#he only really makes one decision and while (spoilers) it does redeem him it also dooms him

[unseconds]

watched Goncharov on a call with some friends and... yeah i can see what people are talking about

#goncharov #this is like so self indulgent it barely makes sense as a fan poster #its like a poster for the goncharov that is in my head #unreality #also #while im here #can i just say that i love how while goncharov is positioned as a masculine protagonist of a mafia movie #hes a surprisingly passive character #hes so willing to be lead by the wrist to his fate #he only really makes one decision and while (spoilers) it does redeem him it also dooms him #its like he knows how his story ends #i almost felt complicit as a viewer? #good movie basically

[huginsmemory]

Trigun and the 'Bride of Christ'

An additional thought that popped up after my previous post about Triguns heavy themes of Christianity (a somewhat? Part 2?). In this I look at the Vash and Wolfwoods relationship, their opposing views and how that relates to the Christian term 'the bride of christ'. During this I specifically discuss a large spoiler for the series/manga, so readers beware!

I was chatting with some lovely folks on the Vashwood discord server (if you wish to join, click this link!) about Wolfwoods death, and the way it's, well, wedding themed. The wedding themes include the confetti, the way Wolfwoods passing occurs in front of a church, the ringing of the church bell, and the bottle of liquor they share is labelled 'BRIDE' with a cross on it.

All the items come together in a definite way that resembles, in some terrible fashion, the festivities for a wedding. Hell, even after Vash buries Wolfwood, he makes tons of dishes of food, and Livio and him basically have a feast, another thing one does at weddings.

The 'Bride of Christ'

What particularly caught my eye was the bottle with the word bride on it, with a cross. Multiple times within the new testament, the body of the church is referred to as the 'Bride of Christ'. As I've previously mentioned, Vash is regularly set up as a Christ-like figure; his actions and his philosophical values align with a Christian perspective, in his belief in unconditional love and forgiveness (ie, the blank ticket). As well, as that Wolfwood is a Christian preist, this literally makes him a 'bride of Christ'. In a sense, where in the story Vash is pitched as a Christ-like figure, this means that Wolfwood could be interpreted as the 'bride of Vash'. This especially so considering the contextual clues that hint towards a wedding - confetti, church, and church bells.

Acceptance of Christian philosophy

Further adding to this, is that although Wolfwood was a priest, he did not fully ascribe to Vash's view. In fact, the two of them are foils, their beliefs similar- both coming from love and a need to protect, but differing in Vash ascribing to unconditional love and forgiveness, while Wolfwood refuting that such a position can be practically taken (this is, well, I would say a simplified take on their beliefs but thats a different post for a different day). However, by this point in the story, the both of them have very deeply impacted each other. In fact, this is set almost immediately after Wolfwood saves Vash from Knives, which is the the moment where Vash openly forgives Wolfwood and Wolfwood begins his acceptance of Vash's philosophical views; in that specific moment, he accepts his own absolution (explained further in my previous post).

It is exactly in Wolfwoods fight against Chapel and Livio, that Wolfwood fully (or mostly so) accepts Vash's philosophical views, expanding to accept a blank ticket/unconditional love for others. This is seen as he repeatedly chooses not to kill Chapel's hired guns, and even sharply pleading Livio to spare one of them. Indeed, previously at Vash's request, he'll shoot to injure, but he's not really shown to be particularly worried about the bandits, versus here he is actively choosing to minimize harm; exactly like we've seen Vash do, over and over and over again throughout the series. As well, the hired guns literally try to target the orphanage when they've clearly lost, and also kill one of their own when Wolfwood brings him back, telling him that they've just upped their pay- showing that they're not particularly 'redeemable' hired guns that are likely to repent and become good people. And yet, Wolfwood still chooses to try and save them.

He also specifically goes out of his way to not kill Livio, even though killing Livio would severely even out the playing field, and Wolfwood would likely not have likely died as a result. And Wolfwood makes that decision, again and again and again, only focusing on killing Chapel, and Chapel only, since he's the one that is threatening the orphans.

While Wolfwood fights, Chapel derides him on Vash's views, and how Wolfwood has picked them up. Wolfwood, close to death, reviews his relationship with Vash and Vash's philosophy, and refutes the ideology that Chapel believes in, and that he himself has lived under, that they need to kill to survive, (or to save lives) and that Vash's belief in forgiveness and unconditional love is foolish.

It culminates in Wolfwood declaring that he believes in Vash, in his principles, and standing back up to continue to fight, having accepted Vash's Christian philosophy. Interestingly, it's also Christian leaning terminology he uses; both in that he followed Vash, much like one follows the the teachings of Christ, and that he believes in the Vash's ability to change to world with his philosophy, in the same way Christians believe in Jesus's ability to save the world through the gospel.

In summary, Wolfwood chooses to accept and even says he believes in Vash's philosophical views, thereby choosing to accept the possibility of forgiveness and unconditional love, both for himself, as is shown when he saves Vash from Knives, but also for others, and especially with Livio during the scene up to his death. This full acceptance and belief in a Christian/Vash's perspective would then also show that Wolfwood has fully accepted to be the 'bride of Christ', making him not only via contextual cues a 'bride' of Vash, but also within a Christian theological sense a bride of Vash as well.

In conclusion, (ie, TLDR) Wolfwoods death is wedding themed, with confetti, a church, church bells, and a bottle with the label BRIDE with a cross on it. The church is within the Bible called the 'bride of Christ'; as Vash is a christ-figure, and Wolfwood is a priest, this would make Wolfwood Vash's bride. As well, it is just previous to Wolfwood death scene that Wolfwood has accepted Vash's Christian philosophies, signalling his acceptance as the 'bride of Christ/Vash', further perpetuating the wedding theme.

TTLDR: Vash and Wolfwood are married yup 👍

#trigun #trigun manga #trigun maximum #wolfwood #nicholas d. wolfwood #trigun wolfwood #vash the stampede #livio the double fang #trigun analysis #manga spoilers #vashwood #vash x wolfwood #back at it again with trigun analysis... #dude I have like two midterms in a day and here i am. writting about my silly little blorbos #trigun... christian... analysis... #i need to do a post on their philosophical differences because thats a whole fucking bag of cats thats fascinating #is this blasphemous? i feel like it might be a bit. i feel like jesus would be like no no u r right and have a good point #while the church would be like *two shots to the back of my head* #anyways real talk tho my whole reason of writing this is to get people to redo really dramatic christian paintings as vashwood #i feel like some of it might be a bit of a strwtch and then i see then damn bottle again and im like. fuck. nightow u fucker #i feel like he didn't mean it in a gay way but whooo-y baby im gonna take it in a gay way #also whats really interesting is wolfwood in a way worshipping vash a bit and being still unable to see himself as worthy #also lots from wolfwoods pov but its also interesting Vash's own relationship with himself since its a lot of selfhate and negation #anyways! random thoughts #hugin rambles

[itsoxyymoronn]

i'd like to disclaim i have only read the first hunger games book and around half of the second, so my opinions and personal analysis are mainly skewed towards the movies. also spoilers for TBOSAS (duh). also this is all kind of a rushed non-edited theory, and probably needs more detail. ill probably edit here and there, so i'd love to hear any thoughts!

after seeing The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes last night, honestly what has been on my mind a lot was if the love between lucy gray and snow was real, and from that it felt it could only be answered by whether snow was inherently evil or he became evil.

the easiest answer feels to be that he was always purely selfish and lacked a great deal of empathy. all things seemed to point to that, but one thing that always threw a wrench in that idea for me was the scene where snow breaks down crying after looking in sejanus' storage. i think this scene is particularly important because by panem standards he did the correct thing. his friend was a rebel and he reported it. by panem's standards, he shouldn't feel guilty, and yet he still does. this seems to indicate some sort of moral compass in him.

i guess then the question leads to why snow became so evil. i think it is a combination of inherent self-serving traits and the environment he was raised in. i think a key concept here is "explanation, not excuse", which i learned from a video essay by Trope Anatomy in regards to Cassie Howard (link below). experiencing war and hardship at such a young age and later growing up around negative influences, such as Dr. Gaul and really all of the capitol itself, shaped his worldview and are direct factors that lead him to make the decisions he does. it doesn't excuse them though. his upbringing didn't force him to make these terrible choices, they only gave him more reason to. yet he still could've chosen to be good, as people like sejanus did.

him becoming pure evil in the end felt like a defense mechanism to cope with his own guilt. an incredibly messed up and extreme one at that. i think in the end his distain for the districts and their people doesn't come solely from them being "district" (although that definitely has something to do with his hatred) but rather them being people. dr. gaul taught him humans are all destined to show their true, evil nature, and this snow did. i think continuing the games was a way of proving to himself again and again that it was not just him that was evil, but all humans. it probably soothed the guilt within him.

while he may not have began as pure evil, he did become it. he's evil, full stop. he can't be redeemed. but i think TBOSAS gives us reason as to why he is like this. and while it may have been easy to view snow as forever and always evil, i believe in a way snow having this agency and development into cruelty just makes him all the more evil because it shows he DID have a choice, and chose evil. a great Screen Rant quote that really made me start thinking about this is "the overarching antagonist of the Hunger Games [is] Panem, not Snow" (link below).

SOURCES:

Trope Anatomy: Freudian Cassie: How Far an Excuse Can Go

Screen Rant: Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes Changes How You See Snow (But He’s Still Evil) https://screenrant.com/ballad-songbirds-snakes-president-snow-changes-evil/#:~:text=Still%2C%20the%20purpose%20behind%20Suzanne,Games%20as%20Panem%2C%20not%20Snow.

GIF credit is linked in GIF.

#the ballad of songbirds and snakes #thg #coriolanus snow #tbosas #corio snow #coryo snow #sejanus plinth #lucy gray baird #snowbaird #thg series #tigris snow #panem #hunger games #suzanne collins

[trainsinanime]

The ending: Movie versus Season 5

I still maintain that the best way to watch the movie and the end of season 5 is back to back, interrupted only by a short drive home from the cinema, so you can really compare them and get a full on knot in your brain.

Spoilers for both, I’ll reblog this on the 29th for the Netflix crowd, you know the drill.

Both endings have to deal with similar issues, but do them in very different ways. The problem is that while Miraculous Ladybug isn’t actually complicated, it has some complicated stuff in there that it doesn’t deal with on a day-to-day basis, and the end of the fight with Hawkmoth has to resolve them. The biggest point here is the relationship between Adrien and Gabriel.

Adrien loves his dad, and there is an argument to be made that Gabriel has some affection towards Adrien, maybe. Gabriel does everything for Adrien, at least ostensibly, but Adrien is dedicated to stopping him. Gabriel believes he’s a bad father and it isn’t worth even trying because he can resurrect Emilie and have her do the work of raising Adrien. Stopping Hawkmoth implies revealing the complicated nature of this relationship.

Do you redeem Gabriel? If so, does he die in the process? Does Adrien forgive him, or finally cut ties? Do you bring Emilie back or not? What about Nathalie? What about Sentimonsters? Oh, and isn’t this whole story actually supposed to be about Marinette?

The movie resolves this in the most simple, some might say most boring way imaginable. Gabriel sees that Adrien is Chat Noir, Adrien sees that Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Gabriel goes, „sorry“, Adrien goes, „I forgive you“. It’s as simple a resolution as can be.

It’s also deeply unsatisfying. Gabriel and Adrien had barely talked up to that point, and it did not seem like there was any actual affection there. Gabriel also drops his whole motivation almost immediately, and changes his entire outlook on life just because he’s seen Chat Noir. Granted, same. And yes, it does mean that he becomes the only one in the movie with a character arc. But it’s too short, too simple, and it feels hollow. Oh, and Marinette? She’s just there, ultimately not relevant to the main plot of her own movie at all.

The show, in contrast, has gone in a different direction. It has a much more complicated setup, with the whole sentimonster stuff and Kagami’s mom and what not - a lot of stuff to resolve, so it makes the bold decision to not even try.

Adrien finally makes a break with his father, in Representation, when he beats him up and tells him what a bad father he is, which is well deserved. It’s a bit drastic for a kid’s show, but it makes sense. Some fathers don’t deserve to be forgiven.

And then it just ignores Adrien and makes it all about Marinette. Huh.

The show certainly ends stuff, but it doesn’t actually resolve anything, to the point where there’s a fandom debate about what the wish actually did and didn’t change. It’s wild. It’s weird. Parts of it are absolutely glorious, especially the visuals, but I have no idea why they did it that way.

So we, as a fandom, have seen the end of the Hawkmoth arc twice, and we have the choice between two endings: A boring one, or a baffling one.

Personally, I am focusing on fun and fun visuals here, and in that regard, we did win twice, and ultimately that part is the most important for me. In story terms, I found both a bit unsatisfying, but at least the show has given us more to talk about. That’s why it’s my personal favourite here.

#miraculous ladybug #ml season 5 spoilers #ml movie spoilers #ml season 5 #ml movie #ml awakening spoilers #ml awakening #ml s5 #ml s5 spoilers #ml recreation spoilers #ml recreation #recreation spoilers

[crownlixliquid]

SPOILERS FOR BOOK 7 CHAPTER 2!!!!!

man..this is crazy 😨😨😨

First we start off wholesome with a touch of angst– Lilia and Malleus reminiscing and talking about GaoGao Dragon-kun, then talking about life and death..

Then we got all the dorms showing up to the part in order of what each dorm we met first! Love the wholesome moments, Lilia basically being a father figure to everyone including those he didn't even have a close relationship with. And apparently he's canonically considered a teen dad??!! And Mal is technically a fledgling??!! I thought they'd be around 30,000+ years old lol.

Yuu has another vision and is scared?, reminded me of book 5, from what I've heard, it might be that if someone about to overblot is getting dangerously close to hurting people or just overblotting, the visions come back as a warning? don't remember where I heard it from.

Silver crying..and at that moment, not only did my heart crack, Malleus decided to completely shatter it to bits. He really decided to speedrun his overblot as a farewell gift..only that it isn't a farewell gift, more like "Surprise! you're staying forever." gift. Lilia's scream, and Sebek is worried.. HNNG MY HEARTTT

Idia deciding to not touch grass is somehow both a great and terrible decision, great for us cuz- woo, a chance at survival! terrible for Idia because holy fuck he has to possibly fight MALLEUS??! Imagine he does decides "nope! no way!" and let Malleus tuck him in bed with the others lol.

And I read from someone on tiktok that apparently, all the overblots were just the prologue leading up to this moment?! If those were just prologues then I can't imagine how hard it must be to fight Malleus..And I wonder if that means there's gonna be more arcs, I hope it does! I want to see Neige overblot so bad for sm..even thought I love him 😭

I've heard audios of Malleus humming "Once upon a dream." Again, don't have the Japanese game, so not sure if it's real, but damn.. he sounds good! I already know he can sing from the Glorious Masquerade event, but his eerie humming with no bgm is really smth else for me..

from what I heard, Yuu is awake? Wonder if we gotta smooch everyone awake while Idia is distracting Malleus lol. I also wonder if RSA and Rollo is gonna hear of Malleus's overblot somehow and help! and since the ghosts I think can't be put to sleep, since you know, dead, will also help! It'd be really wholesome seeing Neige worry for Vil, Che'nya for his friends, and the ghosts for Grim, Yuu and the other first years.

edit: Okay so I watched a translation video, and Mal DOES sing, Mal DOES win the fight, and boots us back to the opening screen with some ripples. I've read some theories and some think that the events/vignettes are a dream made by Mal's overblot and that he already overblotted before book 7 even existed. And I think mahbe Rollo uses this as a chance to redeem himself and that's why he might return? Doesn't make since according to the canon timeline and if the first theory is true, unless somehow he one day wakes up with memories from everyone's dream of the event and decides to investigate.

#twisted wonderland #twst #diasomnia #book 7 #book 7 spoilers #twst spoilers #twisted wonderland spoilers #spoilers #【💬】 Maxie speaks

[m1ckeyb3rry]

💟 I feel like Tullia will definitely get her ass… as for Jean and the rest of their friends, they would be so disappointed and would flame her heavily behind her back😭

Kiran is such a fun character and his crush on Gojo is so funny!!

Ikr Choso looked so good in the manga I miss him, I hope he’ll make an appearance at some point😕 the new arc is so confusing but just so fun at the same time? Very unpopular opinion but I got bored reading Shibuya sometimes 😭 it just felt like everything was going on at once and it was quite drawn out but there were also parts of it that were literally so good I couldn’t stop reading?

And I just read the new SitH chapter literally 5 minutes ago and Colt and Cordelia actually became a thing omg.. I wonder what he would think if he found out about Y/N getting close to Hadrian in her time at the Amatas’ and her sleeping with Friedrich💀 either way seeing this new relationship is interesting for sure, highkey excited to see wtf happens from here? And I’m concerned about what Y/N is gonna have to do in this upcoming arc I just hope things will be fine even if they most likely won’t 😔 she can’t redeem Marley’s war crimes but I hope Y/N does find a new perspective and really acknowledges the wrongs😕 I can’t tell if she would go against them blatantly but I feel like she knows enough from what she and Hadrian talked about that she would really have to consider things.

jean would definitely make an instagram hate page for y/n and it would have like two followers and they’re just jean’s other accounts. but as for how tullia and the others react…ig you’ll have to wait and see 😈😏

KIRAN IS THE BEST AHAHAH you all are probably tired of hearing abt the different people my original characters are based off of but kiran is based off of my younger brother!! he and y/n even have the same age difference as my brother irl and i. my brother and i are quite close and he knows way more about my romantic life than he probably wants to which is one of the reasons why kiran is the one y/n goes to for advice. they also only really have each other as their parents are always away (which is not like my parents irl ofc) so they’re super close because of that.

honestly i agree w shibuya i was either crying or yawning 😭 but i think it’ll be really cool animated!! I SWEAR IF GEGE DOES SMTH TO CHOSO I’LL BE SO MAD HE DESERVES THE WORLD

dude colt would be so upset if he found out abt hadrian…and genuinely finding out abt how close friedrich and y/n got over their trip might be his final straw 😭😭😭 but yeah cordelia is going to shake up some dynamics which will be really fun i hope!!

lol spoiler but y/n is not going to be doing any redeeming. i mentioned it a while ago but this is the arc where she changes a LOT, to the point that even friedrich (THE ONE WHO’S LITERALLY KILLED PEOPLE ALREADY) doesn’t agree with her decisions and actions. there’s one thing in specific (the “twist” i’ve been talking about) that he’s just absolutely horrified by lol.

[buffysummerslay]

I have watched Lucifer series finale yesterday and I am still reeling from feelings, feelings I need to work through to be able to move on.

Unfortunately, I am late to the party and I have started watching Lucifer (despite the show being on my radar for a few years already) when season 6 came out, and this turned avoiding spoilers about the ending as well as the show itself into an extremely hard task. I have, of course, seen some reactions to the ending and it was obvious that the viewers were divided between "the ending was amazing, they really did the story and the characters justice" and "what the fuck was that". I always take these reactions, especially when they come instantly after the episode has ended, with a grain of salt because, realistically, I haven't been fully satisfied with the way a tv show has ended - any tv show - since, like, 2010. However, I also know that there is a difference between "okay, the ending was anticlimactic/disappointing/etc, however, it is the journey that matters and I am still pretty happy with the show" and HIMYM type of ending where you are like "I want this show wiped from my memory because the final hour has ruined the entire experience for me". So, I took some time to reflect on the events that took place, gather my thoughts, and make my peace with the ending. After doing that, I can comfortably say that I am not fully satisfied with the ending because of one very simple reason - I can make sense of the choices taken by the character at the very end of the show only if I use "Lucifer gave Rory his word" rationale, and not because I believe in the theory they provided or the choices they make. So here are some of my thoughts about the ending of this beloved show, including both the things I liked and disliked. Be warned, there are spoilers ahead so if you haven't seen the show, the final season or the series finale, please stop reading because you don't want to manifest spoilery energy into your life!

The main thing I have a problem with is the time loop. I will begin by saying that I really dislike time travel in general - I think that it is an overly used plot divice that more than often creates holes in the story instead of driving the narrative where it needs to go, unless the concept of time travel is integral to the show, like for example in Timeless and Fringe. However, in this case, I dislike that the major characters have made a major decision (a serious, impactful, life-altering decision) based on a flimsy theory. And since they have told us exactly what will happen in the end, we simply didn't know why and how, I have expected a more bulletproof reasoning instead of a rushed conversation wrapped up in five minutes and sealed by a promise. Lucifer leaves Chloe and Rory and goes back to hell, Rory grows up resenting him and she becomes so angry she travels through time to confront him only to end up being the reason for his departure, therefore creating an unbreakable time loop. She makes her parents give her their word that they won't change a thing in order to make sure that Lucifer discovers his true calling, which is helping souls in Hell break their hell loops and ascend to Heaven. And the reason I am so hesitant to accept this is because of two reasons:

1. Lucifer has made amazing progress through the show when it comes to his character development, finding his worth and making peace with his identity, and yet you are trying to tell me that this is the only way he would discover his true calling, especially now when he has a higher level of understanding himself than ever before? And especially since these thoughts and doubts have already been in his mind aka him postponing to become God long before Rory's arrival into their timeline!

2. The consequences of our actions are the results of the choices we make, not the other way around. And sometimes, different choices can lead to different outcomes and sometimes the array of choices we make lead to the same outcome. It is absolutely possible that if they broke the time loop and made different choices, that their actions would lead them to the same outcome aka Lucifer finding his calling while remaining in their lives. I think that it is fully possible for them to make a timeline B (the timeline that would have been created if they broke the time loop) based on the discoveries from the timeline A (their current timeline). There's no reason for me to believe otherwise.

Apart from the discovery of Lucifer's calling, the only thing that came out of the time loop was pain, suffering and probably a lot of loneliness. Even the good things that came out of the time loop (like Lucifer and Rory bonding) are a consequence of the pain that it caused. Of course, if they broke a time loop and created a completely new timeline, choices they would make there could theoretically end up having worse consequences on their lives. They could also be better, or they could be completely the same. The thing is, we don't know, we can only speculate and that is exactly what bothers me. The main characters made a major decision based on a speculation. I don't necessarily have a problem with the things that have happened, but rather with how they happened and how they were explained. Or better to say, how they weren't. I think that they should have completely dedicated the season to exploring this and reassuring us that this is the right choice to make and the right way to go.

Also, the concept of free will and making one's own choices has been pretty integral to the show. We have watched Lucifer struggle with the concept since the beginning of the show because he was convinced he is only a puppet in his father's grand plans. There were many events in the show reinforcing that belief, like Chloe being the gift from God. It took him seasons to accept that he chose to stay in her life, to be close to her, to be her partner in work as well as in life and in that acceptance he finally found the strength to tell her that he loves her. He chose her and she chose him. And while one can argue that leaving them and going back to hell was Lucifer's choice (since, technically, he could have chosen to break his word to his daughter and change things), it is one he didn't want to make. In the final episode he says that he desires to watch his daughter grow up and before he leaves for Hell he tells Chloe he doesn't want to leave her (she even responds that she doesn't want him to leave either, but that this is the choice that they are making for Rory's sake), making me feel like he is making this choice out of duty, out of fear and not because he wants to. He finally accepted that the choices he makes are his and his only, and the final choice in the show was made for him instead by him - I really don't think that the character deserved this. Lucifer gave Rory his word and we know he always goes by his word - they have turned one of the most essential qualities of his character into a plot device and an instrument that caused pain. Additionally, since Rory asked him not to change anything, it was implied that Lucifer can't come back to Earth in order not to risk changing anything even though it is completely possible for him to balance his work hours in Hell and his family time on Earth, like Amenadiel did. I also found this completely unfair and it felt like Lucifer was "banished" to Hell, not only missing out on being with Chloe and watching Rory grow up, but also staying away from his friends and the life he had built for himself. However, on the brighter side, Lucifer doing this - something he doesn't completely understand, something he doesn't want to do - is incredibly selfless of him and only shows how much he has grown. A character who has been described as selfish and self-serving from the very beginning does something so ultimately selfless, something that doesn't serve him in any way - quite the opposite, it pains him. As I said, I don't necessarily mind how things played out, I mind the lack of guarantee that they had to be this way. The only thing we don't know is if Lucifer and Chloe were in contact over the years since Chloe could have kept in touch with him behind Rory's back - maybe she sent him pictures of Rory, and maybe they exchanged letters. I am very doubtful because this would probably make the whole situation harder on them nor do I think that they would risk it because they wouldn't be able to know if their actions are breaking the time loop or if they are a part of the original timeline but hey, this is the stuff that fan fictions are made of!

And finally, I very much disliked the parallel between Lucifer and God - Lucifer abandoning his child for the sake of doing his job and that child growing up resenting him - if it was their intention to draw such a parallel. I think that God somewhat "redeemed" himself in Lucifer's eyes and that through accepting himself Lucifer also learned how to stop resenting his father for the things that transpired between them, and I don't necessarily believe that Lucifer had to walk in his father's shoes to understand him. So, in my opinion, this was completely unnecessary. Something I did like was Lucifer's calling - I think that it shows nicely the full circle he has made and that the souls he thought he is supposed to torture he is now helping heal. In a way, Hell is also the reflection of who Lucifer is - when he saw himself as broken, as evil, as unworthy and undeserving, Hell was also a place of torture - it was a reflection of him. And now that he accepted himself and that others have accepted him for who he is as well, it is a place of healing. In the end, Hell is his kingdom and he can choose to rule it the way he wants to. He broke his own hell loop and he truly became a lightbringer.

And, of course, Lucifer and Chloe (they are so soft and I am so soft for them). Taking into consideration my very bad OTP track reckord, I kinda expected a much, much worse ending for them - I mean, the Devil falling in love with a human, what could possibly go wrong, right? I knew from the very beginning that they aren't getting a pure, wholeseome, family-like ending. In order for that to happen, she would either have to become immortal (leaving Trixie, losing her detective identity), or he would have to become mortal - both of these scenarios feel cheap and I never would have wanted this for them or the show. Another option was to give them their happy life on Earth but then they would either have to leave a somewhat open ending or deal with the fact that ultimately, as a mortal, Chloe will die. And if they were given their happy ending on Earth, who knows if they would end up together in afterlife. Even if they did, it definitely wouldn't feel as emotional and as gratifying as it does now. The thing is, it is easy to give in to the pain of their separation when we measure it by the pivotal moments of happiness and loss that drive the lives of humans - him not being there when Rory was born or when she grew wings or when she started school - and it is even harder when you know how much she needed him and how much he wanted to be there for her. It is even more painful when you think about Chloe spending her entire lifetime without him, carrying all that pain inside of her, and him spending what had to be centuries alone in Hell. However, this is a fantasy show and many of our characters are immortal, celestial beings who have a different understanding of time, so maybe the idea of what a happy ending is and the rules for measuring happiness aren't the same as they would have been under other circumstances. Chloe became lieutenant and tried to make a difference, and she got to raise her daughters and see them grow up, and Lucifer helped so many souls heal, doing so much good. And now they get to spend the eternity together, solving crimes and kicking ass in the afterlife! Many of their friends and family are immortal, celestial beings too and (I am pretty sure) they can pay a visit to their human friends in Heaven... or see them in Hell, but let's hope not! In the end, what is one lifetime compared to eternity? Of course, none of this makes for the time they have lost, the momories they didn't get to make and the moments he wasn't there for, but now there are so many new memories they will get to make and so many moments to catch up on. It is bittersweet, but I think that's how it was supposed to be - in the end, pain is part of life.

I also have a few (dis)honourable mentions:

1. I am really sad and disappointed Lucifer didn't get to say goodbye to Trixie. She was gone for the majority of the season, but she was also a very important person in his life and he loved her. And we know how much she loved him.

2. I can't get over Rory travelling through time to kill her father because she is angry at him... sis, you kill him before he makes you, you wipe yourself out of existence.

3. I can't believe that they were surprised that Chloe got pregnant after having loads of superhuman sex (without any protection, apparently) after another human already got pregnant with an angel not that long ago.

4. Lucifer saying goodbye to Maze will forever remain one of the most beautiful scenes in the show.

5. The final major scene between Chloe and Lucifer, where they say goodbye before he leaves for hell, lives in my head rent free. I was choking on tears watching that scene, I literally had to pause and rewind three times. Such a beautiful(ly painful) scene. Also, when you have a ship and a person A says to the person B "close your eyes", pain is coming. I swear I travelled back to 1999 when Buffy said the same thing to Angel before sending him to a hell dimension.

6. When Chloe dies and goes to Heaven and Amenadiel greets her and asks her if she's ready to go home and then takes her to Lucifer was so pure. Her Heaven is being in Hell with Lucifer and there's something deeply poetic about that.

7. Hearing hello detective for the last time cleared my skin.

I have really and truly enjoyed the show, and the minor inconsistencies I see in its ending can't change that. I loved the show because it told stories about people and it allowed them to drive the narrative, and I can't say many shows these days do that.

#lucifer #lucifer morningstar #chloe decker #deckerstar #trixie espinoza #rory morningstar #aurora morningstar #amenadiel #ella lopez #linda martin #mazikeen smith #text #rant #writing #reaction #review #tv review #lucifans #lucifer finale

[textsfromthefifthbasement]

I finally finished MAZM: Phantom of the Opera! I’m leaving the review under the cut because it’s long and also spoilers for some elements of the game that aren’t in other Phantom adaptations.

General

First off, I loved the art style of the game. The character designs were quite adorable, and it definitely seemed like they made an effort to follow the original Leroux character designs. They had a blonde Christine and an olive-skinned, dark-haired Meg. I also thought they did a great job with Erik’s character design (though there was too much hair). The sets were beautiful. The majority of the main plot of the game does follow the Leroux book, which I really appreciated. There were some favorite moments in the book that I wish had been incorporated, such as Raoul waking up to find Erik watching him sleep (don’t judge I just find it freaking hilarious), but they incorporated so many other small scenes from the book, such as the managers trying to prevent Erik from taking his salary by using the safety pin. As a history nerd, I also really appreciated the collectible notes giving historical context to some of the discussions, including about three notes on the Paris Commune/Bloody Week. I wished the characters would have had different outfits rather than wear the same outfit the entire story. At the very least, I wished they had made a Red Death outfit for Erik during the masquerade.

I also want to point out and give a warning to anyone who has suicide ideation before they try this game. Pretty early on in the story, you play an episode in which you control Joseph Buquet after he’s dropped into Erik’s torture chamber, and eventually, you have to walk to the noose and pick it. The scene cuts right before he hangs himself. About partway through the story, when you control Christine, there’s a scene in which she has to talk Erik out of killing himself with a shard from a broken vase. At the end, when Christine and Raoul go down to Erik’s house to bury him, they found that he had committed suicide.

In all, I spent about 23 hours on the game from start to finish. I still need to go back and replay a few episodes to complete the achievements. I missed quite a few of the historical notes, and there are parts where you can make different decisions to influence what happens.

In this game, the studio added a lot of subplots that didn’t exist in the book and expanded on some canonical subplots as well. I did enjoy quite a few of these.

The Dancers

Meg, Jammes, and Sorelli are all major characters in the game, and I loved seeing them have more characterization and actual character arcs. Jammes, as a character, doesn’t change as much as the others, but she is only a child. As in the book, she is pretty frightened of ghost stories, strangers, and the Phantom, but in the game, she also loves and takes care of the stray cats living around the opera house and does turn into a bit of a spitfire when her friends are threatened by the various happenings at the opera. Sorelli has a knife and is not afraid to use it, and she comes to realize that her fear of being alone led her to stay with Philippe de Chagny in spite of the fact that he would never officially acknowledge her. Meg, in the beginning, seems afraid of her own shadow, but throughout the game, definitely comes into her own and also develops a much healthier relationship with her mother.

Union

This had to be hands-down my favorite subplot of the game. In the beginning, when Moncharmin and Richard first become the managers of the Palais Garnier, they mistreat Christine and mass fire anyone who mentions the Phantom of the Opera. When Christine goes missing for several weeks, Meg, Sorelli, and Jammes finally decide they have had enough and basically unionize the ballet dancers. There’s an entire protest, a performance in which the ballerinas refuse to perform, and they end up getting a promise from the managers to stop indiscriminately firing and mistreating people.

Christine’s Ending

GUYS. When I joked about Christine just traveling the world and performing instead I had no idea that was an actual choice you can make for her. It’s such a bittersweet ending, but I personally hope that one day she would have emotionally healed enough from her ordeal to come back to Paris and reunite with her old friends.

That being said, there were also a lot of additions/changes that I…really wasn’t a fan of.

Melek

So, for context. During Christine’s first stay at Erik’s house, she decides to do some exploring while he’s gone. While in his room, she hears a woman’s voice behind a wall and goes to investigate. She discovers a hidden door, and behind that hidden door is Melek. We find that Melek is a blind Turkish woman who had been one of Erik’s servants during his time in Constantinople. She had refused to marry him, and so he had kidnapped her and had kept her locked in that room for ten years.

Yes, I have a lot of problems with this.

I think the first thing is that when Melek was introduced is when I really realized that the game was never going to go in the direction of presenting Erik as a character who was sympathetic at times and not so much at others. The game had already painted him as a very unsympathetic character up until then through showing how he had gaslit Christine as the Angel of Music. Introducing Melek really drove that point home, which was kind of disappointing seeing as how the literal point of Leroux’s Le Fantome de l’Opera was that we should pity Erik for how he was treated because of his face.

Additionally, Melek’s character just…didn’t do anything. The more she was around, the more I wondered what the point of her character was. She does offer Christine support half of the time, and then the other half of the time is her being upset because Christine wants to change Erik rather than murder him. Ultimately, it’s my point of view that her character was not a great addition to the game and would have preferred a closer adherence to the book in that regard.

Hatim and PTSD

*sigh* This part seriously pissed me off. While Raoul and Hatim (the Daroga) are in the torture chamber, Hatim tells Raoul the story between him and Erik. We end up playing through a flashback of when Hatim discovers Erik living at the opera house ten years ago. As they discuss their past, we and Hatim quickly realize that Erik has PTSD, and mentioning the Shah of Persia is a serious trigger for him. Which, alright. That does make some sense story-wise.

And then through other flashbacks, Hatim proceeds to use this against Erik. Like he literally would trigger him purposefully as a punishment. And say that he was doing it for his own good.

Like, excuse me, but. What the fuck. What. The actual. Fuck. No. Don’t ever do that, that’s shitty.

Anyways by the end I was legitimately rooting for Erik to punt him.

Erik’s Ending

In the original Leroux novel, Erik presents Christine with a choice: turn the scorpion, and she will marry him, or turn the grasshopper, and the entire opera house will blow up. Christine chooses the scorpion, kisses him on the forehead, and he is so overwhelmed by the action that he saves Raoul’s life and lets them go together. The only promise he extracts from Christine is that she will come back and bury him when he dies, which he believes will be soon. Two weeks later, an ad runs in the newspaper that reads simply, “Erik is dead.”

Yeah. The game really went off the rails here in respect to following the Leroux book. After Christine turns the scorpion, Erik pulls Raoul into the lake and leaves him there, thinking he’ll drown or freeze to death, and then returns to force the marriage. He does eventually let Christine and Melek go, as Christine tells him that she will never love him and that she believes he is a monster, all while he is on his knees begging her just to love him a little. There is no forehead kiss. To the end, Erik writes and tells Hatim that Christine is the devil, and that she abandoned him in hell and wants her to suffer for the rest of her life knowing what she did to him. Yeah, I wish I was making that up.

There is one point where Christine tells Erik it’s not her job to save him. Which I agree with. I feel like whoever wrote the story had a misunderstanding of the ending of the book, or else thought the idea wasn’t explicitly stated enough. The forehead kiss does, in some respect, save Erik. It makes him realize how badly he’s treated everyone and yet Christine is still willing to extend kindness towards him. But it’s not Christine saving him, it’s him coming to that realization on his own. Ultimately, the game traded that idea for a way more heavy-handed “I am not here to save you, I am going to make my own decisions from here on.”

And then, in the face of all that, we’re also missing Erik changing and redeeming himself despite the fact that he’s close to death. Instead, he dies while leaving basically a suicide note to Hatim saying that Christine is the devil and he made her promise to return to bury him to hurt her. Which is so out of character if we look at the book characterization.

Like I knew I was signing up to get my heart ripped out, I just figured it was going to maybe be the brand of Christine having to choose whether or not to stay while Erik dies. And damnit, I just wanted a single forehead kiss.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the game up until the ending. I just seriously disliked the ending for the most part. If you’re more of a fan of the idea of Christine being on her own and finding her own path, that is an enjoyable option to go with. I still need to play through that episode with the marry Raoul choice and see what happens with that option though.

#mazm phantom of the opera #mention of suicide #the phantom of the opera #poto #review

[supercantaloupe]

on Aelwyn Abernant, the Reformed Villain Squad, and redeeming teenage antagonists

an analysis on antagonist character development in Fantasy High. spoilers through sophomore year and (mildly so) the most recent roll20 oneshot. essay under the cut bc i am very long winded

the turnaround with Aelwyn in s2 is handled so well  i cant get over it. she was such a major antagonist in the first season and just. despicable. she had no pathos. we hated this bitchy older sister who tried to kill Adaine and her friends and raise an evil dragon, and when she gets knocked on her ass and thrown in jail, we cheer.

and then s2 fucking starts saying “hey she’s in jail still if you’d like to look into that” and pursuing that thread ends up being almost as comedic an idea as it is a reluctant one; it’s also quickly shunted to the background as soon as more pressing leads present themselves, to the point where we almost forget about her until Adaine is kidnapped and then the first time you see her it’s just. viscerally upsetting.

she’s bad. she did evil. she got what she deserved.

but she already got what she deserved. last season.

she got her ass handed to her by a bunch of 14 year olds including her little sister (how embarrassing!). her plans were thwarted. she got punched in the face and made fun of. she already got her punishment.

it just……immediately registers as over-the-top Wrong to be told “hey, remember that antagonist you beat last season? she’s still being punished for that, except it’s way worse than just going to mumple.”

and there’s that reminder that like…this is a teenager. a child. who has been manipulated and abused. which is a really fascinating look at this character we used to see pretty much unilaterally as a one dimensional bitchy villain.

i mean we got a more in depth look at Penelope’s and Biz’s motivations in s1 (Penelope being the popular rich girl sorceress obviously hungry for power and the alllure of the high school clout that is being prom queen, but also we know that her having to turn on her best friend Sam Nightingale as part of the scheme was something she was reluctant and not happy to do; and Biz being that predatory incel creeper type dude besides just a nerd with computers and a lack of social graces). and they were as much willingly active in the plot as Aelwyn was. yet in s1 they really never do bother to explore Aelwyn’s motivations. i remember after watching s1 but before s2 that was one of my biggest lingering questions: why tf was Aelwyn involved?

well. she was manipulated and abused. her terrible parents raised her in an awful environment that conditioned her to Listen and Obey and Behave and Be Perfect, and then Kalina helped cinch the noose around her neck with threats and coersion into the KVS Kaper and the NMK crown debacle. she doesn’t freely choose any of it; she’s coerced, manipulated, abused.

and she already got justifiably punished for her bad actions in s1. the torture is almost literal overkill. it’s just……there’s this immediate turnaround in sympathy and view of the character. on first watch, it’s viscerally upsetting to see her getting so brutally punished for actions she already faced consequences for, and on rewatch, it makes your skin crawl to know she’s being tortured for terrible things she had little choice in carrying out. and tortured by some of the very same people who coerced her to behave terribly in the first place, to add insult to injury.

and it’s still fucking frustrating when they rescue her and her memory gets reset and she goes back to her parents because it’s like “well shit, she’s evil again, and we just wasted all that effort for nothing” but it’s also sad cause we know she’s running back to her abusers and she isn’t happy about it but doesn’t feel like she has a choice. and it’s sadder still that what eventually inevitably gets her to turn to good for good (i.e. away from her parents) is just. a full dissociative mental breakdown.

(but then she survives and it’s gonna be good!!! until Adaine dies in her fucking arms. which is. almost funny. she’s been through so much shit and that isn’t something that Brennan would have just. preplanned. like a written in plot point. no, that was just an unpredictable consequence of the battle. what a juicy fucking moment. she’s been through All That Shit™️ and has finally turned to fight for good and her sister just fully dies in front of her. yeowch)

and she turns out okay in the end. she comes out the other side alive and whole and supported by her sister and her friends, with the hope of a future and recovery. there is an acknowledgement that A) she can and will grow from her mistakes and damage, B) it’s going to be really hard, and C) the post-s2 one shots both prove that she’s doing okay now. hell, she has a whole squad now of other former-teenage-villains-turned-good-guys. she has friends now, Ragh and Zayn, with common ground, and a secret handshake and everything. they’ve all grown from the mistakes of their past into better, happier, healthier people

and about Zayn and Ragh. we’ve seen a lot of characters, protagonist and antagonist, teenage and adult, PC and NPC do some really fucked up shit and get punished for it. but why do they get happy endings? why are Aelwyn, Ragh, and Zayn the only members of the RVS and not someone else like Biz or Penelope or Dayne? 

well, the latter two are dead by then; but then again, Biz and Ragh were also killed by the Bad Kids in s1, and subsequently resurrected. (Zayn died too, but was neither killed nor revived at the Bad Kids’ hands, so i’ll get to him in a sec.) and there are plenty of adult antagonists the Bad Kids face who are killed and left that way by the Bad Kids without second thought: Johnny Spells, Coach Daybreak, Captain Wicklaw, the Abernant parents (presuming Arianwen doesn’t survive in the forest for very long, which i doubt). why do some characters get second chances while others don’t?

in the case of Zayn, his death was pretty much out of the Bad Kids’ hands, and they later found out he was manipulated by Daybreak into being bad anyway because of his sad living situation. he was a pretty minor antagonist in the scheme of things, and when we re-meet him as a ghost in the s1 epilogue, he’s pretty obviously remorseful for his actions. and dying seems like a steep enough punishment to me for the shit he did to contribute to the KVX caper; returning as a ghost, free from the trappings of his unfortunate living life, he now has the room and freedom to grow into a better person.

in the cases of Daybreak, Spells, Wicklaw, and the Abernant parents: these are bad people who should know better. these are fully grown adults who actively choose to do evil. whether they think it’s the right thing to do or not (in Daybreak’s case), whether they think it will benefit them and don’t care about anyone else (in the Abernants’ case), or whether they don’t care much at all and are just doing shit because they feel like it (in the cases of Spells and Wicklaw), these are all adults who consciously make the decision to do terrible things and hurt other people. of course Johnny Spells, who is generally a punk thief and thug, is not on the same level of bad as Angwyn, who kidnaps and tortures his own daughters for political gain, but the point remains. these fuckers should know better. they’re grown ups. they had their chances to be good and they chose not to heed them. their minds are set on bad actions and they are a continued danger to other people as long as they are alive. when they die, the Bad Kids do their damndest to make sure it stays that way.

now, in the cases of Penelope and Dayne: these are teenagers who actively chose to participate in an evil plot. Penelope, Dayne, and Biz were all fully cognizant of what they were doing trying to raise KVX back to his former power. why? well, to some extent, we can only speculate. i suspect Penelope was just one of those Regina George bitches who is rich and popular and powerful and obsessed with power and popularity within high school as if that’s the end-all-be-all of existence (which, like, when you’re currently in high school, is a somewhat understandable worldview i think). Dayne being her boyfriend and a musclehead jock probably falls into a similar line of thinking. they are actively and willingly trying to cause harm, and teenager or not, must be stopped. they’re killed, anyway, during the Climactic Battle™️ anyhow; it’s not like the Bad Kids were going to gain anything at that point by keeping them alive.

now, Biz: Biz is the creepy Nice Guy incel type, sees woman as a prize he deserves to win, yadda yadda. he does, like Penelope and Dayne, actively choose to help KVX. there might be something to be said about his motivation the Bad Kids discover after the arcade battle by detecting his thoughts (that being to upload the captured maidens from the palimpsests to “call the shots” himself) is an altered memory; whether this was his original motivation from the start or not, i’m not sure. but the Bad Kids do kill him – and then resurrect him for important, time-sensitive information. and they beat it out of him – he gets two of his fucking fingers blown off. and Riz reattaches them once they have their info, and they realize his memory is altered. of course, the Bad Kids don’t know at this point that the altered memory was something he, Penelope, and Aelwyn had planned and agreed on and done to themselves, but this points to something important in my opinion: the Bad Kids, and the narrative/show as a whole by extension, acknowledge that external manipulation affects how guilty someone is in a crime.

which brings us to Ragh. Ragh, introduced from episode 1 as the meathead jock. Ragh the archetypical one-dimensional high school bully. Ragh who works with the harvestmen in effort to (ostensibly) end the world/provoke international war. Ragh, whose low intelligence but high loyalty and internalized homophobia led him to be fully swayed and blindly led by his coach and captain, who have actively chosen to do evil. Ragh who is killed in combat by the Bad Kids and resurrected for information, not Daybreak. Ragh, who the Bad Kids realize was probably not aware of exactly what he was being made to do and how bad it really was. Ragh, who by their kindness in sparing his life and directing him on a better path, becomes a well-rounded character and an active ally to the Bad Kids during and after prom, an invaluable companion during their quest in sophomore year, and overall a really good friend and person. 

(it might also be worth considering the case of Jawbone here, too, who started out a very minor antagonist in a fight but ended up becoming a major NPC because the Bad Kids talked to him, found out he came from an unfortunate situation and set of circumstances, and showed him kindness in offering the school guidance counselor position, a kindness that isn’t really owed but given anyway and ends up changing his entire life for good.)

and then, Aelwyn, whose case is already discussed above. so, why is the RVS what it is, why them but not others?

if you’re familiar with Avatar: the Last Airbender, you’re probably familiar with Zuko’s character arc, and how it’s often lauded as a masterful example of developing a villain into a hero over the course of a narrative. what makes Zuko’s arc so well done and exceptional is that he starts out as a kid in a bad situation under the influence of bad adults seeking to do bad deeds, but he later realizes the error of those ways, actively removes himself from that situation despite the difficulty and danger in doing so, goes through a lot of shit and reflects on his past mistakes and learns from them, and then actively chooses to fight for good in the end with the help of close, trusted friends, found family. 

this, i believe, is the same in the case of Fantasy High and its treatment of the RVS. its members, like Zuko, are all teenagers who came from shitty situations and were manipulated by evil adults to do bad. they are punished for their bad actions, and they learn from their errors and mistakes. with the kindness and help of good people, friends and chosen family, they are able to escape their abusers and bad situations and grow into their own people. and they actively choose to improve themselves with that help and fight for good.

Fantasy High, through the arcs of Jawbone, Zayn, Ragh, and especially Aelwyn, asserts that it is not your fault if you come from a bad situation and are forced to behave badly as a result. it does not pretend that you are absolved of any responsibility for those actions; quite the opposite, as even though they were externally manipulated into their evil actions, all of those mentioned characters face tangible consequences for their actions and later express remorse for their mistakes. but Fantasy High also asserts that even if you have made great mistakes in your past, even if you came from a bad situation beyond your control, even if you were manipulated and abused, with care and love and support and a hell of a lot of work and effort, you can improve your situation and find good, happiness, peace, you can thrive. evil adults who should know better don’t get redeemed. teenagers who aren’t coerced but actively choose evil don’t get redeemed. but abused kids deserve another shot at happiness. with enough work, and some love and help along the way, they can get there, even from the lowest imaginable point, from rock fucking buttom. it’s possible. 

#fantasy high #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 live #dimension 20 #fantasy high sophomore year #fantasy high freshman year #d20 #dimension 20 live spoilers #brennan lee mulligan #aelwyn abernant #zayn darkshadow #ragh barkrock #sasha reviews #hello tumblr. tonight i bring you a 2.3k word essay. tomorrow? who knows #i'll just throw myself into the nearest river if this doesn't show up in the tags this is fine #this one's for y'all in my notes i see u and i love u here's some content #the first half of this is mostly copy pasted from my discord ramblings #i didnt intend for this to be as long as it got but yknow. i never do and it always is #so thats why the first part of this is written differently from the rest of it lol

[thechangeling]

5, 9 and 42 for the autism asks 💕

Hey! 🥰

5. There are a lot of things I could say for this answer. But the main one is that I wish people knew that we have a very hard time naming and identifying feelings sometimes. To me emotions take a while to hit me and even then sometimes it's still hard to figure out what's going on. To me all emotions basically feel the same. Like pain. Pain or tightness in my chest. I basically have to figure out what it means based on the context.

9. My very first spin (special interest) was when I was 4 and I was obsessed with Blues Clues. Especially Magenta. Magenta even became my favorite colour for a really long time.

42: All right buckle up kids. So Angel the series is the spin off show of Buffy the vampire slayer. Angel is basically Buffy's vampire ex boyfriend with a soul who left the town of Sunnydale to go to LA and fight demons because he knows he and Buffy can't be together anymore (essentially because he's a vampire and she's the vampire slayer.) It's worth mentioning here that vampire don't have souls. Angel got his back through a curse that was put on him against his will as a punishment for killing this girl (sorry I feel like I'm just dumping information on you lol,) who was a member of a Romani tribe. This was way back in the 1700s btw.

The thing is, without souls vampires lack the moral compus that allows you to make morally correct decisions. It also stops you from growing and learning and changing. Vampires are static. They never change. They can feel but it's always selfish and self serving. Without a soul, love looks more like obsession. Before Angel had his soul he was known as Angelus and he was a horrible brutal killing machine essentially. He was the absolute worst of the worst. But then he was cursed and he got his soul, and now he's trying to redeem himself for all of the horrible things he did.

So that's essentially what Angel the show is about. He goes to LA to atone for his sins and fight evil without Buffy. The entire show is about redemption and becoming a better person and finding forgiveness and empathy from people. The show serves as a metaphor for alcoholism. Angel is the alcoholic who has gone off human blood and made a commitment to being good and essentially staying sober.

In his fight against evil he meets up with people who want to help, some new faces and some people he knew from Sunnydale (they were on Buffy) and they decide to create a detective agency so they have a more organized approach to helping people. And thus Angel Investigations is born. People with supernatural problems essentially hire them to deal with it, usually dispatching some demon or vampire or whatever and then the team gets paid.

Also occassionally there's some big apocalyptic threat that they have to fight. But going back to the alcoholism metaphor, you could say that his closest friend Cordelia is kind of like his sponsor. Now Cordy started out on the show Buffy The vampire Slayer as a spoiled, rich, shallow popular girl who in the beginning was an antagonist to Buffy and her friends but then as she learned of the supernatural world, she began to help them. Towards the end of the third season of Buffy and almost the end of high school, Cordelia's family loses all of their money and she loses essentially everything she had and her sense of who she is. She can't go to college because she can't afford it so she moves to LA in an attempt to have a career as an actress and runs into Angel who she knew before as Buffy's boyfriend. She starts helping him and comes up with the idea for the agency in the first place as a way to make money but as time goes on she becomes more motivated to actually help fight the forces of evil (I'm trying not to give away spoilers but I'm terrible at giving summaries.)

There relationship is something that has always been super special to me and I think it always will be. The sponsor element to their friendship is super evident in episodes like Sommunambulist, as is the addict metaphor.

Spoilers:

Sommunambulist is essentially about an old protege of Angelus' named Penn, someone Angel sired when he was Angelus coming to town and committing a bunch of murders identical to the ones he used to commit back in ye olden times. He tries to draw Angel back into his old life that he had without a soul.

We can read this as a fellow addict coming back into Angel's life, finding out that he's trying to stay sober now and trying to draw him back in with the allure of drinking. In this episode there is also Kate, a police officer that has been helping Angel with his cases by using her resources. They are allies of sorts. Now she's working the case of the people murded by Penn and she doesn't know about the supernatural world. She ends up in a position where her life is in danger but Angel saves her, revealing that he is a vampire to her. She understandably freaks out and later on goes to do research on vampires and on Angel. She learns all about Angelus and all of the horrible things he did before he got his soul. She judges Angel and Angelus as the same person and holds Angel responsible for Angelus's actions even though he didn't have a soul as Angelus.

So through Kate we see the person that only sees the addict as they once were, as the horrible things they did and the people they hurt. She refuses to see this new person. She doesn't trust this new person.

But Cordelia does. And during their scene on the rooftop, the final scene of the episode, Angel says to her "I wonder if anything really changes."

He's clearly let both Kate and Penn get inside his head, and now he's wondering if he actually can find redemption. Angel's probably also wondering if he himself has actually changed. I think when we here his line "I wonder if anything really changes" we can read that as him wondering if he has changed. If he is capable of change.

He's clearly spiraling, and as easy as breathing Cordelia catches him.

"Sure they do. You did."

She reassures him so effortlessly, like there's no doubt in her mind. Because there isn't. She believes in him.

It's also worth mentioning that in the show there is this omnipresent almost god like force called the powers that be. The powers are like the ultimate force of good supposedly and they send Angel visions of people in trouble through Cordelia. She gets the visions and then tells Angel who to save.

During their conversation on the roof, Cordelia tells him, "the message in my vision didn't come for Angelus it came for you! Angel. And you have to trust that whoever the powers that be..be...are...is, anyway, they know the difference."

The second step in AA is believing that a higher power can restore you back to sanity. On Buffy, Angel was killed at the end of season 2 by Buffy who had to kill him to stop the world from ending. But then he was mysteriously brought back at the beginning of season 3 and know one is sure why or what brought him back. This is actually never explained on either shows but I think it's heavily implied that the powers that be brought Angel back to life and gave him a second chance.

End spoilers:

But anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. You should really watch the show, it's so good. You don't neccesarily have to watch Buffy to understand it but I still reccomend watching them both because they're so good.

#asks #mutuals!! #angel the series #buffy the vampire slayer #actually autistic

[shimmershae]

Just watched the episode and I’m going to have a lot of thoughts for you, most of them probably bordering on incoherence (LOL) so this is your last chance to nope on out of this post because I’m going to go ahead and put everything else behind a cut to save the eyes that do not want to see any  spoilers at all.  Unlike mine, that very much wanted to see but in a lot of cases?  Could not see shit, but I digress.

Shae’s stream of consciousness coming at you in 3-2-1.  

First of all, can I saw how good it is to have my show back again?  Like, no.  I don’t quite have Season 5 levels of excitement about the new/last season, but it is definitely nice to have all these characters back.  

So all these thoughts of mine.  Okay.  Bear with me because there be a whole lot of them, lol.  

My immediate impression as the episode opened was WHOA.  Such a cool shot of Daryl with one light wing, one dark wing (representing the two sides to Daryl maybe--the man of honor versus the man he was raised to be, hmm?) looking out over some dark vista of something.  Seriously.  It’s dark.  My room is also dark at the moment and still I was squinting to see.  To make out what I’m “looking” at.  I really, really hope the rest of this season isn’t this hard to make out.  

Is that a tank?  Kinda sorta a callback to Rick’s first episode?  If so, cool.  If not, well.  Us fans have always put way more thought into things.  For real.  Change my mind.  

Holy intense eye contact, Batman!  Daryl Dixon has literally never looked at anyone--not BethusConLeah--in quite the same smoldering way as he looks at Carol.  It’s next level.  I don’t know why people be fooling themselves into thinking different.  

Let’s see.  I can make out--besides Daryl, Maggie, and that face mask dude I already forgot the name of--Kelly, Magna, Jerry (who’s that with him?), and Carol.  Sorry.  My world, like Daryl’s, inevitably narrows to Carol.  She’s loking fierce and fine AF per usual.  

Was that Rosita I noticed rewinding to relive Daryl eye-fucking Carol?  

I’m guessing this is the army base they talked about in 10C.  

That Walker perking up like “I smell food--pancakes and bacon and oohhhh” has me giggling inappropriately right off the bat.  WTF.  

Look at all my fabulous ladies tiptoeing through that Walker minefield.  And Carol spotting that gun that might be useful right away.  Listen, if you don’t think her mind ain’t always ten steps ahead of everybody else’s, you’d be wrong.  

So.  Are these Walkers just so old and feeble not even the call of fresh meat attracts them?  Because just tiptoeing through their midst without the knockoff Lady Gaga meatsuits or skin masks has never really worked before that I can remember.  

I just want to see most of this season.  Is that really too much to ask?  Don’t X-Files and Game of Thrones us, Angela.  Please and thank you very fucking much.  

Okay.  Is the one drop of blood thing making anybody else have 28 Days Later vibes?  Kinda?  Sorta?  No?  Just me?  Okay then.  Carry on.  

Wait a minute, though.  How they be explaining how Daryl keeeps acquiring all these new tats all the time?  Hmm?  It’s like they just quit giving a shit about continuity in these latter seasons.  

I mean.  Do Walkers sleep now?  LMAO.  What is this?  I guess they’re constantly evolving?  

There’s my baby Lydia.  Love my smol bean.  

Alright though.  I love to see the ladies of TWD kick some ass.  It’s very gratifying.  Gimps would never.  Thank you, Angela.  

Clever, resourceful, calm and collected, quick thinking Carol to the rescue!  Seriously.  Her haters must be withering away inside with absolute envy.  

Hey, ya’ll.  Remember when Carol was still mastering her sharpshooting skills at the Prison yard and shot at Rick’s feet?  Her little “sorry, sorry”?  LOL.  If Rick could only see her now.  Wait.  He already knew what so many of his stans refuse to acknowledge--Carol=ultimate survivor and true savior to the group many times over.  

Maggie’s got herself a gun, too.  Go my badass girls.  

Of course, Carol’s got everybody’s back.  Of fucking course, Daryl’s got hers even when everybody else seem frozen in some kind of awe or stupification or something.  Microcosm of the whole damn show right there.  

Carol’s like “here’s your knives, love of my life.”   

Eh.  Maybe that’s just me.  

Nah.  She’s totally thinking it, too.  

YAS!  YAS!  Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride with the top billing.  How very far my babies have come.  

Listen.  I miss all the characters we’ve lost.  Absolutely.  But I love the ones that are still with us, that have been with us for so very long so hard.  Whether I love their stories or decisions or not.  

Is that THE Alexandria sign?  That sign’s been through some shit.  

DOG!  Daryl kneeling to embrace our Grimes babies has me all up in my feels.  And how cute is Dog getting all excited and making sure he’s the first one there to welcome back, Daddy?  

Hershel is literally just as puppy dog cute as Glenn ever was.  Really some Grade A casting.  

What did Maggie call Mr. T?  Ducky?  Dougie?  Sometimes with Maggie?  I really cannot tell.  Anyway.  He’s Mr. T. for me until I find out differently, probably through rewatching with close captioning, lol.  

Maggie’s got more people.  So.  Some new redshirts to sacrifice for plot purposes.  I don’t know if I should bother learning their names or not. 

I seem to remember Meridian being mentioned in one of the episode synopses.  

Sophia’s hair tie around Carol’s neck will never fail to be an emotional throat punch.  My heart.  

“They come at night and by the time you see them, you’re already dead.”  Welp.  Guess that means we ain’t seeing shit for at least this first third of the season, lol.  Very horror-eque though.  

“You’re leaving to fight ghosts.”  Aaron, to Maggie.  So I see Aaron’s the type to get the hell outta Dodge when the Boogeyman comes calling, hahaha.  Least he was.  In the old world.  

Rosita’s pissed off expression at Gabe’s decision to volunteer for the so-called suicide mission gives me life.  

My baby Carol is tired AF of suicide missions.  You can tell.  Also?  Methinks she has something to prove to Daryl here.  Or at least feels like she does.  

Dog with his little tactical vest.  I love it.  

I guess I get why they had Carol and Rosita stay behind.  They had to more evenly split up the badassery to make things more fair and balanced, lol.  

Okay.  So Negan’s definitely earned everybody’s disdain.  But they’re being woefully short-sighted by not at least hearing the dude out.  Isn’t he at least native to the area?  

“That is God telling us to turn around.”  I’m actually on Negan’s side with this one, but Gabe answering him with “I’m pretty sure he would have run that past me first” has me howling with laughter.  Father Gabe has gone straight up savage in these last couple of seasons.  Rosita’s influence, perhaps?  

I see what Angela is doing.  Trying to make Negan the voice of reason.  In this particular case?  It’s kind of working.  I’m still ultimately on Maggie’s side with this though BECAUSE GLENN.  

Imagine showing up to work and unironically dressing like a storm trooper every day.  Excuse me while I LOL.  

Even in the ZA, there’s bullshit paperwork.  

“Pumpkin colored spacesuit.”  Good one, Ezekiel.  

LOL forever.  I love Princess.  

“Michonne.  Our Michonne shut people out of Alexandria for years.”  Timely reminder that choices aren’t always perfect.  Neither are people.  

WTF is reprocessing?  Sounds ominous.  LMAO at Eugene’s “Okay.  We gotta go.”  

What in the actual hell with all those bagged, squirming undead?  Creepy AF in that subway tunnel.  

Should I just go ahead and call that the Easter bunny?  We’ve had some version of it pop up since Season 1.  

Is it stubborn pride with Maggie or what?  Why go through with something when all signs point toward the wisdom of stopping?  You can argue that she’s acting similarly to Carol last season, but there’s a huge difference here folks.  Carol did her damndest to Lone Wolf that shit and minimize the danger to those she loved.  Maggie’s straight up enlisting those she “cares about” to carry out her mission of revenge or vengeance, what have you. Let’s see if she gets near the amount of hate for it.  Personally, I don’t blame her for her feelings one bit.  They are valid.  But her knowingly drawing the others into the game?  That’s my sticking point.  That’s how she and Carol differ, even if some people refuse to see or accept it.  Anyway.  Hopping right on off my soapbox.  

“Why don’t you get up on your little tippy toes and try?”  Omigosh, I’d dying.  When I tell you I about passed out with laughter, I do not exaggerate.  I should hate Negan forever and I do.  Really.  But I adore JDM and he frequently makes me LOL.  He’s made Negan entertaining if not completely redeemable since Angela took over and more layered so I say kudos.  

He has a point about Maggie playing dictator.  Damn you, show, for slanting the writing just that smidgen that makes Negan make sense over his victim.  I guess, though, it’s better this way.  Gives both characters more shades of gray.  

“He’s a dick but he makes sense.”  I feel like this is Angela calling us all out when we dare to harbor any lasting resentment toward Negan for what he did to Glenn.  

Speaking of--Negan.  You deserved Daryl’s punch to the mouth.  You just went a bridge too damn far.  

“Keep pushing me, Negan.  Please.”  Warning shots fired, Asshole.  You better watch yourself around the Widow Rhee.  

Have I mentioned how much I love Princess?  Her shipping the Commonwealth guards is killing me, lol.  I can’t wait ‘til she meets Carol and Daryl.  She’s going to have their number in two seconds flat.  

I like Ezekiel and Princess as a duo.  I’m not saying romantically necessarily.  I just like them in scenes together because they’re fun.  There’s sort of a protective indulgence Ezekiel seems to telegraph whenever they’re in scenes together.  Like he’s like don’t hurt this one.  I don’t know.  For all these words I’ve written, I can’t quite find the ones to adequately describe what I mean.  

The wall of the lost gives me such Battlestar Galactica feels.  What sad thoughts it inspires.  

Eugene in that Commonwealth gear.  Omigosh, lol.  So did they just sneak up and take Princess’s little Commonwealth ship’s gear when they were sneaking off on their own to have a quickie?  

Princess finding that note for Yumiko on the wall actually gave me chills.  Yeah.  I’m easy.  Just the suggestion of someone getting reunited with lost family gets me all up in my feels.  Yumiko saying “I have to stay”?  I felt that.  

Oh no.  Dog ran off!  Somebody protect my favorite fictional puppy.  Of course, Daryl goes after him.  He’s always been the sweet one.  Merle said it.  

Eh.  Negan taking Maggie’s hand at the end there would have smacked too much of Negan Sue and Maggie’s biggest plot of the season would have been prematurely dealt with so I get why they did what they did.  But c’mon.  It’s not really that big of a cliffhanger, is it?  

Okay, so Angela calls those sleeping beauty Walkers “Lurkers” and I get it.  Apparently they’re a bigger deal in the comics, but I really don’t remember seeing them all that much on the actual show.  Somebody jog my memory.  

Of fucking course, you can actually see what’s happening in the inside the episode clips.  I wish we could choose to view the episode with that lighting because some of us be blind.  And this time I mean in the more literal sense.  Not the figurative one.  

Anyway.  I’m going to stop trying to write a novel for ya’ll and move on to better things.  Like maybe a nap.  Maybe some early dinner.  I don’t know.  I’m tired AF and need a little recharge.    

Before I go, though?  Overall impression of the episode?  I liked it.  There were parts that I loved (all the ladies being badass, every second of Carol, Daryl reuniting with the Grimes babies and Dog, all things Princess, some of Negan’s one-liners about had me busting a gut, Rosita serving looks, Kelly and Lydia getting to be badass too) and parts I didn’t love (not being able to see a damn thing, Angela trying to tip the scales in Negan’s favor, not enough Carol or Aaron or Rosita, no reunion between Aunt Carol and the Grimes babies even though that picture floating around suggests it was at least shot, not being able to see a damn thing, all the Alexandria people playing follow the leader for Maggie when she’s been gone 6 years and Daryl’s right there--hell, even Father G deserves the honor over her because it’s obvious they’re not exactly on the same wavelength anymore).  

I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just glad to have our show back.    

Later, lovelies.  

#The Walking Dead #Season 11 #spoilers #TWD spoilers #things that make me smile and cry #and giggle and giggle

[orsuliya]

Song Huaien is a good boy!

Book spoilers did me dirty. That’s a fact. Ever since I peeked at the last chapters of the novel, I’ve been convinced that Song Huaien was going to go rogue sooner or later. And so I looked upon him as one does upon a ticking bomb, watching him closely for any signs of rot and obvious mwahahahaing.

And that… might have been wrong of me. It’s not like The Rebel Princess ever treated any character’s novel journey as sacrosanct (see: Su Jin’er, Wanru, even Zitan). So what gives? Well, just look at the ever-precious Liu Duanduan. Wouldn’t you want to steel your heart in advance…?

And then the supremely astute @dangermousie came along and made me reconsider what could be done in the scant remaining number of episodes in order to deliver a satisfying ending. I trust The Rebel Princess, so it will be a satisfying ending, 12 cut episodes notwithstanding, and I’m choosing to ignore any contrary opinions! So what could be done? Well, getting rid of Song Huaien’s rebellion and conflict with Xiao Qi seems to be one of the most viable solutions, whether by design or by leaving it on the cutting-room floor. Okay, I’m sold, I thought at once, jumping without thinking as I’m wont to do. But does the drama itself support that?

Why, yes, I believe it does!

What are the actual visible signs of Song Huaien’s potential villainy? There’s the corruption/negligence thing, a pronounced liking for finer things in life and an unrequited love for Awu. That’s it.

The corruption scandal, if it can even be called such, what with Potato suppressing any further investigation attempts, is the biggest strike against Song Huaien. It’s clear that he’s somehow embroiled into unsavoury dealings, but the extent of his guilt is never shown. While I don’t fully believe his story about the birthday gifts being delivered during his absence and accepted without his express permission and/or knowledge, there is also nothing to suggest he’s been explicitly on Xie payroll, secret documents non-withstanding. The record book alone is no proof of guilt – why, the Xie might have simply noted that gifts of certain value had been given and received, not in exchange for a specific service, but rather as a start of a beautiful relationship. You get the drill. I believe if there was a solid proof of Song Huaien doing explicit harm to his own in exchange for Xie money, Xiao Qi’s reaction would have been much harsher.

As it stands, Song Huaien’s guilt is a matter of conjecture. There’s the birthday gift, which Xiao Qi cottons onto really quickly, which confirms that it may have been noted in the Xie secret books. There’s the fact that he may or may not have known about it and may or may not have chosen to keep it. I’d say he did know, if only after the fact, and that he originally meant to keep it. There’s also the damning fact that Song Huaien was the man taking care of logistics from the Ningshuo side. And he did his job really poorly, since multiple deliveries of substandard grain and clothing somehow made it through. But was it out of maliciousness? Was there ever a conscious decision on his part to let things slip? Not necessarily. It looks bad, sure. But let’s not forget that dealing with the capital sharks may be a first for Song Huaien, regardless of his previous experience as a procurement officer. Whatever his experience, it was either at the very end of the supply chain or it was mainly related to supplies coming from the area closest to Ningshuo. The former wouldn’t have prepared him for his present duties. And as for the latter, I think that the Ningshuo province has its own rules and ways, which are in no way comparable to the shark pond that the capital undoubtedly is. What’s more, Huaien really seems to buy into the illustrious capital life; it would not surprise me if he delegated a few things that should not be delegated simply because he was busy taking it all in!

So, intentional crime or crime of negligence? I’d be inclined to vote for negligence. It just fits what we know about Song Huaien up to that point, it fits his current circumstances and it makes Xiao Qi’s reaction quite reasonable.

The second strike against Huaien’s integrity is his love for the finer things in life. But then, is it really such a damning thing? Many of the Ningshuo soldiers must have experienced the same thing upon their arrival into the capital. Here they are, heroes and patriots all, having spent their whole life either on various battlefields or in decidedly non-luxurious circumstances. Why, they must be quite happy if they get enough to eat, which they do only because they have an honest general who cares about them very much. Other armies are not as lucky! And then they are shown all those useless noble scions, some of whom might nominally be officers despite barely knowing how to hold a sword (and even those swords would be ceremonial ones, so mostly useless). I don’t know about you, but I’d be bitter. Some of Xiao Qi’s closest clearly are, although he tends to shut that down very quickly. Also, covetousness is not a crime as long as Song Huaien is not actively taking bribes or jockeying for profit. And there is no proof of that. His manor and his title are both given to him without him ever asking for them. If he appreciates that… well, that is also not a crime and he doesn’t even gloat openly! As it later turns out, he took both as his due, believing that his talents were seen and duly appreciated outside the Ningshuo army.

Sooo… Nothing out of ordinary on that count. And seeing that at one point Song Huaien offers to use his savings to repair the ailing military budget – whether from guilt or from sense of duty – speaks to his advantage.

Now, let’s take a look at his unrequited love for Awu. I mean, is it any wonder he falls for her? I am half in love with her myself, so I totally get it! What matters is what he does with this love. Quite surprisingly, there is no attempt at coming between her and Xiao Qi. Why, Song Huaien actively tries to help their marriage by convincing Awu to return home from the temple. No hesitation there! And while he might realize he’s actually in love very late in the story (by this point it’s obvious to everybody), the realization itself changes very little. He gets very determined to go through with marrying Yuxiu, that’s it. Still no attempts to make a move on Awu. Even that flower he brought back from the Imperial Mausoleum was not an overly romantic gesture – she asked and he did as she asked in order to make her happy, nothing more. There’s also a genuine attempt to get over her. He goes to Yuxiu on their wedding night and despite the initial haziness on the matter, he seems to know quite well she’s not Awu and does his best. Although that bro slap in the morning… Let’s believe he did his best there too, the poor awkward thing. He gives her an actual hug when he comes back from Jiangnan! Progress!

What finally buried the theory that Song Huaien might rebel in order to take Awu away from Xiao Qi was his convo with Wang Su in episode 55. I was so afraid (just as I was afraid on his wedding night) that he might do something stupid. Like asking for Awu’s hand or betraying his romantic intentions towards her. But no. While Song Huaien tells Wang Su that he wants/needs to find Awu, there’s no romantic intent there, only duty towards Xiao Qi’s wife and respect towards a woman who has earned it many times over. If there is anything else, I just can’t see it! Why, during this whole conversation Song Huaien is more broken up about Xiao Qi than about Awu!

Whether Song Huaien manages to get over his love or not, there is no sign he was ever going to do anything about it, not while Xiao Qi lived and perhaps not even now that he’s supposed to be dead. Moreover, he made every possible effort to suppress his emotions out of sheer guilt and feeling of brotherhood towards Xiao Qi. Marrying Yuxiu might have been a bad, bad choice (although I still hope for the best), but it was a choice made for the best of reasons.

So that’s it, right? Well, wrong. Even with all of the above there was still a possibility for him to go the villain route. Except… he actually seems to be redeeming himself in leaps and bounds. Once away from the capital, Song Huaien seems to throw off the capital’s thrall and becomes the best version of himself. Jumping into stormy waters in clear disregard of any danger? Working tirelessly towards a common goal and for the good of the people? That’s pure Ningshuo stock, no moral rot in sight! Now, why would the narrative have him getting back to his old self only to make him regress again?

There’s also no real reason for him to ever go against Xiao Qi. If that was going to happen, I’d have expected at least some signs of bitterness and jealousy to have shown up by now. And yet there’s nothing, at least not towards Xiao Qi. Who, might I add, really does his best to mitigate any potential bitterness in the bud. Just look at the way they resolve the corruption scandal! And I’m not talking about Xiao Qi burning (or not burning?) the incriminating page. What got my attention is what their conversations over the matter boil to. Which is: Listen, brother, I get that you’ve been having some issues, but get your shit together. And please, take care of yourself. I don’t want you to get in trouble, so please remember that there are people watching your every step. No overt accusations, no anger in sight, maybe the slightest bit of sternness, but heavily undercut with roughly expressed care. And it’s the same with their confrontation over Awu. I know what’s going on with you and my wife, but I 100% get it, mate, so take a moment and decide how to proceed from here. Even if Song Huaien was actively seeking a reason to hold a grudge, it would take a truly rotten seed to find one. And a rotten seed Song Huaien is not.

Now, let’s wrap it up by going over Wang Su’s suborning of Song Huaien in episode 55. It’s really something special, as well as the main reason I’m choosing to reject any possibility of SHE/XQ showdown.

Wang Su waylays Song Huaien on his way out of camp. Song Huaien is clearly very emotional at this moment and not really inclined to stop for anybody. Why, I think that he was fully prepared to go through Wang Su if needed. It is also quite probable that his decision to leave for the capital was made on the spot, once he heard about what happened to Xiao Qi, Awu and his comrades. Yet he stops and listens, if only because Wang Su – Awu’s brother and Xiao Qi’s brother-in-law - should be his natural ally in his quest to clear Xiao Qi’s name. As he proclaims to be by announcing his willingness to join Song Huaien on his journey to the capital.

Wang Su (or rather Daddy Wang possessing Wang Su’s body) takes full advantage of Song Huaien’s state. First he breaks out a prop, Awu’s favourite wine. It does not work as well as it could have and I’d say that at this point Song Huaien remains quite astute as to Wang Su’s weird behaviour. His first outburst shows he’s got little patience for games. Awu is your sister and Xiao Qi your brother in law, he reminds Wang Su, who seems very controlled for a man with much more obvious ties to this whole situation than Song Huaien. Wang Su skips around the issue by taking out his ace card, the Empress Dowager’s order. Predictably, it takes Song Huaien off-balance and incites a sense of debt, if not gratitude. An excellent opening from the shapeshifting Daddy Wang! Then Wang Su makes an attempt at aiming Song Huaien at the Empress Dowager… and it doesn’t work. Song Huaien doesn’t care about his own life half as much as he cares about Xiao Qi. Cue a mournful soliloquy! There is no way a man this broken about his brother’s death is going to try to kill said brother in the 13 episodes remaining (less, in fact, since they will not meet until 59 or 60 at the earliest). There would be no build-up! The only way I can see this happening is if Xiao Qi went against Song Huaien first and in a deeply personal way. Which we know he would never, so...

Wang Su makes a brave attempt at corralling Song Huaien’s grief and turning it to anger, for all that he may say that anger will not help anyone; it doesn’t work and self-blame enters the picture. If only I was with him leads to a startling realization: all those honors and the brand new posting were just a ploy. Now, this realization could lead to two different results. Song Huaien could plausibly become bitter towards Xiao Qi –  because of whose very existence his own talents weren’t truly recognized and he himself became a pawn. But there’s nothing to suggest that’s true. It’s more likely for Song Huaien to turn his bitterness over his wounded pride towards the Empress Dowager in particular and scheming nobles in general. Which is what I think he does. There is also a possibility of guilt: he bought into this whole noble life fairytale… and this is what partially facilitated him being turned into a pawn. It may be just wishful thinking, but I expect that in the future Song Huaien will be more wary of unexpected meat pies falling from the sky, however tasty they may be.

Just a moment later Wang Su offers him a meat pie. He’s going to help him take revenge! And Song Huaien swallows it whole – at least for now. This is where a truly interesting thing happens. Song Huaien, a general in his own right, a true hero and a man who’s been acting as Wang Su’s equal while in Jiangnan… folds and takes to a subordinate position like a duck to the water. Tell me what to do, he seems to be screaming with his eyes. And when Wang Su starts to use the word we, there’s a palpable sense of relief in Song Huaien’s whole demeanor. What’s more, he’s not reacting to the idea that he still needs to jump through some hoops in order to become a Wang minion. I’m not sure you’re ready to become my ally, lies Wang Su, knowing very well Song Huaien’s is already in his palm. Where’s the ambition? Where’s the slightest sign that this man may be capable of going for the throne for his own sake and against his brother? I don’t see it!

The Wang family is used to needing to pay their allies in hard coin (or titles, or favours), that much is clear, because that’s what Wang Su tries next. The title of a count is too lowly, he says and then dangles a princely one in front of his victim. If Song Huaien was really as hungry for honours and wealth as some of us were expecting him to be, he’d be all over that. But he’s not. He gives it due consideration, but, if anything, this proposition seems to bring him back to reality. There are no free meat pies to be had and he’s just remembered that. But since this is the best – and likely the only – proposition/offer of help he’s going to get, he seals the deal anyway.

There’s still some reluctance, though. Why, Song Huaien needs to rationalize this decision by reminding himself that Wang Su saved his life and that there’s revenge to be taken since he’s alive (as Xiao Qi is not). Not very eager to take part in a coup, is he? And then he actually makes getting justice for Xiao Qi a condition of this alliance! Finding Awu is the second one, but as I’ve already said, there seems to be no romantic intentions there.

And that’s it, the deal is done. So now, can anybody tell me how is this Song Huaien supposed to go against Xiao Qi? He’s more likely to go for a hug once he sees him alive!

There is no reasonable way to leave in Song Huaien’s conflict with Xiao Qi. There’s just no time and no real build-up to that! The only way to have him go rogue is to have a timeskip with Song Huaien doing a 180 in the meantime. And somehow I just can’t see it happening. But I guess we’ll have to see about that!

#SONG HUAIEN IS A GOOD BOY #it's not just because his hair looks nice I swear #I'm not that shallow or am I #the rebel princess #monarch industry #rebel princess meta #this is kinda long

[animation-is-my-jam]

I mentioned before that I would also post my drawing of the other fan kid OCS for the “Hero’s” side (basically the wg kids) (The upper left one is Omi (age: 8) and he’s actually created by another OC so don’t worry, the middle left is Kuzo (age: 7), the one below him is Clover (age: 9), the one in the middle is Tori (age: 11), the one in the upper right is Willow (age: 11), and the bottom right is Sele (age: 10)).

Omi: A normal kid who attends school and is definitely not a robot, well he is but that shouldn't stop him from being normal. He was built by other robots and he really admires Tobey, although Tobey kind of finds it competitive that someone else built a really functional AI for Omi. Omi is really shy and kind hearted, where he likes to focus on his friends emotions first before his. He likes to take care of animals and people.

Kuzo: The first adopted child of Tj and Johnson, Kuzo has five younger siblings where he remains the leader. Growing up in a home with five chaotic siblings and his older cousin Tori who loves to get into trouble, he at only age 7 is very responsible and serious for his age. He acts like the most sarcastic and stern out of the entire group, but it's not hard to make him overjoyed, especially if he gets to hang around Omi. He likes to do anything that involves problem solving and puzzles, and the most important thing to him is his family.

Clover: The biological kid of Violet and Scoops, where Scoops is their guardian father. Scoops and Violet aren't divorced or anything, Violet volunteered to be a surrogate for scoops and Clover was born. While Scoops and Violet are still good friends, many can't deny things are kind of awkward between the two. Clover and they're older sister were being raised by their dad in another big city, when Scoops actually got a promotion to run the big city times in fair city. Prompting for Clover to move and met their new friends and cousins in Fair city. They adore cleanness and photography, but they really are a big germaphobe, they also are very timid when it comes to any scheme the gang gets them involved with.

Tori: The daughter of Becky and Tobey. Tori considers herself extremely proud to be born with a legacy such as her mother's and redeemed father's, who has really made a positive impact on most things (Spoilers). Ever since she was a baby Becky and Tobey would always tell her stories about their adventures and life, this always fascinated Tori into admiring the history of her parents. Tori unintentionally became a Wordgirl superfan with how she carefully documents the stories of her mother and father. This of course led her to admire the concept of history in general, focusing her genetics of lexiconian literacy to become a history buff. While at first Tori was content in just being quiet and nerdy for most of her childhood, she was still ambitious in being more, and accomplishing great feats like her parents. Tori wants to make a legacy in which she can be proud to document, with her developing lexiconian powers she might be able to achieve that by wanting to be a hero, however her schemes in trying to be a hero kind of put her in more trouble than anything. Luckily she has her friends/cousins to always bring her down on earth. While she adores history, she also likes fighting and anything physical (while her parents disapprove of this) and will take any chance to show off and train her powers. Tori loves birds and a particular friend of her's (it's Sele), and her dream is to open a very historically accurate Wordgirl museum when she's very old and done with being a hero.

Willow: The adopted daughter of kid math. Willow knows her father is a superhero and she really does try to help him with both his jobs, as fair city's overlooked superhero and the school's fifth grade math teacher. Willow and her dad are the only people in their lives besides faraway planetary family and the McCallister-Botsfords. Willow, however does have a role model in Violet, she extremely admires Violet, and becomes interested in the same things as her. Her main passion is however is entomology, where she has a special talent in communicating with bugs of any kind. While most kids and teachers at school don't respect her with her very vocal opinion on bug rights, she can count on her old/new friends to help her with her bug passion, even if Clover can't stand the sight of one.

Sele: The daughter of Eugene May and Emma, technically making her on of Granny May's Great granddaughters. Sele used to be best friends with Tori when they met in preschool, because Tori was the only one who enjoyed her home made burnt cookies. But after kindergarten they both eventually stopped hanging out with each other and drifted, that didn't stop both from forgetting the other one though. Sele started hanging around very self absorbed girls, who didn't hesitate to make fun of Tori's tomboyish attitude and Willows love for bugs. Sele never really participated in anything ridiculing but she still felt guilty in letting it happen. After a day of her bully friends picking on Tori and the new kid Clover she finally decided that she didn't want to hang around her "cool" friends. Sele was actually free from her judgemental friends and she can get back to her old love of baking and cooking. Sele was eventually invited to hang out with Tori and the group after years of separation, and while most were surprised by her true nature, Tori wasn't since she always knew that her old best friend hasn't changed. Sele is aware of most things, but the crush Tori has on her is still a bit oblivious to her, but she can't ignore how admires Tori ambitious nature and eventual dream to be a superhero. If Tori would let her, she could be her sidekick, even if her great grandmother wouldn't approve.

Basically Tori, Kuzo, and Willow have know each other since birth. Omi just showed up in school one day, quickly being accepted by the group of marveled popular outcasts. Clover recently moved and decided to hang around his friend cousin's and Sele was recently taken in by Tori's decision. They quickly became a very loyal group of friends after a weird moment where they all decided to run for student council at Woodview elementary.

#wordgirl #sorry this is a long one #yeah there some other oc kids but I wanted to focus on the main group #one day I will get the rest of the tjohnson kids and other siblings but rn its this #wordgirl oc #also sorry if not all of it makes sense. it's like 1am and I'm excited info dumping soo..

[jokertrap-ran]

(未定事件簿) EVENT! 「眷然恋影」 [Tears of Themis] EVENT: Zuo Ran Birthday 2021- Days to Re-Live Forever (4.24: Exchanging Movie Reviews)

*Tears of Themis Masterlist / Mobile Masterlist *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Will also be filed under Zuo Ran’s tag #Tears of a Lawyer *The tracking tag for ALL Event Stories will go under: #Tears of an Event

4.18 / 4.20 / 4.22 / 4.24 / 4.26 Messages / Investigations / Call

Location: Live-action Studio

As Zuo Ran's birthday drew closer, the Film Festival gradually approached it's ending, and the scene I was trying to recreate on-set was soon to be complete.

Now, I had to exchange for some other things that could serve as a birthday present, in addition to a variety of props.

For example, the "Collector's Edition: The World-wide Film Script Collection" that was listed under the gift catalogue.

MC: (This is the best of the best! Nothing can be more suitable than this for someone like him, who loves movies so much!)

But in order to get this gift set, I'll need either 200 volunteer points to redeem it, or to clinch the first prize in the Film Critic Competition.

MC: (After calculating the cost of the remaining set props and items I need… That extra 200 points I require looks really hard to obtain…)

MC: (Looks like I'll have to win the Film Critic Competition before I can think about it.)

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Location: Cafe

Simply watching a movie won't be enough to clinch victory in the Film Critic Competition.

During this period of time, I ran straight to the Cinema immediately after work in a bid to feed my pool of film knowledge.

But I'd never expected for my actions to have caught the attention of Mr. Li, the director of the award-winning film "Thousand Stars", that had won a gold award this Film Festival.

Director Li treated me as if I was a student in Film School, coming over to make small talk. Again, and again, until we eventually got acquainted with each other.

MC: Director Li, this is Zuo Ran, an Elite Lawyer. He's my partner, and also a movie enthusiast.

Zuo Ran had been absolutely busy with work the past two days, but due to the contents of his work, it was also something that I couldn't help him with by splitting the burden.

I didn't want him to get so "invested" in his work that he ended up burning himself out, so I specially invited him out to introduce him to Director Li, in hopes of getting him to relax a little.

Zuo Ran: It's been a long time, Li Yuan.

Li Yuan: Miss Lawyer here told me that she was going to be introducing me to a friend of hers. I was wondering who; but turns out it was you. It really has been a long while, Zuo Ran.

MC: You guys… Know each other?

A smile broke out on Zuo Ran's face; one that expressed the joy of reuniting with an old friend, one that spoke more than words.

Zuo Ran: Li Yuan and I were from the same batch of students, from the same law school. Only just that he changed his line of work as soon as he graduated.

Li Yuan: But that's only because it's so hard to pass the bar exam! I don't want to be memorizing anymore laws.

Zuo Ran: We're all acquaintances here, no need to be so courteous.

Zuo Ran: (Y/n) is my partner and will be participating in a Film Critic Competition soon. She has watched your movie, "Thousand Stars", many times over.

MC: Wait, how do you know that, Lawyer Zuo?

Zuo Ran: Weren't you playing "Thousand Stars" on your Pad this afternoon, while you were eating lunch?

MC: I've been re-watching it a couple of times lately, yes.

Li Yuan: You really like this movie that much? You've never brought it up in any of our previous conversations.

Li Yuan: I thought you disliked it but didn't dare voice it out to me for fear that it'll embarrass me, so you simply avoided the topic altogether.

MC: You're greatly mistaken! I really love "Thousand Stars"!

MC: But because I'm going to be participating in the Film Critic Competition, I can't help but to feel that talking to the Director of the film before writing the review's a little like playing cheat. So…

Zuo Ran: It's only to understand the Director's creative ideals. Whether it's worth it's recognition, whether or not it's nice to watch; those are things that only you can evaluate and judge for yourself.

Li Yuan: That's right, don't feel guilty for it.

Li Yuan: Look, I put out that many reasons for my shooting ideas back during the movie's promotional period; but yet, there are still people who have split opinion about whether or not this movie's a good one.

Li Yuan: So, come on, hurry and tell me what your rating is. Just think of it as you giving me a spoilery film critic about my work, alright?

MC: If I may be so presumptive to share my own opinions on the matter.

MC: I think that the plotline in "Thousand Stars" is clear, the pacing is just right, and the actors have also managed to portray the characters really well... 

MC: Especially the unique setting of having two male leads, I think that's very well done, and they're both very charismatic. But...

Now came the hard part of talking about just what was lacking. I unwittingly snuck a glance at Zuo Ran.

He gave me a reassuring nod. That was when I finally gathered up enough courage to voice my own thoughts.

MC: But, I can’t say I agree with the “Villian’s impactful acting during the explosion” that everyone’s been raving about.

MC: The excitement that stems from the scene between the final showdown between the villain and the protagonist is mostly because the protag was spurring on the villain emotionally. 

MC: The explosion scene, and the editing method used to cut straight to the heroine’s scenes also further intensified the tension.

MC: With both of these in play, don’t you think that the acting skills of the villain aren't reflected well enough, on the contrary? 

Li Yuan: I see. What do you think of it, Zuo Ran? Or don’t tell me you didn’t watch my film?

He pretended to threaten Zuo Ran with a threatening gesture.

Zuo Ran: My opinion is the same as (Y/n)’s.

MC: Huh? You think so too?

Perhaps we could have seen Robin’s movie review of the “Thousand Stars” if only he wasn’t that busy with work.

But alas, it was much better to hear his live commentary about it in-person now.

Zuo Ran: Yes. This scene is none other than the final decisive standoff between the villain and the hero, where they each have to kill the other party at all costs.

Zuo Ran: The character of the villain is that he is strong, paranoid, but very calm and composed; and that he's also a meticulous schemer. That being said, despite all the emotions running high here...

Zuo Ran: There's no need for such strong physical actions. Rather, it'll have been more fitting if you’d simply rely on the subtlety of actions to influence the audience.

Zuo Ran: But in this case, not only did the villain’s actor exaggerate his sneer a little more when the mood changed, but he’d also used a larger action to make up for the lack of visible expression.

Zuo Ran: He also deliberately raised his voice, so that the character he portrayed no longer retained his calm and paranoia, but instead, falls closer to disarray and madness. This conflicts a little with his initial persona.

Zuo Ran: But, although the performance of the villain’s actor was a tad choppy, he still has unlimited potential yet to be tapped into as a greenhorn.

Li Yuan laughed, clapping.

Li Yuan: Man, oh man, oh man! As one would expect of a Lawyer like you, Lawyer Zuo! Getting straight to the heart of the matter, I see!

Li Yuan: You’re absolutely right. The villain’s actor is a good seedling that has just graduated and requires more experience in the field.

Li Yuan: But I never expected that you’d have such thoughts about the actor’s acting either, Miss Lawyer. Or perhaps… Do you and Zuo Ran share a tacit understanding of each other between normal boundaries?

His eyes “scanned” us, flickering back and forth between us, an ambiguous yet knowing look on his face.

MC: You flatter me. I'm only but an amateur at this, and I haven't watched that many movies compared to Lawyer Zuo…

Zuo Ran: Movies reviews are something where you're meant to express your own views about it; professional experience and how excellent your review is as a whole does not matter.

Zuo Ran: Personally, I think a good movie review is one that resonates well with people.

Zuo Ran: We've watched many movies together now, and there are always points we mutually agree with.

Zuo Ran: In actual fact, I've always got something to learn from your evaluations of the movies we watch.

MC: Lawyer Zuo…

Li Yuan: Miss Lawyer, this is the first time I'm ever hearing Zuo Ran sing this many praises about someone else.

Li Yuan's tone and expression grew increasingly suggestive...

MC: ……

Zuo Ran: Cut it out with the jokes, Li Yuan.

Li Yuan: Yes, yes; alright. You're still the same as ever, huh.

Following that, we all started talking about other movies.

I could literally feel the tension and exhaustion leave Zuo Ran as time went on. His entire being had entered a state of relaxation.

MC: (This isn't a wasted trip at all since it got Lawyer Zuo to relax!)

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Talking to both veterans of the field made me gain lots of enlightenment.

I went to polish the movie review I'd already written at night, after getting back home, before making my official submission.

With some twist of fate, my review was actually awarded the first prize; and I managed to redeem the "Collector's Edition: The World-wide Film Script Collection", just like I was hoping to.

☆⋅⋆…⋅─────────── ⋆⋅✾⋅⋆ ───────────⋅…⋆⋅☆

Previous Part: (4.22: Dubbing Contest) | Next Part: (4.26: Birthday Celebration)

#Tears of Themis #Zuo Ran #左然 #Translations #Otome #Mihoyo #未定事件簿 #眷然恋影 #Days to ReLive forever #Zuo Ran 2021 Birthday #Tears of a Lawyer #Tears of an Event #weiding shijian bu #tears of themis translations

[lucas-grey]

I started to talk about the Hitman 3 locations. You can see my opinions on Dubai and Dartmoor here and here. Today I want to talk about my favorite mission, mission number 3 in Berlin. You can also read an amazing analysis of the location on @a-gromova s Blog! Spoilers ahead!

There are many reasons I love the Berlin level. One is a personal reason and I want to begin with that.

I live in Cologne, Germany and even if I’m not the party girl at all, I know the party scene in Germany. The Club Hölle (which is Club Hell in english) looks very similar to typical (or also alternative) German clubs we also have in Cologne like Odonien or Bootshaus. Here are some pictures of these locations, and I think there are some major similarities with the club in Berlin:

But it’s not just the look of the Club, it’s also the people there. Most of them are kind of alternative, I like the very modern look of their clothes. It’s like the whole bunch of clothes you can buy at Monki or Pull & Bear, which really fits the style of this whole community.

So for me as a German, I really enjoyed a Hitman level taking place in my homeland and I like that it really catches the feeling of the alternative Clubscene here.

That’s it for the personal level why I like this Location. But there are other reasons and they are connected with the whole trilogy.

As a huge Lucas Grey fan I was shocked from the cutscene that takes place right before we start in Berlin. I cried and I had to turn off the game for about a day before I was able to continue. The feelings I had were a bit lost, I felt confused, very angry and a bit helpless. And I started to play again. No informations. No handler. 47 stood there in the middle of nowhere, wearing Greys coat (sorry 47, you are a good looking man but the coat fits your brother way better).

This moment exactly reflected my feelings. We start there, totally lost, with no one by our side, at the ass end of nowhere. We just see a closed gas station. Only gradually we receive some informations by finding a a flyer for the Club Hölle, some cars and than a corpse. Finally, going through a dark wood, we get the redeeming call from Olivia. The Club has been infiltrated by the ICA and she was able to escape after killing one of the agents (the corpse we found earlier). But we are not going anywhere. 47 wants to send a message. I think to everyone. To the ICA. To providence. He wants them to see what happens when he’s acting on his own, making his own decisions and that you should not fuck with him. Really, don’t do it. Don’t kill his brother, he can get fucking mad!

Entering the Club we learn that there are many agents around and we have to kill at least five of them. We can use different disguises, but in the end, they will see through them. They are ICA agents, the best of the best, after all.

But it’s no coincidence that the mission is called “Apex Predator”. In the end, 47 is the best agent the ICA ever had. So we make or way through the club, finding one agent after another. I loved how 47 whispered their names to himself. I know that many Hitman fans were annoyed by Diana’s “THAT is target xy” and it’s fun to see that 47 does it for himself, when she’s not there. You see? He loves to hear her voice haha!

There are so many details in this Club. The location is HUGE! What I, as a console player, really loved was the fact that when you enter the dance floor the Controller starts to vibrate and the closer you get to the turn tables, the more intense it gets. I love IOI for such small details!

After finding the agents, we have to find a way to kill them. We find out that there are different informations on them. Some of them are new to the agency, while others, like Montgomery, are there for a long time. My favorite kill? I love to dress as Rolf Hirschmüller, the owner of the Club (who also knew Grey) and lure Montgomery and four other agents into his office. He knows that it’s not Hirschmüller, sitting on the other side of the table, so he starts to talk shit about Grey, trying to intimidate 47. So 47 kicks the table, where a Shotgun is hidden and we can shoot five agents in a row. I think I yelled “that’s for Grey, asshole!” doing it haha!

Berlin is my favorite location, because it really fits the feelings I had after Greys death. It’s not just a beautiful location, but it is emotional. For other locations like Dartmoor, Dubai or most of the others in the games before, it didn’t matter. But in Berlin it does and they did catch these emotions very well.

What do you think of Berlin? Did you like it? Tell me in the comments or feel free to write me a message!

[orhelponefaintingrobin]

The Irredeemable Witch

Back in my first RWBY theory/analysis a few months ago, I mentioned that one of my theories as to how the fight against Salem will end is that she’ll end up being, in some way, redeemed. I want to expand on that here, because I’ve been thinking about it again recently.

(Some minor V8 spoilers here, so I’m putting it under a cut again)

One thing that RWBY, in my opinion, has been playing a lot with, especially since Volume 4, is the idea of who is good and who is not. In the first few volumes, the heroes and villains were pretty cut and dry. The closest to ambiguity we got was, like, Ironwood always seemed like a bit of a macho military man, but even then it’s only in hindsight that you can see the seeds of what he’s ended up becoming. Emerald and Mercury, despite RWBY and JNPR thinking they were friends, were introduced literally murdering a guy, Cinder and Torchwick and Adam were always obviously evil. Everyone else was pretty obviously on the side of good; even though you had your arseholes like Cardin, they were still broadly working on the same side as our heroes, when push came to shove. The White Fang were pretty inarguably terrible, just a bunch of terrorists. But, since V4, those lines have blurred an awful lot.

The White Fang are a great example; the show started becoming increasingly sympathetic to at least some of them; in the first few volumes, we got Adam and the guy with the chainsaw, in V4/5, we got Ilia. Even further than that, it turns out Adam’s group was a bit of a splinter group, going too far even by the rest of the organisation’s standards. Certainly when you see how Ghira spoke about Sierra, while he obviously disagrees with her, he doesn’t seem to think she’s a monster, and she certainly didn’t approve of Adam’s actions. And now, presumably back under Ghira’s leadership, the Fang, or at least its replacement, is likely going to be more of a force for good, likely coming to help in Atlas.

Past that, we’ve had more good guys turning bad; Lionheart working with Salem, and Ironwood’s, well… everything. Winter and the Ace-Ops are blurring that line; they say they think they’re doing good, but very clearly they don’t believe that deep down despite following their orders anyway. And we’re seeing people initially antagonistic proving not to be as much. The Happy Huntresses are shown in opposition to RWBY et al, but they’re now on the same side. Emerald and Hazel are turning on Salem. And even the more obvious villains, some of them are getting some depth; it’s definitely getting harder to see Cinder as pure evil knowing what’s brought her to this point.

This show is blurring these lines all the time, and I think the message is clear; people aren’t good or evil, people are people, and they make choices, and those choices can do a lot of good, or a huge amount of harm, but people are able to evolve and move past those choices. Again, Emerald is introduced as part of an actual murder. You can debate whether or not she physically was the one who killed him, but she was there, and she didn’t exactly seem shaken by it; they’d clearly done that before, and they seemed fine with that. But now she’s realising there are other options, and in making that decision, seems to have been quickly accepted as an ally by JNR and Oscar. She’s more than those past actions.

And thinking about that, I quickly came back to Salem. See, I rewatched Volumes 1-7 before V8 started last year, and getting to Salem’s backstory in V6, I noticed something specific about that episode that got me thinking. Ozma’s question to Jinn was “how do I destroy Salem?”. Not even ‘how do I stop’, but ‘destroy’. I had some thoughts about that at the time, but it wasn’t until this episode that those pieces started to fall into place again, in a more solid way.

When I started thinking about this today, I realised that the real turning point for Salem was Ozma taking the children and leaving, and, more importantly, it’s significance from his point of view; he gave up on her. Ozma was obviously right that Salem was going too far, that what she was doing was wrong, but he decided that she couldn’t change, that she was beyond saving. And he seems to have retained that belief through all his lives since.

And it got me thinking, made me realise that, despite seeing all these character arcs, all these stories showing that people are not inherently good or evil, that people are able to make different decisions and change, is that it’s very easy to exclude Salem from that. It’s very easy to see Salem as uniquely evil, uniquely irredeemable, but… Is she? 

I mean, I don’t think the Brothers thought so; their punishment to her wasn’t just ‘you don’t get to die’, it was ‘you live until you learn the importance of life and death’. That isn’t just a punishment, it’s a test (they seem to like those…). And it’s not like we don’t see any light slip through; she was certainly not great when her and Ozma were pretending to be gods, she was doing bad things, but she certainly seemed to have genuine affection for Ozma and their children. If she’d embraced that, instead of fixating on control, her and Ozma probably could have been genuinely happy. The truth is, I don’t think Salem has ever been pure evil, any more than anyone else in this show is.

But no one’s considered that. Even Ozma, the person who should know her better than anyone on Remnant, could only see an end by destroying her, and if he can’t do that, then just delaying the inevitable as long as possible. But, if we can accept that RWBY is showing us that the line between good and evil is in a person’s decisions, if people like Emerald, Hazel, even, potentially down the line, Cinder, can make decisions and choose to change, why can’t Salem?

This is, right now, my primary theory as to how the fight against Salem will end. Someone, presumably Ruby and probably with some input from Oscar/Ozma too, will manage to get Salem to realise what the Brothers wanted to teach her; the importance of life and death, and, more broadly, to realise that she was wrong. Ozma, all those years ago, before even he started to lose faith, was right, humanity was capable of creating something great, and its continued existence is worthwhile. 

And, like, Salem’s motivation for wanting to destroy everything does really seem to be that she just wants to die, so if the only way she can die is by learning that lesson, then presumably she’s got to learn that lesson at some point.

As for what happens after that? I mean, that COULD just be how the show ends, in however many volumes it takes to get to that point. I’ve also seen it suggested that the show could end with some rebellion against the Brothers, in which case I think Salem joining the good guys for that fight would make a lot of sense; they’d need some firepower in that fight, and Salem’s got a lot of it; maybe fighting alongside Oscar, and the maidens, the reincarnations of their whole family.

I obviously don’t have all the details worked out, but the core of what I’m saying is this; I don’t think Salem is at all irredeemable, and especially in a show about breaking cycles and the newer generation making better decisions than the old, Ruby and her friends showing Salem a path back to the light, rather than seeking to destroy her like those that came before, seems like exactly the sort of ending that would make sense for this story.

#RWBY Meta #RWBY #RWBY Spoilers #RWBY Salem #I swear I'm not a RWBY blog now I've just been thinking of loads after this episode