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a-really-bad-decision · 1 year

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Look. I get that folks who are approaching the finale from this angle are usually doing so from a place of genuine good faith and love for Joel. But like. If your immediate reaction after finishing season 1 is to insist that the cure never could have been developed/distributed/tested/viable and that the Fireflies were stupid/naive/slapdicks/never could have accomplished it anyways, so Joel Definitely Did Nothing Wrong, I can’t help but feel like you’re wildly missing the point of it all.

Because like. Joel did not ever care if the cure could have worked. He did not care if it’s what Ellie might have wanted in that moment (neither did the fireflies of course, but they’re not the ones who traveled by her side, protected her, made her feel safe and cared about). Neither of these were ever a point of consideration in the finale. Ellie’s death and the resultant hypothetical cure could have had a guaranteed 100% success rate. It could have spread instantly, around the world the moment they removed her brain from her skull, turning every single runner, clicker, and bloater back to a healthy human being, with no deleterious side effect.

And Joel still would have shot that doctor point blank in the face.

Because that moment right there, is the point. To me at least. It’s the climax that the whole story has been building towards: a father’s beautiful, selfish decision to save his daughter at the literal cost of the entire world. And not just the world in an abstract sense, but in ways that carry weight to him on a deeply personal level. Tess’ dying wish. A real future for his niece or nephew. Ellie’s own agency in all of this. And he did it without hesitating for a moment.

Going from treating Ellie like cargo, like a clicker waiting to happen, to deciding that her life is more important to him than than any other human being who was or ever will be born? Regardless of whether it’s “““healthy”””, that’s an incredible fucking relationship arc. And it only has this level of gravity and meaning if there are genuine consequences to making that decision.

(And let me be clear here: none of this is a moral indictment of Joel. Joel’s motivations, actions, decisions etc. are all incredibly blatant, human, and relatable, and if he’d done anything but go on that rampage, it would have contradicted everything we know and understand about him so far. Also, he’s fucking fictional. Who gives a shit if he did a Kinda Amoral Thing. None of it is real, and it doesn’t matter)

The argument here isn’t that Fireflies Good And Smart And Can Totally Save The World For Sure Guys, or Joel Did Objectively Bad Thing And Is Unforgivable Bad Forever Now. The argument is that the show is much more interesting and internally consistent if you buy into the idea that there’s a chance, even a slim one, that the fireflies could have extracted a viable vaccine at the terrible cost of a fourteen year old girl’s life. That maybe Joel did prevent a cure from being made – that he potentially did doom the world for Ellie (or at least doomed it to another few decades of limping painfully by until something else came along). And that despite the cost, he pulled that trigger, brutally and without hesitation. He did it knowing that he’ll have to go on living with the knowledge of what he took from everyone, and how effortless it was to make that choice in spite of it all. That he’ll willingly betray Ellie’s trust as many times as he has to if it means keeping her from taking the burden of that guilt on herself, but also because he can’t bear the thought of her hating him if she learned the truth. And most of all (and in his own words), that if he was given the chance to go back and do it again, he would have made the exact same choice all over.

You take that out, and what kinda finale do you get now? A run and gun scene of a man rescuing a girl that he’s come to love, sure, but now it’s from a bunch of one dimensional, child murdering villains, set in a place they never had to go to, preceded by a journey that was rendered useless before they even left, all because there was never any chance of it working in the first place. Pointless roundabout cynicism, and an endpoint that now textually only existed to stick the protagonists in their get along sweater.

You don’t have to agree with this specific interpretation of the ending. I get that this can come across as a harsh reading of Joel, especially since he’s a character that myself and others genuinely like a lot. But that nitpicky fixation on proving that the cure never could have worked always felt more for the benefit of the uncomfortable player/viewer than as any sort of actual narrative improvement. A way to divest yourself of ever having to sit with the weight of either choice. Of having to think about the way that a secret so massive, sitting unspoken between you and a loved one, can rot that relationship. Of the way that someone you thought you trusted can act in your best interests, but against your own wishes.

And if that’s not what you want from the show, genuinely and without judgment: that’s fine. You keep doing you. I’m just not sure why you’re watching something like tlou otherwise.

#the last of us #tlou hbo #the last of us spoilers #tbh there's so much more I could say about this topic #the messy ways sarah and ellie are intertwined when considering joel's motives for the finale #the way both the fireflies and joel denied ellie her autonomy in this situation and how it changes her opinions of both going forward #but this is already stupidly long #and I'm also trying to avoid getting into part 2 spoilers in any detail but like. it's relevant okay #all of this is relevant #but even if it wasn't #trying to offload any discomfort you feel towards joel's choice onto a secret potential third ending #where the answer is uncomplicated and easy #is just weakening the story overall imo

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snootsnooter · 3 months

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Nobody asked but I have thoughts and want to babble so y'all are my dubiously willing rubber duckies.

Thoughts on various Hazbin Hotel characters under the read more

Charlie - She's very cute, naive, and uber optimistic. Genuinely I'd call her a sweet little cinnamon roll. Though, that being said, so far she's felt like a pretty one dimensional character in the four episodes we've seen her. I really do hope she gets a little more characterization as the show goes on and that she doesn't end up with the same issue Millie from the sister Helluva Boss show has.

Vaggie - I really like her new design tbh! Characterization wise though I really wish we knew? Literally anything about her? The most we get is a hint that okay she died in 2014, she's Charlies gf, and has been involved in war / battles thanks to the classic group bonding episode. The only real interesting thing she might have going for her is? That she could POTENTIALLY be some fallen angel / ex exterminator, as per old hazbin headcanons claim, or that she might be one of Carmilla's daughters. Again I'm hoping she ends up getting more characterization soon and doesn't end up another Millie. Also why the hell does Husk and Angel Dust have more chemistry after episode 4 than Vaggie and her already established gf do? I'm??

Angel Dust - An interesting character for sure, and I'm very curious to see how his story plays out. Could do without him making everything sexual 24/7 but given the situation the character is in and how he tries to cope with it, it's whatever.

Alastor - Idk I actually don't really have a whole lot to say about him? Sure he's interesting, I want to know his motivations as to why an overlord like him is helping Charlie and why both he and Lilith were gone for 7 years but??? Idk I'm sort of indifferent to him at the current moment? He's kind of just the one note silly wacky chaos character with mysterious motives. I do really like his voice though!

Nifty - I thought I'd like her more than I do but? Honestly I don't really care for her at the moment. She's the typical yandere character but, again like most of the female characters in the Hellaverse, is kinda one note and ultimately forgettable. Nor do we know anything about her (yet).

Husk - Gonna be honest, this grumpy kitty had my heart from the pilot. He's def one of my favorite characters in the show, and personally I think his backstory of being, for lack of better terms, a fallen overlord is really interesting. For having been a gambling con man magician in his human life, I do have to wonder why he was chosen to be a cat rather than a rabbit? or perhaps a snake? Though I suppose the magician aspect of what originally went into his character had since been dropped, since they seem to have leaned more into him being just a gambler. His budding relationship with Angel Dust, whether be it as friends or eventual lovers, is very cute and very genuine tbh. Still questioning why they have more chemistry than Vaggie and Charlie but here we are. I also really adore his singing voice ough it's very smooth and very pleasant to listen to.

Velvette - oh lord I do NOT like this character, but then again, I don't really like any character that has the typical Bitchy Influencer tm type personality... Or any of those irl influencer type folks in general. Though I do want to know why? she was made english? I mean I understand a good portion of it is probably so that the three V's are unique in some way with Vox being the american one and Valentino the latino. Making her english certainly gives her that distinction from the other two, I suppose I'm just surprised they didn't go with the California valley girl type accent for her.

Valentino - vile, sleezy, disgusting, I love him. He's absolutely everything a villain like him should be. I'm personally super glad that his big red coat isn't? actually JUST a coat tbh? I think it's a super neat idea that it's actually his wings folded over his body and held together with either some sort of clamps (like the decorative enamel pins you'd find connecting both sides of the lapel on a leather jacket) or some kind of piercing.

Vox - oh no why is he my type.

#thoughts #hazbin hotel

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venticuliao · 8 days

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tbh villains are hard to write, the stakes of crisis in a story rely on them, and u can either fuck up the entire thing or just one character, so it’s safer to make ur villains one dimensional or have motivations that are stupid as hell as long it justifies the rest of the writing.

case in point: thanos in the marvel movie had to act as this cosmic threat that would wipe out half of life in the universe. his reason? not enough fuel to sustain that life.. okay? so his goal is to preserve life by sacrificing part of it. his solution? a magic glove that could easily fix the root problem in the first place but he chooses murder bc he’s sooo evil.

stupid? yes, but they didn’t need the audience to like thanos, either from an emotional or technical perspective in terms of the writing. in making such a stupid villain though, they prompted stupid conversations around him and made ethical smoke and mirrors around his character as a villain.

and tbf another reason why good villains are hard to find these days is there is such a focus on making transparent one’s own values and morals through them. nobody’s brave enough to make their villains be committed to their goals with actual reasons. do u as a person that exists in the real world justify or agree with such evil? thanos was a stupid character, why is this even a discussion.

but the thing is this type of things are throught experiments, ur free to explore anything u want in fiction, it doesn’t reflect anything about u if u indulge in the fantasy horror of eco fascism or enjoy the different dilemmas and complexities that a character would face before such a topic. it’s just thanos was stupid as hell, but what if there was an interesting well written villain who explored this subject in a better way?

enter: utopia’s Mr Rabbit

utopia is about a secret massive organization that wants to reduce the population on earth by introducing something in the vaccines for a flu epidemic (it was made years before Covid though), but they themselves don’t know what exactly will be the result, they just know it will work if they are able to get their hands on it. they know they can find the science of it through a graphic novel that was made by a patient in a psychiatric hospital decades ago, which a niche popular conspiracy claims has predicted multiple illnesses through the years. the organization is more or less running against time, as the daughter of the mad scientist is also after the graphic novel.

the backstory behind this all is the mad scientist once met a woman at a party that only the most brilliant minds in the world were invited. nobody wanted to talk to him because he had these fucked up ideas about malaria doing a great job of killing people in a planet that soon would not be capable of sustaining human population, but the woman agreed. she confesses she once was in a massacre, and would rather kill herself right there than face something like that again.

so, they start working together.

Milner, the woman, once played many political sides against each other, and as a result got almost killed. she survived, but she had the Chinese character for rabbit carved into her skin, and eventually became known as Mr Rabbit, although her actual identity was never revealed. this event shapes her mentality about the future, hence why the scientist’s words stuck with her. the story doesn’t bother putting too much emotional weight on it, it’s not that important in contrast to all the events in the world that support this rhetoric of overpopulation.

Milner has a husband and then a son who suffer from a deadly illness, but through it all she falls in love with the scientist. she considers him a god for what he’s doing and his genius. to her, there is no doubt they are working for the preservation of humanity, to the point she murders her husband when the illness has begun to shut down his body (years later, she also does the same to her son). there is never a doubt that she loved them, she isn’t unfeeling or cruel, but her commitment to their cause comes before everything else. and so, even though she still loves him, when the scientist regrets his decision and tries to escape, she hunts him down and has him tortured, threatening to also torture his daughter if he doesn’t reveal what change he made to the vaccine before leaving.

Milner is never portrayed in a way that makes u doubt her soundness of mind or her feelings, she is simply committed to what she believes. she doesn’t act cruel to people, and she’s a fairly normal woman when other characters meet her, it’s just she’ll shoot a bitch if and when she needs to. even if that bitch is her beloved or her child, she is willing to do what it takes, including losing her own life.

the main characters, not knowing she’s the one behind it all the entire time she’s helping them, from the very beginning oppose what the organization is doing, although they’re all just a bunch of guys, normal people who were just pulled into the whole conspiracy because they knew the person who bought the unpublished graphic novel the organization is after. one of them, Wilson Wilson, gets tortured by two of the agents and his eye is removed. not surgically or all too violently, but with a spoon.

Wilson Wilson goes through an entire act over the two seasons of the show in which he vehemently opposes the very notion of sacrificing part of the population, and being unable of even shooting the man who pulled his eye out with the spoon, to becoming Milner’s ally. he’s completely changed his mind from what he’s witnessed and what he’s come to understand of the world on his own.

when Milner dies, as the final plan is already in motion (and it won’t kill anybody, but instead make the population infertile), Wilson Wilson takes over the organization and carves the rabbit character into his stomach, thus becoming Mr Rabbit for the rest of the world

and those to me have been the most enjoyable well written smart villains with evil motivations who commit evil actions for evil goals without bargaining through a tragic backstory that I’ve ever seen thank u thank u

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stryc-9 · 2 years

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#1 in my series of 5 obvious things Lauren Seal completely misunderstands about storytelling... character development

In order to talk about character development, we must start with characters themselves.

In any story, characters are integral (obviously). They need to have personalities, DO things, and have things happen to/around them that they react to. In most stories, they interact with other characters.

The best characters feel like real people. We often refer to these as 3-Dimensional.

They have a purpose for existing beyond a plot point. They have an inner thought life and motivations. They are, in essence, fully formed individuals.

Because of this, we can relate to them on a human level. We have feelings toward them — love, hate, indifference, joy, frustration, etc.

So yeah, characters are a thing.

Now to what we’re here for — it is absolutely essential that characters CHANGE over the course of a story. This change doesn’t need to be forward progress and it doesn’t need to be lasting, so long as the writer makes deliberate choices (otherwise they’re just lazy and incompetent — looking at you Laura Neal).

These “changes” make up a character’s “arc.” Arcs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can rise or decline, loop around themselves, go forward then backwards, be realizations about what always was, or just about anything you can think of. What they cannot achieve — in a quality story — is NOTHING.

If a character perpetually exists in a stagnant position, they are essentially useless. They’re not 3D individuals. They’re objects. And a collection of objects do not a compelling story make.

Here’s where we run into issues with hacks like Laura Neal. She wasn’t supposed to be writing a NEW story. She was tasked with adding onto an existing story, one where characters were in the middle of their arcs. One where they’d made progress in some areas and fallen back in others. One where relationships had been established and explored.

And what did she do with the story that was handed off to her? IGNORED IT.

She picked one or two minor elements from past canon and wiped the rest of the slate clean. She vilified Villanelle, a character long proven to not be so easily categorized, by stripping her of humanity. She simplified Eve, a character who always had a darkness that was slowly being revealed and embraced, and made her instead into a poor victim of circumstance.

She took a grey story and black and whited the hell out of it. (Yes I know that’s not proper grammar, but damn if it doesn’t make a point.)

She used characters in service of a plot/agenda she decided without considering who these people were and what they’d been through.

Oh and by the way, the plot sucked too, so she gets no points on that front for making established characters do and say things they never would for whatever reason even she can’t reasonably define.

Villanelle was not a villain and Eve was not a poor victim of circumstance. These characters made so many choices and those choices created arcs and Laura defied the existence of both.

When all was said and done, in the story Laura decided to tell (if you can even call it a story rather than a collection of pathetic homages and random scenes), the general character arc of both leads was — NOTHING.

Beyond nothing, it didn’t even go back to where the characters started from because she held a deliberate “misunderstanding” of who these people ever were, much less who they’d developed into before she got her stupid paws on the narrative.

Also I’d be remiss if I didn’t issue a hearty fuck off to SWG for the mess she both created and supported.

Don’t pick up other people’s stories if you hate their characters and FFS don’t hire people who are obviously hacks.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

#maybe learn how to tell a story #killing eve #killingeve #killing eve season 4 #villanelle #oksana astankova #eve polastri #villaneve #as always fuck Lauren seal

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wack-ashimself · 1 year

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Ant-man 3 is proof Marvel's peak has come and gone.

<Spoilers, but I am doing you a favor. Read this; do not watch it.>

-Should have been called 'Ant-man deals with his daughter who has Tony Stark's brains, but teenage hormones.' Cuz the Wasp is in it as much as her fucking parents, so she's not the headliner, and not till the end does it even really feel like they super focused on Ant-man.

-His daughter was practically the lead, and it feels like stupid hawkeye; they're trying to give the next generation a spin, pass the baton when....we can just call it. Make up new heroes. She was boring. Not a thing interesting about her or stood out. Seriously: give me 3 adjectives to describe her that make her different from everyone in the movie. Smart? Determined? Heroic? You mean EVERYONE in the movie?

-BTW: why the FUCK is EVERYONE a super genius now? The mini tony stark in black panther 2, ant-man's daughter when...she's just a fucking kid. From a thief and a regular person; why is she so smart!? Ant-man is kinda a fucking idiot. Genetics DOES come to play. 'Hank taught her in her spare time.' WHY? But ok. COOL. I was great at math, A's, then I met calculus and no one could teach me. Not everyone can be taught HOW TO MAKE A MINI VERSE SATELLITE! I just...why can't heroes be heroic and mindful? Smart people don't need powers to help...

-Ant-man movies always kinda sucked (compared to other heroes). Ant-man is funny, but...his powers are boring, and there are limited things you can do with them. Big, small, woot. They were good because of the special effects (fight at the end of 1. Car chase in 2.) But now ALL CGI ALL THE TIME?! No real sets? Ew. And you cut his crew? The FUNNIEST parts of the first 2 ant-man movies? Because Hank and his wife were that important in ANT MAN and the WASP being they are not either of those?

-Fairly, Thor 4 was a trash pile so unforgettable it somehow made Thor 3 look bad because it had similar tones. So thor started this fall from grace, but ant man 3 was the nail in the coffin. Thank god; let it rest.

-Ant-man 3 is not the funniest, the most original, or at all got a good hook. I am not fucking around: There is not a single fucking thing that surprised me in this movie. Even Mordok being the villain from the first movie (sorry). Why? BECAUSE I DIDN'T EVEN FUCKING CARE! NO ONE DOES! Mordok, his origin, arc, and ending is the largest isolated incident of failure to watch for. He/it it so fucking bland and pathetic. The trailer IS the whole movie. Or at least the best parts...

-I feel bad cuz the end of loki, kang seemed like he would be a GREAT bad guy (LOVE the actor. Watch Lovecraft Country if you have not. AMAZING. A great stand alone season), but in this movie, he is such a fucking 1 dimensional basic bitch, he stands out from no villain. And I know THAT Kang was a different one, but the difference was (hint) BETTER WRITERS!!!! Even tho the loki kang was all monologue, it was at least fun. Chaotic. This Kang is like thanos, without ANY proper motivation but control. CONQUEROR. Who cares? Bad guy #3671 step up, get knocked down. Don't get back up again. No different or better than Justice League.

-And they did the 'save it all from grace from outta no where' endings. Summary: hyper intelligent ants went into the quantum realm with them, but experiences millions of years of evolution (why the ants and not them? Fuck if I know. And how did the ants get back to the cast? WE NEVER KNOW!), and they come to fight kang on behalf of hank in the end. I could do crack, acid, and meth and that still wouldn't fucking make sense to my brain. I guess it was the only way they could keep the word ant in the title cuz they come to play NEVER anywhere else.

None of this movie matters. Worst ant man. Def top 10 worst marvel movies (of recent. Not all time).

'Ant-man and the trailer that gave it all away, 3': 2/10.

Best part? All of them are in the trailer. No worries.

#ant-man #antman #ant-man and the wasp #the wasp #marvel #thor #thor 4 #ant-man 3 #hawkeye

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nexility-sims · 2 years

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What stories (on simblr or otherwise) have inspired yours?

ooh ! me, seeing this ask and immediately forgetting every book i’ve ever read or movie i’ve ever seen—! i’m so sorry, but i’m a wordy bitch who foams at the mouth anytime anyone asks me anything about my story. i got carried away, but ... y’all can keep scrolling adshkfldsff

okay, i’ve said before that the direct inspiration to make a simblr story came from @historicalsimslife and @thegrimalldis. i can’t remember how i found either of them, but they each showed me respectively that 1) simblr storytelling was a thing, and 2) royal stories can be way more compelling than irl royals would lead you to believe, lmao. so, i decided to give storytelling a go, and eventually i also wanted to try the royal setting, based on reading alyssa’s work. i do believe that that @warwickroyals motivated me to embrace being critical of monarchy as a concept and to also embrace ... how to say this ... i guess those grittier, dysfunctional plot lines that take more care to do well. ayanna makes it seem effortless tho ??? hmph. oh, and my original inspiration for the bancrofts whose legacy feeds into this story is ... the vanderbilts. :^)

in terms of my story itself, beyond the premise ... i draw inspiration from life stories ! rowena is heavily inspired by alice roosevelt and barbara hutton. marginally, also wallis simpson. alfonso is kind of an archetype i write often, but i can’t put my finger on where the inspiration for that type originally came from. why is macbeth coming to mind. rip. macbeth is a general influence for me, as a person, who thinks of stories. he also gives off Hot Man™ vibes, maybe on account of the sword-swinging and anguish. anyway......

beatriz is inspired partially by everything i wanted from daenerys targaryen and didn’t get ! i feel like songs have actually formed her in large part, too: a chunk of halsey’s album, if i can’t have love, i want power; lorde’s “yellow flicker beat,” valerie broussard’s “a little wicked,” and more recently, florence + the machine’s “king.” there’s a little bit of wednesday addams mixed in, too, probably. with both her and zuriñe, i am fully indulging my love for women who are Bad™ and don’t apologize for it. i’ve always been captivated by ostensible villains with whom you’re made to sympathize, both as a storytelling challenge and as a type of character. matriarch made of steel. heart of coal. selfishness that dresses up as selflessness. let her have power. she earned it.

anyway, my ever-present inspiration for “romance that interests me personally,” generally, comes from layla and majnun on one hand—i will cry a thousand tears just reading quotes from it, smh—and catherynne valente’s deathless on the other. i guess that translates to “we are fucked, in every sense” and “we’re all suffering, beautifully and endlessly.”

i’ve had a dramatic, dysfunctional life myself, so .... honestly, i think i gravitate toward stories that let me explore that and give me control over it. i suspect it’s why i used to prefer films that didn’t have happy endings (somehow, the pandemic changed my media consumption habits, so now i binge watch shows i’ve seen a dozen times instead of seeking out whatever depressing drama netflix recommends). it’s probably why i like villains who aren’t one-dimensional evil but who hurt people they love for reasons they can’t fully explain. i disagree with the idea that “evil” is boring just because it’s more mundane than we like to think, but i do believe writing goodness—especially the mundane kind—is also incredibly difficult because it’s just as complex as badness. i’m off topic. rip 2x.

i love world-building, and i don’t see enough stories—especially in this corner of simblr—that are ... not so “western,” so reflective of the colonial world, i guess? i live here in my real life, i study it for a living, let me go elsewhere !!!!! i don’t expect that of anyone, to be clear, but ... as an ~indigenous person~, i just wanted to explore a place where the worldviews and beliefs are anti- or decolonial, or maybe simply were never colonized at all. it’s hard to do that, but it excites me as much as the character development i discussed above. i can’t say i’m doing it well or whatever, but i try to think of this aspiration as the guiding light or motivation for my choices.

to the nuts and bolts, when i decided to write this story, i was learning about the history of modern mexico—specifically, the porfiriato and the revolution—so that influenced the setting. i have some mixed feelings about the latin american inspiration since i’m not latina myself, but ... i guess i hope it’s both fictional enough to not seem exploitative and appropriately respectful when i borrow things directly, like names. it’s why i try to keep the naming conventions for people and places internally consistent, for example. if i use indigenous words, there’s from a particular set of places. in essence, the choice comes from a place of admiration and solidarity, which i say w/ deep sincerity. there’s also my interest in medieval iberia with its portuguese and spanish cultures as well as the islamic influences of the period. that’s totally more for aesthetics and naming, tho, but i do take inspiration for the political drama from “modernization” struggles in mexican history.

so, uh, in summary, let’s say i was inspired by what black panther was trying to do with wakanda but in the western hemisphere LMAO

#;long post #IM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG #i ramble. i have so many thoughts & feelings #i get very off topic and crawl back on track #i know this is why i ain't get asks from y'all hjsdkfafaf #thank you tho for sending this <3 #reyes.worldbuilding #reyes.hc

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bookofmirth · 2 years

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I'm sorry, but I just saw someone say that they're glad Nesta has a friend in Gwyn and then they go on in the same sentence to say Gwyn in a Lightsinger that is going to betray everyone so that's why e//riel isn't going to happen. So your willing to let Nesta be betrayed by the one real and true friend she has made on her own and that helped her heal and go through an incredible journey--because there just can't be any way gwynriel was built up at all and could possibly be a thing and it's only ever been e//riel the whole time that's been slow burning.

It just frustrates me to see people pit friends against each other (nesta and gwnyn and even emerie) because it just debases the entire valkyrie story line that they say they love so much. Fine, be e//riel but why does gwyn have to be a lightsinger then?? she can go off with balthazar or be by herself because she can. she can be a strong independent woman without betraying the people she loves and who love her. I just. sigh.

Sorry. I needed to rant to someone.

but howwwww lol

Do people not realize that Gwyn being evil, even if it's through no fault of her own, completely undermines the friendships in acosf? The friendships that were just as, if not more important to Nesta's healing as her romantic relationship with Cassian? Maybe acosf was a shoddily-built house but I don't think sjm is going to completely bulldoze it, especially if that would put Nesta's growth back at square one...

Also, I'll be the first to say it publicly, but sjm's villains SUCK because they are so two-dimensional, they have zero personality, their motivations don't make sense, they are just Evil. That automatically disqualifies Gwyn from ever being evil just for the simple fact that she already has a personality.

#gwyn #acosf #ask #anon #acotar #sjm critical

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sonofthesaiyans · 2 years

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OKAY. The Alliance.....

As someone who really hates that this was the manga’s endgame, the fan nickname “Cringevengers” is VERY apt for what Isayama settled for with this fucking finale.

There’s so much wrong with the victims of Marley’s rampage aligning with and FORGIVING the people who triggered Eren’s gradual descent into madness in the first place. And it’s an entirely unrealistic outcome even if they were uniting to fight an even deadlier adversary. Apparently it’s okay that you slaughtered thousands of our own if only after you’ve been encountered by the consequences of your actions that you’re REALLY REALLY sorry about it. For so long as it is convenient to get yourself out alive anyway, right?

I’m mostly shooting down Marley’s side of this debacle but here’s my take on the final eleven here. I’ll try to keep them brief.

Jean Kirstein: Gradually became less important as the series wore on. I’m not even sure why the Warriors made it a point to rescue him from the Yeagerists. His connections to everyone, notably his active crush Mikasa just hold no weight in the ending. I honestly wouldn’t have mourned for very long if he died when Titanized.

Connie Springer: Most useless member of the 104th. No plot, no real motivations, gradually forgot about his best friend Sasha and barely had the reaction you’d expect of him from that atrocity. The dude has had the least impact on the overall story among the survivors of the 104th, and he should have died long ago. I will forever stand firm that it should have been him that died on that blimp. Connie would have been no big loss whatsoever.

Hange Zoe: She REALLY got done dirty in this season. Made out to look like a totally incompetent commander who failed to anticipate the Yeagerist coup against her own unit. Erwin Smith would not have been so late to realize what was coming. But even then, Hange was the only light left in the series at the end, and she ended up sacrificing herself for absolutely fucking nothing. Any redeeming value the finale might’ve had DIED WITH HANGE. The last good thing that existed in this series who’s name was not Levi Ackerman.

Levi: The only deserved survival in this series, and even then it does not feel at all fulfilling. Levi deserved a lot better for all the crap he was put through and all the loss he endured. And unfortunately, not even Captain Levi “Fuck You” Ackerman can save Attack on Titan from its worst villain: Hajime Isayama.

Mikasa: Went from the most badass heroine of the series to the most pathetically one-dimensional. We knew she wasn’t going to die before slaying Eren, nobody believed that for a moment I bet. But with how much she was defined solely by Eren, even as he committed himself to a literal holocaust, she might as well have died with him because Mikasa Ackerman ain’t worth shit without her crutch, Eren. She had the potential to be a far more interesting character but season four failed to realize that lethality in combat alone does NOT equate to a compelling character. And how many times did she express horror at the necessity of killing Eren? And what was the value of her royal bloodline in Hizuru? I get a headache just thinking about Mikasa now.

Reiner: Absolutely worthless in season four, all this talk about him having a split personality deciding between right and wrong between Marley and Paradis? Doesn’t amount to anything. Pretty much got replaced by his MUCH LESS appealing bitch of a cousin. He absolutely should’ve died in battle, as that was the only way he could ever atone for all the lives he took in provoking Eren, but giving up his. Reiner’s survival was most definitely NOT earned.

Annie: I don’t why people still love her. Eight years spent in crystal in anime time? Too little too late to be making up for her lack of character growth now. By the time of her return she is nothing more than a tagalong and should’ve been replaced by another character. She should’ve been eaten by someone and her Titan claimed by another inheritor because there’s literally no point to her still hanging about. And then there’s what she said to Hitch about the crimes she committed. Someone who says they’d do it again if they had to is not only clearly unrepentant, but is someone who absolutely did NOT earn their survival either.

Armin: “You became a mass murderer to save us. Thank you”. That is all. Also FUCK YOU, Erwin really should have been given the Colossal Titan. Fight me on that.

Gabi: Unquestionably the most UNNECESSARY little bitch to ever plague any form of fiction. Nothing Gabi adds is anything new to the series and the price paid to bring her into the main fold of the story most definitely was not worth it There is no way anyone can take seriously the image of some stupid suicidal twelve year old with a fucking rifle standing among warriors she has somehow outperformed even though they are bonafide veterans with years on her arrogant little ass. Gabi’s story has no valid payoff in the end by this stage in the story and is the worst equipped to fight Eren by far. There are no remaining excuses for what she did to Sasha, and the ending did not validate either Sasha’s demise or Gabi essentially stealing all the focus from her opposite, Eren. Sasha would’ve been an infinitely more reliable asset in the battle having the same skill set as Gabi AND the skill to kill Titans. A lot of time wasted so we can see the little shit who sent Eren over the edge get rewarded for having inadvertently helped him to trigger the apocalypse. In short, she came out of the story almost the same as when she entered with very little consequence for any of it. Virtually unscathed. Seeing this stupid child stand among seasoned veterans from both sides with a big fucking gun might very well be the most ridiculous image to be found anywhere in this season. Her story sucks, her voice sucks, she is nothing more than a crass excuse to push Sasha out of the picture, and she screwed the human race. Isayama, you and Gabi can both go to Hell.

Falco: Literally a Chekhov’s Gun. He is an unnecessary inheritor of the Jaw Titan for the even more unnecessary Porco Galliard, making him the second replacement from the infinitely more interesting Ymir to whom he had no valid connection whatsoever. I’ve spoken more than once about how fucked up the Jaw Titan’s story is when you actually stop to examine how it played out, but from what corner of Isayama’s ass did he pull out this crap about Falco being able to summon Zeke’s Titan abilities on top of his Jaw Titan abilities through the spinal fluid he had been infected with? Far too late in the game to be bringing up a power that had not been hinted at before. Falco may be infinitely more sympathetic and watchable than Gabi, but that does NOT make him a necessary or even good character. And he is not enough to save the show from his worse half. That’s to say nothing of his need to protect a girl who recklessly put his life on the line because she had a death wish. Seriously, I don’t get the appeal of Falbi when it’s no less abusive than Eremika. It almost makes Zutara look more palatable by comparison.

Still a more deserving survival than anyone else on the Warriors’ side though, I guess I’ll give Falco that.

Pieck: She’s the Warriors’ equivalent of Connie. I mean look at her, she’s even standing in the background there like a complete afterthought, because that’s what Pieck is. AN AFTERTHOUGHT. Doesn’t receive a personality or name until the final season, she has no real motivation or backstory, she survives constantly despite being what is explicitly stated to be the weakest of the Nine Titans, even her last name is an indication that she is not meant to be taken seriously. If it weren’t for her cute design, nobody would give a rat’s ass about Pieck. And even then, I think the fans have mistaken her looks as equating to actually having a defined personality to match. Yeah, that’s what we all thought about Mikasa too back in the day. That’s a burn, by the way. And sorry Pikuhan and Jeanpiku fans, I am not going to play nice with you, there is no valid reason to ship Pieck with anybody, any more than there was ever any cause to ship Jean with Mikasa or to ship Chef Plot Device with Sasha. What was his name again, btw? Short and sweet, Pieck’s very existence is a joke.

I think it’s safe to say the alliance is just the final nail in the coffin for all the remaining survivors of significance in this series. There’s so much wrong with how each one of these characters were handled, from the beloved and loathed originals, to the newbies who Isayama was too eager to cram in too late in the game.

The only alliance I am interested in seeing is the one that forces Isayama to declare the entire timeskip non-canon.

This story ended with the Ocean.

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neowitcher · 1 year

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WENDELL & WILD | FILM REVIEW

Wendell & Wild (2022) ★★★★

Animation/Horror/Comedy, 1h 45m

Dir. Henry Selick

Cast: Lyric Ross, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Angela Bassett, James Hong, Sam Zelaya, Seema Virdi, Tamara Smart, Ramona Young, Ving Rhames & others

Summary:

Two demon brothers enlist the aid of Kat Elliot — a tough teen with a load of guilt — to summon them to the Land of the Living. But what Kat demands in return leads to a brilliantly bizarre and comedic adventure like no other. (Letterboxd)

My review (minor spoilers):

An incredible stop-motion collaboration between Henry Selick and Jordan Peele, Wendell & Wild arrives just in time to spice up our cold days. As soon as I picked up those two names, I knew I was in for a good film and it’s always nice to be right about that.

Kat Elliot (Ross) is a dream of a protagonist, having personality and style as well as a whole lot of layers. She’s struggling with the loss of her parents, something she blames herself for, and that grief is a big theme in the film. When she meets demons Wendell (Key) and Wild (Peele), she naturally doesn’t miss out on the opportunity to bring her parents back. Unlike a lot of protagonists in creepy settings, Kat’s actions and motivations actually make sense, despite some of the outcomes of her decisions being a bit predictable sometimes.

The rest of the characters are also great and most don’t feel one-dimensional to me. It’s a “there’s villains and there’s the real villains” situation which I quite enjoyed and made the film even more likeable, especially its ending. One thing that did feel lacking by the end were the interactions between some of the characters. Kat dealing with trauma means she doesn’t easily let other people in, afraid something bad will happen to them because of her. This characteristic of hers makes a lot of sense but I wish that her friendship with Raúl (Zelaya) had some more depth, especially towards the end. I feel like the film might be slightly more family-focused instead, because the few interactions we see between her and her parents are beautiful.

The film has stunning animation and character design, as well as a fitting soundtrack that made everything tie together. Despite there being a lot going on, I felt like most of the story made sense and was easier to follow than I’d imagined. The transitions between scenes, however, didn’t always flow, simply fading to black when the previous scene needed just a couple more seconds to process. This is only a minor critique because otherwise, it was an incredible animation film that deserves a lot of love.

Even if animation isn’t your cup of tea, Wendell & Wild is worth checking out based on its diversity alone, something that is still seriously lacking in a large part of cinema today. Most of the characters and their cast are Black, Latinx and Asian, and Raúl is a trans character, and it’s nice to see a movie, especially one made by Selick who has directed some serious animation classics, actually portray a larger portion of society. Overall, it’s sure to not leave you disappointed, especially if you’re looking to prolong the spooky feeling of Halloween.

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no--envies · 3 years

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I think Jin Guangyao’s backstory makes him a really compelling antagonist. The first few times his name appears in the novel, he’s presented as the current leader of the Jin Sect, “the only illegitimate son whom Jin GuangShan approved of” (chapter 11) and whose merits allowed him to become Chief Cultivator, the highest position of power in the cultivation world. The more we learn about him, the more we realize the situation wasn’t that simple.

As we’re repeatedly shown through Empathy, Meng Yao’s life wasn’t easy at all. When he was young, he was scorned by everyone for his lowly background no matter what he did. Even the other prostitutes in the brothel where he grew up made fun of his mother's delusion that one day Jin Guangshan would give her and her son a better life. Even Mo Xuanyu, another illegitimate son, was treated better than him by Jin Guangshan, because his mother came from a good family. “At least Jin GuangShan still remembered that he had such a son and brought him back to Koi Tower” (chapter 48), while Meng Yao and his mother were completely abandoned.

After his mother died, Meng Yao went to find his father, but of course he wasn’t received. Instead, he was kicked down the stairs of Koi Tower and rolled down the steps from top to bottom. How did he react to this affront?

Allegedly, he didn’t say anything after he got up. Wiping away the blood on his forehead, then dusting off the dirt that got onto his clothes, he picked up his belongings and walked away.

(Chapter 48)

We always see him react like this against adversity. He never gets angry, never yells, never vents his frustration in any way. We don’t know what kind of feelings he harbors in his heart. This is much more terrifying than Nie Mingjue’s volatile temper.

After this, Meng Yao didn’t give up at all. If anything, this experience gave him more determination to see his and his mother’s dream fulfilled. He didn’t have strong spiritual powers because he had started cultivating too late, but he was gifted with a keen mind and a lot of resourcefulness. He was refused by the Jin Sect, so he went to the Nie. He managed to attract Nie Mingjue’s attention by doing the things he knew Nie Mingjue would approve of, like helping civilians during the war. We don’t know how much of it was due to his own concern for the well-being of the common people. On one hand, Jin Guangyao built the watchtowers to help people in the most remote areas, despite meeting a lot of opposition for it, both from his father and the other sects. On the other hand, he used innocent prostitutes to murder his father and then killed them, so he doesn’t seem to actually care about the common people. I think most of his actions while he was in the Nie Sect were calculated to make the sect leader notice him.

Nie Mingjue’s righteousness made him stand up for Meng Yao when he heard people bad-mouthing him. Nie Mingjue had his flaws and a black-and-white morality, but he was fair to his subordinates and gave credit where it was due. He showed his appreciation for Meng Yao’s hard work and attitude by appointing him as his deputy. Meng Yao’s situation in the Nie Sect of course wasn’t ideal and he struggled to be accepted (the scene with the cultivators refusing to drink from the teacups served by the “son of a prostitute” was telling), but being the sect leader’s deputy was the highest position he could have achieved only through his merits. I believe that if he had decided to stop there and be satisfied with what he already had - a good position, two sect leaders who supported him - his life would have been much happier.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Meng Yao’s past, coupled with his habit of bottling up his emotions and remembering every affront he received, had made him accumulate years of pent-up resentment. Nie Mingjue offered him the opportunity to go where he wanted instead of using Meng Yao’s debt of gratitude to keep him by his side. He even wrote him a letter of recommendation to give to Jin Guangshan so that he could be appointed to a good position in the Jin Sect. However, Jin Guangshan didn’t even meet Meng Yao. He completely ignored his presence and even feigned ignorance when Nie Mingjue went to inquire about him. In that kind of environment, even Meng Yao’s superiors could get away with taking credit for Meng Yao’s achievements. When Nie Mingjue went to look for him, he caught him precisely while he was taking revenge.

What Meng Yao did that time was definitely questionable. Even in a world like MDZS where revenge is completely justified, Meng Yao went too far by murdering his superior for stealing his credit. The problem is that in the Jin Sect, Meng Yao didn’t have anyone he could complain to for his superior’s wrongdoings. His father couldn’t care less about him and everyone else secretly rejoiced to see him struggling: in a society where birthright was everything, the son of a prostitute was lower than them even though his father was a sect leader. Nie Mingjue told him to confess his crime and accept the punishment the Jin Sect would give him, but that was like sealing his fate. There was no way Jin Guangshan would judge him fairly. The mere son of a prostitute daring to murder a respected member of the Jin Sect? Meng Yao would have been lucky if they didn’t execute him on the spot. Nie Mingjue didn’t consider all of this because his rigid mentality prevented him from seeing the nuance in Meng Yao’s situation. He thought that if Meng Yao truly had his reasons for killing his superior, the Jin Sect would acknowledge it. He didn’t take classism into consideration because he couldn’t see past his own privilege.

Nie Mingjue’s mentality was too black-and-white, but he wasn’t completely wrong, either. In that moment he caught a glimpse of Meng Yao’s true nature: that of a schemer and a manipulator. From that moment on, Nie Mingjue could never trust Meng Yao again like he had done in the past. He didn’t completely give up on him, though: after the end of the Sunshot Campaign, when Meng Yao was finally recognized by his father and became Jin Guangyao, Nie Mingjue accepted to become sworn brothers with him because he wanted to bring him back to the right path.

At the time Meng Yao had apparently achieved his goal: his father had recognized him and given him a place in Koi Tower, finally acknowledging his merits. However, that was far from the truth. Jin Guangshan had no intention whatsoever of making Jin Guangyao his heir; he gave him the tasks of a servant and made him do the things he wouldn’t dirty his precious heir’s hands with. He ordered Jin Guangyao to get rid of all the obstacles that prevented him from reaching the position of Chief Cultivator, and Jin Guangyao did. Despite this, his father never cared for him and never really accepted him. On top of that, Madam Jin didn’t show an ounce of compassion for the illegitimate son of her husband: she kept venting her frustrations on him as if Jin Guangyao was at fault for her husband’s vices.

Jin Guangyao was mostly isolated in Koi Tower, but somehow he kept believing that someday his father would actually recognize him. What made him lose faith completely was what Jin Guangshan said about his mother:

“Why was a sect leader who spent money like water unwilling to do the smallest favor and buy my mother’s freedom? Simple—it was too much trouble. My mother waited for so many years, weaving together so many difficult circumstances when she talked to me, imagining for his sake so many hardships. And the real reason was only a single word: trouble.

“This is what he said, ‘It’s especially women who’ve read some books who think they’re a level higher than other women. They’re the most troublesome, with so many demands and unrealistic thoughts. If I bought her freedom and took her back to Lanling, who knows how much fuss she’d make. It was best that I let her stay where she was just like that. With her conditions, she’d probably be popular for a few more years. She wouldn’t have to worry about her spendings for the rest of her life.’

“‘Son? Oh, forget it.’”

(Chapter 106)

Jin Guangyao did a lot of despicable things in his life. He had the chance to stop and be happy with what he had so many times, but he never did. He kept obeying his horrible father’s wishes and sacrificing innocent people for the sake of his own ambition. He had a lot of talents and skills he could have used to do good, but he wasn’t a good person.

His backstory does an excellent job at explaining his behavior and motivations. It makes him a complex character, far from one-dimensional, and I think it’s great that the ultimate villain of the story is a character like him. Jin Guangyao’s evil deeds weren’t justified in the least, but spoke of a resentment born from real struggles and the desire to climb the social ladder to prove that even someone like him - the son of a prostitute, scorned and ridiculed by everyone - could reach the top of the cultivation world.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #jin guangyao #meng yao #nie mingjue #jin guangshan #jgy #nmj #jgs #character analysis

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baoshan-sanren · 3 years

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Hi, I just finished SV and I Loved it! I have a question though that irks me and I'd love to hear you opinion on it. It's said in the novel that LBH knew no kindness except from his mother and then NYY & SY!SQQ. It seems to me a little like he fell in love with SY's kindness and not really with his personality. He didn't fall in love with NYY's kindness so it could also be an authority thing. My q is, do you think LBH would fall in love w any other Shizun who showed him the slightest kindness?

Okay bear with my nonsense here for a minute because, aside from making fun of everyone and everything, SVSSS is a pretty good study of what happens when reader expectations meet real situations and real flesh and blood people, and just how unrealistic most of them turn out to be. We see PIDW and LBH in SVSSS via mirror of only SY’s perception and his preconceived notions, but we’re also bound to only see SVSSS and SY via mirror of our own perception and with our own preconceived notions (and boy, do a lot of people miss that about SVSSS completely even though SY the judgmental reader and all his baggage are right there). How many chapters does it take for SY to admit that he hasn’t been really viewing LBH as his own person, but a fictional character he had only gotten to know through airplane’s bad writing? I remember how fucking frustrated I kept getting the first time I read SVSSS because SY kept that picture of LBH (the one we never met bc we never read 300+ chapters of airplane’s novel like SY did) firm in his mind despite all evidence that they were not the same person. Who is it that said “compared to the dullest human being actually walking about on the face of the earth and casting his shadow there, the most brilliantly drawn character in a novel is but a bag of bones?" SY’s whole issue with PIDW is that the novel sucked. That most of the characters were one-dimensional and unrealistic, and that even his own scum-villain character had no story/background that would justify his attitude or behavior towards LBH. We only get to see SJ as a person with a history, and grievances, and a boatload of unaddressed trauma because SY digs up and improves all those storylines that airplane had left out. But even knowing that, SY still keeps seeing LBH through the lens of his own preconceived notions, and keeps assigning him motivations that LBH clearly doesn’t have. So I guess my thing is, if it took SY nearly a decade of flesh and blood contact with LBH to figure out that all of his expectations were wrong and inaccurate, can we (the readers of SVSSS) ever view LBH accurately?

Anyway, not to write an essay (too late) but I guess if I were to speculate on the subject via my own subjective interpretations, I would say that airplane wrote a pretty shitty stallion novel for $$ during which LBH fell for NYY for her “kindness” but right off the bat in SVSSS, we see that NYY does very little except managing to make LBH’s life harder. Still, despite being a character that solely consists of bouncy breasts and questionable life choices in PIDW, she does seem to harbor genuine affection for LBH, and PIDW LBH, who has not gotten affection since his adoptive mother passed, is likely to have latched on to any affection, no matter how destructive it turns out to be, for some self-preservation of his self-esteem and self-worth. Obviously not the healthiest way to obtain either, but hardly unexpected (and we see him doing the same thing with literally every female character in PIDW - Freud would have a field day with just a quarter of this novel). Again, we only know PIDW LBH through SY’s perception, and SY is clearly not the most objective witness, but I find it hard to believe that PIDW LBH ever truly loved any one of the 300+ women in his harem. There is no indication (in what we get from airplane’s writing) that he trusts any of them, and it even seems as if all the harem infighting served as a means to keep them from focusing too hard on LBH as anything other than a prize to be obtained. I mean clearly, PIDW was not meant to be that deep, and we don’t get to read it, so there’s no use speculating much. (I’m sure you noticed my theories are all psychology/trauma centric, which is my bread and butter, and subjective as fuck, so there’s half my point made).

As to whether I think LBH would fall in love with a different shizun who showed him kindness? If kindness is the only factor, I don’t think it’s likely. After all, the 300+ women in his harem in PIDW have all probably showed him some kindness at one time or another. In that respect, SY is certainly not special. There are theories about LBH not actually being sexually attracted to women in PIDW at all, extrapolating on the idea that a more supportive and loving environment during his development years has allowed him to grow up without repressing many things he has clearly repressed in PIDW, his sexuality included. That theory, I suppose, could support the idea that LBH could have just as easily fallen in love with a different man in his immediate vicinity who showed him kindness?

Idk how much I buy into any that; like I said, PIDW was never meant to be that deep, and SVSSS is just full of loose threads I love to yank on (always aware I’ll never see where they lead without an access to MXTX’s brain). I think we’re meant to view PIDW for what it is - a poorly written story for $$ with cardboard cutout characters that, once permeated with “real flesh and blood humans,” turns out to be nothing like the story that the reader (SY) expected to find. And since there’s the same degree of separation between PIDW and SVSSS, as there is between SVSSS and us (the readers), speculating on who LBH might attach himself to if SY was someone else, and how his story might go under any other circumstances, is bound to be as accurate as SY’s predictions concerning PIDW LBH, which turned out to be (as we clearly find out in SVSSS), inaccurate as fuck :)

#Anonymous #ask for ts #svsss #meta #sorry noonie #idk if that'll make any sense to you #y'all should never ask me anything about svsss again #bc I'll just go on and on

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melrosing · 3 years

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Can I just say that I personally am always surprised when I see people looking at show cersei negatively when compared to book cersei? I sort of always assumed the reason so many people love cersei is due to the show humanizing her more but im guessing that's not the case?

Keep in mind im not really actively in the fandom but on occasion when I come around I used to see a lot of folks thinking of cersei in a positive way in the show as opposed to the books (I used to see people refer to book cersei as mad and stupid a lot) but lately I've noticed a shift where folks say show cersei made the character less 3 dimensional.

okay, I think I’ve been dancing around what my issues with Show Cersei are for a bit so I’m just gonna purge myself with this ask lol, long reply ahead

So I’m gonna say outright that I am absolutely not opposed to adaptational changes when it comes to Cersei. Making her smarter is a good shout - I am not a fan of Cersei being just as foolish as all the men in her life believe she is, I think GRRM should absolutely have written her with some real strategic flair.

I am also not opposed to stripping away some of the absolute excesses of her evil: like I get it, George, she’s not very nice, but there is something almost cartoonish in watching Cersei do something utterly unforgivable every other page.

And getting rid of the weird comedic overtone there is with her scenes, that has everyone going ‘lol I laugh so hard at her chapters she’s just so STUPID’ - I’d get rid of that, too, which roughly ties in with the points above. This narrative can still work with a formidable Cersei, so let’s have one. I don’t see why the major female villain in the series has to be the foolish one, whilst Tywin, Littlefinger, Euron etc all get to be masterminds. A competent Cersei who is sometimes given to frightening villainous excesses in an attempt to assert her dominance over a society that has always had her subservient: very cool. I’m down with it.

And people praise D&D because they think this is what they did with Cersei. It is not what they did. D&D had a female villain on their hands and thought, “Oh, but she’s a lady. She’s a mother. She can’t truly be all that bad, can she?”

Everything Cersei does must have an excuse. That shit with Septa Unella? Well, if only Septa Unella hadn’t been so horrid, right? That shit with Ellaria and Tyene? Well, they shouldn’t have killed Myrcella! That shit with the Sept of Baelor? Well, look what they put her through! Cersei is perpetually a victim in their eyes, never truly accountable for anything that she does. Tommen’s death? Not her fault! Sending an assassin after Jaime? Uwwuahhh she didn’t mean it! Taking control of King’s Landing by fucking bombing it? Forget about it. And we must assume that she’s a good and just ruler in the aftermath, because they sure don’t want to explore the consequences, or the dare I say villainous manner in which a character like Cersei would sustain that control once she’s got it. From there on out she’s just boozing it up at windows.

And anything inexcusable she does in the books is removed. The ACOK Baratheon baby slaughter is handed to Joffrey, whilst Cersei wrings her hands because she’s a mother, don’t you know? Her abuse of Tommen? No, of course not, she’s a good mum, he just doesn’t do as he’s told! Cersei cannot be that bad! Because she is but a mother and a lady! Just doing her best! For her family! Look at the interviews with the writers and the cast on Cers, this shit is all over the place.��

And like, I thought in the S6 finale, we were finally going to explore what a female villain looks like without all these gendered motives and excuses they’ve piled on her thus far. We’re going to get to see what it looks like when a woman just wants power for herself, wants to rule the game rather than play the pawn. But in S7, they stick another baby in her. Because at her core, what Cersei must always be about is protecting her kids.

They do this motive to death. Tyrion must forget about all the trauma and abuse he has suffered at Cersei’s hands, so they can repeatedly use him for exposition about how at heart she’s just a mother trying to look out for a family, not a monster, of course not! Jaime must go running back to her side in S8 because she’s ‘just a girl who needs her brother to protect her’ (or however it was they put it in the behind the scenes segment) - we must always reduce Cersei to her gender, mustn’t we, I’m sure she’d have fucking loved that lmao.

And there’s even that ludicrous Euron vs Jaime scene they stuck in there, like they had a £10 budget to recreate the Colin Firth vs Hugh Grant fight out of Bridget Jones, all to defend Cersei’s womanhood or whatever the fuck. Because that’s what it must always come down to. Cersei is a woman.

And yet D&D cannot fathom that women, too, can desire power, can have motives beside lovers and children, can be something besides mothers and lovers themselves, and don’t have to be forced into evil acts but in fact are just as capable of being unapologetic villains as the men around them.

Book Cersei is an unapologetic villain, who constantly grasps for sympathetic reasons why she might be doing what she’s doing, but the reader knows that Cersei wants power. Cersei wants to be the MVP, not because she’s ‘just a mother’ who ‘just wants to protect her kids’, but because she’s spent her life left out of that game, and it has filled her with rage; she’s so sure she has what it takes, and she wants the world to know it. She’s vicious because she’s been raised to believe that’s what power looks like, and she wants to personify that. She loses sight of her children in her desperation to do so.

What D&D did with her is so fucking reductive. We are obsessed with ‘sympathetic villains’ these days, but that is not a measure of a good character. Someone you can always sympathise with is not automatically a more dimensional character, and when the sympathy invoked is as gendered as what D&D do with Cersei, I’m gonna say it’s not dimensional at all.

#ask #cersei lannister #asoiaf #anti got #got for ts

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soranis-sunshadow · 3 years

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Hordak can’t catch a break even on his birthday...

Oh fandom, you really like this sort of drama don’t you?

A few days ago, on Hordak’s birthday, there was this ‘interesting’ post in the tag – since, apparently it’s impossible to get any peace even on that day.

I was too tired to answer it at the time after being on call the day before so, here’s my delayed answer to all of that:

First off: this post has this bit in it when asked what that person dislikes about SPOP.

He doesn’t need to get a redemption and he doesn’t get one in the show.

None of his actions constitute a redemption arc. The man merely acknowledged his personhood and freed himself from his master and God. That’s what his arc was about: the right to have a personal identity.

He gave himself a name and wanted to be his own person. That’s it. That’s all he wanted.

The man was merely freed from Prime’s influence- an influence he was born into since he’s been specifically manufactured to serve as a disposable mass produced soldier and worshipper of Prime.

If the argument that Catra was “forced” to commit crimes and thus she is not completely guilty of them since she was under duress – then the argument doubly holds for a person who has been directly programmed and conditioned to do so under the threat of death or mental rape (purification).\

Even while away from Prime, he was still conditioned to obey and brainwashed by Prime’s cult. He literally knew nothing else – he was not meant to. It’s how indoctrination works.

Prime’s clones aren’t people to Prime, they are tools. Those clones, while cut off from Prime still want to serve and please him: That’s what Wrong Hordak’s purpose in the show is- to show us just that.

Hordak is not considered “OK” because Entrapta likes him. Hordak is merely shown – by Entrapta that he could live apart from his cult and have worth outside what Prime tells him he has.

Just like real life cult victims, he needs an outsider to help him see a way out of the cult. The nature of indoctrination and brainwashing makes it impossible for the brainwashed person to know they are brainwashed unless someone points it out.

Now for my favorite thing:

and

oh and

Oh boy… this makes me just so damn uncomfortable.

To offer a bit of context as to why. I have never been on social media before SPOP or in any fandom and as such, I have never encountered the ‘all men are evil’ discourse that seems to infest these places. It’s been quite a bit of culture shock for me.

What is it that makes anyone think it is ok to judge a person because of an accident of birth? (being born male)

Why does hate for 50% of the human population get such a free pass on these platforms? Misandry is just as terrible as misogyny. You are being biased against another human because of their gender. I don’t care that males are perceived as ‘privileged’ – that doesn’t make it ok to be terrible to them unprovoked.

How does hating all men help achieve equity?

Do you realize that this sort of discourse is exactly how you radicalize people against the very cause you are championing? You breed hate and adversity for the rest of us who actually want to to have a discussion on the topic.

I’m a feminist myself (in a country where feminism is hard-work) and let me tell you, making all men hate us does nothing but push away potential allies and make it a lot harder for our voices to be heard.

Feminism is about equality, not women dominating.

Now onto the second post: the one comparing Catra and Hordak with the question of which of them is a better person.

This whole war orphans that were personally abducted and tortured into serving the horde HC that some ppl have is really starting to get boorish. This has been going on for more than 6 months.

I have no idea why everyone thinks he went down chimneys and stealing babies left and right while cackling villainously. The man had a busy schedule of brooding in his lab, wallowing at his inability to use insulated cables and having his device blowing up in his face with the occasional Skype call to Shadow Weaver to see what the Horde is doing.

And yet, to a part of the fandom, this is what he looked like:

( @bat-burrito made this one and it’s glorious)

And if you don’t believe me about the lab recluse thing, you don’t have to, the show pretty much states it for me.

and

Hordak is a recluse that stayed in his lab and let the running of the Horde and most operations to Shadow Weaver and later Catra. He did not personally abuse anyone and he is not the origin of the cycle of abuse.

Shadow Weaver was a child grooming manipulative woman before she even joined the Horde – she did this to Micah while she was not “evil” or presumably abused by Hordak.

Even if you want to HC that Hordak abused her somehow, he is still not the one who started the cycle: Horde Prime is.

The whole fandom seems to forget about the eldritch monstrosity that created a whole army of brainwashed slaves to worship and die for him. Prime is the one that sent Hordak to die and gave him the motivation to try to prove himself worthy of life and love. If you want to point fingers, point them at the origin of all of this. This fandom has a strange Prime blindness. He is never talked about when it comes to being the start of all of this.

If Prime didn’t exist, Hordak wouldn’t exist. If Prime hadn’t sent Hordak off to die, then his clone wouldn’t have accidentally ended up on Etheria. None of the things in the show would have happened.

Adora would have died of exposure in a field, the monarchies on Etheria would have continued as they are and the planet would have continued to exist in despondos.

He is a dictator, yes. So are the princesses. Monarchies are dictatorships where the ruler is born into power. Hordak gained his through military might while Glimmer was born with hers and enforced it with tradition. I don’t really care to play “who’s the better dictator”. The princesses have their power because of the runestones- magical rocks put there by the First Ones to channel the planet’s magic and use it as a weapon. How come no one talks about that?

Do you think a king/queen keeps their crown without effort or subjugation of their subjects?

Also, Hordak had never interacted with Catra before SW dragged her before him to be judged. He was indifferent to etherians in general and didn’t seem to care which of them were his underlings so long as the operations were running smoothly. He was more focused on his portal and returning home than on anything else. He did not set out to “ruin lives” or quest for power. What he wanted was to return to his deity and become a mindless part of the whole again – that is as opposite to power hungry as you can get.

Catra was directly abused by Shadow Weaver throughout her childhood. That makes Shadow weaver responsible for 100% of that abuse.

Catra was found in a box by Adora and adopted by Shadow Weaver. Hordak didn’t know or care that she existed.

He is responsible for the war, he is responsible for the war casualties and the property damage. He is not responsible for Shadow Weaver being a terrible person and mother figure.

Again with the orphan thing. We have 5 cadets in the show.

Adora was found in a field.

Catra was found in a box. Lonnie, Kyle and Rogelio are unexplained. The only lizard ppl we see in the show are in the Horde or the Crimson Wastes. The other two could just as well be the children of some of the soldiers.

I may harp on about what a bitch Shadow Weaver is – the reason I do so is because she is legitimately terrible to the two girls in her care.

I was the unfavorite growing up, I WAS the Catra in my family who could do no right while my sibling was the golden child. I don’t however hate Shadow Weaver. She is a cartoon character in a show and she does the things she was written to do. Hell, she is a very compelling and believable villain. Her motivations are clear and she is consistent. Her voice actress portrayed her splendidly and her character design is superb. I like her but that doesn’t mean that I don’t acknowledge her role in the story. I don’t however make up parts of the story to make her more evil than she was or treat my headcanons about her as absolute fact.

Again, sigh: Prime is the worst villain in the show. He is quite literally Nyarlathotep and does this to planets:

This to people:

and this to the people he created to serve, worship and love him:

How is that not worse?

I love Catra and it genuinely annoys me when people erase her agency or try to paint her as one-dimensional victim. Catra was an antagonist for most of the show and she rocked it! She was 400% more efficient at it than cloneboy. Give the queen some damn respect and recognition! Catra had a lot of agency and her actions moved the plot of the show more than those of the protagonists. (they were mostly reactive).

Catra pulled the lever of the portal in a moment of distress after a breakdown, a Shadow-Weaver related breakdown because that’s how trauma works.

Hordak didn’t make her do it, he didn’t send Catra after Adora either. These were Catra’s choices. They came from a place of hurt but they were her choices still.

The portal was a means of transportation, not a weapon. Building it was not Catra’s mission, it was Hordak’s. He built it so he could contact Prime and either summon him here or go home –whichever course of action Prime wanted. Again, Hordak wanted to go back to this:

...

The only person who knew the device was dangerous was Entrapta and she tried to warn Hordak about it. Catra was the one who stopped her, violently so, then sent her to die on Beast Island- the fate Entrapta saved her from a season ago. Catra then tried to have Hordak open the portal before it was ready.

When he wouldn’t – she pulled the lever herself because that is how desperate she had gotten at that point, to show Shadow Weaver how wrong she was. That is how hurt Catra was by her mother figure’s betrayal and abuse.

Don’t take that away from her. Don’t call it curiosity or naivete or whatever. She knew the portal was dangerous but she wanted to prove Shadow Weaver wrong so badly that she didn’t care at that point. She had been pushed that far.

Catra’s actions led to Angella’s death but she was not directly responsible for it. She didn’t activate the device to kill Angella, it merely happened accidentally. Catra was however glad it happened and wanted to profit from the aftermath of her death.

Hordak didn’t care or plan to kill Angella personally. There is no in-show moment where any of that is portrayed. Since he doesn’t care about the specifics of running the horde seem to know what they are conquering at the moment, it seems that that was usually a task reserved for his second in command.

^ - troop movement ordered by Catra

Hordak doesn’t even know what his own army is doing.

Again with the Hordak “drilling into orphan’s minds”… I seriously doubt that any of them had ever seen him out of his lab or that he came up with the propaganda himself.

Manipulation is more Shadow Weaver’s game not his. For all of Hordak’s faults, he is not deceptive or manipulative. If anything, he is woefully incapable of spotting lies. (it might have something to do with him being born in a society where lies were almost impossible because of the hive mind and Prime being able to browse his thoughts at a whim- as such, it wouldn’t be a skill he would have been able to develop).

Hordak canonically despises deception and lies. I really don’t understand where this image of a manipulative and cunning Hordak comes from. He wouldn’t be able to plot himself out of a paper bag if his life depended on it.

First off.. S4 Catra was his equal, not his subordinate. Don’t take that away from her. She earned it.

He doesn’t look that threatening here...

And again: Prime created the system. He made clone slaves and programmed them to serve. His clones have hardware installed for the express reason to facilitate his control over them. He has a religion in place to make sure their thoughts do not stray from his purpose. I am legitimately boggled by this fandom’s tendency to completely forget about his existence.Does anyone really think that these people that are born “prechipped” and programmed to know nothing but Prime’s Light are really knowledgeable about human morality?

That they would know that conquest is bad when that is the express reason for their creation?

If I were born in that situation, I’m not sure I would have known any better. Hell, if any of the clones even try to disobey Prime, they would get either mindraped (erased) or killed for the effort. They really have no choice, even if they knew that killing in Prime’s name is wrong (they don’t) they really can’t do anything about it. They have no choice but to be what they were made to be. I find it personally abhorrent when these designer slaves are held accountable for what Prime has made them do.

And to the people that say Hordak was free of Horde Prime once he was stranded on Etheria.. That is not how indoctrination works. The fact that I can’t go to church this Sunday because I’m locked in the house and can’t find the keys doesn’t make me an atheist.

Hordak was serving Prime even on Etheria. He keeps mentioning it to both Entrapta and Catra. He started the war because that’s what he thought Prime wanted of him and that’s what he’s been programmed to do. Personal and informed choice really doesn’t factor into his decision at all.

He is not sympathetic because Entrapta likes him. Notice how I haven’t brought up his relationship with her up to this point?

He is sympathetic because he literally had no choice but to do the things he was indoctrinated into doing. He was build and programmed for it, just like all the other clones. They are not able to deviate from that because of the way Prime functions and rules over them.

There is no point in the show where Hordak relishes over his status as a ruler or the “luxury” it affords him. He does not engage in the same behaviors his progenitor manifests.

There is no point in the show where Hordak relishes over his status as a ruler or the “luxury” it affords him. He does not engage in the same behaviors his progenitor manifests. He attempts to emulate Prime in order to project authority in the only way he knows how but since those are some really big shoes to fill, he is woefully inadequate.

If Hordak had been power hungry, he would have stayed in despondos and ruled his own faction. Being away from Prime is the most powerful and autonomous he’s ever been and yet, he wants to throw all of that away in order to be a powerless, nameless part of the whole. What Hordak wanted was to be enslaved by Prime because that’s what he had been created for.

“vengeful” – and how did Hordak manifest this vengefulness? Who did he take revenge on in the series?

“apologize” – when and where in his 3 minutes of screentime would he remember everything after 2 mindwipes, realize that the whole worldview he had since inception is wrong, realize that he had been mistaken into doing the horrible things he did and then go to all of the characters and apologize for it?

Would anyone be convinced of that had it happened in 3 minutes? I’d rather they don’t redeem him than do a shit job at it.

Very true. He’s not a better person. He’s just a person in an impossible situation. Both Hordak and Catra were handed a raw deal, I don’t understand why everyone insists on pitting them against one another. They both did bad things and they were both in horrible situations. The specifics don’t really matter since neither of them would have done the things they did had they been more fortunate.

This is the exact reason for which I don’t hold Cara’s actions against her. Catra’s only model of success was Shadow Weaver. She emulated her abusive mother figure because she had no other example and because she wanted to please that woman. It does not excuse the way Catra acted but it explains it.

I really don’t understand why some people want Catra punished. I’d rather she get love and help. That is what she needs. In time, she will want to do better and be better by herself. She doesn’t need to be forced, heavens know, she’s been forced enough as it is.

They are really different. Catra got an abusive, shitty and violent childhood. Hordak got this:

He was literally robbed of a childhood.

She was taught by Shadow Weaver that weakness gets you killed. Hordak was not allowed to have emotions to begin with, or thoughts of his own, or a name...

Comparing to victims of abuse to see which one of them is more likable is such a strange concept to me.

Catra was robbed in s5 too. I don’t hold that against her. I blame it on the writers. S5 could have been a lot better.

#Hordak #Catra #catra vs hordak discourse strikes again #can we please stop with this #it's been 6 months #my pixel is nicer than that pixel #a cartoon villain is not an actual despot #cartoon and fandom activism is not real activism #Cartoon characters can't apologize for their actions unless the writers make them #the writers in s5 were too busy with butchering the previous seasons to actually put any thought into the cohesiveness of this show's themes #everyone felt a bit ooc in s5 #spop critical #spop fandom drama #spop

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

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Do you any suggestion for Super Sentai?plz

*cracks knuckles*

Well first off, if anyone wanting to get into Super Sentai watched Power Rangers growing up, I’d check out the series whatever season you watched was adapted from to see how things went there in comparison to how they were in the United States. So if you grew up with the original Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, watch Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger. If you don’t know what the Sentai the season you grew up with is called, I’d check out RangerWiki, which provides a lot of information on both franchises.

I’d also recommend checking out a few episodes of the very first Super Sentai entry, Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. Not all 84 episodes, mind you, but I’d just watch a few to see where Super Sentai got its roots from, because the team football attack gets referenced a lot further down the line. Yes, you read that correctly.

But for individual seasons for beginners, it’s harder for me to answer. Super Sentai has varied aesthetically and tonally across its 45 year run. Some shows are dark and gritty, while others are light-hearted and goofy. Some shows have a vehicle motif, while others use animals for a motif. So the seasons I’m going to talk about will cover all kinds of tones and themes across the years. I also haven’t seen every single entry, so these are the ones I’ve seen that I recommend for beginners.

Denshi Sentai Denziman (1980-1981, 51 Episodes)

Centuries ago, the evil Vader Clan conquered and decimated the Denzi Civilization. In the modern day, the talking dog IC awoke from his slumber when the Vader Clan began their invasion of Earth. So IC recruits five people to become the Denzimen to defend their planet and stop the Vader Clan once and for all.

The first three seasons of Super Sentai were very experimental, but Denziman was where Toei started to get an identity for Sentai down. Not only would the black visors and sculpted mouthpieces become a staple for Sentai’s (and by extension, Power Rangers) suit designs, but this was also the first season to really start a few Sentai traditions. It was the first season to have female villains, the first to use a transformation device for the heroes, the first time the monsters grew to fight the team’s giant robot.

The Denzimen, while not really going through any character development, are still very likable characters, especially Denzi Blue/Daigoro (played by legendary tokusatsu actor Kenji Ohba). The villains are also a lot of fun, a real improvement from the first three villain groups, who were all basically Earth-based terrorist organizations and/or death cults. The Vader Clan is full of villains who are just as entertaining to watch as the heroes, especially Queen Hedrian, played by the late Machiko Soga, who would later go on to play Witch Bandora, the character Rita Repulsa is adapted from in Power Rangers. There’s not that much of an ongoing for most of the series, and it can get pretty goofy at times, but it’s still a really good show.

Choushinsei Flashman (1986-1987, 50 Episodes).

Five infants are abducted by the Reconstructive Experiment Empire Mess to use as test subjects for experimentation, but are saved by benevolent aliens from the Flash Solar System. They all spend the next twenty years in the system developing their combat skills and special powers until they decide to head back to Earth to fight Mess themselves as the Flashmen, despite the warnings of their alien caretakers.

The 1980s are usually referred to by fans as Super Sentai’s golden age, with a string of great seasons thanks to famed writer Hirohisa Soda. Flashman is no exception. While Denziman tended to have more stand-alone episodes, Flashman is more story-driven. Later on, there’s a really dark plot twist that I don’t want to give away. Admittedly, some of the special effects can be dated to showcase the Flashmen’s powers in addition to stock footage being reused a lot, but the action and camerawork are still fast-paced and rarely do the fight scenes get boring.

The villains are the kind you love to hate, and their actors all give great performances, especially the late Unsho Ishizuka (the Japanese voice of Professor Oak) as Great Emperor La Deus. This is easily one of the darker Super Sentai entries, but if you don’t mind that, I highly recommend it.

Choujuu Sentai Liveman (1988-1989 49 Episodes).

At an academy for the finest minds in the world, three of the students feel their talents are being wasted on designing a satellite to conduct scientific research. They soon join up with Great Professor Bias, leader of the Armed Brain Army Volt, who takes them all under his wing as his students and generals. Before they leave, they kill two students, leaving their three friends traumatized. Two years later, Volt begins its plan to conquer Earth, but the three friends of the two victims developed their own technology to fight them as the Livemen in the two years since they last saw their former classmates. Bias’ students have developed their own abilities through mutating their bodies, starting a conflict between some of the most intelligent youths in the world while figuring out what Bias’ evil plan is...

Some Sentai fans consider this to be even darker than Flashman at times due to the themes discussed. Unlike earlier seasons, the heroes have a more personal connection to the villains, and act as foils to them in terms of morality. The show also has some surprisingly deep themes at times, deconstructing the harsh standards the Japanese have for education and the effects they can have on people. Seriously, the main villain, Great Professor Bias, sets up a competition for his generals as a way to advance his plans, treating it like a high academic honor.

This series also has some amazing special effects for the time. This was the first Sentai series to have an animal motif, so they go all out by using one of the most complicated models for his giant robotic lion, a stunning innovation for special effects. It was also the first series to introduce the gimmick of combining two robots, which is a genius marketing tactic when you think about it, motivating kids to buy both robots to combine them. Even putting those technical aspects aside, this is still one of the most iconic Super Sentai seasons, and a must-watch for beginners.

Choujin Sentai Jetman (1991-1992, 51 Episodes)

An elite soldier is chosen for a top-secret military project meant to turn him into the leader of a team of supersoldiers called the Jetmen. After he gets his powers, the satellite base is attacked by the Dimensional War Party Vyram. Not only are the four remaining “Birdonic Waves” meant to empower the rest of the Jetmen scattered across Earth, powering four civilians instead, but the soldier’s fiance is killed in the process. So he has to recruit the rest of the Jetmen and form a competent team to stop the Vyram from conquering their dimension.

A lot of Precure fans view Heartcatch as the best series in the entire franchise, and many Sentai fans view Jetman the same way. It was a huge success in ratings and toy sales, which actually helped to save Super Sentai from cancellation after the disastrous sales and ratings of the previous series, Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman. It also had some elements that made it stand out from earlier Sentai seasons. While I’ve talked about how Marinette was forced to become Guardian against her will while the show doesn’t acknowledge it, this show actually does point out that almost the entire team is a group of civilians with no combat experience. Earlier episodes are not only spent assembling the team, but also training them to better fight the Vyram and pilot their giant robot.

The series introduced a love triangle for three of the Jetmen, and while controversial among fans, was very popular with Japanese mothers, who were rumored to find Gai/Black Condor very attractive and begged Toei to not kill him off. The love triangle, while arguably one of the weakest parts of this show (but still better written than the Love Square), was part of the main theme of the team being more conflicted, showing they weren’t all best friends all the time.

This extended to the Vyram, who also tended to fight with each other over their plans to conquer the Earth. Sure, there was the occasional villain in earlier seasons who tried to overthrow the big bad, but this was the first time we had a whole group of villains trying to one-up each other. The best way to describe the Vyram is if the cast of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia were supervillains who were still competent at their jobs.

The series is also incredibly dark, and is often seen as the darkest Sentai has ever gotten. There’s a lot more violence and blood than usual, and a lot more onscreen deaths that aren’t just limited to the villains. Humans are actively killed or hurt in the crossfire, and it shows just how painful this war is. And because of all of that and many other reasons, this is seen as the peak of Super Sentai. If you have to watch a single Sentai series, watch Jetman.

Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (1994-1995, 53 Episodes)

During Japan’s Sengoku Era, a team of five ninja sealed away the leader of an army of Youkai, rendering their kind powerless. In the present day, one of the few surviving Youkai tricks two bikers, who are actually descendants of two of the ninja in the past, into undoing the seal and giving all of the Youkai their powers back. Another descendant of the ninja recruits them into taking on the legacy of their ancestors to fight the Youkai, becoming the Kakurangers.

The 1990s were when Super Sentai was starting to delve more into fantasy elements rather than just science-fiction, and also started to take on a more light-hearted tone. Kakuranger is no exception. It’s a lot more goofy than the other entries, even using comic book-style graphics during its fight scenes. There’s also a narrator who appears to explain the history of the Youkai of the week, a detail I really like. While this show is still unashamedly goofy, it still gets more serious in the second half, but never loses its comedic moments entirely.

Like with Jetman, Kakuranger shows the reality of drafting two civilians to fight a war against the supernatural, with only one of the first three Kakurangers knowing how to fight. That Kakuranger in question, Tsuruhime/Ninja White, is easily one of the best Sentai heroines of all time. Not only was the first female and non-Red to lead a Sentai team, but she was only fifteen years old while the other Kakurangers were in their twenties. Marinette could learn a lot from her, and no, that’s not an insult. Tsuruhime is a complete badass, and a team-up with Ladybug would be the coolest thing ever.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, watch Kakuranger.

Kyukyu Sentai GoGoV (1999-2000, 50 Episodes)

The demonic children of the Grand Witch Grandiene begin causing natural disasters to bring destruction to Earth in order to revive their mother. In response, five rescue workers who also happen to be siblings are recruited by their estranged father to become a team dedicated to saving lives from the Psyma Family’s actions.

Did anyone ever watch Rescue Heroes as a kid? Imagine that show, but with the intensity turned up to eleven. This show is epic, with amazing action and some of the coolest giant robots in Sentai history. One of their robots is a giant train armed to the teeth with guns. Even putting aside the action, this show does a great job at highlighting all the dedication rescue workers have to their jobs by showing a lot of rescue scenes in addition to having GoGoV fight the Psyma. It even teaches the audience about firefighters from Japan’s Edo Period. There’s really not a lot of shows that explain what rescue workers were like in the past, which shows just how invested this show is in teaching people about rescue workers.

While this wasn’t the first Sentai series to feature a team of siblings (the first being the aforementioned Fiveman), I think it managed to capture the dynamic best. Family is a key theme of the series, with the healthy relationship between GoGoV contrasting with the more toxic environment the Psyma Family has.

This is easily one of the most action-packed Sentai series ever made. It is literally Fire Force twenty years before that anime premiered, and it is AWESOME.

Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger (2004-2005, 50 Episodes)

In the not-too-distant future (Next Sunday, A.D.), the universe has come together to the point where Earth has made contact with several intelligent alien civilizations. However, intergalactic arms dealer Agent Abrella starts to help out the extraterrestrial criminals on Earth, called Alienizers, by providing technology and giant robots to them because he enjoys profiting from crime, and dreams of a world without the police. In response the organization Special Police Dekaranger, or S.P.D., brings together a team of officers to apprehend the Alienizers.

You want to see space cops doing space cop stuff? Then this is the show for you. Admittedly, this isn’t the most story-driven show, but is instead carried by its characters, who go through a lot of development. The Dekarangers have one of the best team dynamics in Sentai history. All of them are very likable characters, and it’s a lot of fun to see them interact. But the best character in the show goes to the Dekarangers’ boss, Doggie Kruger/Dekamaster, a dog alien who becomes a Dekaranger himself, labeling himself The Watchdog of Hell. That has to be the coolest title any superhero has ever had. Dekamaster is another one of the greatest Super Sentai characters ever, taking down a hundred goons in his first battle by himself.

I haven’t even gotten to Agent Abrella, one of the coolest Sentai villains of all time. He’s obsessed with profit and chaos, and he’s easily one of the most sadistic main villains compared to his predecessors. He isn’t some evil emperor who wants to rule the world. He just wants to raise hell and make a quick buck from it. He’s also voiced by Ryusei Nakao, the Japanese voice of Frieza from Dragon Ball Z. That’s another appeal of Sentai, the voice talent. A lot of big-name voice actors have voiced characters, like Mao Ichimichi and Kotono Mitsuishi. Hell, the currently ongoing Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger has Yuki Kaji of Attack on Titan fame voicing one of the main characters.

Dekaranger is easily one of the most popular Sentai seasons out there, as it has a lot of additional material. Not only did the Dekarangers get a theatrically released film like many other seasons before it, they teamed up with two separate Sentai teams, some of them cameoed in the anniversary series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, they got a reunion movie ten years after its finale, four of the Dekarangers guest starred in another Sentai series two years after that, Uchu Sentai Kyuranger, which served as a prologue to a team-up with another Toei hero, Uchuu Kenji Gavan, and then that led into the Dekarangers cameoing in another Kyuranger movie meant to be an epilogue to that series.

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Yeah, this is why I haven’t talked about the Sentai movies in this post. You don’t have to watch any of these unless you really enjoy Dekaranger, which you should at least check out. It’s slow at times, but it’s still a lot of fun.

Engine Sentai Go-Onger (2008-2009, 50 Episodes)

The Banki Clan Gaiark have traveled from their home dimension of Machine World and chosen Earth as their new home, but they have to pollute the planet to serve as an ideal living space for their kind. In response, sentient animal-themed vehicles called the Engines choose five humans to partner up with, the five humans in question becoming the Go-Ongers.

Unlike most of the shows I talked about, Go-Onger is incredibly goofy, and I love it. The characters are all incredibly likable, both the Go-Ongers and the Engines. While Sentai had touched upon the idea of treating the mecha as sentient beings, this was one of the earliest series to actually have their partners talk, leading to some interesting character dynamics. The villains are also really fun to watch. While they’re about as competent as Team Rocket at times, there are moments where you actually feel bad for them, especially towards the end of the series.

It’s also really funny. Granted, comedy is subjective, so you may not find the same things as funny, but there are a lot of funny moments in this show, all helped by the actors giving amazing performances. Go-Onger can get extremely wacky at times, like in Episode 31. I’m not going to say what happens, you should watch it for yourself.

What makes the humor really work unlike the last attempt at a comedy-focused Sentai, Carranger, it didn’t really feel mean-spirited by portraying the heroes as idiots by claiming to be “parodying” Sentai. Yes, the Go-Ongers can be dumb at times, but they still take their jobs seriously when they’re not goofing around. There’s not really much I can say about Go-Onger other than it being a bunch of dumb fun. If you’re in the mood to start off with something more light-hearted, I’d check it out.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger (2009-2010, 49 Episodes)

For centuries, generations of samurai have waged a war against a race of demons from the underworld called the Gedoshu. After their leader was temporarily sealed away for several years, the Gedoshu begin another invasion of the surface while trying to flood the Sanzu River, which grows through human misery. In response, the current generation of samurai, the Shiba Clan, assemble to fight the Gedoshu as the Shinkengers.

This was actually one of the first Sentai seasons I ever watched, as my first Power Rangers season was Samurai. And yeah, while Samurai is a really bad adaptation, I’m here to judge Shinkenger on its own. Admittedly, there are a lot of qualities that can be chalked up to cultural differences, like the whole honor code samurai have and certain plotlines you’d see in a jidaigeki film. The Shinkengers themselves are all very likable characters, and you can really relate to their struggles of being forced into this war (again, handled a lot better than what’s going on with Marinette). All of them have different responses to their situation. Some of them dedicate themselves to wholeheartedly following their lord (Takeru/Shinken Red) or being more vocal in their hatred of their duties.

The villains are also really interesting. Sure, the big bad is pretty boring, but the side villains are just so twisted they really steal the show. Takeru/ShinkenRed gets a rival who serves as a perfect foil to him, representing the idea of why one fights. Even the concept of the Gedoushu is pretty terrifying. Demons from another world hellbent on causing misery to flood our world with their water, which I must point out, is deadly to humans. They’re not my favorite villain group, but they’re a close second.

There’s also some clever plot twists that happen late into the series that I don’t want to give away. Sure, you might have a hard time getting used to the Japanese culture at first, but Shinkenger is still a great series.

Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (2011-2012, 51 Episodes)

The Zangyack Empire invades Earth and because of their army reaching across the universe, they become the greatest threat the planet has ever had. In response, the previous thirty-four Sentai teams unite to fight them. They succeed, but the attack they used to wipe out the battle fleet stripped them of their powers. A few years later, a group of space pirates come to Earth in search of “The Greatest Treasure in the Universe”. While the pirates couldn’t care less about stopping the Zangyack, they still have to deal with them while searching for the treasure, which is somehow connected to the previous thirty-four Sentai teams. Also, the pirates form their own Sentai team, the thirty-fifth Sentai team in particular, the Gokaigers, who have the ability to TRANSFORM INTO ANY OF THE PREVIOUS SENTAI TEAMS.

For Super Sentai’s 35th anniversary, Toei wanted to go big this time. While the previous two anniversary seasons only had movies that paid tribute to Sentai as a whole, this was the first season where the anniversary aspect was in the premise alone.

The interesting thing is that the series was changed last-minute, and it was totally for the better. See, in March of 2011, Japan’s Tohoku Region was devastated by an earthquake registering at a 9.1 on the Richter scale. To this day, it was the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan’s history, and that’s not even getting into the tsunami it caused the same day. What does this have to do with Gokaiger? In response to the tragedy, several tokusatsu stars including Super Sentai alumni took to social media to encourage kids to stay positive, and even asked some of Gokaiger’s showrunners if they could reprise their roles in an episode. Originally, there were going to be some cameos from past Sentai heroes, but it would only be limited to the ones whose powers would upgrade the Gokaigers’ giant robot. After this, there were a lot more cameos from Sentai alumni in the latter half of the series. Out of Gokaiger’s 51 episodes, 24 of them were tributes to past seasons. And that’s not even getting into all of the cameos in the movies too.

This was another one of the first Sentai seasons I ever saw, and it really helped me get into the franchise as a whole. It manages to explain things to people who haven’t seen certain seasons, while paying tributes to said seasons and making clever homages older fans will understand. Admittedly, the show does spoil the endings of the older seasons like Liveman and Jetman, so keep that in mind before starting this one.

Even outside of the tributes, the Gokaigers are some of the most memorable characters Super Sentai’s had in recent years. While they aren’t exactly evil, they start off not really interested in protecting Earth and care more about getting the Greatest Treasure in the Universe. The only reason they fight the Zangyack in the first episode was because their lunch was interrupted. A team of anti-heroes in Super Sentai hasn’t really been done before. Even then, there’s an interesting dynamic where some of the Gokaigers have more of a moral conscience than the others. And as the series goes on, they start to care more about protecting the Earth, even if they don’t admit it.

It’s just a really good show, and even if it isn’t your first, I’d check it out.

Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger (2013-2014, 48 Episodes)

When the alien entity known as Deboss invades Earth during the prehistoric era, another bird-like alien named Torin empowers several dinosaurs into the mighty Zyudenryu to fight off the invading force. After a brutal final battle, Deboss was sealed away, but his army of followers was still growing. In response, Torin started to recruit several humans throughout time into the modern day to become the Kyoryugers.

While Gokaiger was the first Sentai I ever watched, Kyoryuger was the first Sentai I watched every week as it aired, so it has a special place in my heart despite its middling reputation. Yeah, Kyoryuger has been criticized for starting the trend of Red Senshi stealing all the screentime, and while that can easily be applied to later entries like Shuriken Sentai Ninninger and Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger (the latter basically made Red and Gold the only ones to pilot the giant robots while the others watched), I don’t think it's as bad as everyone says it is.

There is just an amazing cast of characters here. It’s the first Sentai to be composed of ten rangers (while Dekaranger also had ten, three of them were just one-offs), and it does a really good job at balancing them all out. Yes, Daigo/Kyoryu Red does get a handful of power-ups and can be the focus at times, but the other characters all have their own distinct personalities and are just a blast to watch. I’d honestly recommend watching a few episodes of this show to get an idea on how to do an ensemble cast. If I end up doing the whole “tokusatsu has better toy tie-ins than Miraculous” thing, expect me to talk about how Kyoryuger introduces its new characters and giant robots.

And then there’s the soundtrack. Oh my God, the soundtrack. Sentai tends to have banger songs for their seasons, and Kyoryuger is no exception. “Vamola! Kyoryuger”, “Solid Bullet”, “Kyoryu Gold! Iza!”, “Yuuki Bakuretsu”, “Chou Shinka! Kyoryu Beat”, “Houkou! Bragigas”, and “Senkou no Brave”. So many of these songs are incredibly catchy, and I haven’t listed all of them. The show has a bit of a music motif, so it makes sense for there to be a lot of insert songs.

The one major flaw I have to point out is that you kind of have to watch the theatrical movie (which is only slightly longer than an average episode), in order to understand some of the plotpoints for the season’s endgame, but other than that, it’s still a really good season to start off on.

Mashin Sentai Kiramager (2020-2021, 45 Episodes)

The Dark Empire Yodonheim attacks the planet Crystalia, with the king’s brother betraying him and siding with the enemy. The kingdom’s princess is sent to Earth to recruit five warriors to fight the Empire. The chosen five all possess “Kiramental”, a way of weaponizing their imagination, which they use to defend the Earth’s radiance.

Precure fans might remember this being the season where Cure Star met the Red to promote the latter’s season (actually referring to Cure Star as his sempai), and I can kind of see why. A lot of fans have jokingly compared this season to Precure because of the gemstone motif and focus on creativity, with Juru/Kiramai Red acting like a Pink Cure according to some of the comments I’ve seen in Sentai discussion forums.

This is the most recent season to finish as of this post, and it’s already gotten a lot of praise in terms of writing, characters, story, and managing all of these during the COVID-19 Pandemic and having to adapt to losing five episodes in the process. The characters are very likable, the Red is one of the better ones in recent years with him being more timid compared to the more hotheaded ones, and the villains are also amazing, and some of the best in recent years. Episodes can range from funny to tragic to just plain awesome in terms of writing, with seemingly innocent filler episodes being the source of major bombshells and plot twists.

Honestly, there’s not much I can really say about this show other than check it out for yourself.

But these are just my recommendations. If you do some research and see a season you like, I’d go for it. If anyone else wants me to do these for Kamen Rider and Ultraman, I’d be happy to.

Sorry this took so long.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #not miraculous ladybug #super sentai

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ouyangzizhensdad · 3 years

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The Mo Village arc and establishing the MC

MDZS is a sprawling book with many characters, but it seems that it was clearly important to MXTX to establish her MC’s characterisation very strongly from the start. Although the novel in its entirety leans toward providing a strong characterisation for WWX, I thought it’d be fun to look back at how it is conveyed to the readers in the first few chapters before the inciting incident at Dafan Mountain

(N.B. I’m using a composite translation made of different translations so the wording/format might be slightly different than the version you are using)

Framing

The prologue starts with a conversation between unnamed characters in an inn, discussing the news of WWX’s death. While it was a clever way to already introduce an important theme of the novel (the effects of public opinion and how easy it is to make someone into a irredeemable villain) and get the exposition out of the way, it also frames WWX as a character: as readers, we are introduced first to perceptions of him, a characterisation-from-hearsay we’ll be able to compare to his characterisation in the novel. WWX is a “scourge” whose death is celebrated, who “defected” and bit the hand that fed him, a “deranged” killer who took thousands of lives. But before he went on the crooked path, he was a promising youth--although others seem to think he was corrupted from the start.

“But it can’t all be blamed on the path he cultivated. Ultimately, it was still because this Wei Wuxian’s moral character was too flawed, angering the Heavens and man alike! By the heavenly law, everyone answers for their deeds in the end, good and evil……”

The rumours also suggest that if WWX comes back to the world of the living he will enact his revenge upon them all, and his unimaginable powers would allow him to rain fury upon both Heaven and Earth. We get told: this guys is an incredibly powerful villain, reviled and feared by many.

But the Yiling Laozu had enough power to overturn the Heavens and smother the Earth, move mountains and drain seas—at least, that was the way the rumors went. If he wanted to resist the summoning of his soul, it wouldn’t exactly be outside of his abilities. If in coming days his spirit were restored, if he forcibly possessed a body and were thus reborn, then not only the cultivation world, but all of humanity would inevitably meet with an even greater frenzy of vengeance and curses, sinking into a chaotic age of foul winds and bloody rains.

Establishing WWX and how he reacts when he’s thrown into an unpleasant situation

When WWX is brought back by MXY, we already have something to contrast him against thanks to the hearsay and rumours, and from the get-go we get a sense that WWX is not this fearsome figure that people made him out to be.

I’ll never get over the fact that our first introduction to WWX’s is the equivalent of the “the audacity of this bitch”.

Hazily, he thought: that’s quite a lot of courage you must have to kick this Laozu.

Our MC and POV character is thrown into a situation, and from his reactions we can rapidly tell that he is someone who is observant, resourceful, good at deductive reasoning and thereby apt at solving mysteries. This is something that is reinforced at many, many points in the first few chapters and helps us buy in into what happens later in the novel when they uncover many other mysteries. WWX is a guy who figures shit out.

When WWX figures out he was summoned as a “an unforgivably evil malicious spirit“, we get his take on his public perception.

Wei Wuxian reeled at the implications. How had he been classified as “an irredeemly evil, malicious spirit”?

Yes, his reputation was rather poor and his final moments, horrifying tragic—but he had neither haunted nor had he seeked revenge on the living since becoming a spirit. He would dare to swear upon the Heavens and the Earth that you would never find a more peaceful and well-behaved lonely soul of a wild ghost!

At the same time, readers get a sense that even when he’s dealt a bad hand, WWX does not wait in despair for his luck to turn. Even though WWX describes his situation as “hopeless” and keeps “repeating over and over How could this be! in his heart “, he immediately goes into problem-solving mode, trying to figure out the situation and the wishes MXY forgot to share. This also happens later.

There was not a single thing to help him find some joy in being reborn! He might as well sit and meditate for a time, and adjust to the new body.

That same passage gives us a sense that WWX is not rushing into situations without taking the time to take it in, make up his mind and prepare as much as he can: the fact that we see him do meditation twice during that day (before he goes to the East Hall and after he checks on the Lan juniors) also contributes to that idea.

The chapters convey as well that WWX is sympathetic to MXY’s situation and does not resent him even though he forced WWX to enact revenge in his stead. As readers, we thus receive the following message: WWX is not prone to being resentful, to hold grudges.

He had originally wanted to wash his face and pay a few respects to the owner of this body, but there was no water in the shack—neither for drinking nor for washing.

WWX is also, for a lack of a better word, sassy. It’s clear that he has a flair for the dramatics and lots of attitude. Look at that dramatic entrance.... he just.... yeets the bowl he was holding....

He pondered for a moment. Then, rising to his feet, he kicked the door open.

The two servants, in the midst of making eyes at each other, screamed in horror as the double doors of the shack suddenly burst open. Wei Wuxian threw aside his bowl and chopsticks and walked outside without anyone’s leave [...]

We are also introduced to the fact that WWX does not seem to take himself seriously and loves to shock people.

When it came to wild displays of misbehavior, Wei Wuxian was a master. In the past when he ran wild, he still had to mind appearances lest others accuse him of having not been raised right. But now that he was a lunatic anyways, what face did he need! He could go straight to making a scene, acting however it pleased him.

While WWX is clearly not the one-dimensional evil monster depicted in rumours, we do see that he can be cunning: he lies easily if he feels it motivated, he is very good at talking people into a corner, apt at making them do incriminating things by leading them on, which he does by humiliating the Mo family for their mistreatment of MXY in front of a crowd. But in a way, that is also a quality of his: he is not just silver-tongued; he’s good at assessing a situation and people’s characters, able to figure out what will set them off.

We further get proof that he is not a blood-thirsty monster who disregards others when he tries to figure out if he can satisfy MXY’s spirit without having to wipe out the Mo family (although it is clearly the obvious solution) and when he is shown to care for the well-being of others. This is illustrated by the way he double-checks (through ruse) that the zhaoyin flags are properly set up and will be used safely by the Lan juniors.

During the conversation, Wei Wuxian had already finished making a rapid examination of the Yin Summoning Flag in his hand. It had been painted in the correct manner, and there were no missing sigils either. There was not a single error or omission, so they should worked as intended. That being said, the person who had painted the flag lacked experience, and the painted sigils could only attract the evil spirits and walking corpses within at most five li. That should however prove to be enough. (chapter 2)

[...]

Wei Wuxian’s first thought was that something had gone wrong with the flag arraw the youth had set up. His inventions needed to be used with extreme caution, or else risk disaster. This was also why he had gone to check earlier if there were anything wrong with the array. (Chapter 3)

As our POV character, WWX comes across as endearing through little details: it’s in the way he calls LSZ a “good little seedling (好苗子)” and calls the Lan juniors a group of “小朋友“ in his inner monologue, or when he defends the Lan juniors from Mo-furen’s accusations. Or the way he likes Xiao Pingguo because it looks at him with contempt:

A donkey was tied to the handle, chewing on it. When it saw Wei Wuxian run over rashly, it seemed like it was surprised, and eyed him sideways as if it were a real person. Wei Wuxian made eye contact with him for one second and was immediately touched by the minuscule amount of contempt in its eyes.

Establishing how WWX acts in high-pressure situations

Things escalate quite quickly into accusations of murder and death and resentful corpses. This first sequence is thus our introduction to how WWX acts under pressure and in high-risk situations (which will continue to happen to our MC until the end of the novel).

WWX is shown to be cool under pressure and quick to think on his feet, constantly re-assessing the situation and the risks. He is also seen as expecting people to arrive to conclusions without him needing to explain them out loud, like when he takes out the zhaoyin flag that MZY stole from his corpse, letting the Lan juniors understand on their own what happened. When he needs to explain, he will not do it in a straight-forward manner, giving small hints first (this preludes many of WWX and LWJ interaction when they understand each other’s thought process with only one sentence being said, and preludes how WWX will continue to act with the Juniors later on, making them think through the situations instead of feeding them the answers).

We also get the proof that WWX does not privilege self-preservation over the fate of others.

If he wanted to avoid having the situation get out of hand, Wei Wuxian should retreat. If they people who came did not know him, then all would be well—but if they happened to be someone who had dealt with him or fought against him in the past, it would be hard to guess what would happen next.

But the curse meant he could not leave Mo Village yet. As well, the spirit that had been summoned had taken two lives in quick succession, meaning it was extremely vicious. If Wei Wuxian left now, once the reinforcement arrived, the streets of Mo Village might already be packed with corpses missing their left arm, of which some would be blood relations of the GusuLanShi.

After a short deliberation, Wei Wuxian thought, fight a quick battle to force a swift resolution (速战速决). (Chapter 3)

[...]

Wei Wuxian was watching the battle attentively. His tongue was slightly curled, suppressing a sharp whistle inside of his lips, preparing it to be let out. The whistle would be able to evoke even more hostility in the cruel corpses, which might turn the tables. Then, however, it would be difficult to ensure that nobody knew that it was his doing.

In the blink of an eye, the hand moved like lightning, ruthlessly and precisely breaking Madame Mo’s neck. Watching as the Mo family grew closer to defeat, Wei Wuxian prepared to blow the whistle that he suppressed under his tongue. At the same time, the echoes of two strums on a stringed instrument came from far away. (chapter 4)

As well, we are told something about WWX when he only leaves once LWJ arrives: certainly because he’s afraid that LWJ might recognize him but mostly because (as it will become clear later on) he trusts that LWJ will be able to handle the situation in his stead. In order words, although WWX is willing to risk himself to help others, he is not careless with his life and safety (for instance he makes sure to destroy the proof of the Offering ritual before fleeing to make sure no one can figure out the fact that he is back from the dead).

WWX will not hesitate to fool people or pretend in order to help his goals. In this case, he is trying to help and fight without appearing like a powerful cultivator who can do modao, balancing self-preservation with the incentive to protect the people present. This is why he pushes LJY in front of LSZ at one point in the battle, instead of blocking it himself, while pretending to just be a lunatic doing lunatic things.

Inside of the Lan clan’s uniform jacket, there were compact stitchings of incantations using thin threads of the same color, included for protection. However, against strong ones like this, it could only be used once before it became invalid. During the emergency, he could only kick Lan Jingyi and use his body to protect Lan Sizhui’s neck.

This sequence also allows the reader to know more about modao and WWX’s skills, and how he can control corpses, as well as how WWX perceives his own abilities.

TLDR:

The Mo Village arc, in conjunction with the prologue, competently sets up a lot of the moving pieces for the novel. It also leans heavily toward establishing a strong sense of characterisation for our MC and POV character, which is neat!

NB: I think it’s also very telling that the next chapter after the Mo Mansion arc begins with us learning that WWX has been, in the past few days since his retreat, lorded over by a capricious donkey. WWX is clearly not someone who takes himself very seriously (often mocking himself):

The donkey ran over there and nothing could make it leave. Wei Wuxian hopped down and slapped its honoured buttocks. “You’re definitely destined for wealth, even harder to please than I am.” The donkey spat at him.

#mdzs meta #i kind of hate to call this meta because it's not uh very deep lmao #wwx #wei wuxian

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