blink, but I think what’s making me so damn mad when I see this insistence on tearing him down to prop up a mass murderer is the proof that even Captain America, who is white and male and tall and beautiful and romantically interested in women, who ticks all these boxes that help when it comes to Mattering, still doesn’t have enough Real Person Points to stand up against the absolute certainty in a billionaire’s heart that he is the only real person in the universe, that his self-pity is the truest sorrow that ever was.

Not in Tony’s eyes, and not when it comes to our willingness as a society to inexplicably believe him.

#tony stark negative #steve rogers #this is the shortest i've been able to keep this #empathy gap #tony just grew steadily into a nightmare #although honestly he never really stopped #and i was able to go along and forgive him #for the sake of hte story #right up until the narrative started telling me i *had* to #and that his feelings *really were* the most important thing in the universe #at which point i would very happily drive a stake through his heart #i throw salt #hoc est meum #many feelings #a nonny mouse #ask

[choerrypuffs]

lana, you brilliant, genius son of a bitch

i just read the jeno fic, and to say very satisfied is a big understatement

i ltierally cannot wrap my head aroudn the fact that you write so fucking beautifully and YOU WROTE ACTION FOR FUCKS SAKE THATS CRAZY AND YOU WROTE IT SO SMOOTH TOO?!?!

even though i was quite literally lying on my bed for around an hour i felt my ass on the edge of a non existent seat. literally rolled at every conflict, every laugh, every little thing i would just re read it because its too good to just move on you know

AND FUCK DUDE ITS FANFICTION?!?! WHY DO I WANT TO BE A FAN OF A STORY WRITTEN BY A FAN LIKE . i pictured each scene in my head so well?!?! it felt physically like a movie, and a literal book dude im fucking sobbing it was beautiful

AND HTE JAEHYUN PLOT TWIST OH MY LORD WHEN I TELL YOU I PHYSICALLY GASPED AND JUMPED I TELL YOU EVEN MY ROOMMATE COMES IN TO CHECK ON ME

and okay,,,, maybe im a little biased (so very biased uhhh) but when the Poseidon sibling came i jumped up and screamed

pshhh no not becuase donghyuck is my favorite character of the whole series no not becuase im a huge sunflower haha

it was moon. im moon biased. (read: hyuck biased)

besides that, i could really feel the development between jeno and mc it was so smooth i could never

and the way i just . got to my seat like 'ok ccsa, no incoherent keyboard smashing, put in all your thoguhts' but i had to delete half of this ask because it was jsut keyboard smashes but you dont see them LMAOAO

thank you for yet another masterpiece lana!!!!!!

also hi get ready for glitch mode MUAHAHAHA

- ccsa anon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hi ccsa here again i have many thoguths about th efic rn you dont even know

all i want to say is

jeno has main character-itis but the real main characters are the Poseidon siblings !!!! like what a fucking entrance dude !!!!!!! holy fuck wash that bitch away !!!!!! bring us back to safety you strong magnificent beasts!!!!!!!!!

AHHHHH OMFG MY LOVELY CCSA ANON YOU ARE THE SWEETEST EVER WTFFFF 🤧🥰🥺 THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO LEAVE SUCH KIND AND LONG FEEDBACK !!!! 💕💕💕 you’ve literally made my night and i’m especially emotional bc i’m on my period so this response will make zero sense and will just be me blubbering incoherently <33333

OMFG IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY THAT YOU LIKED THE ACTION SCENES 😩 i swore i would never write action again after my atla series bc i had no clue as to what i was doing but i never learn my lesson 💔 i literally was miming the actions like a lunatic at 4am trying to make sure the action scenes made sense LMAO

SKLFSLLW  YOU ARE TOO NICE THANK YOU SO MUCH 💖💖💖 PLSS NO I’M YOUR BIGGEST FAN I ALWAYS TELL CAT AND MOON ABOUT HOW MUCH YOUR MESSAGES ALWAYS MAKE ME HAPPY 🥺🥺🥺

i’m glad the plot twist got you 😌 but wow your roommate is a true friend i’m glad they had your back and made sure you were okay 😤

LMFAOOO FRRRR MOON AND HYUCK ARE SO ICONIC 🤩 we love power siblings <3333 *victoria justice voice* i think we’re ALL moon-biased 🤧

honestly all the side characters stole the show who cares about the main couple anyways 🙄

i’m glad you liked y/n and jeno’s relationship though !!!! e2l is my fav trope of all time so i really wanted to do it justice 🤧

JKDFSKJD NOOOO SEND THE KEYBOARD SMASHES IT’S LIKE HALF OF MY RESPONSE ANYWAYS WE CAN KEYBOARD SMASH TOGETHER 

THANK *YOU* AGAIN FOR SENDING SUCH A WONDERFUL ASK IN ILYSM CCSA ANON

#ask #anon #careless careless shoot anonymous anon #answered

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Stump Day Review or The Why Are You Booing Tom He’s Right Holiday Special

Before we start a special credit to @jess-the-vampire​ who I discussed the episode with during the writing process and brought up a LOT of good points that ended up going into this review. She clearly hates it as much as I do and had even more good reasons for it.  Happy Hanukah, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everybody! And today we got a big, fat, grotesque lump of coal to smash to pieces. And after a long, draining, if worth the effort scrooge review, and with this being something I needed to cross off my to do list this holiday season, I put this one here as I could use the cathariss of giving this steaming bowl of elephant piss a good thrashing. As you can tell unlike my usual reviews, I do not like this episode. This isn’t the FIRST i’ve not liked i’ve covered, but it is the first rather infamous one to me i’ve covered and not just a dead possum of an episode I ran into while reguarly covering an otherwise good show like “Quaraller’s Pass” or “Strife of the Party”. This one’s had it coming, making my top 8 worst christmas specials list last year, and while not the series worst outing, that’s a toss up between the finale and marco jr, it’s easily one of them. So while usually I like diving deeply into something good and picking apart while it’s good, if not ignoring any bad aspects, here i’m just going to take a hammer to this thing to explain why it dosen’t work and why it sucks dirty ass in thunderstorms. I might be overstating it a bit but probably not.  Nothing really new has happened since the last episode so the only new thing to cover is why i’m doing the episode here instead of after Monster Bash. And the simple reason is that like the Ducktales Halloween and Christmas specials, this episode clearly does not take place in the same time frame of the episode before or after it, with the next episode, The Bog Beast of Bogabah, taking place the day after Monster Bash. It’s most likely they simply held this episode over till Christmas and it dosen’t really fit in AFTER the huge game changer that is monster bash, especailly since the next three episodes after this all take place in rapid sucession, two on the same day one the day after them. So yeah i’m doing this one first and putting it ahead of monster bash on my episode guide for clarity’s sake. 

Good, so with all that settled, let’s unwrap this complete works of pauly shore shall we? We open on the titular Stump Day, essentially mewni’s christmas complete with Cocoa, carols and a gay couple and their equally adorable child. And Star, unsuprisingly is giddy for it as the actual chlidren, and wearing an adorable santaesque dress complete with horns on her santa hat. Seriously you cannot tell me tom didn’t get that for her. Fucking precious. Marco is more just confused and has his hood up and one of Star’s cousins asks uncle river to tell him the origin of stump day. River’s response.. is easily the best joke of the episode. 

“(in a jolly tone) ha ha, you don’t tell me what to do”

He does so anyway though: Basically when settlers arrived on Mewni they found themselves cold and griping with each other, and soon found a blizzard had struck.. but by huddling together under a magic stump, they all learned to get along or something like that and now once a year everyone gathers in warmth and camraderie.. or else. Before Marco can understandably question what “or else” means in this context, Star butts in when one of her cousins chastises the younger one who asked river the question for beliviing and says he’s real. It’s a nice touch as it fits star perfectly to still belivie in mewni’s horrifying version of santa. I forgot just how adorable and likeable the character was before the final season shot that to hell. How her energy could be infectious and how Eden Sher really brought her all to the performance, which is still the performance of her career and hopefully like Rider Strong she’ll do more voice acting eventually.  So that night as Star tucks in after wonderful  night of sleep, and to avoid her dad’s usual drunken chorus of Tom Jones “Sex Bomb”, and gets woken up by Marco who leads her to the dining hall because a windows broken to fix it with magic. Star entirely buys this flimsy story.. but as Jess pointed out, and as I missed hence the credit up top... she dosen’t bring her wand. She.. dosen’t bring her wand.. to go fix something with magic. Now i’ll grant next season shows she CAN fully do magic without it, and while not as powerful like her mom still has plenty of punch behind it.. especially when she does the rainbow fist thing. But it’s still.. weird she dosen’t think to grab it and feels out of character. While Star’s learned by this point not to rely on it, and as we’ll see gives it up entirely, one of the few bits of her character development that actually sticks, it still seems resonable she’d take it with her wherever she goes.. and usually SHE DOES. And her jammies, which are also adorable, seem to have pockets so the animators had no reason to not just stuff it in one. It would’ve made their job harder yes.. but then don’t have marco use an excuse that directly requires it then and draws attention to the fact the wand is missing, and the fact you blatantly just hoped we’d forget about it as it’d ruin the climax. 

It’s far from the worst thing in this episode..trust me we’re almost there. But this does bring me to a point.. so far the episode is GOOD. The comedy’s good, the setup for what’s about to happen is good, the holdiay setting is warm and inviting but weird enough to perfectly fit mewni, and River, much like his VA and homosexual talking boat portrayer Alan Tudyuk, is a national treasure as always. Whelp it’s all down hill from here bitches! Giddyup. 

So Marco announces a SUPRISE PARTY! And everyone’s there: Tom, Kelly, Ponyhead, Starfan14... oh yeah this is the first ep i’ve coverd with Starfan14 isn’t it? Starfan14 is star’s insane fangirl, voiced by series creator Derfron Nercy herself, who star happily tolerates despite clearly wanting to wear her skin. We’ve all been there. Also Jackie is transparently missing, though at least it’s SOMEWHAT reasonable as she and marco broke up a few .. months ago? I mean it is winter on mewni for this episode but the end of season 4 and the series is set at the start of summer, yet months still pass..... 

Confusing timeline aside, Jackie has every reason not to attend a party thrown by her ex for the girl who confesed she had feelings for said ex and it’s probably the only good decision Marco makes this entire episode that he wisely decided to give Jackie some space. And it says something a decision made entirely off screen that was probably because the creators genuinely forgot Jackie once she was out of the way so they could shift the love triangle stuff to Tom, Star and Marco instead of you know.. not doing that because most love triangles are annoying at best and utterly insufferable at worst. Case in point this episode but I can give out more about this aspect of things in a bit with more context. 

And to his credit, and as Jess backed me up on, Marco’s gesture is genuinely throughtful.. at least to start with. He got her a choclate fountain, brought all of her friends, and geninely just thought Star never celebrated her birthday on her birthday because it was you know the same day as christmas. As someone whose birthday is a week before christmas, December 16th if you were curious, I understand the pain of having your birthday in the same month as christmas. Of having all your presents clustered at once and of having to manuver around a very stressful season, though it does sometimes have perks like getting to celebrate your birthday and christmas, it also means your birthday is secondary and always will be to most people due to proximity. And Star has hers ON mewman christmas, so it’s even worse. So from Marco’s perspective, TO START, his best friend constantly had to share her birthday with her faviorite holiday and just wanted to do something nice. SO FAR, he’s done nothing wrong and just means well. That’s... about to end.  Star.. instead of being greatful.. starts muttering no before going on an manic rampage and destroying everything including hte band’s insturments. And apparnetly star’s gotten some flack for her behavior.. but I understand it. To her the stump is VERY real, and will be very angry if someone else celebrates so to her all she’s doing is saving her best friend from the holiday equilvent of the trees from evil dead, and when Marco asks about it she GENUINELY is sorry, getting he meant well, that he was being sweet, and that he did a lot of nice stuff for her.. she just can’t celebrate not because she loves the holiday but because again, from her persepctive, the stump will kill them all if they don’t support it. She is genuinly affraid for her friends lives and given she could go grab her wand and fight it, clearly thinks she, with all her CONSIDERABLE powers, cannot win this, and neither can tom whose powers are almost entirely fire based. Star is just trying to protect her friends from being horribly murdered. And she turns out to be entirely right about it so no, star was not a jerk here. A bit over the top, but she was not insensitive, she was not mean, she just didn’t want a party for understandable reasons.

So let’s get to actually insensitive shall we?! Marco’s reaction to this is at first confusion as he didn’t realize the stump was real, though Tom, Kelly and Pony are convinced it’s not. Also this episode implies Kelly is from mewni, but she turns out not to be so why she knows about the stump I genuinely don’t know. They think it’s just a baby thing.. though in Tom’s defense he dosen’t phrase it that way, thinks star still beliving is cute, which for a teenage boy finding out his girlfriend belivies in santa is very sweet and mature of him, and is trying to be nice about it even if he doesn’t believe.  But Marco.. his response to his friend having a good reason for not wanting to have the party.. is to complain about how much effort he put into it and try to guilt and bribe her into having it by mentoining he got her faviorite cake flavor, rainbow. Just.. WOW. I’ve seen some bad turns from characters, but WOWWWWWW. Holy shit.. I mean at least other jerkass marco episodes before this had SOME reasoning to them. Sophmore Slump had him clearly sublimating his feelings for star combined with the usual obnoxiousness of someone having gone abroard for the first time, which as Letterkenny recently went into, the only thing worse is Stillborn Puppies. Nothing else. 

And with Lint Catcher while he was presumptive and not blameless.. river still outright lied to him. Here? It’s clear star dosen’t want this, cake can be refigirated, he only takes a loss on the choclate fountain and he could still just let everyone have some and say it’s for stump day to appease her. He dosen’t have to take a loss on this finacially or morally and there would be no harm done. But that’s.. not what HE wanted, not waht HE set up and he wants what HE wanted, which was to impress star with a thoughtful gesture. But that’s the thing bud: Gestures aren’t about you or what you get. Their about doint something nice for another fucking person. It’s the whole point of christmas and birthdays: To just give someone something to be ncie and to celebrate the day and them respectively. If she dosen’t WANT your gift for understandable reasons and isn’t being rude about it you don’t have any leg to stand on you seflish twatwaffle. 

So already Marco is not coming off well.. and if you know this episode you know it gets worse. Oh god it gets worse. So first PONYHEAD of all people calls out Marco.. and for once, PONYHEAD, the most selfish, most unresonable and a character whose tolerablity varies on the episode, tells him he’s being selfish and is only pressing on because of his need to control things. So not only is Ponyhead right but the episode LIKELY wants you to feel she’s wrong because she’s pony which is not how this work as she knows star well and thus, while unaware she still belivied in the stump, which tracks as while it’s obvious she does Pony is so up her own whatever she has that functions as an ass, it’s understandable she’d miss some details. So no Pony’s right, and the fact PONY is one of the more resonable people in this episode is both a sign of the apocalypse, which is thankfully starting to recede, and a clear marker of just how bad Marco’s being if someone who torments him and disagrees with him out of principal is entirely right. 

Oh but it gets worse as next up, Tom steps in and tries to get Marco to back out, admitting he told him this was a bad idea. Now granted Tom did mess up by not stepping in to stop this a bit.. but he A) didn’t know how much his girlfriend genuinely belivied in the stump and B) Probably assumed Marco meant well, as would I before he whined about not getting his way, and decided it was worth a try. So he’s not that bad, and while it is a bit ehhh to try and take back credit for this when he participated, it’s still minor and Marco is still being a huge dick who refuses to help shut things down when it’s clear the party is only causing star to have a panic attack and assault some humble marachi players. He sees nothing good is coming from this and just wants what star wants. Also it paints Marco in a worse light as he was warned about this, and was so obssed with making it a suprise party because that’s how his plan went, he refused to just.. talk to her about it. Hell he could’ve just casually asked “Why do you never celebrate your birthday on your birthday”. It’s an easy question, dosen’t give the game away and allows him to gage if this is a good idea or not BEFORE baking a cake , hiring a band and getting a chocolate fountain. Instead he just went ahead with it.  And he did so.. because this ISN’T about making Star happy. This is abotu HIM making star happy. Him showing her how thoughtful, and considerate and sweet he is and how he’s always been there for her and how maybe she should be with him instead of Tom. I mean it just comes off that way.. he made it a suprise party because in his head that’s how it worked and she was super impresed and left tom that day to be with him in some elaborate fantasy. Granted the episode dosen’t say this.. but it sure as hell acccidently implies hte hell out of it by having marco act like a selfish ass who refuses to take what STAR wants into consideration, and just wants to get his fantasy back on track. What supports this to me is how he treats tom, you know one of his best friends: He, again, accuses him of forgetting.. then calls him a bad boyfriend.. a bad boyfriend for NOT wanting to force a celebration on his girlfriend she does not want, and for not forcing it on her. For you know GROWING AS A PERSON.  Beacuse here’s the pickle pumpernickle: This thing Marco’s doing? Is exactly the kind of thing a pre-character development TOM did, that was rightfully framed as bad. Being controlling, wanting things to go JUST a certain way instead of letting them flow naturally, not getting the hint star isn’t intrested, and not caring about what she wants and only what you want. Marco is doing the same thing Tom used to do. And for starters i’ts already bad because you know MARCO WAS THE ONE WHO FINALLY GOT IT THROUGH TO TOM THAT THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR WAS TOXIC AND SELFISH. But apparently when it’s Marco himself doing it it’s fine. If there was ever any clear evidence Marco regressed as a character, there it is.  Him actively unelarning a lesson he taught someone else and then getting combative when that person rightly tries to call him out. Marco is just insufferable in this episode: He’s being selfish, creepy and posseive and he’s apparenlty supposed to, at least on some level BE RIGHT.  But.. we will get to that. Consider a pin put in this rant. 

So Tom overreacts, and throws some fire at marco, which is genuinely wrong and Kelly’s right to call him out, and then headlocks him asking marco to say he’s a good boyfriend. Marco screams out ‘NEVVVEEEERRRR”

I just made this, by hapinstance, while watching the video I put up there. I.. I did not think i’d get to use this so soon but my god. Just my god that’s a terrible thing to say.  So the party soon breaks down elsewhere as Kelly is mad at tom for.. understandable reasons again the guy she has a crush on was just nearly set on fire, even if i’m still on Tom’s side overall here, it’s still not right. Janna points out it’s probably because she has a crush on marco, which while acurate dosen’t mean she was wrong and Tad pops out to be upset about that. Even though you know you two are broken up and as Kelly points out he needs to move out. Pony is mad she’s not getting any attention and Starfan is mad because star’s mad. Star results to desperate measures, opening the windows to try and repeate the act of the settlers.  She didn’t however count on the Janna factor as she throws the stump in the fire, which is in chracter. What’s not, and again I give Jess full credit for this one, is that everyone just starts.. warming around the stump and not caring like a bunch of jackasses not caring about their close friend, and in tom’s case, girlfriend’s feelings. Also tom and marco apparently stopped fighting just to be this stupid. 

But naturally burning the symbolic stump is a bad idea and the real one attacks. Protip: If you live in a world of magical nonsense, maybe don’t discount the magic stump. Everyone’s captured, including moon and river, with River also being suprised and replying to Star’s annoyance at him not beliving with “Sweetie it’s a stump!”. Alan Tudyk is a god and I feel you all should acknowleddge that. But yeah everything seemsm to be bad but everyone apologizes, if not for the right things in Marco’s case, and Tom says “I’m sorry i’m a bad boyfriend!”. You .. you aren’t. You did nothing wrong. I feel like this is tom for the last agrivating 6 minutes of the episode

He did SOME THINGS wrong but he is NOT a bad boyfriend. He is throughtful, kind and while he has flaws, SO DOES STAR. He is not a bad boyfriend for not wanting to repeat past abusive actions! GAH. Let’s just get on with it. They all hold hands, they thiunk this is what made the stump go away but Star is sure it was just going to kill them, Moon and River have a thousand yard stare as they realize they both have to get repairs for this room now and do an extra big stump day next year to make sure it dosen’t come back. And Marco apologizes to star.. for not beliving her. Not for forcing this on her, not for causing all of this, not at all to tom, but for not beliving her while star FUCKING APOLOGIZES TO HIM.  Pin removed, bullshit falling to the floor... Trunks if you would. 

Thank you. Star DID NOTHING WRONG. Tom DID LESS WRONG THAN MARCO. WHY ARE THEY APOLOGIZING. Why is this little shithead getting everything he wants as the party happens after all, if a day later, and he gets to dance with star, while everyone else is painted as being in the wrong? That’s what makes this special so putrid: that MARCO is apparently in the right for doing the same , if on a smaller scale, manipulative shit tom used to do before he grew as a person, yet the episode sides with him, props him up and teases Starco. If it’s Starco it’s okay apparently and that’s.. not okay. You can’t .. build a ship on a character acting like a jackass. That’s not how this works. Marco was wrong, he was bad and he should FEEL bad. Instead he’s just a creepy jerk this entire episode, being entitled, manipulating star, screaming at tom.. and gets REWARDED FOR IT. Fuck this episode. 

FINAL THOUGHTS: I believe I said Fuck this episode.  This is easily one of star vs’ worst episode and much like the season after this episode it gets worse the more you think about it. I put it on my worst holiday episodes list for a reason.. and frankly even with the decent first 4 mintues it should be higher. It’s an unplesant mess that throughly ruins Marco’s character and takes him from a kind, upstanding, polite and bright young man to a creepy manpiulative jackasss. Fuck this episode and have a happy holidays. 

#Star Vs the Forces of Evil #star butterfly #marco diaz #Tom lucitor #tomstar #starco #kelly #lilica ponyhead #starfan14 #christmas #holidays #holiday #stump day #bad episodes #reviews #animation

[crazygaysex]

incomprehensible conjecture and rambling about sunny/rcg under the cut! idk man I got 1 hour of sleep in the past 24 or wataver and my brain is an abandoned swamp Good Nigte

i certainly am not arguing that mac Absolutely Isnt a stereotype of a predatory gay man/self-hating homophobe or whatevr. i wont argue the homophobe one at all really,not great even if they rectified it and further tried to make up for it or whatever w mac finds his pride (which i love, regardless). but honestly i dont think the predatory complaint really makes a whole lot of legitimate sense considering every charatcer on the show is Extremely predatory in their own right. if he wasnt i’d be irritated to be honest. i do agree w wat mcelhenney said something like that its cool that they decided to acknowledge he was gay without changing him fundamentally as a person; he still needs to fit into the show or watever. like idk he’s not Ideal Gay Rep ofc but he’s awesome still. To Me. I like when character’s sexuality can be an improtant acknowledged facet of them but doesnt overtake the rest of te narrative! It never occurred to me that his behavior toward dennis would be seen as predatory ina stereotypical way seeing as how their relationship dynamic is so fckign bizarre. charlie has the same level of dogged cluelessness about the obj of his affection’s true feelings, so it didnt occur to me to see mac touching dennis’ knee or stuff of that variety as being any different ig or as making fun of queers or watevr. if i am wrong/misunderstanding i apologize. i have never considered mac from that perspective before.

honestly i kinda get the complaints. i’ve never rly thought rcg all have 10000% pure intentions with the insensitive kind of humor they are into, no matter their loophole justifications for shit. sometimes i almost believe their reasoning and do basically understand but it still seems flimsy when you considers stuff like the blackface stuff which is indeed kind of funny at times mainly bc the joke is the absurdity of it all, like mac in the shower with the brown dripping off him like he’s melting; it’s not funny at the expense of black ppl but more so at the expense of how goddam stupid and unaware mac is. i havent seen the blackface/brownface ones in years sos i dont have a whole lot to say excepe they seemed to be clearly against using blackface as the moral while still using it to get laughs. so. really honestly i don’t know that it’s Liderally Ever edgy white people’s call to use something like blackface regardless of context, regardless of their obvious intent? i dunno i have tried to find Black ppls opinions online a couple times but struggled to find any tangible results. the only other thing i have to say with ym white person words is that i think it’s stupid that the streamig companies take down all insensitive episodes like theyre trying to brush them under the rug and pretend it never happened in wake of a changing political climate. i get it, but kinda just seems like corporate scrambling ie disney getting ridof all of song of the south but still profiting from splash mountain eprhaps. something seems dodgy to me about pretending it doesnt exist anymore just to cover their asses. i understand the sentiment i guess but i dont think that’s really the main goal of the BLM movement, to purge streaming services of any questionable/racially insensitive/Fully Racist material; there’s surely more important things at the top of the lists besids Good Branding . im not sure if that makes sense

also a lot of episodes the joke is the blatant but somehow woefully oblivious homoerotic overtones present between the guys, like a Lot of the time. it is very funny though is the thing and a lot of thm are my favorites. i dunno. i also thought hte pooping transgender bit was pretty funny mainly cause it was absurd. i think maybe because i have my own what i think are reaosnable and empathetic views about certain stuff like queer shit it doesnt necessarily occur to me that they are trying to make fun of queer people.. like people make fun of conservative fans for having completely missed the point of it all being satire, and wat if i am being tricked to into assuming rcg has kind intentions and isnt trying to make fun of queer people just cause the thought didnt occur to me? instead of taking all the gay subtext serious- WHICh i Do, i should probably be more aware that to rcg it is just a bit and not really that deep. but mac and dennis were totally fucjing in s5 canonically. anwyays like aside from the carmen shit which is handled So Fuckign Bad and it makes me so upset cause i actually love carmen they were just very clearly not bothered with actually representing trans people accurately. so in the bathroom one if even fuckin dee reynolds is like, saying a trans woman in a woman’s bathroom is obviously normal.. it seems like they’d rectified some of their previous Very flawed rhetoric surrounding trans women (ie the whole “u slept with me when i was still a man” line. makes me cringe a bit ebery time)u get wat i mean?? not that it atones for it obviously. i love carmen she desreved better

butreallt i dont have any like. Pure Faith in rcg to be super accountable or honest about their intentions or to have the most accurate or agreeable beliefs or whataver. theyre just fucking about really because they can without any lashback. and people i think like being able to laugh at offensive shit thru scenarios which supposedly distance you from bigots/evil people and make u feel better about yourself watching these dumbass evil people talk slime. when like. glenn yelling supposedly arabic-sounding gibberish for example: it is funny in this context not just cause it’s wildly inappropriate and absurd but also because there’s prob significant amt of people who actually dont have an issue with it who could watch it and not have that takeaway whatsoever. i dont kno wt im talking about anymore btu honestly if youre trying to watch a show that isnt rife throughout with controversial/offensive/insensitive language and story beats, i dont know why you would try to stomach it with sunny. like for gods sake they used blackface more than once! i dunno man

#x #iasip #i need to go to slepep now

[pudding-head-kenma]

bruh pls lemme know some good movies to watch :-: like what're your favs bby??

 IJASKGNBINHSOKGLASKMGAS OH MY GOD I’M SO EXCITED YES :D THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TRUSTING ME W THAT I’LL RECOMMEND SOME GOOD ONES + GIVE THEIR GENRE/SYNOPSIS . PROBABLY LONG LIST BELOW THE CUT !!: 

1. LET’S START WITH MY ALL TIME FAVOURITE MOVIE: mulholland drive - a drama, a mystery and lowkey a thriller - after a car crash, a woman loses her memory. she finds help from a young actress that just recently came to hollywood and together they try to get her memory back, and find out why the amnesiac woman has so much money on her. as they get involved in mysteries, schemes and the hidden parts of hollywood, they fall deeper into a world that they aren’t even sure is real.

2. eternal sunshine of the spotless mind - i would call this a romantic drama! - basically it’s about a couple whose relationship turns sour, and they decide to get a procedure that will delete their memories of each other. it’s honestly such an interesting movie and it’s really tense as you watch strangers, once lovers, dance around each other and systematically forget they have done it

3. magnolia - i would call this a drama - it’s basically a bunch of stories complied into a movie, with characters SEEMINGLY unrelated trying to learn about love, forgiveness, and the meaning of life, lives separated but much closer than they know

4. the music never stopped - drama! - it’s basically the story of a father trying to bond with his estranged son, who recently discovered he has a brain tumour that prevents him from forming new memories. his dad, left without a choice, tries to connect with him through music

5. american beauty - drama - it’s really hard to give this a synopsis, and the ones i see aren’t all that accurate. it’s true that a suburban dad has a lot of sexual frustration, but that’s not necessarily the essence of a movie - it’s a family with a lot of pent up feelings, frustrations, and others

6. gisaengchung (parasite) - drama, thriller(?) - i think everyone might know this movie already but it’s definitely worth mentioning! it’s hard to describe, but try to think of the differences between a high class family and a lower class one. what if hte lower class starts trying to profit from the others? that’s when greed comes into play

7. byōsoku go senchimētoru (5 centimeters per second) - i’d call this a romantic drama, but not with all the focus on romance. romance is the undertone for the drama - this is an animated movie told in 3 instances of someone’s life, when he fell in love as a child, when he lost that love as a teen, and when he’s trying to get over that love, surrounded by the cold world and adult obligations.

8. lost in translation - drama, comedy (i say comedy not bc it’s a comedy just because it’s light hearted yknow) - a washed out actor travels to tokyo for a commercial, where he meets a young woman. they form a bond and start an unlikely friendship. 

9. the night of the hunter - it’s a noir film, i’d say a bit more than thriller but not exactly HORROR, crime - a religious fanatic marries into the family of a gullible widow and her two kids. only the kids know their father hid $10,000 from a bank robbery, and there’s something strange about their step dad.

10. beasts of the southern wild - adventure, drama, fantasy (?) - this is a really good take on environmental issues in my opinion. a six year old has to learn courage and love as she deals with her father's fading health and melting ice-caps that are flooding her ramshackle bayou community

11. green room - horror, thriller - a punk rock band is forced to fight for survival after witnessing a murder at a bar. this movie is so nice to watch because it flows really well and you feel really tense

12.  inglourious basterds - war, drama, adventure - in france, during the second world war, a group of jewish u.s soldiers come up with a plan to take down nazi leaders, not knowing the owner of a theatre is planning something with the same objective

13. amour - drama, romance -  an octogenarian couple’s love is tested when the wife has a stroke, and the husband sees himself forced to change his whole life to take care of her. 

14. rosemary’s baby - thriller, horror(?) - a young couple trying to have a baby moves into a fancy apartment, surrounded by peculiar neighbours. once the wife gets pregnant, she becomes convinced that the neighbours are trying to steal her baby for a satantic cult

15. moonlight - drama - the struggles of childhood, adolescence and adulthood, as told by an african american man struggling with his identity and sexuality. 

16. el laberinto del fauno (pan’s labyrinth) - drama, war, i’d say thriller sometimes -  in the falangist spain in 1944, a bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world

17. oldeuboi - action, mystery - a man is kidnapped and kept prisoner for 15 years. once he’s finally out, he discovers he has to find his captor in 5 days so he can find out why he was kidnapped. in the meantime, he starts a peculiar involvement with a much younger woman, and uncovers secrets he didn’t know he had kept

18. låt den rätte komma in (let the right one in) - crime, drama, fantasy(?) - an overlooked and peculiar boy finds love and revenge in an even more peculiar girl

19. birdman (or the unexpected virtue of ignorance) -  a washed-up superhero actor attempts to revive his fading career by writing, directing, and starring in a broadway production. this movie’s synopsis doesn’t give it the proper emphasis but it’s so good. it’s also all shot in the sequence of a day (obviously there’s cuts, but you can’t see them so it looks like only 1 shot and it becomes an amazing experience)

20. the blair witch project - horror -  three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind. this movie was one of the first ‘found footage’ films that really sent the genre flying, i would highly recommend

21. for the same reasons above, i recommend [REC] (the spanish one), as it also brought found footage films to the public in the beginning. it’s about a journalist who finds herself stuck on a building with the infected, since the police decided to sacrifice everyone inside for the sake of the virus not getting out.

22. salinui chueok (memories of murder) [trigger: mention of r*pe]  - action, crime, drama - in a small Korean province in 1986, two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit

23. once - music, drama - a story about a pianist and a guitarist coming together and trying to live out their struggles through music. 

24. gokseong (the wailing) - mystery, horror, thriller - soon after a stranger arrives in a little village, a mysterious sickness starts spreading. a policeman, drawn into the incident, is forced to solve the mystery in order to save his daughter.

#THOSE WERE ALL I COULD RMR OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD #I HOPE IT HELPS ANON #anon <3 #danie recs!

[dancing-lawn]

A Letter to the Creators of the Netflix Adaptation of Narnia

As some of you may already know, Netflix will be adapting the Chronicles of Narnia. Now, I don’t want to get my hopes up too much. The Magician’s Nephew was meant to be adapted not long after Voyage of the Dawn Treader came out, and that was scrapped in favor of Silver Chair, which is a dead project too. But, if the stars do happen to align and Netflix manages to adapt the series, I will be a loyal fan and supporter of the creators of the TV/film franchise. 

Everyone has their own opinions on how the Narnia series should be adapted. Some believe that the religious tones should be enhanced, while others believe they should be lessened. Some want the series to be more gritty and serious, while others want it to be light and child-friendly. Some want to see accurate representation and an expansion of the Narnia universe (what are the other countries like? who is to say that all of Narnia is white, straight, and cis?) while others want it to be an exact adaptation. All of the concerns about Netflix adaptations are valid, especially given the importance of the Narnia series for many children around world as well as the undoubtedly religious aspect of hte series. Taking too many liberties may alienate the Christian community, whilet taking too few will ostracize fans who wish to see the books adapted to fit 21st century political, social, and cultural sensibilities. 

I have my own opinions and hopes for the series: mainly, that I would love to be offered a richer picture of the Narnian universe, from what Calormen and Archenland are like, the political and social climate of the Golden Age, to the early reign of Frank and Helen. I think if done right, delving into these aspects will show a new side to Narnia, when it has been seen by most mainstream media as simply a Christian allegory while other fantasy series and given broader platforms and deeper analyses by the average consumer. 

But, what I hope above all else that the Netflix production of Narnia captures is the spirit of the series. I believe for many kids who first read the novels, the religious tones go unnoticed. For many, Narnia is arguably the first example of escapism fiction, where children have authority and power, when they usually go ignored and silenced by adults. 

Indeed, for C.S. Lewis himself, Narnia was not intended to be first nad foremost a Christian novel. He has said multiple times that he didn’t envision Narnia as allegory, and that he developed the plot and fantasy before he realized the similarities to Christian themes. He created Narnia from a dream of a lamppost and a faun in a red scarf, and it was that dream that carried him through seven books, that saw the birth and death of a world. 

Instead, Narnia is an amalgamation of several cultures and themes. He incorporated Celtic fairytales alongside Judeo-Christian themes, as well as Greek mythology and astronomy. C.S. Lewis was a scholar before he was a Christian (he was a strong atheist before meeting J.R.R. Tolkien who convinced him to rejoin the Church) and it is his scientific reasoning that informs much of the series. As a result, to write off the Narnia series as “just” a Christian book, thinly veiled as fantasy, would be false on multiple counts, and I hope the Netflix producers see the series as more than that.

For me, Narnia is not about Christianity or even religion. Instead, Narnia is about rediscovering magic and joy, when all seems hopeless and you have no power or control over your own life. The Pevensie children are sent off to live in the countryside with a stranger after the Blitz, passive actions of their political reality. Still, when they enter Narnia, they encounter the White Witch, who seeks total control over the world. In the world that the Pevensies are brought up in, age equals authority and power; even the older siblings try to control Lucy, and much of the early sibling interaction between Edmund anad Lucy has to do with him seeking authority over his younger sister. The other books, too, show this conflict between children and authority figures: Diggory versus Uncle Andrew, Shasta versus his adoptive father figure, Prince Caspian versus Miraz, Eustace and Jill versus the stifling intellectual environment of their school and families.

What Narnia offers each protagonist is the opportunity to discover their own power and give them the opportunity to control their own narratives. Each character is active in his or her own story, rather than reacting to circumstances beyond their control. Certainly, they have guidance. But, Aslan’s help is rare, and often, the children save themselves. They make mistakes, but they also atone for them and move forward. Narnia shows children that they do have power, even if those around them don’t recognize or appreciate it. 

At the same time, the series condemns authority figures and adults for forgetting their inner child. The books are not saying that adulthood is bad (Frank and Helen are positive adult figures, as are Diggory and Polly in later books) but rather, many adults lose the joy, courage, and creativity they once had as children, becoming cynical, shallow, and cruel as a result. Uncle Diggory’s obsession with appearances is mocked, when the Talking Animals mistake him for a tree; Miraz is defeated by his superstitions. The “problem of Susan,” often cited as sexism on Lewis’s part, is another example of this theme: that true maturity means accepting and celebrating the wisdom of childhood. 

What a successful Narnia adaptation should do, then, is not preach Christianity or present a meaningless adventure, just for the sake of showing off advanced CGI, but tell us that even in times of darkness, you can still hold onto hope, you can still atone for your mistakes, and you can still have agency over your own destiny. The people around you may belittle and disrespect you, but that doesn’t take away your power unless you succumb to it. 

It is hard to keep fighting, to keep having that hope when everyone around you has given up. But what the Narnia series shows us is that we can change the world and we do have an impact. That spirit - of courage, of dedication, of hope - is what I hope that Netflix manages to bring to the screen, above plot minutiae, cool CGI, and Christian allegory. 

Narnia was never about playing it safe, finding a home, or having blind faith in a god. Instead, Narnia is about the struggle of finding yourself and believing in something against all odds, and that maintaining hope is not futile or useless but worthwhile and powerful. To Netflix, to Matthew Aldrich, to the incredible cast and crew that will be starting soon on adapting the book series that changed my life, I am excited to see you take on this challenge and show to the world the greatness of the Pevensies, Aslan, and Narnia. Good luck and courage, dear hearts!

#chronicles of narnia #netflix #mine

[exadorlion]

not to sound like a cheesy white lady but bruh this shit is breathtaking. im rlly curious abt hte story behind huberts death ... do u have plans to reveal the full plot uve got goin on? [imagine i typed an eyes emoji cuz im not on mobile]

oh my god yes thank you for askING AAAAAAAAAA

im basing this au off the actual game with more modern twists so towards the end, hubert stood guard before fighting edelgard so 👀 also i’m super extra so i wanted to dramatic as hell, excuse the theatrics

edelgards goal is to create a crime empire branching across the country and a big portion of what is need is the segways between the three “states”/provinces to deliver weapons, drugs, etc. hubert deals a lot with the supervision with shipments and schedule so when ferdinand realizes that hubert (not a good dude btw,, killed a lot of people just for inconvenience sake) murder his father, he first brought hubert to where hubert confessed his crush to ferdie (a bar), had a good hearty night, and when they went for a smoke, ferdinand shot him point blank

#syndicate au

[the-stray-liger]

I absolutely loathe whoever wrote AC: Rogue, it's the game that single handedly turned the entire franchise onto the track of "Maybe this is actually Grey and Grey?" and they had to literally defy all of the tenets of the literal Assassin's Creed in order to make the Assassins seem morally grey. Good Job, Ubisoft. You gave into the Edge literally right after writing a story about how the Assassins are deeply self-analytical to avoid this.

GOD FUCKING SAME. Specially after I read the AC The Chain comics. Oh my god did that make me fucking livid. I was already about to lose interest because of how BADLY they handled Assassin’s Creed III and how dirty they did all their mcs of color but the fact that on top of it they pulled THIS SHIT? I remember reading the Chain (pretty late actually) and then like I think maybe like a year later Rogue was announced and I was like oh hell fucking NO

The entire point of the Assassin order was that they were literally a grey organization: they were sneaky and did dirty stuff for the sake of a higher purpose but were in their great majority lawful/neutral good. There was LITERALLY no way to fuck this up but they did it anyway. Like the same concept of the rogue Assassin left for dead had already been done in The Fall and The Chain 3 years before and it had been pulled off really well, it actually gave us Daniel Cross and a whole and pretty well rounded story with a very clear message about how the Templars! Are! Bad! BUT THEY SOMEHOW FUCKED IT UP BY TRYING TO MAKE IT AGAIN IN ROGUE AND UUGGHHHH THE ENTIRE PREMISE OF THAT GAME MADE ME SO ANGRY I never touched an Assassin’s Creed game after I read the first summary that came out???? like bitch how do you mess up SO BADLY something that had literally existed for 7 years at that point 

I tried really hard to forgive them for Unity and Syndicate, but Rogue was just the fucking icing on the cake. 

Honestly Assassin’s Creed strted so good for me but when AC3 came out Ubisoft truly showed their true colors and did some really shitty things in terms of writing AND marketing that I cannot overlook. AC went from being like, being one of my favorite things ever to being one of hte biggest disappointmetns of my life lmao I’ll never not be bitter about it

#Anonymous

[mr-mikey]

Okay time to continue with my golden deer playthrough starting with the usual spoiler disclaimers and I must warn that this is a BIG post underneath the read more. With that out of the way let us continue:

The end of chapter 20 has us reuniting with Rhea who has been in captivity for some five years in secret. After a quick thank you for Byleth and Claude’s actions in saving her, Claude asks her about the children of the goddess saying that they were filled on on the details. Rhea is hesitant, but Claude presses on because the time for secrets has passed and the next steps determine the fate of fodlan.

So Rhea speaks of a group of people that have slithered in the dark and threatened the fate of Fodlan for a very long time. She also mentions that Nemesis was a bandit leader that plundered the Holy Tomb and stole the remains of the progenitor god. And once he reappeared he bore the Sword of the Creator within a place called Zanado where he slaughtered the children of the progenitor god before using their corpses to gain more power and using that power brought war to Fodlan.

Furthermore Rhea states that ‘a mere bandit’ like Nemesis wouldn’t be capable of what he did on his own which leads Claude to realize that he must have had help from those that slither in the dark, who this time around used the empire to start a war across the continent. The chapter ends with Rhea saying that the Bloody history of Fodlan, the Red Canyon Tragedy to repeat itself.

The main fortress those that slither in the dark use is located just south of Hilda’s Territory, a fact that leaves Hilda feeling creeped out. Rhea insists on coming along despite her captivity and Seteth’s protests. The fortress is a weirdly mechanical palace that even features it’s own unique and bizarre theme to show how different it is compared to the rest of the game and world. And instead of Crest Beasts there are Giant Metal Golems that move around to protect the area.

The boss himself has a spell called ‘quake’ that affects ALL grounded units no matter the range, so that’s something to be careful about. But once he’s down he spitefully calls down those ‘Javelin’s of Light’ to destroy the city and everyone inside. But Rhea transforms once more and protects byleth despite being grievously injured. Manuela mentions that it’s a miracle that Rhea is still alive.

After a change of scenes, Claude comes to talk to Rhea again who says that she doesn’t have much time left and she doesn’t intend to hide things any longer. Claude states that she is the Immaculate one, and she confirms that by saying that she is the Last Child of the Progenitor God.

She used her blood to create children, shared her knowledge with the people of the land to build a prosperous civilization. Eventually the humans turned against hte Progenitor God and started wars across the land. In their arrogance they believed themselves as Gods and challenged the progenitor god herself. A majority of the humans were killed from the battles that ensured, and Rhea believes that those that slither in the dark are the descendants of those that retreated underground during that era.

Peace returned to Fodlan for a while, but then Nemesis appeared and slaughtered everyone in Zanado, using weapons crafted from the corpses of her brethren.

Claude is surprised to hear that Rhea is Seiros from the legends, but her story is interrupted as a Hilda and a pair of soldiers come in to announce that an unidentified army has sprung up in the east and is attacking every city that it comes across. In some cases there were no survivors left alive.

And even Lord Holst was badly injured in the fighting, and he has a reputation as a powerful fighter.

And Rhea quickly deduces that Nemesis has been brought back from the dead and is leading the mysterious army because the general is both wielding a weapon simlar to the Sword of the Creator and is using the Crest of Flames as their banner.

Rhea continues to explain that the Crests, Heroes’ Relics and Crest stones were all made by those that slither in the dark because the progenitor god never gave that kind of power to humans... And considering what that power does to people like Sylvain’s brother and Marianne’s Ancestor she was right not to give that power away...

And Claude comes to the sickening realization that the people of Zanado were killed by weapons that were made by the corpses of their breatheren...

And we finally learn that Sothis’ Crest Stone is within Byleth himself. Rhea had wanted to see her mother once more but instead Sothis chose to give Byleth her power and disappear. Perhaps Sothis was aware on some level of what Rhea had done and didn’t want to harm Byleth for her sake...

And with that last remark the month before the final battle is available.

And during Claude’s last battle speech Hilda is especially angry at Nemesis for hurting her brother, and she wants paypack xD

And I find Marianne’s determined face to be especially cute.

The final Chapter takes place on a giant map that’s covered by a toxic swamp. All over the map you can see Enemy units that have copies of the Heroes’ Relics. There’s even a trio of Slitherin mages that can summon Dark Demonic Beasts if you don’t take care of them quickly enough.

Nemesis himself is a Monster of a unit whose stats are increased for every ‘copy’ of the 10 heroes that are still alive, so they all have to die before you can try to take on the big bad. Once you attack him, he WILL move from his starting spot so be careful about that.

But with some help Lysithea finishes the big bad off and all is well. I was treated to a heartwarming cutscene of Byleth and Claude working together to trick Nemesis into the path of a falling arrow shot to finish him off. With Nemesis’ death his army also crumbles into dust and Fodlan is saved, and Claude entrusts the land to us as he returns home so he can continue to work towards the realization of his dreams...

And there’s one more part that I’m going to cover the characters before I am 100% finished chronicling my Golden Deer run!

#fire emblem spoilers #fe16 spoilers #mikey speaks #mikey plays three houses #long post

[kelvintimeline]

STEPHANIE’S POST ACTUALLY SEEING ENDGAME REVIEW--SPOILER FILLED LIST OF EVERYTHING WRONG WITH TIHS MOVIE I COULD NOTICE IN BETWEEN MENTAL RANTS

 okay, so, during the movie, i spent hafl the time compiling rants in my brain about eveyrthing wrong with it and then emailed myself every point so i would not forget what made me mad

this is one of the most passively racist and sexist movies i have seen in a while it was just... completely devoid of any meaningful women or people of color (or... women of color) for so much of the film? and those who were present got shafted a lot. like... literally all of the women except for nebula existed to tell a man’s story.

which brings me to the point that we NEED to talk about the theme of family in this movie--it’s constantly brought up. clint misses his family, tony now has a family (because just dating someone isnt’ a family? this is a very nuclear famiyl oriented understanding of family), gamora and nebula are family, natasha never knew her family but the avengers are her family

and tha’s the crux of it--natasha calls the avengers her family, steve calls avengers family, but that’s not good enough to save her

when natasha and clint are on the cliff, clint makes a great point about why he should die--he’s become a terrible person (he spends half the movie just killing “evil people” who are all people of color, see: talking about how racist this movie is--literally “ronin” clint is better at a samurai sword than a japanese man and now speaks japanese?? why?? it felt like a bad martial arts parody movie--like those racist movies ppl would make about white men slaughtering samurais just not GOOD) and natasha has finally erased the red in her ledger by doing good. natasha dies anyways (literally forces him to kill her) because she’s stopped being useful to her “family” and his family is an actual family.

which brings me to--steve and natasha explicitly talk about two things--how they are family and how it is important to move on.

moving on is a CENTRAL part of this movie--the time travel works in large part so everyone can move on from their losses. thor moves on from his mother’s death, tony gets closure with his father, clint gets what should have been a last moment seeing his happy family, etc. steve gets to see peggy.

steve does not move on. steve LITERALLY HAS MULTIPLE LINES ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO MOVE ON AND STEVE DOES NOT MOVE ON. steve tells a gay man mourning his dead husband while trying to date someone new that moving on is important and steve still goes back in time to stay with peggy.

what’s worse, steve goes back in time and tells bucky to wait for hima nd not do anything stupd KNOWING HE MIGHT NOT MAKE IT BACK BECAUSE HES CHOOSING TO LIVE OUT HIS ENTIRE LIFE IN TEH PAST.

what’s EVEN WORSE THAN THAT--literally right the fuck after bucky and sam gets dusted he’s alreayd thinking about peggy? he never once mentions sam/bucky besides a quick mention of bucky being alive to trick past steve.

more fucked up shit around sam/bucky/steve--sam offers to go back with him but bucky doesn’t?? when old man steve returns, bucky doens’t even try to talk to him? despite being the one to notice him? steve doesn’t stand with bucky and sam at tony’s funeral why?

steve and bucky and sam and so many otehres are FAMILY but not enough family to make steve stay

steve aint worthy

steve apparently DID STAY IN THIS FUCKING TIMELINE? since he didn’t return via the pym particles or wahtever he literally aged into the present AND LET EVERY BAD THING HAPPEN YOu DON’T DO THAT TO PEOPLE YOU LOVE HE LET HYDRA AND TEH WINTER SOLDIER PROGRAM HAPPEN??

unless i don’t udnerstand the time travel--> separate unierse thing which is possible BECAUSE ITS’ FUCKING STUPID

if the universe splits into a different universe when the stones are removed--this would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT TIMELINE WHEN THANOS DESTROYED THE STONES which means when tehy returned hte stones, they actually would’ve reverted back to the timeline before he destroyed the stones-an infinite loop

why couldn’t they snap tehir dead back to life?

where did thanos’ army come from?

when his army disappeared why didn’t gamora disappear too?

did they think i would forget that they could de-age people? scott was turned young again--why can’t they make steve young agian, lmao

why didn’t steve take every single vial of particles he could get? like he only took a couple ie as many as were necessary for the plot

how did thanos/gamora/nebula travel on only one vial? why werne’t other ppl sharing vials then??

why was okoye gone all film? like the answer is misogynoir but like... seriosuly why?

WHY DID TONY BLAME STEVE FOR THE SNAP HAPPENING?

WHY DID STEVE SPEND LTIERALLY THE ENTIRE FILMT ELLING TONY HE TRUSTS HIM, THAT TONY IS RIGHT (EVEN WHEN HE WAS EXPLICITLY WRONG AND WAS PROVEN TO BE WRONG), AND THEN CRYING OVE RHIM?

also they still fucked up the timelines?? the timelines are changed AFTER they removed the stones nad yet they did shit to fuck up the timelines trying to get the stones--which means every dumb ass thing they did to get eth stones remains in the timeline. unless steve returns the stones to BEFORE they actually took the stones, in whcih? that makes no sense?

nebula’s “network” connection between her prsent and past self made no sense either

thor literally made valkyrie (who hadn’t been with the asgardians from many years) queen so that they could write her out of his movies as he’s not a member of GOTG

ltos of girl power moments actually worked like that--every time a woman did something cool, it was to harm her in some way. valkyrie is “queen” so she’s no longer relevant to thor’s plot

the moment where all of the girls (besides the dead ones :) ) teamed up just had them get beaten down in teh end? like it was for nothing? that’s not... girl power. also, they wouldn’t even be able to fit all of the important men into one screen so it’s just embarrassing

talking about weird shit about women--EVEYR woman EVER in the series comes back but they don’t even mention sharon, the girl steve was dating, at all, like even confirm if she was dusted or not, beacuse they know that makes steggy look bad

literally even JANE got new moments but sharon couldn’t come up

talking about jane--making thor hung up on her is fucking weird he has a girlfriend? who he treats like shit, tbf. thor’s character was an extended fat joke. he liteally says he isn’t fit to be king and that he was just pretending aftter getting a speech from his mother saying that isn’t true. ragnarok thor was killed off in the worst way. also his mother literally existing just to be like... an emotional spport woman was misgoynistic as fuck lmao

like thor’s cahracter WHOMST?

also, like, the hail hdyra moment was the nastiness shit i’ve seen in a long fucking time?? including antisemitism in your movie just ot reference a comic book run that was panned by both people who hate antisemitism and also antisemitic fanboys who like good writing (like it just wasn’t written well) is just... antisemitic. it was a reference for anti semitism’s sake

the moments they choose to get this shit was also so fuckign arbitrary? you couldn’t retrieve half these stones at like... normal times? also how did they know where to find them in the shield vaults or like where to find the pym particles

the writing in this movie was just ‘what is most convenient for moving the plot along/fanservice/humanizing tony’

talking about humanizing tony did pepper give birth like the sceond after the snap? their child is so old for a five year time skip like... i guess since tony didn’t lose anyone in the snap besides peter it didn’t affect how horny he was

also the peter/tony stuff was so oevrblown???????? THEY WEREN’T CLOSE?? TONY TREATED HIM LIKE SHIT FOR 80% OF HOMECOMING??

its so nice and convenient that ned got snapped too--all of peter’s friends get snapped so no one is 22 and out of high school (also i refuse to watch far from home because i feel like old man steve dying is just gonna be a fly by comment)

talking about the snap--the list of names in the graveyard made sense but it felt like a war/actual genocide memorial and it felt... cheap and gross and also why teh fuck was it placed in that random part of town?

ALSO LIKE?? wanda and clint talk and they make it seem like vision and natasha’s death are equally bad the mcu rly does just ahte women

also the women all get make overs?? why is natasha dying her hair in the middle of the end of the world

why did tony get a funeral but natasha doesn’t?

the guardians having a funny moment with thor instead of discussing gamora felt........ bad

there were two steves in the main universe how the fuck does that make sense?????? how does that not affect the timeline also what happened to peggy’s husbAND?

there are other things wrong with it but this is all i wrote down in my emails to myself. there were a lot of individual moemnts that pissed me off but then something else would happen to piss me off and i would forget what i was mad about before that

#avengers spoilers #endgame spoilers #a4 spoilers #spoilers