#if she ends up stuck or sealed somewhere or written out of the plot in botw2 i will be. so very disappointed

[evercelle]

i want to see her smile again, with my own eyes || let’s explore a whole new hyrule together

some recent zelink!! played AoC and it’s made me miss botw so terribly... i am manifesting, if not playable, at least companion zelda for botw2 

#loz #botw #zelink #zelda #link #ever makes art #ninty please let zelda go on adventures #if she ends up stuck or sealed somewhere or written out of the plot in botw2 i will be. so very disappointed #but botw zelda had an incredible story arc and botw as a game broke many zelda traditions so i am hopeful for the sequel!!

[h50europe]

Why the myth about Steve's PTSD doesn't add up and other inconsistencies

In the last few episodes of H50, PL tried to sell us a mentally broken Steve suffering from PTSD. Only the whole thing came a bit too late. The clip you see is from season 4 and ended up - no, not in the series - but somewhere on the floor of PL's editing room. And why? after Kurtzman and Orci departed, along with their writers, PL took the helm and started turning Steve into a super-soldier. He stylized him into something that wasn't meant to be. Instead of developing the characters, PL began to incorporate more and more hair-raising action sequences into the series and then let Steve fight on the front lines. There was no mention of Steve's mental state, and a lot was explained by PL with: it just happened "offscreen." Yeah, sure. PL can't create a decent character. He can only produce stereotypes and one-dimensional beings. Like Adam. What potential would that character have had had he been turned into Five-0's antagonist? But no. So his role remained diffuse and monotonous. Sometimes even tragicomical.

Back to Steve. When SEAL Team started on CBS, PL also lapsed into SEAL mania. If someone who writes fanfiction were to produce as much garbage as this man did, he would be chased away from every writers' platform in disgrace. PL's Super SEAL also had to rescue his team members from a blazing inferno. Not man by man, no, he flew a helicopter right into the danger zone and lifted a whole cabin out of the burning jungle. If lunacy had a name, it would be PL. While the action became more and more exaggerated and unrealistic, the same happened to the protagonists. After the departure of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, PL completely lost his mind. And please, don't blame the writers for the nonsense that was thrown at you. A series stands and falls with the showrunner. He dictates what he wants and passes it on to his staff.

And so, lovable Steve became a soulless robot who only showed feelings here and there. Danny diminished more and more into a sidekick. McDanno became a ship that drifted anchorless through a stormy sea and threatened to capsize again and again. From season 8, it became a reboot of the reboot. PL tried an ensemble show and failed more than miserably. Often the actors just stood around bored. At least that was the impression. The only highlight was episode 8.10. A feast for all McDanno fans. But even here, the outcome of "who shot Danny" was more than insubstantial.

Wait, there was something about SEALs... Oh, yes. Junior appeared on the scene and became Steve's lapdog. I really wondered when there was going to be an episode where he would fetch sticks for Steve. Luckily we had Eddie for that. And because he thought he was so clever, PL invented the episode speed dating. How many subplots can you squeeze into one episode at the same time? In some episodes, you couldn't even take a look at the bag of potato chips without losing the thread.

The case of the week became the yawn of the week. There were so many loose ends that PL then came up with something called retconning. That's what you do when you're no longer satisfied with what was once established in the series years ago, or it no longer fits. But PL went one step further and did the same with the characters. The more the series was dragged out, the more the characters deteriorated and became OOC. It means, often, they were not recognizable at all. And that's where we come to Steve. Because PL, in his desperation, didn't know what else he could do to Steve, and so he killed Joe White. He did it in such a cheesy way with a fake sunset that it made you sick.

Of course, one episode later, there had to be another gig of PL's favorite Barbie. He stuck a fake beard on poor Steve/Alex, so he couldn't even hug Danny/Scott properly. The episode also raised more questions than it answered any. And Steve? He still didn't suffer from PTSD, even though he had now lost Joe White and a fellow SEAL. Everyone is dropping like flies, except for Steve, who is standing like a rock. No matter what. He doesn't need in-depth talks with Danny, nor psychological care, nor any sleeping pills. No, he's doing great. He also opens a restaurant with Danny because apparently, the carguments are already getting on PL's nerves. Unfortunately, this plot device leads into nirvana. The idea was nice, but nobody thought it through to the end. And the merry-go-round continues. Until we get to season 10, where it gets even more absurd. Now PL is almost bombarding us with McDanno episodes, or at least it should seem that way. Oh well, he's already planning for season 11, so a new character has to come on board quickly. While in the beginning, Steve's mother, Doris, dies.

Alex was allowed to take on the subject. Of course, only under the strict eyes of PL. He then nullifies Alex's idea that Steve kills his mother. Because a good soldier and Super SEAL won't do that. Little does PL know. THAT could have been the opening of a PTSD scenario for Steve. However, apart from that, this episode would have had any potential for a multi-arc. Just imagine Steve chasing his mother across multiple episodes. Again, PL stepped in and butchered Alex's episode. You can really feel sorry for the guy. PL at his best or worse? He just can't help it. And then, on the very last meters of the series, he brings someone new, who is allowed to cruise around with Steve most of the time. Because Danny was kidnapped by Wo Fat's widow, PL also invented quite late to have some villain at his disposal. This wannabe mastermind must really have been living under a rock somewhere if she wasn't even mentioned by her husband or appeared earlier.

Because towards the end, PL obviously ran out not only of steam but also of ideas, everything culminated in a wildly illogical scenario. Steve has to live through a dramatic day with Eddie, who stands as a metaphor for Steve (as I said, PTSD was never a thing for Super SEAL), Danny bangs his brains out in a ladies' room with a complete stranger, who dies shortly after that in an accident with Danny's rental car. Apparently, there was no budget to turn the Camaro into scrap metal. Danny then also goes home alone, ignoring the incoming emergency vehicles. Everything remains open at the end of the episode. While Steve expresses his gratitude to Tani and Quinn and says, he would be just as lost as poor Eddie without the dog and all of them. The strange thing is that you never notice anything until that sentence. A few forced dialogues are supposed to make the drama visible, but they all happen way too late or are so poorly written that you miss them.

PL had decided early on to make Steve a Teflon hero. That also means he didn't need to put much substance into the character. Which you can clearly see if you compare the first three seasons to the rest of the series. But towards the end, PL wanted to turn the tide and forcefully rewrote Steve's past. There is a huge difference if you compare Steve from seasons 1 to 3 with Steve from season 10. It is only a sparse remnant of what made this character so great. This change in Steve's personality also affects his relationship with Danny. The witty, affectionate banter degenerates into a snappy, humorless bitch-fest that takes all the joy out of it.

The final two episodes could have been written for any other crime show. As mentioned, we have Cole, who even gets a book'em Cole from Steve, which can only be described as out of line. And it begs the question, was that what Lenkov originally had in mind? Danny out of the show and Cole in? Was the last episode, which mainly featured McCole, something of a test run? Did all the McDanno moments happen only to tear the two apart eventually? Was the real final scene the one where Steve and Catherine take Danny's coffin back to Jersey? Was Danny not supposed to survive? Was that the real reason Steve wanted to get out of Hawaii because he wanted to pay his respects to Danny? And would he really have returned to Hawaii later? Or would he have turned his back on Hawaii? To me, this ending is more plausible than what PL served us. Then, Steve handed over his credentials to Cole instead of Danny, his second in command. Honestly, you can't make the end of a series any more sloppy and dumber than that. And I won't even lose a word about the last 1:30 minutes because I think everything has already been said.

No PL, mission absolutely not accomplished. You created Teflon-Steve. You never wanted him to show any weakness. You turned him into a superhuman who can survive anything. Only to pull the rug out from under him on the last few meters to the finish line and spit on his legacy. How can you dismantle such a great series and its characters like you did? How much do you have to hate something to do that? In the final interviews, the showrunner didn't exactly cover himself in glory either. Everyone who grew up with the series from day one knows that its end was wrong on all the possible levels and that the showrunner is solely to blame for that. It takes a fair amount of egoism and carelessness to drive 10 years at full throttle against the wall. Not many people can do that. Whether you can be proud of that, however, I doubt.

My respect if you have made it this far. Each of you gets 10 extra brownie points for it.

#McDanno #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #scott caan #alex o'loughlin #H50 the final chapter #H50 series finale #Lenkov #Eddie #Junior #seal team

[unwiltingblossom]

15x19 is just....just hilariously bad. It’s a hot mess of garbage and lost potential.

Let’s just say there’s one and only one way to salvage this story, and it’s that the entire story is just another Swan Song, and this haphazard ending was written by Chuck to give the boys a sense of closure and freedom that’s impossible for them to ever have from the moment they realized who Chuck was.

It’s literally that bad. it can only be excused by Chuck being a lazy hack in-universe to pander to Dean and Sam. Rushing the end of Castiel’s arc in like two minutes, with zero emotional payoff unless you’re deeply, deeply invested in Destiel and desperate for any crumb of it. Luci reappearing for five minutes and acting totally out of character before dying basically instantly right in front of Jack to conveniently charge him up, then Chuck killing Michael for literally no reason whatsoever (Michael did exactly what he wrote him to do) right in front of Jack, Chuck deciding just not to kill Jack because...........................................because, and also deciding to beat, but not kill, the Winchesters, and the most anticlimactic defeat of Chuck possible.

What was the point of him combining with Amara? Nothing, there’s no payoff, it’s just a way to write her out. For no reason in particular she vibes with Jack even though Jack betrayed and tried to murder her while Chuck did nothing against her. She has an entire arc about being an inseparable pair with Chuck, brother and sister from the dawn of time that no one else can understand, a bond that even the imprisonment couldn’t break, and then she’s like ‘ah yes, the ally of the person who betrayed and tried to kill me - who tried to do the same - the son of the angel who betrayed me and tried to seal me away, I like this guy and will go be with him and “harmonize” instead of staying with the brother that I love, or protecting him from this.’

What has changed between pre-season 11 (or really pre-season 14) and now? Has their god figure changed tactics at all? Literally no. Not even a little. Every part of Jack’s limp wristed speech just added up to ‘absentee dad who doesn’t come and help people because he doesn’t want to be a helicopter dad’. The current writers just balled up their fists and shook them at the sky angry about  a Chuck who literally just didn’t exist, and hurled insults at him for doing things that their new replacement is also planning on doing.

Dean and Sam aren’t even off the hamster wheel, they’re just now on Jack’s! Which is better, because they’re on the good side of their world’s god--wait, they were that already before season 15, oops. Chuck was literally personally indebted to them! Amara was in love with Dean! Nothing has changed!

But even if that’s the ending they wanted for some demented reason, the execution is awful, possibly the worst! Not only did Chuck and Amara’s abilities and personality become inconsistent with previous seasons, they became inconsistent with a few episodes before.

In the end what was Chuck’s personality?

Whatever you were about to think was wrong unless your answer was “Nothing, he didn’t have a personality, he reacted only as the plot required him to at the time with no rhyme, reason, or internal consistency.”

One moment Chuck is railing at the Winchesters for ‘not obeying’, the next he’s punishing someone for obeying him or saying that the only thing that interests him is how the Winchesters surprise him. One moment he refuses the white flag for literally no reason, the next one he’s demanding they give up. One moment he needs Amara to Great Reset and has completely lost interest in the Winchesters, the next he’s given up on the hard reset and only cares about the Winchesters again. One moment he revives his most rebellious son because he knows that son is obsessively devoted to him, the next he’s killing his most loyal son for reluctantly rebelling (exactly according to a previous plan). One moment he says ‘now Jack dies’ the next he goes out of his way to just not kill Jack for no reason. Does he want a fitting death for the Winchesters or not? He sure doesn’t know the answer to that!

Chuck was not a person, not even an entity. He was a formless, personality-devoid plot object pushed around the map to give the Winchesters something to react to and try to ‘defeat’. Billy was far more the arc villain - even Empty - than Chuck, and her ending was utterly anticlimactic and unsatisfying.

He acted exactly as necessary to get the very specific ending they picked, and nothing more. Every time up until the final conflict whenever he saw Jack he’d immediately kill Jack unless Jack was literally just dying in front of him. Every time he was irritated with someone and wanted them gone through the season, he would wave his hand and they’d vanish to ‘somewhere else’, implied to be very far away. Suddenly this one time, he instead sent Jack a very short distance away, so as to ensure he’d be close enough to absorb Michael’s power when Chuck SMITED him, not killed him in some normal way.

Shall we look at the very specific chain of insane events that had to happen to make this result?

- Chuck erases all of living existence except Michael, the Winchesters, Castiel, and Jack - the last of which he has zero interest in and very much wants dead.

- Chuck, instead of going to the bunker himself because he knows full well there’s literally nothing, nothing, that can kill him with Amara’s power (and also instead of just instantly resetting like he wanted to do with Amara), revives Satan and sends him to the bunker to make a new Death so that she can read Death’s book.

- The combined cleverness of him and the longest lived villain in the series due to his tenacity and cleverness don’t decide to peacefully take the new Death away for ‘security’ and kill her where the Winchesters (and Michael) can’t see, and instead instantly murder her in front of everyone before she can say how the end happens

- Chuck, despite making a point TWO EPISODES AGO about how he’s literally omniscient, and so though he can’t read the book that doesn’t mean it can actually be used against him, suddenly forgets that only Death can read the book. All of the time in the universe and he’s never learned this???? Even the Winchesters knew!

- Chuck evidently infused him with the power to insta-kill Death....somehow, but this power is not on display at any other point, especially not the crucial next moment:

- The most tenacious and sneaky villain on the show then slowly makes his way around the bunker with a fellow archangel who wants to kill him present, then lingers and offers to let a son he hates (and Chuck dislikes) that he believes is currently powerless to come with him. He then is unprepared for the very same trick that Gabriel tried to use on him 10 season before and failed back then with the phrase ‘I taught you all the tricks you know’, and gets immediately ganked by Michael with no fight at all

- Chuck LITERALLY WAS THE ONE TO GIVE THE WINCHESTERS THAT ARCHANGEL BLADE AND WROTE IT SO THAT THEY WERE THE ONES WHO KILLED HIM WITH IT THE LAST TIME. HE COULD NOT HAVE NOT KNOWN THEY HAD IT!!!!

- Dean and Sam then discuss their plan to trick the omniscient Chuck between each other and Jack. Chuck somehow doesn’t know this, even though it was established in the past that the warding doesn’t actually work against Chuck and Amara and he has literally nowhere else to be looking in the multiverse except at them

- Jack absorbs the power of an archangel, making him the third most powerful being in the universe currently, as all other archangels other than Michael are dead and Death is dead, and there is NO OTHER POWER ANYWHERE WHATSOEVER to hide him in, yet is undetected by Michael or Chuckmara

- Chuck appears when they attempt to do some BS to kill him, even though he would know full well that just wouldn’t work, and decides in that one specific moment, even though he doesn’t care one whit about Jack, not to go ahead and just delete Jack since he’s gonna do that in a minute anyway, he also doesn’t send Jack ‘away’ like he has with literally everyone else, nor does he control Jack and turn Jack on the boys. Nope. Just slap him vaguely to the side

- Rather than deal with Michael after the Winchesters, Chuck decides he hates his most loving and loyal son who has never once done anything wrong against him, and sought to do his will even when he was gone, even when Michael was stuck in the cage unjustly. He goes ahead and murders Michael for something he wrote as a trap for the Winchesters and doesn’t even wait to deal with Jack and the Winchesters first to do it

- CHUCK. SHURLEY. UNDERESTIMATED THE WINCHESTERS. THE ONE WHO WROTE THEM TO BE THE WAY THEY ARE. THE ONE WHO WROTE “AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERESTIMATE THE WINCHESTERS?!” FOR CROWLEY TO SAY.

- Chuck didn’t notice Jack absorbing the power of Michael LITERALLY RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, making Jack nearly Chuck’s power by absorbing the two most powerful archangels and literally leaving him THE ONLY FLAME OF POWER IN ALL OF EXISTENCE BESIDES CHUCK. STANDING RIGHT. NEXT. TO. HIM.

- Seriously, the energy of Michael didn’t dissipate, it sucked right into Jack, still in his peripheral vision. Chuck the omniscient!

- Chuck then decides, unlike every other time he faced the Winchesters or anything he wanted dead, no he won’t smite or erase the Winchesters or make them face some poetic fate, he’ll punch them down. But not once and obliterate them, oh no. Over and over so he can “leak god power” that he then doesn’t notice is being drained into Jack

- He literally does not notice a being as powerful or more powerful than him standing behind him. OMNISCIENT CHUCK.

- Rather than take the power back, flee, or do anything with his power or eons of experience (like transfer his consciousness to Jack along with the power), he stands there and immediately is drained

THIS is the path that had to happen, with no deviations, for the Winchesters not to just die.

And on top of that garbage plotline of perfect coincidences we’re expected to believe wasn’t written to happen in-universe, the execution is the saddest and most pathetic wet fart of a finale ever.

There’s been 15 seasons, and conveniently we can compare three different ‘true’ endings in the process. Let’s do that, shall we?

Ending 1 - Swan Song. Build up: 5 seasons

The other endings didn’t get the benefit of five seasons of build up, so we won’t factor in the first 2 or 3 seasons just to be fair, and only count the beginning of the apocalypse arc.

Primary villain: Satan, with the backdrop of demons and the corrupted faction of angels. Their personalities are well defined and compelling. Their behavior makes sense and are consistent, and draw you in to be invested in what happens, especially the eventual heelface turn of Castiel.

Stakes: Humanity, but far more importantly, the supporting cast whom you grew to know and love over the years, even including Castiel.

Over the apocalypse arc, we see the boys struggle against impossible odds and what appears to be fate, raging against the dying of the light because they cannot accept that the future can really hold the end of everything. They despair, they grow, Dean - a staunch atheist - prays to god for the first time ever. Slowly but surely they lose ground, with every attempted victory only resulting in more failure. Ellen and Jo who survived an early season fake out and became beloved characters end up fighting and dying in a long, drawn out sacrifice scene that matters, leaving the people behind shattered. Bobby is crippled. Sam and Dean both give up and almost give in.

In the end, the final confrontation still happens, Castiel finally makes a stand for the sake of humanity and free will and he dies for it. Only the love that Dean and Sam have for each other, the lifetime as brothers and their fierce bond of family, finally saves the day. And it only happens at the cost of sacrificing Sam and Adam’s lives, forcing Dean to live for them.

The final battle takes all episode, it’s dramatic and it’s emotional both good and bad.

Ending 2 - Alpha and Omega. Build up: 3 seasons

The arc with Amara once again was a long build up of the Winchesters constantly trying to make things better and only making things worse, but where Sam was the vessel and thus had the personal connection to the villain in the first arc, Dean was the vessel exploring the darkness and thus had the personal connection to Amara in this arc.

Primary villain - Amara, the bitter and angry sister of Chuck who doesn’t understand human morality but has a personal connection to Dean.

Stakes: Existence itself, but also far more importantly, the supporting cast built up from the last checkpoint.

The crushing hopelessness of fighting a being with ultimate power filled the arc, and Dean’s attempt to reason with Amara failed not because she was insane, but because her understanding of existence was simply different and incompatible. Donatello their prophet has his soul devoured by Amara and Metatron is killed in a diversion, but overall there’s not as much sacrifice because it wouldn’t have done any good anyway. However, it has its Ellen and Jo moment in the form of the hopelessness of the Croatoan episode. The city converted, the Winchesters helpless, Sam infected and slowly turning, while Chuck has given up and plans to die with the world. 

And honestly, that moment when Chuck begins to sing, when the amulet after so many years finally begins to glow and the clouds part, everything isn’t fixed yet but somehow it’s all alright because “Dad is finally here” is such a beautiful moment.

Many before have commented on it, but Chuck’s song and the moment he heals everyone is iconic and beautiful, as is the moment when the play sings ‘Wayward Son’ while Chuck watches in the bleachers with a smile. Things also get desperate, as Chuck nearly dies even after they get everything together as allies - even including the last arc villain - they put together something that will only maybe work so that at the very least, existence can continue.

Once again, the boys and everyone get together to fight the inevitable and impossible simply because they believe humanity deserves to continue to exist, and it’s the love of family - this time between Chuck and Amara, who truly, no matter the eons of rivalry and resentment and bitterness, don’t want to see each other hurt - that puts aside the end. The inevitable fade is prevented because of love and family (and isn’t that the point?) and even Chuck as a father redeems himself, taking the anger from Dean, Sam, and his own son and finally makes peace with them as well.

In the same way Chuck brought back Castiel stronger as a gift, Amara brings back Mary younger as a gift, and just as in season 5, they leave with the promise that Dean and Sam can handle things from here. Chuck even says "The Earth will be fine without me. It’s got you and Sam.” before he leaves.

The final episode isn’t a battle, but the solution takes all episode, and the ending is somewhat bittersweet, though more positive emotional than negative.

‘Ending’ 3 - Inherit the Earth. Build up: one season

They didn’t have much choice about this, because Jensen sprang ‘I quit’ on them, and they evidently didn’t want Jack to be the final villain, so the arc they were in the middle of had to be terminated (and the Michael arc ended at an awkward place so they couldn’t have just ended it at the end of s14 instead)

Still, the season of buildup....just isn’t. Most episodes have nothing to do with the inevitable impending doom, and rather than hopelessness, the Winchesters mostly live in a delusion that despite utterly failing to defeat Amara, somehow they can beat Chuck with less power. This conflict is fueled by sheer rage on both sides, as Dean has up and decided he hates that someone is controlling his life and thinks he gets a say, and is willing to endanger the entire world for his grudge against Chuck - even though this was something resolved back in s11 (the resolution with Satan was also completely undone by these writers instantly but that’s another matter)

Primary villain: Chuck, with an aside of Billie and The Empty - unfortunately this Chuck has no connection to the previous Chuck (or even himself episode to episode), Billie has always been extremely bland and doesn’t really accomplish anything through the season, and the Empty is totally unexplored and wholly exists to say “BE QUIET” and provide fanservice because it’s using Meg’s actress to do so. It has no personality beyond wanting to be left alone and getting vindictive if it’s not. It also can’t impact anything because it’s barred from Earth and nothing significant in the plot happens elsewhere this season.

Stakes: Humanity, and also some side characters you don’t really know or care about

Let’s talk about those, because it’s the biggest failing in the execution of this whole plot and why the ending has no oomph and doesn’t matter even if Chuck had a coherent personality and the ending had made sense.

Bobby is not Our Bobby, and despite bringing him back, the writers utterly failed to explore him or bring him into things, even in this final arc. There’s been no chance to bond with this Bobby. Even his ‘romance’ with Mary was offscreen and he had little more than grunting to say about her death.  We’ve also had our chains thoroughly jerked around by Bobby since season 6. Emotionally we’re dead to Bobby, and the writers seem to have assumed this by token returning him and then shipping him on a bus immediately (or maybe the writers suck, because they do this to Mary most of the time too and there’s no reason for people to be bored of her)

Charlie is not Our Charlie, and we’ve already seen her die (pointlessly). Once again, the writers utterly failed to explore her, even more than Bobby, and no one can point out anything that makes her any different from the original except that she has no connection to the boys. She’s also been shipped off and removed multiple times, so viewers are well acquainted with her being gone. She does nothing in the final plot to make people remember her or be invested.

Does Garth even die on screen??? Have we even seen him since the antiMichael arc? Oh right, he’s in the joke episode where he gives Dean fillings. You know who doesn’t even die on screen? Jody. She also has no role in the season. She doesn’t even appear in reality, only alternate versions of reality! Instead, Donna appears! Just long enough so she can die on screen painlessly in a plot twist about Billie. Presumably Donatello dies, but, y’know, it’s offscreen.

More importantly, none of these people who die are involved in actually helping to fight Chuck. They help the Winchesters a little in their cameos, but they’re not involved in a desperate fight for survival, putting it all on the line even though they know it’s hopeless, because humanity deserves to exist and no matter how impossible, they have to fight.

Three people of importance die or ‘die’.

Amara, who as mentioned is just written out of the show for no conceivable reason

Rowena, is the only person with an impactful sacrifice done to fight Chuck, no matter how hopeless it is. Unfortunately, it’s somewhat rushed, and Sam is over it pretty quick....because Rowena becomes Queen of Hell, completely undermining her death and really just giving the Winchesters an upgrade, because she’s even more reliable than Crowley in there (they proceed to never call on her)

And then there’s Castiel.

His death is rushed and hot garbage, as mentioned. He’s not dying to fight Chuck, or for something he believes in. It’s not a long and emotional or heartbreaking scene. It’s a useless and stupid one that only happens because Dean is an idiot, with the fakest suspense of Billie just open palm smacking on a door for a stupidly extended amount of time, just so they could fulfill an ‘oopsie’ plot hook they’d planned for far in the future with the Empty.

And the worst part? After undermining Castiel being one of the brothers and everything he’s ever done with ‘it’s not that I loved humanity and did what I believed was right, even in the face of adversity and those around me telling me it was wrong, it’s that I loved you and confessing this even though it’s 100% unrequited and we’re surrounded by doom and I know things are hopeless I’m completely happy, at peace, and have forgotten Empty’s promise (oops, forgot about that qualification, didn’t you?)’

After all that, Dean, Sam, and Jack aren’t even really broken up about it. Dean is sad for like five seconds and then they move on back to angry at chuck mode. Jack lost his actual dad, Sam and Dean lost their brother - forever this time - and they’re like ‘eh, we moved on from losing mom again and losing dad again, this is nothing’.

There’s no impact to this sacrifice whatsoever. Especially because in the very next episode we see that if you have Chuck’s power you can just yoink out someone from the Empty, and that very episode they already said that the Empty can’t go where Chuck doesn’t want him. That is to say: Jack can just rescue him now and there’s nothing the Empty can do about it.

And as for the conclusion?

What saves the day? Is it love? Does Amara’s appeal to Chuck as his sister work? Do the Winchesters swallow their pride and go to Chuck to plead with him to see reason and remember his love for his creation? Does the love Michael have for his father reach him? Do the love Dean, Sam, or Jack have for each other matter, overcoming the impossible to choose love, freedom, and family like always?

Nope.

They win because Chuck is angry and hateful and full of hubris, so he makes a billion mistakes in a row, allowing himself to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And is there a lesson about love in the end, something about freedom or family or forgiveness?

Nope.

They leave Chuck groveling as a human (like that’s different from how he’s been for eons, happily so), Jack fixed everything (except Castiel and all the angels and heaven and all the monsters and serial killers and cannibals)  and then gives a speech about how he is everything and is in everything but not Dean and Sam’s car because the only way to be good at his job is to go do the thing Chuck was doing and Dean raged at him about.

And it happens in a few seconds.

Completely anticlimactic. There’s no climax. There’s no build up. There’s no satisfaction or emotional payoff. There’s no closure that makes you say ‘yes, this could be the end and I would be completely satisfied’ except that they didn’t include the last second sequel hooks that were in s5 and 11 because they knew there’d be more seasons.

Also looping back to the logistical side of things again

There is no ‘godforce’, there’s no ‘grace but it’s divine’

Chuck and Amara are power

You can’t just ‘drain’ them of it, you can’t steal their power and leave a husk, because there’s no husk. They’re not inhabiting someone like angels or demons do. They are that power. Why do they have that power? Because they do, Because they are, they have that power in their world.

If you could somehow ‘steal’ the power you’d be stealing the ‘essence’. Just like with Amara moving to Jack, Chuck would move to Jack, and suddenly it wouldn’t be Jack anymore, because a human mind and soul can’t overcome him (see: he writes them)

Also, consider the sheer staggering amount of NERF!!!!!!!

Chuck + Amara, that’s Chuck doubled in power

is now canonically the power of “One human soul + two powerful archangels + a few punches worth of power”. That means by their reckoning, Chuck alone is only a punch or two stronger than Michael. 

think about that compared to what Death said to Castiel with all of purgatory in him.

And this

This is why I say

The only way to correct this episode is to reveal in the end of this next wrap up episode that it was all written by Chuck, for Dean and Sam. The only fix to this is to make it so the bad writing is just typical Chuck being a ham-fisted writer who is ultimately just doing what’s best for humanity and especially his two favorites: giving them closure, someone to let out their rage and hatred on, and true ‘free will’, by once again removing himself from the equation and letting them live their lives without him.

#supernatural #spn #supernatural 15x19 #spn 15x19 #chuck shurley #ooc #it's spoilered but trust me #it's very in depth #the plot holes are wide enough to drive every stunt impala through at once #spoilers #rant #long post #meta

[pavcrti]

chicago’s very own pavarti kumari has been spotted on madison avenue driving a rose gold model x , welcome ! your resemblance to mishti rahman is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty fifth  birthday bash .  your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re fiery , but being eloquent might help you . i think being a pieces explains that .  3 things that would paint a better picture of you would be fresh fields of lavender that expand into a cotton candy sky , the reflection of the sun caught in the glimmer of a crystal , rhyming couplets professing deep - seeded emotion . ( i ghost write songs for artists who like to claim they write their own work . ) & ( cis female + she / her  ) +  ( emily , 25 , sher / her , pst )

holy shit , it’s ya girl . i’m back after needing a bit of a break from being in a group . and bc i honestly adored this place sm and i made so many great friends here i am back . . . 👀 i expect plots with each and every one of u btw so u best deliver . i desperately wanna get this finished before i pass the fuck out . i’ll be joining the server in the morning , but in the meantime if u wanna be my friend  👀 👀 titsiana praises satan#7989

    biography .

name : pavarti kumari 

age : twenty five

gender : cisfemale

zodiac : pieces 

sexuality : bisexual 

profession : singer / songwriter 

hair color : black

eye color : brown

piercings : both lobes , nose 

tattoos : none

voice claim : jhene aiko

released albums : sail out ( ep ) , trip 

miss pavarti was born in bangladesh . her parents are both 100% bangladeshi and immigrated to chicago when pavarti was four years old . she had an older brother who was five years older than her . his name was siva .her family traveled back every summer so she is very immersed in the culture of her homeland and is a very spiritual person as a result . from a young age , pavarti had a fascination with the english language . not only was it so complex , but there was so much that could be done with it as well . she loved poetry and different types of prose . she also developed an absolute adoration for hip hop as a result . she’s been able to work several of her lyrical inspirations in her albums , something she would’ve never anticipated growing up as an immigrant child . when she entered middle school , she joined the school choir as an extra curricular activity which is what inspired her love for music and introduced her to her vocal talents . within time , she began combining her inclination for poetry with her voice . she wrote her first song at thirteen and began to freestyle for her friends . unfortunately , she was never taken too seriously by her peers . she was a female , hardly the usual suspect for the rnb , soul vibe that her voice conveys . before she graduated high school , her brother siva was killed in a car crash . the unexpected death of her best friend and protector sent pavarti into a spiral . this begun her tendency to alter her reality to escape from her pain with the help of drugs . she frequently writes about her brother in her music . when she was eighteen , she was discovered , ironically , by a manager of a local rapper at a poetry slam she was performing at . she impressed him and he introduced her to his client . this is how pavarti entered the hip hop scene , albeit , in secret . in hip hop , it’s very custom for performers to write the tracks that they put out themselves . pavarti learned that she could learn the skills of the trade whilst making her own connections and making pretty good cash , as well . as the years progressed , the notoriety of her clients rose . she’s written bars for multiple big names and by harvesting these friendships , she was able to get signed to a record label and put out her first ep at age twenty one . it was well received by critics and pavarti was thrilled to be taken seriously as an artist doing what she loves . she kept working , kept her nose in her business and released her first full album , trip , just last year . she feels like she is constantly growing artistically and finds herself inspired everywhere she turns . she’s currently working on her second full album and just dropped a new single , p*$$y fairy . other than that , there’s not too much else to note in her history . she did not grow up rich , rather she’s only recently come into wealth . her money is very new and she’s not too skilled at spending it wisely .

    personality . 

okay , so this will probably just be a long winded explanation that no one really asked for / needed but here we go ! first and foremost . . . pavarti is a dreamer in every sense of the word . she’s whimsical , she’s connected to the earth around her . she drifts off into elaborate day dreams and tells herself stories in her head as she falls to sleep . she is very spiritual . she meditates twice a day . her house always smells of incense . she has an affinity for weed and hallucinogenics . she really enjoys writing under the influence . her album trip is literally inspired by several drug experiences she had that had a profound impact in her life . pavarti’s general demeanor is borderline wall - flower . you wouldn’t expect her to be so shy , but she is . she’s the giggly girl who’ll hang back and let someone else come to her first . in the meantime , she’s taking in every single detail . she’s incredibly observant . sometimes she thinks in poetry . she realizes that she isn’t the typical visual for a female hip hop , rnb artist but it’s truly her passion in life and her art flows through her . she says more in her songs than she does to the people she needs to and that can definitely be problematic . with that said , pavarti is very well spoken . girl knows how to sweet talk her way through just about anything . but she also has the temper of a devil . she does not tolerate being fucked around with . she has that attitude about her where she will go and key your car if you hurt her or one of her best friends . people typically wouldn’t expect such an explosion from someone so outwardly sanguine and easy going but she’s the type to scratch someone’s eyes out if she has to . her music is her spouse . this fucks her up relationship wise a lot because she tends to let chances pass her by because she would rather stay undistracted . she has an ego , but not really in the outward way that one would anticipate when ego is involved . she knows she’s talented . she knows she’s attractive . but she also knows that she’s fucking lucky to be where she is and she’s grateful . pavarti is the type who wakes up with a smile because she has another twenty four hours to be alive . she doesn’t take things for granted --- she used to , until she lost her older brother and she realized just how quickly things can change . pavarti is a fiercely loyal individual to her friends . she will stand up for them , no matter what . the thing is , she expects it back . she is very much aware of her self worth and does not react kindly to a one sided vibe . 

    plots . 

ok , ok , ok . . . so how i am going to do this is offer up some songs / song pairings for songs that i believe pavarti has written for specific people with certain plots in mind for at least her side of things . and then i will also list some basic plots that aren’t based on anything in particular , but are still plots that i would like very much to have ! the links go to lyrics ! all plots are gender neutral , so ignore any pronouns that are in the songs .

bed peace / stay ready / while we’re young --- fwbs with feelings : pavarti and your muse have been friends for a while . somewhere along the line things crossed the line and they began hooking up . it’s obvious that they feel something intense for each other but something is always in the way of them being together --- plus , neither are really sure if the friendship could withstand a romantic relationship crashing and burning . so here they are , stuck in this awkward limbo . they hook up , hang out , awkwardly third wheel when the other is dating someone else . it’s an interesting dynamic and pavarti wouldn’t deal with drama with anyone else but your muse . they have a really compelling bond and neither can think of life without the other but things have been like this for a long time and there is only so long a relationship as complicated as this one could actually function .

the worst / comfort inn ending / moments / when we love --- exes that ended badly with lingering feelings : this was . . . just a crazy hot and cold relationship . when it was hot , it was fucking hot . when it was cold ? damn . hell itself could freeze over . they probably have done and said a lot of nasty , nasty shit to each other . at the same time , they could’ve been literally planning their wedding at some point because they both were incredibly serious about each other . in comfort inn ending , pavarti suggests their relationship was a result of her cheating on another boyfriend to be with your muse and your muse ultimately cheated on her as well . we can discuss that but i would high key kill for the extra drama . around the time pavarti was writing her first full album , they had a rekindling that inspired her to write moments and when we love . i don’t envision this relationship having ended in a decent way from there , though . more cheating ? fighting ? they were definitely toxic . she’s definitely planning on dragging their ass some more in her tracks .

lsd / sativa --- platonic soulmates : omg so this plot is . . . so fucking cute . but these two would basically die for each other . there is zero sexual attraction , just genuine , pure love . they do everything together . but what really sealed their bond ? well . . . many different intense acid trips , of course ! they love to get high together and forget about the world . they both feel like they can trust the other because they have been present for so many life - changing moments . they rarely go a day without seeing each other and absolutely never go a day without talking in some capacity . sometimes they fight like siblings . but pavarti would honestly kill for your muse . there is nothing she wouldn’t do for them . 

new balance / newer balance / you are here / clear my mind --- the romantic bad influence : this plot is another messy piece of trash . from the beginning , when they first met , pavarti always thought your muse was too good to be true . they reminded her so much of her brother . she felt this sense of peace with your muse . she fell in love quickly but at the same time , felt like there was something looming over their relationship . like it wasn’t permanent . like it’s all just a dream . the bad influence part isn’t portrayed too much in the lyrics other than stressing pavarti’s fear that your muse isn’t exactly who they say they are and this relationship is doomed to fail somehow . she knows that when this explodes in her face that it’s going to destroy her . i see your muse bringing out edgier sides of pavarti’s personality . they party a lot , they influence pavarti to do crazy things with them and she does and she feels so alive with your muse . that is , until , it all crumbles . the facade is destroyed and whatever it was that your muse wasn’t being upfront about shatters the way she feels for your muse entirely . she feels betrayed . clear my mind is pavarti’s way of trying to hype herself up to be stronger than she really is . 

never call me / --- best friends turned enemies : this is my last long one i promise , wtf , why did i decide to do this . anyways --- this plot is again , a shit ton of angst so enjoy that . your muse and pavarti used to be the best of friends . inseparable . that is until things went south . fast . we can discuss what it was that happened between our muses but it was something huge and preferably something where they both could stubbornly blame each other . pavarti feels slighted because she thinks that your muse should be the one who reaches out and perhaps your muses could be thinking the same about her . 

romantic plots : crushes , unrequited love , hateship , party hookup , friends with benefits , secret fling , summer romance 

platonic plots : give me close friends ! and tons of them please ! thanks . roommates , drug buddies , confidants , unlikely friendship , travel friends , only friends in the dms , enemies turned friend

#wealthyhq:intro #tw death #tw drugs #um um this got so fucking lONG i prOFUSELY APOLOGIZE #i need 2 pass tf out now baiiiiiiiii

[blooddrop-palace]

Project Updates - What to Look Forward To

<3 Hello all! I've realized (humbly) that I have a small following of very nice people that seem quite interested in what I've written so far, and after seeing some mutuals post update-status posts, I thought I should share what's going on with my projects, also. (Thanks for the encouragement, @queenmuzz!)

Updated Dec-10-20

Sons of Fortune

Probably somehow my main focus now, though I am steadily working on other works. Currently working on the “In Between” special short before I start on Chapter 12.

I would also like to talk a little bit about my plans for this story: if anyone has paid attention to this story's tags, yes, I am touching up on the plots of most of the games. In fact, all of them, and the anime. (I already dealt with DMC4. No, I will not tear apart Fortuna lol.) Not all relevant tags are in, yet, because small spoilers. It looks like it's going to be a long while before I even get to the Temen-ni-gru, though. (There is a reason why that event is getting pushed back.) I want to have fun with the family fluff that is the twins each learning how to parent, first. 

Hell Froze Over, and We Shall Reignite It

The drama of it all! Dante and Vergil are finally back from Hell, and Nero doesn’t even know his mother is now standing right in front of him. Meanwhile, even I’m anticipating seen how Snow and Dante is going to handle the obvious things currently unsaid... and I have a feeling a small measure of stupidity is still going to be involved.

Current chapter progress: Outline complete.

It's going to feel so interesting, shifting from "Fortune" back to Reignite. I get to write Sera and Vergil falling in love all over again, with a different set of circumstances. Whoa.

And, and... Nero meeting Sera... odd that I'm saying this as the writer, but I have a "I hope he likes his mom" feeling going on. 

Also, no doubt Dante's brain is going to 404 when he sees Snow. 

Nico prepares popcorn.

This is Not an Office Rom-Com

I have... about 8 new skits planned out. Nothing more written just yet.

That’s all I’m saying about this for now. =P

Hierarchy of Kings

Purely indulgent M/M romance of Vergil and an OC, existing all thanks to

@wordborne

Working on chapter 2. 

I know I said 3 chapters only. I might have lied depending on how much I want to write. It's supposed to be just... awkward fluff of a listless part-devil who somewhat-recently lost his mate, got in a bit of a tiff with his brother, and now his children are trying to set him up with the prospective-king-of-hell, Vergil. 

I think about this one a lot but I haven't written anything new for it yet, only because "Fortune" is taking over my life right now, haha.

Through the Lens of the Beholder

Okay, so...This story has no real plot. As a result, my drive for it is purely down to "if I think of a badass or cool photograph to describe." There is a TINY bit of plot. Only a little. And I don't know when I'll update. But this is why I'm trying not to START new projects. Four  is a lot already! But because this one is supposed to be simpler than the other two, I will most likely finish this one before the others, so I can open a new project. 

---------------

Speaking of new projects... Here are things ideas bouncing through my head:

- I still have a prompt from @maybeishouldwait sitting in my inbox. I WILL have it done one day, when I find the perfect way to write it. 

A whole, entirely royally late set of Dadgil week fics.  Yep. I want to write them. They just won’t be on time. 

Written in Ink

A plot-less post-DMC5 story. 

I say plot-less. There is a plot. The plot is:

Dante: Damn it, Verge, are you trying to turn my office into a zoo??

In which Vergil compulsively starts contracting strong demons he's defeated, left and right, because he's discovered "the joy of pets." The demons all take on a dark animistic form and things get wild. 

A Persona and DMC fusion/AU

I have no title for this yet, and I absolutely cannot start this one until I have finished one of my other big projects. This one will take a lot of big planning, because I am making a new plot, using the mechanics of Persona, with DMC characters and setup.

What I want to write, is a teenage Nero as the protagonist, trying to solve a mystery... probably starting with the sudden disappearance of his mother. (Most likely Sera.) And he meets a lot of "new" people, and even finds new family... and yes, he will find his dad. (I'm thinking he'll know about Vergil, though. At least in name and a photo? Isn't that an interesting difference?)

For those of you not familiar with Persona, the major theme I really want to play with is that of the protagonist growing as a person (and in power) by befriending different people that helps them grow as a person. Each party member and important NPC is represented by a Tarot Card, signifying the type of journey the protagonist (The Fool) "embarks" with that character. There is growth in both the protagonist and that characters. 

Again, this is ambitious to try and pull off... but it's in the back of my head. I'll focus on it once I've cleared some other stuff. 

Sugar Sweet

A somewhat short-chapter series reader fic... of a surgeon/doctor!reader (barely 30 and good at what you do) who often saves the lives of shady people (e.g. mafia) because you care about saving lives, not the politics. But you do make good money out of it. (Hey, you gotta be at least a bit morally ambiguous if you're going to deal with devils.)

You meet one mess of a young mercenary named Dante, who is totally not human and deals with things like having bullets healed into his back, and he can't reach them to cut them out. 

Dante doesn't care about bills for his office, or a lot of the debts in his life. You don't know where his money is going, or if he even makes much money at all (for the kind of specialty work he does? Money's going somewhere, but that's none of your business.)

You won't pay Dante's bills, or his debts, but he will accept pizza and ice cream. And new parts for his jukebox. And maybe a motorcycle. Or a new coat. Or a new car...

And you might complain to him about your dumb patients. Or just listen to him talk about his job. Or you two watch a movie together.

And this just continues. For years. 

Tokusatsu DMC fusion/AU

So. First thing's first: I'm a big fan of Sentai/Tokusatsu. What is that, you might ask? It's a Japanese genre, and if you're familiar with Power Rangers, that's derived from Sentai. 

Basically: Masked heroes with transformation gadgets, sometimes with motorcycles, fighting against evil. ("Magical girls" but strictly the opposite, a lot more physical combat involved, may involve upgrade gadgets, and not strictly limited to male heroes though mostly a male cast. Also not strictly for male-only audience. Girls like the eye-candy, too. :eyes-emoji:)

Why am I thinking about this?

Because I have found out that: Vergil's VA, Dan Southworth, was the Quantum Ranger (WHICH WAS RED). Nero's VA, Johnny Yong Bosch, was a Black Ranger and a Green Ranger. 

...And Dante's VA, Reuben Langdon, had a role in a Japanese Toku show as "B-Fighter Yanma" forever ago???? (HE WAS BLUE!!)

What am I going to do with this info? I'll let you know later. But my Sentai/Toku-loving little heart is about to burst with hyperfixation overlap. 

If I ever write this out, expect it to be just as cheesy as an actual Kamen Rider show. Or, at the very least, expect some art. I love Kamen Rider stuff!

Family Fantasy MMO

Snow introduces Dante, Vergil, Nero, and Kyrie to Final Fantasy 14 (because that’s the MMO I play) for family bonding. Yep. Mainly for silly indulgence.

Stardew Valley Visit

Post DMC5, Vergil and Dante accidentally end up going on a vacation when they try to leave Hell. No pairing with the farmer, but instead just a relaxing and somewhat introspective moment of the boys being stuck with most of their power temporarily sealed, learning how to take care of a farm, and maybe do a bit of healing by interacting with the townsfolk while they try to find out where their swords went and how to get home. 

Re-Colourize

Otherwise what I would call the “re-colour of Nero and Snow” AU. 

What if Vergil was found by Kassy’s family and raised among them? What if Dante ended up briefly in Fortuna and then convinced Sera to run away from the island?

What if we have a Nero who, though brash, is outwardly more soft and open-hearted, and has red-orange and gold colours instead? What if we have a Snow who is named Chiyuki, who wields her katana more like Vergil does, and has a more ice-queen aura about her, and has a teal and blue colouring about her?

This is my excuse to switch up the pairings, but also write Vergil being taught to fight more like an assassin. 

Raised by the Blade

Imagine: Yamato, cracked, broken, and separated from her Master... desperately searching for a way to get back to him, and ended up washed up on the shores of Fortuna. Humanoid, but clearly not if anyone saw the cracked, broken, and no-normal look of “shattered” in her torso, that she would have to keep covered. 

Made from the power of Sparda, she is pale with white hair... and she finds herself drawn to the orphanage...

Where she finds the toddler that is Nero.

Devil Hunters’ Podcast

Nico “accidentally” finds entertainment in recording the Sparda Family arguments as they talk about hunting; after all, they all share one braincell. 

Ascended Monochrome

A white angel remains by the side of Nelo Angelo. Mundus was not pleased by the behavior of his second creation, from the human woman that he had picked up with the treacherous Son of Sparda. But he later discovered that by using her, he could keep Nelo Angelo complacent. Eventually, underestimating love will be his downfall.

Fall to Royalty

A story of where Vergil wins against Mundus the first time, and takes the throne of Hell. But what is he to do next? Eventually, ruling Hell seemed meaningless when there was no one by his side, so he goes to seek out the Lady Knight that he had vowed to never think of or go back to unless he had obtained the power he sought.

Doppelganger Woes

So, I heard Capcom retconned Gilver to be some sort of imitation created by Mundus. I’m all for this! And I’m going to DO something with this.

Side-Project: DMC Tarot List

I started on this maybe months ago; and I have a tentative list oh what characters go with what card and a few detailed descriptions. I think I should confer with

@harlot-of-oblivion

at some point about this, and anyone else interested in, well, Tarot stuff. 

#devil may cry #fanfiction #Project Update

[littlemisssquiggles]

Saw your post about Oscar having the relic advancing the plot, and I don't disagree with you. However, I also kind of see it in a different way: that as a leader, each decision Ruby makes--such as entrusting the relic to Oscar--can have consequences, and that they have to learn to deal with them, especially when loved ones are involved. I'm not saying that's where the writers are going with it, but if I had written it, that would've been my reason for doing so. Does that make sense?

Salutations anon-chan! Your point makes sense however sadly for me, it’s not enough to override the almighty power of plot convenience. Because now I’m prompted to ask the question, why even have Oscar carry the Relic around in the first place?

Why have someone carry the lamp at all? Wouldn’t it have not been a wiser choice to place the Relic within a heavily protected vault under the watchful eye of the Atlesian Military where no one within the public would be aware of its whereabouts as opposed to having it be carried around on a keychain on the waist of a young huntsman in training out in the open where people can definitely see it; like the villains?

At the start of V6, during the Argus Train attack, Ozpin revealed that the Grimm were also attracted to the Relics. This one statement was the catalyst to so much friction within the hero team because not only did it result in them temporarily splitting up to provide the passengers of the Argus Limited a better chance of survival but it also led to the spat between Yang and Oz which ultimately culminated in the first summoning of Jinn and the revelation of the truth.

Either way, the point was made that carrying the Relic around just as it is as opposed to locking it somewhere like a vault will eventually bring danger to whoever is carrying it in the form of the Grimm. As a matter of fact, wasn’t the whole point of the heroes heading to Atlas was because without the Spring Maiden to seal the Relic back within its own vault, the group had no choice but to set a course for Atlas Kingdom so the Relic would be safe there.

“…We need to take the Relic to Atlas?”

“That’s what Oz said.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I mean Brightside, we finally get out of this house

“Trust me, I’m not crazy about it either. But without the Spring Maiden here to seal the Relic back in its vault, it’s our best option.” – RWBY V6 Chapter 2

But just a few moments after the heroes touched down in Atlas, the Relic of Knowledge was taken from the them by Clover Ebi of the Ace Ops. The next time our heroes see the Relic, it was in Ironwood’s custody. But rather than keep the Relic and place it somewhere secured; Ironwood instead gives the Relic back to our heroes—the same heroes who almost died on their journey to transporting this Grimm-attracting Relic to Atlas where they believed it would’ve been taken into more secure hands.

I’m just going to come right out and say it anon-chan. Ironwood returning the Relic to our heroes didn’t make sense. At least, not to me. I can’t speak for everyone. Outside of the lamp being used as a token of trust, it did not make sense to me that Ironwood would just give it back to our heroes like that. Ironwood knows fully well the importance of the Relics and the importance of keeping them out of the public eye. And given what transpired at the Fall of Beacon and the Battle of Haven, Ironwood should be fully aware that there are people after the lamp.

So why not put it somewhere safe within your kingdom? Why give it back to our heroes ESPECIALLY when they brought it to your kingdom to keep it safe? What?

I’m sorry but that doesn’t make sense given previously established details in the narrative. Particularly the part that, as is, the Relic is a hazard outside of a vault since it can attract Grimm.

“…Yang, knock it off will ya. If we lose our cool now, we’ll just be inviting more Grimm.”

“Does that even matter? Apparently we’ve been attracting Grimm since we left Haven.”

“Oh and how could I forget about that? What happened to no more lies andhalf-truths?”

“Yeah. I think it’s time we got an explanation.”

“I did not lie to you.”

“Well you certainly didn’t tell us everything about the Relic.”

“Please, now is not the time.”

“No we’re past that!”

“I wanna know why you’re still not telling us everything.”

“It is true that the Grimm are attracted to the Relics. It’s faint but undeniable.I believe it has to do with their origin. I’m not entirely sure…” – RWBY V6 Chapter 2

And as if Ironwood returning the Relic to Ruby didn’t feel odd enough, Ruby then returns the lamp to Oscar. 

Why?

Again, I see what the show was trying to do in a sense. Like I said, the Relic was being used as a token of trust between characters. Ironwood gave the Relic back to Ruby as an action to show that she can trust him and Ruby entrusting the Relic with Oscar is synonymous with her trust in him; especially considering the fact that back in Anima, the Relic was taken away from Oscar after what happened with Oz and there was that whole tension in the group.

So when I put it in that light, I like the idea of Ruby giving the Relic back to Oscar as a sign of showing her renewed trust in him in spite of what happened with Oz. It’s a nice touch and a nice moment between the Rosegardening Rosebuds.

But then the ole noggin starts thinking and common sense creeps back in followed up by canon details left behind from previous seasons and I’m reminded yet again that Oscar shouldn’t have the lamp because Ruby shouldn’t have the lamp.

Ironwood shouldn’t have given the lamp back to the heroes in the first place. He should have taken it and placed it inside a vault where it could’ve been secured and out of the public eye without the need to make Oscar an obvious target for Neo and Cinder to go after as part of the V7 finale.

At first I was willing to look past the weird decision by Ironwood (and by extension the Writers) to give the Relic back to our heroes. I was even willing to look past Ruby giving the lamp to Oscar since I figured it was going to have some kind of meaningful payoff like Oscar possibly using the Relic to reveal the truth to Ironwood when Ruby’s choice to deceive him got out of hand and she found herself in a position mirroring Ozpin from last season.

Instead what we received was Oscar showing up at Schnee Manor with the Relic and in spite of all the revelations that went down—i.e. Jacques being outted for his alliance with Watts by Weiss, Ironwood revealing to existence of Salem to the Atlesian Council and Robyn Hill—none of it involved the Relic being used at all. So why have Oscar show up with Relic at all?

Well, you might say it’s because since Oscar was entrusted with the Relic, it’d make sense for him to carry it around with him at all time for safe keeping, right?

But the thing with that is, it still doesn’t make sense since in previous scenes this season, Oscar was shown to not have the Relic with him at all times. He didn’t have the Relic on him during his training sessions with Ironwood and his battle with JNR against FNKI.

And before you say—well he was training then and he can’t have the Relic on him while he’s fighting— that doesn’t count since when Ruby was carrying the lamp, it didn’t hinder her during combat. She was doing all kinds of flips,twirls and slashes with the lamp conveniently stuck to her hip at all times.

Not to mention that back in V6 when Oscar had the lamp first, he fought the Manticore and the lamp stayed fine on his waist back then too. The only time the lamp conveniently fell off was after the train crash.

So going again—Oscar didn’t keep the lamp with him while he was training with his peers. He didn’t have it with him when he was watching the others train at the start of V7CH6. He didn’t have it with him when he was down in the Vault of the Winter Maiden with Ironwood and he also didn’t have it with him at the start of V7CH8 during his briefing with Team RWBY.

V7CH3 = RELIC IS GIVEN TO OSCAR

V7CH5 = NO RELIC ON OSCAR

V7CH6 = NO RELIC ON OSCAR

V7CH7 = NO RELIC ON OSCAR

V7CH8 (AT THE BEGINNING) = NO RELIC ON OSCAR

V7CH8 (AT SCHNEE MANOR) = RELIC ON OSCAR ???

To tell you the truth, Schnee Manor was the first time I saw Oscar carrying the lamp for this season. 

It was so out of the blue that I didn’t even pick up on it until another FNDM fam pointed it out to me. Why would Oscar even bring the lamp to the dinner in the first place?

Like I said, he was never shown to carry the Relic around in previous scenes so why have him do i tnow all of suddenly especially if the only thing to come of it later was Oscar being benched from Mantle to go back to the academy.

That’s why I said Oscar having the Relic was only to advance the PLOT; anon-chan.

It’s fine if you think otherwise and I appreciate you presenting your own rationale for this narrative decision. Unfortunately, this squiggle meister can’t really buy into it.

Oscar bringing the Relic to the Schnee Dinner only to end up not using it at all felt so weird to me that the only logical conclusion that I can make from it is that it was done solely for the sake of pushing the PLOT.

When I first saw that scene where Ironwood told Oscar that it was time for him to return up to Atlas, the first comment that escaped my lips was “They made Oscar bring the Relic so that they could have a reason to have him return to Atlas Academy as opposed to joining the others down in Mantle to help with the evacuation”.

Not only did Oscar walking with the lamp provide an excuse for the Writers to write him out of the Battle of Mantle but it also provided them a way to have Neo spot Oscar with the lamp, thus leading to him being targeted by her for the finale.

While I don’t mind the set-up of Neo targeting Oscar for the Relic since it lends to a chance for us Pineheads to finally see the little barn prince in action at long last, I just didn’t like the execution of this set-up. 

It reminded me of how Weiss just so happened to run into her mom inside her father’s perfectly unlocked office who just so happened to have the info she needed to out her father for his crimes.

It looks like it’s not just Weiss who got a splash of Clover’s good fortune. Neo did too because how lucky was she that the night she disguised herself as a server at the Schnee Family Dinner,also happened to be the night our heroes attended the very same party. 

Not to mention, how lucky was Neo that that was also the night Oscar happened to walk with the Relic even though he hasn’t been shown to walk around with it in previous episodes.

I’m sorry if I’m sounding incredibly nit-picky here but…I think I know a plot convenience when I see one and this was definitely a glaring one, at least for me. But as always, this is only my opinion. 

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

#Anon-ninja #squiggles answers: rwby #oscar pine #neopolitan #rwby neopolitan #rwby volume 7 spoilers

[polizwrites]

WIP/Writing Update - 3 Oct 2017

It’s been a busy week, writing-wise for me.  First off, I got accepted as a guest writer over at the   @imaginetonyandbucky  blog!    So excited to be digging back into some WinterIron writing!!  In fact, I am actively working on a prompt  (Modern/Non-Powered AU  Road trip - mutual pining and bed sharing with potential smut) and have gone a bit overboard with over 6k written and they’ve only been on the road for two days of a week-long jaunt. O_o    My self-imposed deadline is in about 3 weeks, so I can get it on the blog before going on holiday for 2 1/2 weeks with no internet access.  :^) 

I’ve also gotten some great responses to the “Give me one sentence and I’ll give you five”  writing prompt/ask -- although I haven’t really kept to the “5 sentences” part: 

"Are you flirting with me? As a joke?"  (courtesy of @ishipallthings) 

"What if i didn't come back?" "Then I would have waited right here, in the doorway."  (courtesy of @veronicasummersfelton) 

He was soaked in starlight, dazzling beyond measure despite the shadows he was so often lost in.  (courtesy of @ayapandagirl) 

 They’ve all been Steve/Tony so far, but I’m up for other  MCU/Marvel pairings, if you want to  send me an ask.  I’ve been turning these around in less than a day, since they’re (supposed to be) short & sweet.  

As for my  self-prompted  stuff that’s active: 

To Shield from the Storm -  This is the Tony POV Stony a/b/o ‘verse set just after the events of the first Avenger film and is relatively canon compliant (except for the obvious!). It’s  been completely written (seventeen chapters/roughly 42k words)  and in the process of being beta’d.  Chapter 14 goes up on Ao3 tomorrow , which will trigger a ratings change to Explicit. This fic will be completely posted before I go on holiday. 

Forging the Shield  - as you might guess from the title, this is the  Steve POV  StevexBucky prequel to TSFTS  that I mentioned last week. Needless to say, it’s also an a/b/o fic and will be at least Mature rated, if not Explicit as well.   I don’t have much down on paper at all (< 1k words), as I got stuck struggling with a  minor plot point, but there’s a lot more sketched out in my mind.  If I had to guess, I’d put it somewhere in the  3-5k one-shot neighborhood -- unless the Muse gets wordy (as she often does)  It also has the potential of carrying forward into the timeline and going multi-chapter, but no promises.   

The Subtle Briar  -- no updates to this Peggy POV alternate-origin story of our favorite SSR agent.   Canon-level StevexPeggy is the eventual end game, pairings-wise, but I expect the rating will remain Gen/Teen.  Still sitting somewhere around 2k on paper  for the first major act with a few plotty bits sketched out and several  further elements still to be jotted down.   

Time Out of Joint -- Honest to god, I just need to throw this out on Ao3 and call it good.  Bucky POV where he, Steve and a group of strangers wake up in a sealed room.  Where (or perhaps more accurately, when) are they and why have they been brought here?   It reads like the first chapter of something bigger, but I have no idea what that ‘something bigger’ is.  I’ve done most of the rework it needed in order to make the conceit consistent across all characters, but still want to do a bit more spit and polish.  The plan is to post this before I go on holiday. 

Remember, Then Follow - Tony POV that picks up right after the CA:CW Siberia missile silo battle.   Sitting at almost 2k  I have Vague Ideas of where to take this, but it makes a decent stand-alone as is, even if the title doesn’t quite fit yet.  It could also use a bit more polish and perhaps a better wrapup before I post.  This also should go up on Ao3 before I head out. 

If you have questions, or want to see sneak peeks of any of the above - hit me up.  Same if you have a  one-sentence prompt you want to toss my way.  

#Writing Stuff #WIP Update #MCU/Marvel #Stony #Stucky #Peggy Carter #Bucky Barnes #Tony Stark #Shameless Self Promo

[1wngdngl]

Daily Reviews - Thor: Ragnarok

I finally mustered up the courage and saw “Thor: Ragnarok”, with my parents, aunt, and uncle.

I don’t know if I’ll sleep tonight.

The movie was just so intense. So many questions answered, so many questions raised, so much death, so much special effects, so much: “How do they say that with a straight face?!”, so much irreverent humor, so many times the movie turned to the fandom’s expectations and said, “Nope! This is how it happens!” The general tone is a bit lighter than the other Thor movies, more like “Guardians of the Galaxy”. (I wonder who directed it?)

It’s a very fun movie, and it will be seared on my brain forever, for good or ill. Sorry, but I’m spoiler-tagging the rest. 😉

(all stuff below is based on memory after one viewing, including quotes. So don’t expect 100% accuracy!)

Based on the previews and stuff, I’d been having a hard time figuring out the role of various characters like Hela, the Grandmaster, etc. and how they all tied in, and what order all the events happened in. But now I can provide a basic synopsis:

(First, you know how theatres play those little videos about ‘please turn off your phone before the movie’? They did one of those, but it was written so that Loki is watching Thor’s gladiatorial match, and Loki’s cell goes off, and Thor yells at him for ruining the moment. Why Loki would even have a cell phone, who knows... >.>)

The movie proper starts in media res, with Thor fighting Surtur (I thought that’s who that fiery demon guy in the promos was). Thor defeats him pretty easily and brings back the prize, Surtur’s helmet, to Asgard. It’s revealed that ever since his “vision” in “Age of Ultron” when Thor saw Asgard being destroyed, he’s been cruising the Nine Realms looking to vanquish any possible threats.

Anyway, Thor goes back to Asgard. Heimdall has been replaced as Gatekeeper by Skurge from the comics. I couldn’t recall what had happened to Heimdall at the end of “The Dark World”, but I guess he was banished or something. Thor’s friends seem to be free and well in “Ragnarok” though.

We get to finally see what Loki had been up to during his four years ruling Asgard as “Odin”. And apparently, he didn’t do a horrible job. The damage from the dark elves’ attack is cleaned up, everything is running smoothly. The craziest thing he’s done as Odin is have a giant statue of his ‘son’, Loki, commissioned. In fact, Odin goes so far as to deliver a sort of eulogy regarding Loki’s ‘sacrifice’ in “The Dark World”. And the eulogy is, it’s...I don’t even...

You know that scene in “The Dark World”, where Loki is seemingly dying on the sands of Svartalfheim, with Thor cradling him and murmuring: “It’s okay, it’s okay”?

That scene that showed that Loki was capable of doing something good at the last, a final moment of vulnerability in him, a moment of raw honesty between the brothers?

Of course, even “The Dark World” showed that Loki hadn’t really died, but the fans still debated whether the whole death was a ruse, or whether he simply survived when it wasn’t expected. Whether his ‘last words’ to Thor had been his true feelings.

Well, in Odin’s eulogy/memorial in “Ragnarok”, that ‘death scene’ is played on a big screen, in front of a huge crowd, with every moment exaggerated to comedic levels. Loki-on-the-screen easily confesses to everything he’s ever done (”Sorry for that thing with the Tesseract, and for trying to kill you, and being an incorrigible traitor.”), while Thor-on-the-screen easily forgives him (”Don’t worry about it! I know you didn’t mean any harm.”). When Loki-on-the-screen finally ‘dies’, Thor lets out a truly over-the-top, wailing, “Noooo!”.

Part of me wonders whether the scene was meant as a subtle “Take that” toward the fans that thought there might have been anything genuine in that ‘death scene’ (or about Loki in general).

Anyway, after the ‘video’, Loki-as-Odin gives a little speech that makes it sound as though Loki was a hero who conquered the dark elf menace single-handedly, all for the greater good. One line of “Odin’s” struck me, something like: “I never imagined when I took in that little blue icicle that he’d be the one to melt my heart.” Obviously it’s horribly cheesy and not something Odin would actually say, but it did hit me - that Loki here is casually admitting to where he had come from. Is that something that the Asgardians had even known about before? They don’t seem shocked by the line, so maybe word of Loki’s origins had gotten around after his initial “death” off the Bifrost, or after Loki had been brought back to Asgard as a prisoner.

Anyway, Thor arrives just in time to witness the ‘memorial service’. Loki doesn’t notice him at first, but when he does, he’s less than thrilled at Thor’s presence. I don’t know if it’s because he just doesn’t like Thor being around, or because the eulogy was not something Thor was meant to hear. Even if Odin could have had a way of knowing what had happened between Thor and Loki during the ‘death scene’, the fact is that Loki mis-represents that scene to make himself look better, something Odin would have had no reason to do.

So Thor gets suspicious, and he starts threatening “Odin” until Loki is forced to reveal himself, to the shock and horror of the Asgardians standing around. Thor forces Loki to come with him to Earth so they can find the real Odin and bring him back to Asgard. Now, I remember around the time of “The Dark World”, some interview had stated that Loki hadn’t actually killed Odin (though who knows why not, when it would have been simpler). Apparently, Loki stuck him in some retirement home on Earth, while also either putting him in a coma or removing his memories, I don’t remember which. Which is pretty horrible when you think of it, but Loki’s hatred of Odin shouldn’t really be a surprise at this point. (Why didn’t he just kill him, though?)

Well, Odin’s not at “Shady Acres” or wherever anymore, so the two go to Doctor Strange for help in finding him. And this is where that stinger from the “Doctor Strange” movie comes in, with Strange reluctantly agreeing to help if it gets Thor off the planet faster. We also get to see what Loki was up to while Thor and Strange had their conversation. I’d thought he was maybe waiting outside, or looking for Odin elsewhere, but instead: “I’ve been falling for thirty minutes.” Loki and Strange don’t get along at all in their brief interaction - Loki is indignant that a mere mortal dares call himself a sorcerer, while Strange treats Loki like a buffoon.

They find Odin in Norway or somewhere like that, but he’s not doing too well. Partly from age, partly from the still-raw pain of losing Frigga a few years earlier, partly from whatever spell Loki had used on him (about which Thor derisively commented, “Mother would be so proud”. Did Frigga actually teach Loki spells to manipulate thought/memory, or did he find that in a book somewhere?)

Odin is accepting toward his own pending death, but he’s worried about a forthcoming danger to the realms. As his last wish, he bids, “My sons, you must protect Asgard.” He says “My sons,” plural. As though he can’t even muster the energy to be angry at Loki’s treatment of him. Then he dies, and it’s a solemn moment, for a few seconds. Until Thor turns to Loki, enraged at his causing Odin’s death. Before a fight can break out, however, Hela appears.

[I’m really pleased that Odin got a proper send-off in this movie, when I wasn’t sure if he’d appear at all. You can tell he has a lasting legacy that affects the plot and the fates of the other characters.]

I’d known Hela was in this movie, and I wasn’t sure what kind of role it would be for her. I was happy to see that, despite her being shown as attractive and dangerous, she wasn’t dressed skimpily nor portrayed as a femme fatale who used her “womanly wiles” to get her way. She’s more just violent and power-hungry, and could kill everyone herself if it pleased her. She’s probably the only character in the movie (excepting maybe Odin), who’s portrayed completely dark and seriously.

Her backstory has been changed quite a bit from the myths and Marvel comics. In “Ragnarok” she is not related to Thanos in any way and is not his “mistress of death”. Nor is she shown to be Loki’s daughter or any other relation to him - she’s actually older than him. Rather, she is the sister of Thor and Odin’s firstborn child.

Apparently, back before Odin was the wise, peace-loving ruler Thor knew, Odin led many bloody wars against the other realms to place them under Asgard’s rule. Hela was his powerful heir, his sword arm against their opponents. But then Odin developed a change of heart, and decided to seek more peaceable relationships with the other realms. Hela didn’t want to give up the fight, so Odin eventually imprisoned her to keep the realms safe.

But now that Odin’s dead, the seal on Hela’s prison is broken, and she heads back to Asgard to claim her right of rulership there. Thor and Loki try to go after her, but due to some kind of wormhole/portal craziness, end up on the far end of the universe on the planet of Sakaar.

Thor wakes to find himself alone on a trash heap, and before he can fully orient himself, he is taken prisoner by a woman named...uh, what was her name? I think it’s Brunhilde, though I don’t know if they actually say it in the movie. Anyway, she’s basically like a slave trader, selling the ones she captures to the Grandmaster, who forces them to compete in his deadly games for fun and profit.

Thor is desperate to escape imprisonment and go back to Asgard at once to stop Hela’s reign. You see, she’s not the nicest ruler, and when the Asgardians refuse to accept her - apparently because she’s unstable and violent, and wants to lead them on a new bloody conquest of the universe - she starts killing people without discretion. That’s including the Warriors Three, which makes me sad :( . She even revives a bunch of people to be zombie warriors for her. That Skurge guy decides to ally with her, making her sort of fill the role of the Enchantress.

Hela takes a moment to explain to Skurge and the audience how she used to be esteemed by Odin until he became “soft”. This discussion takes place next to an interesting mural that depicts Odin’s interactions with the other realms. As an example of Odin’s “going soft”, Hela points at an illustration of Odin and Laufey making a treaty to end the Asgard-Jotunheim war. Hela acts as though she is familiar with this war and treaty, which means that Thor and Loki would have been young children when she was sealed away.

[Having Hela be related to Thor, having her be a relic of Odin’s dark past, really adds a lot to complicate Thor’s view of Asgard and his father. He never knew he had a sister, and now he has to kill her, poor guy. I wonder if Hela’s mother is meant to be Frigga? I don’t think the movie said.]

In order for Thor to get out of Sakaar, though, and get back to Asgard to stop Hela, he must survive his match against the Grandmaster’s reigning champion.

Meanwhile, Loki has also ended up on Sakaar, a few weeks before Thor somehow? He’s used that time to try to ingratiate himself to the Grandmaster, hoping it’ll help him make his way in this weird new world. He has a conversation with Thor via astral projection, reminding me of the convo between Loki and Frigga in “The Dark World”. It’s a good thing Loki isn’t physically present, because Thor might have punched him otherwise. He blames Loki for Odin’s death and the freeing of Hela. Regarding Thor being displaced as Odin’s true heir: “It hurts, doesn’t it?” Loki says. “Thinking you’re one thing and then finding out you’re not?” More tense words are exchanged, but then it’s time for Thor’s match in the arena. [sorry if I’m getting any events out of order!]

It turns out that Thor’s opponent is the Hulk. [Loki is watching the match from the balcony, and his reaction when the Hulk appears is, “I need to get off this planet. o.0″] At first Thor is happy to see his old buddy from the Avengers, his bash brother. But Hulk isn’t as receptive toward Thor. Turns out that Bruce was kidnapped along with the Quinjet right at the end of “Age of Ultron”, so he’s been stuck in Hulk form in the arena for the past two years, and doesn’t remember much from before that. So Thor is forced to fight him for real. He’s hampered a bit by his lack of Mjolnir, just using two short swords instead. Thor does show a brief display of being able to use electricity without Mjolnir, which confounds him. [spirit!Odin eventually explains that Thor had the power all along, and that Mjolnir was just a focus for that power.]

The match ends with both of them still alive, and they spend time afterward healing up, with Thor trying to get through to Banner. Eventually the two of them escape the arena complex together, and begin planning a way to get off the planet.

The Grandmaster isn’t happy about losing two of his strongest fighters, so he asks Loki (his newest ‘employee’) and Brunhilde to go retrieve them - for a hefty prize, of course. Brunhilde finds Thor first. She reveals that she’s had a change of heart and she wants to help him escape. You see, she used to be a Valkyrie - an elite female warrior of Asgard - but when all the rest of the Valkyrie were slaughtered by Hela, she fled, eventually ending up on Sakaar. She says she wants to regain some honor, and get revenge on Hela.

Thor, Hulk, and Brunhilde go and pick up Loki - whom Brunhilde had basically tied up in a closet - and then go to steal the Grandmaster’s spaceship and escape. But just as Thor is about to board, he stops, and suggests that Loki should stay on Sakaar. “We’re different people, and our paths diverged long ago. This world is lawless, chaotic - you’d fit in just fine here.” Plus there’s the fact that, now that Loki’s masquerading as Odin was revealed, the Asgardians might not be keen to welcome him back. Plus plus, going to Asgard means facing Hela, who will quite likely kill any who challenge her.

So it looks like Loki is going to stay on Sakaar, with Thor’s blessing - but then Loki reveals that he never actually gave up on capturing Thor. The prize money from that would set him up quite comfortably, he explains. I don’t know why this betrayal surprised me. It shouldn’t, it shouldn’t. But that’s the kind of duality Loki presents - you know you can’t trust him, he exudes an aura of suspiciousness; yet, like Thor in “The Dark World”, you wish you could trust him, to believe that you can make an ally of him, and benefit from his humor, and knowledge, and connections.

I’d claim that Loki’s constant betrayals show that he holds no loyalty to any other person and is acting out of simple self-interest, but many times his betrayals end up hurting himself in rather predictable ways. The way Thor treats it, it’s like Loki has a compulsion for betrayals, one which Loki and Thor are both aware of. Thor basically predicted that Loki would betray him in “Ragnarok”, and reacts with more disappointment than anger.

Even as he subdues Loki, Thor makes a simple but memorable observation: “Isn’t this all getting a little same-y? We team up, you betray me, I retaliate. Don’t you think there’s some room for change, for growth? I know you’ll always be the “God of Mischief” - but you could be something more.” Thor boards the ship and leaves Loki behind, and Thor and his two allies speed along toward Asgard.

Speaking of Asgard, Heimdall has come back from exile to try to help the Asgardians escape to another world via Bifrost. Hela isn’t too keen on that, though, and sends her zombie army to stop them. But then Thor arrives! He fights Hela’s army of undead, but Hela herself is too much for him. She even blinds one of his eyes!

Just then, however, Loki also arrives in another ship with some other escapees. I don’t remember the reasoning Loki gave for why he bothered to come back. Maybe he took to heart Thor’s challenge to do something brave, or at least unpredictable. While Heimdall hurries all the Asgardians onto the spaceship, Thor and the others try to figure out how to destroy Hela, who is clearly more powerful than any of them.

Eventually, Thor realizes that they will have to destroy Asgard with Hela on it, so she doesn’t escape to any of the other realms. The best way to do that is to summon Surtur - that demon Thor fought at the beginning of the movie - and doing that requires combining Surtur’s crown with the Eternal Flame that’s in the Vault.

Loki gets drafted to go activate this “Self-destruct” mechanism in the Vault (because they think he’s the fastest, or the best one at remaining unseen, who knows), while Thor and the others distract Hela. There’s a part where Loki runs right past the Tesseract in the Vault, before stopping to give it a long look. The scene cuts away then, but you just know he took it and put it in his dimensional pocket. After all, the Tesseract is one of the Infinity Gems, so it has to appear in the “Infinity War” movie. ;) (I wonder if he snagged any other relics while he was there, like the Casket of Ancient Winters, which I thought had fallen into the abyss when the Bifrost was destroyed?)

Anyway, Loki summons Surtur, who makes short work of Hela, before destroying the rest of Asgard. So in essence, Thor and Loki cause Ragnarok in order to defeat Hela.

The group of Asgardians that survived huddle together on the spaceship, their new home. Thor is now king of a new “Asgard”, one that is not a fixed world, but a migrant group of people. Loki, despite being at ground zero when Surtur was summoned, manages to escape onto the spaceship as well (maybe he used the Tesseract to make a quick getaway?).

In the stinger, Thor and Loki discuss where the ship should travel to next. Thor wants to visit Earth (maybe to set up a colony there?). But then some sort of other, gigantic spaceship appears right in front of them, looming menacingly… [Does Thanos have a spaceship?]

 Sorry for the longest summary ever. Here’s a few more general thoughts that didn’t go anywhere else:

Loki is like the butt-monkey of “Ragnarok”. Other characters share this role sometime, and Loki certainly provided comedic value in other movies, but in something like “The Dark World”, there was also a dangerous, angry aspect to him, and a thirst for revenge. In “Ragnarok”, he’s at the end of many jokes, loses most of his battles, and isn’t treated as a threat by anyone. Maybe spending four years as “Odin” without any battle practice made him get sloppy?

In “The Dark World”, Thor and Loki try for a bit to maintain a cool professional relationship (”We’re pursuing the same enemy, that’s all.”), before that attitude tumbles down. In “Ragnarok” they don’t even try to pretend at distance. They were brothers for a thousand years, and stored in their shared memory is every fight, every insult, every silly moment, every childhood fear, every catchphrase, every quirk and whim. The question in “Ragnarok” is whether they have any future together, or whether they’ve grown too far apart and should stay apart.

A couple of offhand comments mentioned that Loki once turned Thor into a frog, and himself into a snake (not at the same time, thankfully). In the first Thor movie, the most he seemed able to do was make duplicates. In “The Dark World” he can change his and Thor’s appearance using illusion magic, but that’s all it seemed to be – illusion with no substance. While saying he’s able to actually turn people into animals isn’t contradictory with past movies, it does make you wonder why this ability hasn’t shown up before. For instance, when he was fighting Kurse, why didn’t Loki just zap him and turn him into a mouse? Fanon can probably assist here. Maybe that sort of full transformation takes a lot of setup and isn’t suited for the battlefield. It might require the target to stand motionless for some time, or to be fed a special potion.

This movie seems to uphold the stance that “Loki doesn’t have children”. They made Hela be Odin’s child rather than his, the wolf Fenrir/Fenris was Hela’s familiar from before Loki was born. And I think Sleipnir has shown up during Odin’s battle against Jotunheim, so Loki couldn’t be his parent either. (Wonder what happened to Sleipnir – did he die when Asgard got destroyed?)

I don’t think Sif was in “Ragnarok” at all. Jane was mentioned briefly, with the comment that she had broken up with Thor. Maybe to make Thor available to pursue Brunhilde? I’m not so surprised Jane and Thor might not work out – they’re very different people, Thor has a much longer lifespan, he was always busy travelling the realms and couldn’t see her much. Too bad though, when much of “The Dark World” focused on keeping Jane safe, plus Thor gave up the throne then partly so he could be with Jane. Oh well, we’ll see what happens in the future.

I like that Bruce/the Hulk had a pretty big role in this movie, not just a cameo. There were loads of other callbacks to previous movies, quotes, music, etc., such that you’d need to see both other Thor movies and Avengers movies to get them all. Things like “A wise king must always be ready for war”, a song from the Thor I soundtrack, Odin’s Weapons Vault, Stan Lee making an appearance, Thor getting an eyepatch like Odin’s, Tony calling Thor “Pointbreak”, and so on.

One thing that struck me was how much fun Thor and Loki’s actors seemed to have in reprising their roles. I wonder what it was like for them filming together again after several years?

Now that I’ve finally seen Ragnarok, I can go back and start catching up on fanfic for it. I like fanfic. It fills in the gaps, provides explanation for confusing things, records your favorite quotes, and helps you make connections between movies.

Oh, and I should also check out that “Infinity War” trailer. Has the identity/location of the Soul Stone ever been revealed in the MCU? That’s the only Infinity Stone I can’t account for. >.>

I should also get a hold of the “Ragnarok: Prelude” book, to see if it helps explain anything further…

#daily reviews #movies #marvel #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #thor #thor: ragnarok