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charismaofobedience · 1 year

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Hello d4djs of the tumblr nation. I am cheren and today i bring you my own personal assignments of emojis for each main 6 d4dj units (with reasoning under the cut)!

Happy around - 🎉

Rinku - 🍩

Maho - 🏀

Muni - 🎀

Rei - 🎹

Peaky P-key - 👑

Kyoko - 🍔

Shinobu - 🎧

Esora - 💚

Yuka - 📸

Photon Maiden - 🌐

Saki - ☄️

Ibuki - ⛩️

Noa - 🧸

Towa - 🪩

Merm4id - 🌊

Rika - 🍹

Marika - 🧋

Saori - 📣

Dalia - 🌺

Rondo - 🔥

Tsubaki - 🦋

Nagisa - 🎸

Hiiro - 🪡

Aoi - 🪷

Lyrical Lily - 🕊️

Miyu - 🌸

Haruna - 🍵

Kurumi - 🍰

Miiko - 👻

Oh so you're one of the people who want to see me being autistic and rambling about the characters huh. Ok. Here we go! With a bonus of additional emojis/other options for certain characters!

Happy around

🎉 as a general unit emoji! just confetti which reminds me quite a lot of their logo! Could also be the 🎊 but i think the first one is cuter.

🍩 Donuts' are rinkus favorite food! my second option for her would be 🐚 considering how she always gives others them to symbolize friendship, but i think donuts' fit her character aesthetic more!

🏀 honestly mahos took me some time to think about smth, but yeah! while maho is canonically a great cooker, she's also canonically a basketball player and very good at it, with her untrained initial 3* showing her playing and the recent origin sp too!

🎀 Muni... I think the fandom is pretty settled on emojis for muni actually, which are the bow and the 🐰, but tbh... i just think the bow fits her better? Not only do her outfits constantly have many ribbons (back of the uniform, on her pigtails, collar...) But also, while bunnies are indeed the focus of her tiara, we see her using other animals such as cats (untrained initial 3*) or bears (untrained d4fes1 3*)! Because of nyochio, i also think 🐈 could work, but nothing that beats the ribbon

🎹 for rei! It is her instrument after all, and D4 doesn't has many instrument players, sooo... My other option for rei would be cup noodles since she is lowkey obsessed with them and theyre implied to be her favorite food, but we don't have a emoji for that, so the closest thing would be the 🍜 emoji!

Peaky P-key

👑 as the unit emoji! even on their logo the crown is prominent, so it's also a pretty easy one to guess!

🍔 for kyoko!!! it is her favorite food and it appears on two of her cards, not counting other appearances such as in the petit mix episodes! my other takes would be ⚾ as it is her favorite sport or the 🧢 since. Yeah

🎧 for shinobu! While yeah it's a dj franchise and this one seems too on the face... shinobu is one of the characters with the strongest connections to dj-ing besides aoi and has been doing this since her childhood, not to mention how she usually has headphones on her neck! My other assignments would be a bubblegum emoji but we don't have that, or a 🎮 , but we majorly see shinobu playing either on her computer or in arcades, so i decided to just go with the headphones!

💚 for esora, which may be indeed a cheesy one but cmon! heart for the lovely character of the franchise and green since it is her color! other ones would be 🐸 to represent esoran in the anime and 🐖 to represent her pet pig, tiara!

📸 while i know many people associate yuka to training directly, for me my first connection is always to pictures. She has over 5 cards where she's holding cameras and it is her hobby! While yes, she is on the training trio of d4dj, i think the camera says more about her character than any other emoji

Photon Maiden

🌐 for unit emoji! It fits their aesthetic very VERY well and also symbolizes the world, so!

☄️ for saki! sakis hobby is stargazing and she loves the galaxy, so it just seemed fitting to give her something related to that, and i settled on the comet! 🐈 Is also viable considering she adores cats and has one named schrodinger, but i just feel the comet suits her better

⛩️ for ibuki... im not even going to lie that initially hers gave me a bit of a headache to decide, but! Ibukis family owns a temple and she has 2 cards where she's dressed as a shrine maiden, so it seemed to work for me! As part of the training trio though, something sports/fit related could fit her v well

🧸 for noa!!! While i know initially many may directly think of a 🎀 for her, she has many cards where plushies appear and are related to her, so i settled on the teddy bear emoji, as it is also cute and something she constantly appears with!

🪩 towa! I wanted to give her an idol lightstick initially to symbolize her love for idols, but alas we don't have that, so i thought a disco ball could still work p well and fit the aesthetic!! My other choices would be a crepe emoji, but we don't have that, or the 🎤 to also symbolize her love for idols!

Merm4id

🌊 unit emoji! a wave! also shown on their unit logo

🍹 for rika! i wasn't quite sure on one for her, but i think the cocktail suits her pretty well? she has been shown drinking in various cards and is the party girl, so! this one also specifically suits her REALLY well with the tropical vibes and colors so!!!

🧋marika! While still not appearing in any card, it is stated to be her favorite drink and also said that she went across various shops in japan to taste them, so it seems fitting! A nail polish emoji would also suit her very well considering how she cares about her beauty a lot and is shown doing others nails in a card, but we don't have that with the closest being the 💅 emoji

📣 MERMAAAID. saoris megaphone is iconic not only on the merm4id live concerts but is also shown in the game through the saori birthday1 card! The other one i can think of for her is the 📼 since, as shown in the m4 christmas story, saori loves old media and specially tapes

🌺 another one that gave me some trouble. I think hibiscus' suit dalia VERY well and this might be one of the reasons why i have it to her, so oh well. My other emojis that probably make a bit more sense would be 🥃 since she is a bartender and this one seems to suit her p well and 🥋 since her focus on fighting is specifically karate. there isn't something close to a aromatherapy emoji so ehhh

Rondo

🔥 as per their unit logo. it's not blue, but it's still a flame

🦋 for tsubaki! We don't have a camellia emoji and while i COULD give her the 🌹 emoji arguably, i think butterflies suit her a lot more and also appear in a fair share of her cards!

🎸 instrument. even though this one may be a bit obvious for nagisa and i think it'd be the one most people would use, i personally prefer using the ⚡ for nagisa as it shows her energetic and electric personality and also suits her hair lmao

🪡 Hiiro! Hiiro sews her own cosplays and even to others, so both the needle and the 🧵 seem fitting for her! The 🔮 also might be a good one because of her mystical side such as tarot reading etc!

🪷 aoi... i know this one might seem as bit of a stretch at first and i could have given her headphones, but lotus' are aois signature flower (birthday 1) and also black lotus is a rondo song, so there is a fair share of reasoning for lotus aoi. A jam emoji could also fit but it doesn't exist

Lyrical Lily

🕊️ we don't have a white feather emoji, so the dove it is! I still think it suits pretty well considering their catholic background etc and it being a white dove which also brings in the feathers

🌸 for miyu since miyu sakurada. Next

🍵 haruna! she is canonically a member of a tea club and enjoys offering others tea, so it seemed fitting. also matches her classic and proper personality

🍰 kurumi was a hard one too. I could give her a 🐛 or another bug emoji to show her like for pranks using fake bugs but there are too many options... There also isn't a japanese hard candy emoji so ehhh. however the cake above was pretty much identical to the slice of cake emoji and i think their vibes match kurumi

👻 miiko!!! The resident paranormal and horror lover deserves something to show that <3 also the ghost emoji is silly and im very sure miiko would love using it. other options that could fit is the 🎢 since miiko enjoys rollercoasters and they appear in one of her cards and 🐎 since miiko owns a horse and enjoys riding them

BONUS TIME!!! ill admit these are more rushed and with less thought put behind them since we still don't know much about the characters

🪐 unichord! It suits the ring in their unit logo pretty well

💻 michiru, as she's shown to enjoy technology and learning things through there, specifically computers!

✨ lumina, i could give her a general star since hoshinova but i think the sparkles are cuter and suit her in a way! A cotton candy emoji could also work since it's her favorite food

💝 is a p basic one for kokoa but ehh i couldn't think of much else. heart because she's cute and maybe the ribbon one because she enjoys housework and it could symbolize sewing or smth? Oh well

🖋️ hayate! She's a writer so it just fits

Thank you and until next time d4dj fandom 🫡

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thewigleyone · 1 year

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Nuzlockes thus far

Hello internet! Or the void. Whichever. I have been working through nuzlocking all of the main series games. It has become a sincere passion that I think about almost constantly, and has 100% reinvigorated my love for the franchise. To date, I have completed ten nuzlockes and one soulink with my partner. In this post I'm going to try and summarize my experiences and my evolution as a nuzlocker! If not for your entertainment, then for my own entertainment!

Pokemon Sword - 3/20/2021: I started this nuzlocke on a whim while visiting my partner in Vegas. She's a night nurse, and thus was asleep the first day I visited. Having nothing else to do (and having finished Griffin McElroy's nuzlocke series) I decided to give this whole nuzlocking thing a try. Obviously, this one was super super sloppy. You can tell by the Glalie inclusion and movesets. I played this one as a newbie. Didn't plan for any fights. Didn't look at prioritizing anything. Just floated through and enjoyed the emotional highs and lows of winning a fight you have no business winning, and losing a pokemon due to a lack of concentration. By the time I got to the championship, I was at least playing with my opponents teams pulled up for reference, but I was not planning my team around the information I was looking at. For this reason, I barely beat this nuzlocke, with ONLY Gustav the Gastrodon left at the end. Gastrodon and Bronzong were stand out team members for this one. The emotional high of needing an ancient power to kill on the LAST possible turn before Gustav would have been killed made Gastrodon immediately one of my favorite pokemon. Bronzong "surprised me," but I think it was just a young nuzlocker realizing how strong steel type pokemon are. Hippowdon also did work. I left this nuzlocke loving tanky pokemon.

Pokemon Y - 10/26/2021 It took me awhile to have the time and drive to do another nuzlocke. In fact, I didn't try it again until I watched all of JaidenAnimation's nuzlockes.

This one, again, was very sloppy. I still wasn't playing with much planning. I still didn't plan for any of the boss fights, but this was the first nuzlocke where I made a conscious effort to not over-level. I lost about half my team to the rival battle marathon on the bridge. I had an INCREDIBLE team prior to that, but forgot it was there, was under leveled, and learned an important lesson.

Furfrou and Amoonguss were the stand out pokemon in this run. I thought my Furfrou build was #hysterical, and Amoonguss showed me how great toxic stalls can be. Durant really surprised me having never even thought of using it before (but that could still be me learning how incredible steel types are). Oh, and obviously... I used Ylveltal. I wanted to see how it would warp things and I was pissed after losing my team so... I made a rash call lol But it became very clear why legendaries are banned. I may redo this one day.

Pokemon Omega Ruby - 1/10/22

This was the first game that I wiped on! Maxie really surprised me. I didn't think a team of a bat and a wolf would throw me but... I was under leveled. This is when I started really preparing for fights. Specifically the elite 4.

Unsurprisingly, Blaziken and Aggron were real standouts, but that's not a surprise since they're a starter and... a steel type pokemon. I did have a Gyarados on this time until a random fight on victory road, but Golduck came in and actually was a great addition. I was unimpressed by Altaria, though that could be because I hadn't embraced set-up sets yet.

I want to say that this was the easiest one yet, but that's just due to me actually prepping and planning.

Pokemon Shining Pearl - 3/12/22

Oh Shining Pearl... This game was such a dichotomy for me because its so so so so easy... UNTIL CYNTHIA. I wiped to Cynthia THREE TIMES before this squad finally beat her.

While that was frustrating, it did lead me to create the team building sheet that I use for boss fights. And it also led me to developing a system for planning for the Elite 4/Champion.

I know I just said it but it blows my mind how the ONLY difficult part of this game is the champion. You can fly through 20+ hours no problem and then lose at the champ, but that's a nuzlocke for you right?

This was the first time that I used the staple pokemon of Gyarados and Magneton. Straight up, amazing. Both of them. But that's not news to anyone. I did not realize how many resistances they had and I didn't realize how impactful intimidate pivoting can be.

Soullocke! Sword/Shield - 3/26/2022

So I forced my partner to do a soullocke. She hated it lol but to her credit she finished it and now Flygon and Clawitzer are two of her favorite pokemon.

There's not really much tactical to discuss here. We each got a "veto" for a death and she used hers on our starters, and I used mine on an Axew that ended up dying again. We played everything together and she got super annoyed waiting for my toxic stalls with Mandibuzz. This was a much better Gastrodon build and he remains my fav. I also thoroughly enjoyed Vikavolt and the Oddish line will show up often in my playthroughs moving forward.

Soullinks are super fun, but I do not see me running them with anyone but my partner.

Pokemon X - 4/3/22

Okay, I may be biased but I feel like you can start seeing my growth as a nuzlocker here. I used baton pass. I used chesto/resto. I used eviolite. I used perish song because the AI won't switch out. Things that seem second nature to me now, but seemed revolutionary to me at the time.

I did decide that I will not use any pokemon that was in the elite 4 team in a partner game. A.k.a., any pokemon that went to see Diantha in Y, will not be used in X. That way I actually get to play with and experiment with more pokemon.

Gurdurr and Drifblim were the standouts for this run. They both came on the team after some unfortunate losses, but a baton pass into an eviolite Gurdurr was a huge wincon from gym 8 on. I loved it.

Pokemon Sun - 4/19/2022

Holy crap. Sun and Moon are so hard to nuzlocke. I wiped several times in this challenge. To the teacher, to Ilima, to the Lurantis, to Guzma, to Lusamine in the upside down... And those are just the ones I can remember 8 months later. Spoiler alert, I'm having a really difficult time with Moon lol I don't use the pinwheel rule, so I pretty regularly wipe to either the teacher or Ilima. Which is only so annoying because the tutorials for Sun/Moon are way too long. It' just trying desperately to get a Litten and a Pikipek past a Magnemite and Smeargle.

But that's not what this post is about. I liked this team a lot. Shiinotic and Mudsdale were the standouts, because I already knew Magnezone was a house. I only had Dhelmise for a short time and made a stupid misplay that lost them to Hala. From there we limped along and BARELY beat the elite 4 and professor abdominals. Only Mudsdale and Magnezone survived.

Unrelated, the story in Sun and Moon is awesome. I had never beaten the games before this nuzlocke, and wow was younger Wigley missing out.

Pokemon Alpha Sapphire - 6/22/22

Another reminder, no Pokemon that beat Omega is allowed on the team for Alpha.

Maxie gave me trouble, but the new and improved Wigley was able to tear through this game. Eviolite? Prankster? Toxic stalls? Intimidate Pivoting? All great. I really don't have much to add here. I tried to make Lunatone a replica of a Stored Power Claydol I used in the Soullocke, but they weren't quite the same.

All that being said, Sableye and Flygon were amazing for different reasons. No one -actually- uses fairy type in this game and I get the hype for Flygon.

This is also around the time that I started watching FlygonHG and PokemonChallenges, but I'm not using their big-brain stuff yet.

Pokemon Brilliant Diamond - 8/19/22

Speaking of PokemonChallenges... I watched his video about Blissey but didn't believe him. Turns out, I really should have believed him. Good lord. Remember how I said that I lost to Cynthia four times? Blissey beat her alone. Independently. No help. I used Charge Beam ten times, got 3 power ups and she just swept the whole thing. It was amazing.

The other stand outs were Staraptor and Machamp. I started keeping track of all the pokemon that came with me through each gym, and they made it through the whole game. U-Turn + Intimidate is an amazing combo.

Also, best naming convention.

Pokemon LeafGreen - 9/25/22

Oldest game I'd ever played, and the last challenged I've completed (I've been bouncing around between SoulSilver, Black, and Moon and losing ever since lol).

I didn't realize how spoiled I'd become with newer games. The exp share is amazing. Access to lots of place to grind are amazing. Sitting and just grinding on the bird catchers outside of Fuschia City was exhausting and so time consuming. But we did it and here we go.

There weren't really standout mons here except for Primeape. I didn't think I would like using it but it was really good. It's also interesting to me that the this is the second time that both Snorlax and Lapras were on the same team. I am not looking forward to nuzlocking fire red without them lol

But that's everything I've done thus far! I'm going to do a second post with all of the aggregate data I have of my Elite 4 teams soon!

KTHNX

#pokemon #nuzlocke

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joculatrixster · 1 year

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13, 14 and 18 for the ask game. >:)

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

LOZ - Ganondorf is not an interesting or cool character, hes actually quite bland. no like litterly i find him so boring as a character i barely even think about him.

Ganon is barely better but thats only bc hes a mindless beast fueled of rage and hatred which is interesting as a cautionary tale for those who seek to abuse their power and a great insight on what could happen to Link or Zelda if they ever lose themselves to their aspects of Courage/Wisdom becomign mroe spirit or god than mrotal lsogn their minds in the process and only being able to focus on one key duty of which for Ganon is to rule Hyrule(or destroy in more modern games like botw) but i have a few theories on what could happen to Link/Zelda if THEY ever abused the Triforce like Ganon did and gave up their humanity to their power

...that being said tho Ganondorf on his own just is not that interesting to me as a character. as a foil? great! as a dark reflection of what Link or Zelda could become? amazing! as what one could become when pushed to the edge and a living embodiment of the failures of Hyrule? perfection! on his own as a character i would make interact w/ others just bc i think he has something new or nuanced to say? ...no.

granted! i have not seen him in Twilight Princess and i heard he is quite good in that game so hey maybe he shapes up but as i am now i do not think hes all that interesting

Pokemon - IDK how unpopular this is but like Ash has been long overdue for a replacement, tbh i feel like we should have had a new protag every new region bc Ash was originally just Red? how cool would it have been to be ppl like Gold or Sun as protags and following the game's story a bit more closely?? i feel like Ash is just so bland at this point i want something new and fresh!

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

LOZ - Hylia and Demise were bad additions to the LOZ franchise and the mythos should have stayed focusing on the golden goddesses/Triforce for motifs, the fire/earth/power water/ice/wisdom and wind/lighting/courage as core motifs w/ focusing on trios and the number 3 could have been a VERY interesting setting for a power system and cultural beliefs but...

making it an explicitly light vs dark story in Skyward Sword kinda makes Link's role as an equal holder of the Triforce..irrelivant as hes just Zelda's Knight/Hylia's blade now, which is boring af. light vs dark godly battles have been done a zillon times! Zelda being descended form a goddess makes sense dont get me wrong, her family being in charge of the Triforce and the female line having the power of the light force could be foreshadowing or hinting to that. hell even bringing in the idea of divine right to rule would make it make sense but like...Ganondorf being the incarnation of a god's hatred, r u kidding me?

we didnt need a basically Satan to be Ganondorf's predecessor! it makes the fact Ganondorf was also favored by the triforce therefor making the golden goddess's morally grey for protectign such a cruel man not interesting anymore! he had power bc he was FAVORED by power same way Zelda had wisdom bc she was FAVORED by wisdom and Link has courage bc he was FAVORED by courage, their roles in the story r set bc power is a corrupting force, wisdom can clear one's min,d and courage gives u the willpower u need to succeed!!! oh but no, Zelda is just a godqueen and Ganondorf's agency is just gone bc hes cursed and Link isn't more than a pawn to be used in the gods' wars :\ bleh so boring...

Pokemon - the anime's characters r a lot less interesting than their game counterparts...is that unpopular? idk. i grew up on the anime but i loath how some characters are changed or cut out of plots to fit the narrative bc to me personally it erases what made them interesting in order to fit them into new stories and roles which at that point use another character or just like...make anime exclusive ones?? idk its more of an annoyance but i don't have many negative pokemon thoughts lol!

18. Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?

u know, i think tis rlly rlly sad how pathetic some fandom ppl r...like i can NOT image being so invested in other ppl's ships to try and gaslight them into feeling like bad ppl for not liking a popular ship likeeee can u imagine???

"ohhhh look at me im so unsure about myself and scared of having my own opinion i blindly follow fanon and the "right ships" WAA WAA u dont like my ship??? WAAAAAA!!!! SO MEAN SO DELUSIONAL ITS OBVIOUSLY CANON!!!!!!! HOW CAN U NOT SEE IT?!?!?!"

i fucking adore rarepairs and crackships! most of the ships i have i made up on the spot and id be LUCKY if it has more than 10 fics on ao3...ffs im lucky if it even has ONE fic let alone ONE FIC THAT ISNT JUST A ONESHOT PROMPT BOOK.

yall so spoiled on ur "canon" ship that u lost the fun of just dming ur friends at 2am saying "hey what is X and Y kissed?" and having them reply back w/ enthusiastic agreement then be starved for content for the rest of ur life...I did not invent Plain Yogurt x Sourbelt or get invested in the dynamics of Malon x Zelda/Link x Beedle for ppl to tell me im "biased" yes bitch im biased so now what?

lol i cant stand some fandoim ppl this is why i only interact w/ mutual and friends others i can NOT trust to be normal cookie run fandom burned me too much for me not to be suspicious of others who even vaguely hint at thinking that my ships r bad bc they r not popular

#ask game #mod trix #loz #pokemon #link #zelda #ganondorf #ty for the ask this was fun!!! i am very opiononated lol

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larebiscornue · 2 months

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AYO??? Heavy season 4 spoilers discussion under the cut

Sooo that blogpost about eva's past mentioning her living as a kid with her mother, father and Cleophée, and then getting sent to train as a sadida bodyguard, with no indications of her and cleo not necessarily having a tough family life.. (and unrelated I think the dad? rode a dragodinde. Sorry I had no clue where to write this vital fact)

Are now effectively obsolete.

I wonder if the rest of blog stories (such as that about az having a lil adventure before even hatching, or getting the closest to a kind of a rough estimate of armand's age (afaik) as he was a teen when amalia was a young kid (also their mother's spirit watched over them thanks to the tree of life I think?. That was so sweet :'( ) are obsolete too.. I don't think they necessarily need to be.

I'm watching the toross episode, and while I am obviously sad the cra sisters had this sad background, part of me is kinda glad cause while happy, the little blog perfect family was a bit underwhelming when compared to.. everybody else's family quirks

It seems all guilde des murmurs members were family but not all were cras (or at least they were rare not bow using cras which would be neat) which does make sense worldbuilding-wise.

HOOO THE SADIDA KING BEING ONE OF THEIR MOST LOYAL CLIENTS THOUGH OGHHHH GASP. I thought he was fully "good" but this adds a new depth and moral greyness to the king, as many krosmoz esp royals do in the franchise which is an exciting addition! Now I'm not saying he's like. Secretly evil, but instead of an always good-presented king, it's heavily implied he hired assassins against his enemies. VERY frequently at that. We don't know if his enemies were truly evil but still this is quite a surprise and layer! IF AMALIA N ARMAND LEARN ABOUT THIS I WILL LOSE IT... Dunno if the queen was a part of this, she was more laissez-faire on royalty stuff. Not that means she was a BAD queen, as far as we know for now she was good and loved, but much as her daughter, she loved to sneak and go on adventures. Maybe the king stopped his merc-hiring thing time ago and repented about it, he changed his ways, but, yeah this adds more depth and a twist.

Did the king always plan having eva as a bodyguard for amalia since he might have guessed she had a great potential as per her kin does? I don't necessarily think so, again, not going on the EEEVIL KING REAL tirade. For now we have no proof. Eva seemed to regard the sheram sharm family well. I wanna think the reason why madagaskane chose the king wasn't fully out of his loyal client or king status, but because he supposed he could be caring.

Of course if you wanna go gritty you can imagine eva getting picked as a bodyguard was deliberate, that the slightly older, talented with the bow kid was a good helping hand for the king's youngest child. Armand had probably his own. And this could help build loyalty to the princess but... Too cynical for me, really.

Wonder if, going by this though, cleo not getting picked was cause of her less standing talent compared to eva or her being more childish n clashing w amalia. Idk. That's my last addendum.

Also I'm sooo glad they explained why eva and cleo have always had this extraordinary bow talent even for a cra. Don't get me wrong I'm the biggest hater of "oh there was not any hard job only magical talent" situations, but, aside from talent not being equal amongst the sisters, I feel it's a question of hard work. We can see it imo in Evas training ethic with Flopin. She has always tried to teach him hardwork.

So, I believe Eva is quite talented, perhaps even quite talented for a regular guilde des murmurs relative's standards, but she for sure has and keeps quite working on her abilities too

#s4 spoilers #long post #evangelyne #cleophée #king sheram sharm #madagaskane #placeholder hc tag #placeholder text tag

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crowtrobotx · 2 years

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Literally no one asked and people far more intelligent and articulate than me have already summarized my opinions, but I love hearing myself talk so uhhh DLC thoughts under the cut

So first of all I’m not mad that the Lords didn’t reappear - not really - and I think a lot of the folks claiming that Capcom “didn’t give the fans what they wanted” or somehow misrepresented the product are… respectfully, not entirely correct. This franchise is way bigger than this one game and four villains, and the people who really loved those particular characters ultimately make up a small part of the fan base. I don’t really blame them for trying to appeal to the larger, core group of their players. Would I have loved to have seen them? Yes, of course. Do I think Capcom personally owed me anything? No, they can tell whatever story they want to tell. I think it’s fine and understandable to be disappointed but I’m kind of bothered by some folks’ expectations that creators give them exactly what they want all the time.

THAT BEING SAID… as others have pointed out it feels very weird and borderline shitty that they proceeded to use the Lords’ realms and personalities and aesthetics without them being there. Why did the Not Duke speak and behave exactly like Heisenberg? Why did we get all of Donna’s cool doll horror elements in her own house and then…. No Donna? I dunno, as fucking awesome as the mannequin enemy sequence was, it was pretty unfulfilling to just wrap it up with “whoops it’s Eveline again.” (This is not Eveline slander. I love her, to be clear.) It almost felt like taunting tbh, like, here you can see the echoes of a couple of the lords (not Moreau tho fuck him apparently) but it would have just been TOO MUCH to even put in any written lore or references.

I did really enjoy seeing Rose and Ethan get to interact - father feels, my heart - but this got overshadowed by the fact that we then had…. the exact same Miranda boss fight from the base game. Seriously, why? Miranda’s death at Ethan’s hands was so satisfying and powerful and then to just… do it again as Rose kind of cheapens the original ending, imho.

And my biggest grievance: MIA. Oh my fucking God, where was Mia? Why, Capcom? Why do you insist on giving people more fodder to write bizarre hate rants about her on their shipping posts??? I’m mad for my girl! She ain’t perfect but she got fucked so hard thanks to the absence of literally any character development/information.

At the end of the day, I actually did have fun with it - there were parts that were really interesting/great - but as I knew going in, Capcom doesn’t really write satisfying character arcs and I figured Heisenberg and Lady D being in mercenaries was probably a consolation prize. As I said at the beginning, I don’t feel like I was owed anything - especially considering they never planned DLC for this game - but if they were gonna make something I would have at least preferred that it not be half-assed. It’s like for every good thing we encountered there was something so unbearably lazy that, while I didn’t hate it, it does make me wonder what the point of this whole extra story was.

Oh well. Lack of additional lore just means we get to do whatever the hell we want with these characters, I guess.

And I get to BONK lycans with the boy. 😈

#I am not trying to start Discourse™️ these are obviously just my disjointed thoughts #this is so rambling and I am not great at coherently expressing media analysis but if I didn’t talk about it I might explode

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shrinkthisviolet · 3 years

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You know you’re obsessed with Karate Kid/Cobra Kai when:

You’re watching Wizards of Waverly Place and wondering why Alex’s last name isn’t “LaRusso” 🤦‍♀️

#it’s not even in an ‘oh she would be a great addition to the franchise’ way #it’s legitimately me being confused and thinking her name was ‘alex larusso’#although let’s be real she would be a GREAT addition to the franchise 😂#no i’m not thinking about a wowp x ck crossover what are you talking about #cobra kai #wizards of waverly place #wowp #alex russo #...maybe i am but LISTEN THE IDEA OF ALEX BEING A DISTANT RELATIVE OF THE LARUSSOS IS TOO GOOD TO PASS UP #like...maybe alex doesn’t become the family wizard and she moves in with the larussos and gets roped into a karate war #and she tries to hide that she’s a wizard but it doesn’t work for very long #IMAGINE THE CHAOS #...although i guess she’d have to be family wizard to keep her powers. well i guess that can stay the same then 🤷‍♀️#wowp canon can stay untouched and i’ll just shove alex into The Valley somehow #ck x wowp au

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inkdemonapologist · 3 years

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[BatIM Call of Cthulhu Masterpost]

REMEMBER BACK WHEN WE GOT INVITED TO A MASQUERADE??? And we figured out the masquerade guests are definitely the sacrifice meant to summon their eldritch deity and that the party will probably be the location of the final ritual? ANYWAY WE’RE CRASHING THE PARTY, which means we need costumes.

The party is Alice in Wonderland themed; Sammy hasn’t read the book but got kin-assigned the March Hare by Joey, so naturally i’ve been doing nothing but drawing this loser in a dapper rabbit costume for an entire week

---

Anyway have a little smattering of out-of-context quotes from session 11

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[Sammy] Sammy just has no magical powers. [Jack] YET. [Sammy] Yet. Correct. ...He doesn't want any. [GM] Half of him doesn't want any. [Sammy] That's... accurate, yeah. Half of him ALSO wants the OTHER half of him to stop having magical powers. [Jack] No Magical Girl transformation? [GM] *laughing* Is that what that is? [Jack] I'd watch a magical anime where the main character drugs themself and then becomes a weird... religious... madman! [Sammy] That does sound compelling! Maybe you should see if you can find a franchise that contains that element, and then become a big fan of it and draw a bunch of fanart for some reason. [Jack] Yeah, I dunno, I mean... it's so tiring getting into new media, I need to get a friend who will drag me into it. [Henry] And then you guys can start a roleplaying game with it and drag me into it! [GM] There's an idea! [Jack] Yeah! Someone should get on that! [GM] And if there was such a theoretical game... people might have to figure... what they're doing when they wake up!

[Sammy] We were put in a situation before where we were told that the only thing we could do was kill the host, but we found a way around it last time, [Peter] What way was that? [Sammy] Complicated.

[GM] Henry is the first to notice the apparent cultist, camping out, looking tired, trying to spot you guys. [Henry] Uh, Henry is just going to tap Sammy on the arm and point him out. [Jack] Bros! You've got to unionise! Look at these working conditions! [GM] Maybe one of these days you won't spot them, right? Hope springs eternal!

[GM] Okay, you can make an intimidate! [Sammy] Okay! *rolls* FIFTEEN IS -- this is the only thing Sammy's good at now -- fifteen is a hard success!

[Jack] I'm proud of him! [Sammy] Someone has to be.

[GM] Allison chats with everyone, and gets you into the costume room! Everyone seems relatively friendly! [Sammy] Except Sammy. Sammy doesn't seem friendly.

[Joey] My idea was, Joey would be Mad Hatter -- [Sammy] Because he needs a hat, [Joey] --Yeah, so he can have a hat -- I was thinking Sammy could be the March Hare, Jack could be White Rabbit, and then Henry could be the Dormouse, [Sammy] Yes! And then the Haiti boys are all the Mad Teaparty, which is great, because the Mad Teaparty is canonically trapped in a time loop. [Sammy] Because we tHOUGHT ABOUT THIS TOO MUCH,

[Jack] Kin-assign Pete! [GM] He's content to wear anything that looks like it fits him, as long as people aren't trying to push a co-ordinated effort. [Joey] (Pete can be Caterpillar,) [Jack] Catter-pete-lar [Sammy] Oh my goodness. Completely unnecessary. [Jack] This is a pun that Jack might make, out loud, to Pete [GM] Pete laughs, despite himself! [Sammy] I feel like, Jack would make this pun, and then Jack would be SO pleased with himself that Pete would laugh, because Jack was so happy about it. [Jack] Yeah that sounds canon. ....It IS canon!!

[Jack] You can like, actually pretend to be people who decided to come to this party to enjoy it, and not just steal and/or murder!

[Henry] I want someone on the help, because I feel like we would have more control if we had someone on the inside, [Henry] And Henry does have a very forgettable face, apparently!!

[Joey] What are the staff wearing? Target red shirt, khaki pants? [Sammy] Perfect! Everyone will fall for it! Based on my experience wearing red shirts into Target!

[GM] I guess this does mean Joey misses an opportunity to dress up Henry. [Joey] *excited gasp* Wait, wait, [GM] What? [Joey] Sorry, this has nothing to do with anything that's happening right now in the roleplay, but I just suddenly realised that (1) when Henry got married, was Joey his best man, and (2) did Joey get to pick out his tuxedo for him [Henry] UHHHH... I feel like, Henry usually defaults to Joey for outfits and stuff, but he would hesitate a bit to ask his best friend who has an obvious crush on him to help dress for his heteronormative wedding!

[Joey] There probably is at least one of the wedding photos where Joey is insistent on standing very next to Henry -- while Henry's next to Linda! -- but, [GM] ...but also, Joey is here, [Joey] But also Joey is here. [Sammy] ...absolute disaster of a man... [GM] But the tuxedos look good! [Joey] Yes. Henry was properly fitted.

[Sammy] I don't want a full-- I don't want a freakin' fursuit, because-- [Henry] (FNAF in the distance)

[Sammy] But I feel like, since both White Rabbit and March Hare are, like, dapper rabbits, they could do something like, yeah, splicer mask and also a hat. [Jack] I mean, Jack's not opposed; Jack likes hats. [Sammy] Jack absolutely should have a hat, I agree. [Jack] He's getting so many hats! So many hats, and so many boyfriends, [GM] He can't be stopped! [Jack] >:3c He shouldn't be stopped.

[GM] I'm still just stuck on the phrase "Dapper Rabbits."

[GM] If Joey and Allison are talking further away, I guess it's moot. Though Allison did see Prophet Sammy! He changed in her room. [Sammy] Well, nobody explained him to her. Sammy just showed up the next day and hoped that we wouldn't talk about it, and then we didn't! It was great. [Jack] Sammy's over here, hoping that Allison is distracted by Joey so that none of this conversation is being listened to, [Jack] MEANWHILE, smash cut to the other side of the room, where Joey is explaining SillySam,

[Joey] A lot of Joey's lack of giving information was to keep her out of it, and not paint a target on her back... but now? She has a target on her back, so... Sure! You can also sacrifice yourself, for the greater good!

[Sammy] I'm sure someone in this party will thank Allison. It won't be me. But I'm sure someone will.

[Henry] Henry's already smearing his blood on people, he's gonna agree to whatever at this point.

[Sammy] DEFINITELY not a cult, now hold still while we put this guy's weird glowing blood on you, it's fine. [Jack] Welcome to the flock!

[GM] What does this mean for Prophet Sammy's sacrificeability rating on Henry, though? Now he's potentially long-term useful... [Sammy] I mean... [Jack] The Prophet isn't here so he doesn't need to know about this! [Sammy] ...I feel like, if something has greater value, then it's an even more impressive sacrifice. That's why you sacrifice an unblemished sheep, traditionally. If it's not a blemish-- [Sammy] Like, that's most of what he was worried about, like, “does this make you not fit for sacrifice.” But if it's actually a really cool thing, ...!

[Sammy] Sammy's nervous. [Jack] Jack is also nervous. [Henry] Henry is also nervous! [Jack] Oh, that's always a good sign, [Joey] Joey's going to be confident! [Henry] ...Of course he is. [Joey] Someone has to be! [Jack]...is he "Confident" or "Confident (Fast Talk)"? [Joey] YES. That last one. [Sammy] *muttering* That's the best we got, unfortunately.

[Sammy] If Jack or Henry express nervousness, Sammy agrees with them. If Pete is nervous, then Sammy will very aggressively say that Joey knows what he's doing.

[Sammy] Allison, don't use a spell to bind people's souls together in order to avoid crunch,,, [GM] You never know when something might be handy! [Sammy] I mean, [GM] Waste not want not!

[Henry] Does Henry have to draw in blood on himself...? [GM] No, Henry has a lot of his own blood on his person.

[GM] Aw, man, Bendy should've commented on the rabbit outfits! I'm sure he'd find that hilarious. [Joey] ...why...? [GM] WHY? It's just objectively funny! No additional reason is needed!!

[Joey] Joey will go through his notes, and confer with Henry and Bendy on, okay, shall we try this, and see if we can help Bendy as well? [Henry] Henry is down to try! [GM] Bendy is worried about Henry overexerting himself. [Henry] ...Henry is down to try!

[Jack] Worst case, Jack looks at the symbol, and then he can be seeing-eye rabbit for the rest of the group!

[GM] Norman wonders what the plan is! [Henry] Bold of you to assume,

[Sammy] We're having such a good sleepover! We did a weird blood ritual, and we're braiding each other's hair~ [Joey] Having a fashion show, [Sammy] Yeah! We went out and got clothes, [Jack] Can't believe Joey called a boy, [Sammy] Gotta ask Joey about the boy he likes... wait, no, don't do that. [Jack] I'd say it's time to play seven minutes in heaven, but I think we, we did that early. [Sammy] WE DIDN'T DO A VERY GOOD JOB,

[GM] Norman wants to see how this plays out. [Joey] Okay, well, try not to get sacrificed, then, [GM] He laughs, and thanks you for the advice! [Sammy] *Hypnos Hadesgame voice* "Try not to get sacrificed, okay?"

[Henry] Allison is very helpful, and not weird at all!

[Joey] We already have the banjo case full of ritual circles, and Joey would rather have the emergency circles than Sammy carrying around bOTTLES OF INK. [Sammy] WHY, WHY WOULDN'T YOU WANT THAT TO BE HAPPENING? WHAT WOULD BE THE PROBLEM WITH THAT,

[GM] Make a sanity check! [Jack] Wait, what's happening? [Sammy] Joey was trying to think too hard.

[GM] Sammy does manage to catch that there's a little-- next to the kitchen, when you go into the place where they're serving food, there's a sign that says "Sheep Shop" over it. And there's a person wearing a sheep mask, handing out food. [Sammy] OKAY, THAT'S FINE,,, I don't feel like Sammy has actually read Through The Looking Glass, so I don't know if he knows why this is happening. I think he's just concerned. [GM] Excellent. Ideal response.

[GM] And Joey has NEVER seen the symbol EVER because he's incredible at not looking at creepy symbols! Which you wouldn't expect. [Sammy] I'm sure Joey will put this in his autobiography.

[Jack] :/ No Hashtag Gay Rights at this party,

[GM] Seems to be another party-goer; in fact, you recognise the voice! [Joey] Ohhh. Kyle -- I don't know his actual name, but -- [Sammy] (Dennis!) [GM] (Yes, that's-) [Joey] -- Kyle.

[Henry] Henry is going to try to sneak up on Moonlight while he's distracted! [GM] OH! ...Okay! He's very distracted, Sammy just screamed! [excited noises from everyone beCAUSE NO ONE EXPECTED THIS] [GM] You successfully sneak up behind him! [Henry] I'm going to grab the staff! [GM] Make a Brawl check, with advantage! [Sammy] (He has SO many limbs that don't work my dude, you got this,) [Henry] That's a success! [GM] You snatch it! [Henry] I RUN!!!

[Joey] We're just both escorting Jack, now. [Sammy] Would you say Jack is late, for a very important date? [Jack] Well YEAH, his Face Removal was scheduled like 2 dreams ago!!

[GM] He'd have to roll for it, to see if it felt familiar to his trip to Carcosa. [Jack] Extreme success! [GM] Then he would pick up that familiar feeling! [Jack] Oh, nice and homey at this party! Really nice. Nostalgic! It's been a while. [Sammy] Hm, [Jack] Maybe he should go play the piano, for old time's sake! [Sammy] NO

#call of cthulu: haunted hijinx #sammy lawrence #Jack Fain #Henry Stein #when in doubt just keep drawing #Henry has a daughter he knows how to do hair #Joey's going as the Hatter so we match for Mad Teaparty purposes #I can't believe we put Sammy Lawrence in a rabbit mask and NEVER made the vanny connection how is this possible

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carol-effing-danvers · 3 years

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Steve Rogers is a Monster

Yeah, that’s a hell of a title, isn’t it? Strap in, it only gets worse from here.

(click here if you’d prefer to read this on AO3)

Forewarning, if you enjoyed the epilogue for Endgame, this particular essay is not for you - and no, I am not bashing the Steve/Peggy shippers, you are beautiful human beings who make the fandom brighter and I’m happy that at least someone in this fandom got the ending they wanted.

Additional warning: if you expect this to be another Civil War debate, you will also be disappointed. There has never been a measurement invented that can adequately describe how much I loathe the verbal dick measuring contest that seems to pass for human interaction between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers in this franchise. It’s not funny or entertaining - it’s exhausting, uncomfortable, and frankly it’s rather lazy writing.

This is about the very specific way that the epilogue in Endgame completely changed the way the character of Steve Rogers can be interpreted, and I don’t just mean the very illogical and contradictory way that time travel is explained, both in the movie itself and the fact that the writers and directors have two completely different views on how that worked out.

I mean that the choice made by Steve Rogers in the very last minutes of that movie alters the way I view each and every one of his actions starting from The First Avenger and that alteration is exactly what I want to talk about, because whether you view it as deserving or not, what Steve does at the conclusion of Endgame was the most selfish thing humanly possible. Time is a thief, but somehow Steve managed to steal even more than Time.

Side note here: I understand that I am a completely biased Stucky shipper, a friend to Barnes and Noble, a Starbucks aficionado - sorry. Anyway, I’ve always believed that Steve and Bucky were destined blah blah blah, but I was never expecting a Stucky ending. Disney wasn’t going to do that, and I knew that, I wasn’t bothered that Steve and Bucky weren’t doing the smoochies by the end. But Bucky’s facial expression during those last minutes was gut-wrenching. Like...I have no idea what kind of cues the script and directors gave him, but in the future, please don’t ask Sebastian Stan to look sad unless you want soul-crushing devastation. It’s not Seb’s fault, his features are just arranged that way - but the fact that the editing staff allowed Sam to be sad though elated to be entrusted with the Shield and Bucky looked like his soul was being physically torn out of his body was an… interesting choice.

Other side note: if you’re writing about time travel, I’m begging y’all to get your facts straight. Or just don’t write about time travel. It almost always sounds better on paper than it does on screen and it means that you’ve opened doors to more questions than you’ve probably got the answers for. I know this was about trying to set up the idea of the multiverse, I get that, but there were better and less messy ways to do that, and I know that because I’ve done it before. @Marvel: Let me write you a six-way orgy you fucking cowards~

By going back in time, Steve robbed Peggy of the future that would have been hers - not only that, he’s robbed her of even the chance of making the choice between those futures, because you honestly could not tell me with a straight face that Steve told her the complete truth of what he had done and she would be okay with him alternating the very course of the future. It doesn’t help his case that he has a history of not disclosing truths that he knows will be painful or inconvenient for other people in his life.

He robbed his loved ones - Sam, Bucky, Wanda - of the years they would have spent with him. Sure, he ‘came back’ after Peggy passed away, but they are adults in the prime of youth who knew him sixty years ago in his own time and he is an old, old man who has lived an entire life completely separated from them. He is practically a stranger with a name they know, but a history that no longer belongs to any of them - not even his oldest friend. They have him back, but judging from his age, they’ll be lucky to get even ten more years with him. Assuming of course, that any of them can stand to speak to him - I certainly couldn’t blame them if they tell him to go to hell and take his dad jokes with him.

Steve has stolen away their friend and dropped off an elderly and dying near-stranger in his place, and this is treated by the writing (and the majority of the acting) as a wild and unexpected but not tragic event.

Is it really that unexpected, though?

I recall seeing a Game of Thrones essay on Daenerys across my dash (I’m sorry, love, I don’t recall who you are since it’s not a fandom I’m in, but if someone knows who wrote that, please post the link!) which detailed how her ending in the series was foreshadowed many times by her penchant for bloody killings and her habit of surrounding herself with her own fawning friends.

Months after reading that, I had the thought: though Steve is never really shown thinking about Peggy after Civil War, except in a few scattered scenes in Endgame, was this foreshadowed? Whether you believe that his actions are justified or not, what Steve does is still, in the end, selfish at its very heart, and Steve Rogers is not a selfish person.

Oh no, my dear friends and readers. Because taking this action has solidified and clarified Steve Rogers as the biggest and most selfish asshole in this whole universe.

Steve does not do the right thing, Steve does the thing that will most make him feel better. The fact that this often happens to be the right thing in the end is more the result of happy coincidence than any special sort of moral authority that the man holds.

Rescuing Bucky Barnes and his fellow captives in a prisoner of war camp from being experimented on by an insane Nazi eugenicist? That was not a moral stand, that was endangering himself, Peggy Carter, and Howard Stark because he couldn’t handle the reality of his best friend being killed in war.

Sacrificing himself by putting the Valkyrie down in the Arctic Circle? That was not about sparing human lives, that was about Steve seeing his friend die right in front of him and not being able to deal with the grief. There were ways he could’ve prevented the plane from killing people without killing himself.

Trying to make Bucky remember who he was? And later on, saving him from the government agencies who wanted to hunt him down? Although, arguably, that last one is also just good common sense - Steve was already shown that government agencies could and were corrupted by HYDRA and he’d also seen how dangerous the Winter Soldier could be when unleashed.

Steve did, I think, truly believe that this was the right thing to do, but it was also about keeping his connection - his very last, since Peggy had descended into dementia caused by Alzheimer’s before she ultimately died - to a past that for him, was only months or years ago, rather than decades. In some ways, this is completely understandable - Bucky might be the very last person left alive who truly knows who the real Steve Rogers is, because the rest of these people only know Captain America and we are consistently shown through multiple movies how uncomfortable this makes him.

This gets...considerably less and less understandable as we are shown Steve’s growing relationships with Natasha, Sam, Wanda - even Sharon, though she barely gets any screen time and they share the most awkward kiss I’ve ever seen - and indeed, what might be the most uncomfortable kiss in cinema history.

Side Note 3: This is made even more awkward by the director’s choice to have two of Steve’s friends watching them the whole time - seriously, who even does that? Why would you make them do that? Only sociopaths make out with their friends staring at them like that. It’s so fucking creepy - and don’t even get me fucking started on the fact that she’s also apparently his own niece. AHHHHH!

But we are shown, over and over again, that Steve is capable of building close meaningful relationships with people in the present. They don’t know his whole history, but they do know Steve Rogers rather than Captain America and they care about him deeply.

Side Note 4: Notice that I don’t count Tony Stark among those people - despite this strangely persistent narrative that the various writers and directors tried to sell to the audience, Tony and Steve were not friends. They were never friends. They were colleagues at best, but these were two men who neither liked nor understood each other very well, but had to work together. And sometimes that’s okay, too. (Oh dear, I just gave the Stony fans a fit too, didn’t I? Sorry, guys. Enemies to Lovers is a great trope, I support you!)

But let’s set aside Steve’s gross betrayal of the people who loved him. We’ll also ignore the question of whether the motive for these good actions has tainted the actions themselves. Because even without questioning these, the conclusion of this story arc still transforms Steve into the biggest monster this franchise has.

The very fundamental way that the writers and directors can’t agree on how the time travel mechanics in their own story work mean that Steve has just done one of two things and they range from shady and very questionable to absolutely fucking horrific.

The first, that he’s created his own alternate universe to exist in, is morally dubious at best. Even the people who support this theory and liked the ending seem to feel that it wasn’t necessarily a ten out of ten on the moral goodness spectrum. They’ll say things like ‘he deserved to have his happy ending’. Even that phrasing seems to acknowledge that doing this was the opposite of the right thing. It just considers doing the wrong thing as being justified rather than horrifying.

But let’s examine this first idea for a minute - even this, the more innocent of the two implications, means that rather than really processing his grief or dealing with the repeated tragedies and losses that have occured in his life, even as he was running group therapy sessions and grief counseling, Steve Rogers chose to escape his current life by creating an alternate universe that specifically allows he himself to live out his own fucking fantasies of the way his life should have turned out.

That, in case you are not aware, is wildly fucked up. I thought I was playing pretty fast and loose with Steve’s characterization when I turned him into an extremely polite serial killer but as it turns out, I clearly just wasn’t setting the bar high enough, because that’s somehow even more fucked up than being an undercover child soldier with a small sadistic streak.

Hm, and now I feel I should have been more creative there...

The second, and even more horrifying option, is that this older Steve Rogers has been in this world the whole time, watching as things unfolded just as we’ve seen over the past decade, taking ‘the slow way’ through time.

Side Note 5: I do kind of understand why you would do it this way, because that’s really cool and shocking when you say that! Until you think about it for longer than three seconds and suddenly you realize…

Everything that has happened here, every tragedy and downfall these people experienced, happened because Steve Rogers lived his happily ever after with his beautiful wife and did absolutely nothing to stop it. He got to fuck Peggy Carter and watched as his wife built an empire of intelligence networks, knowing that her efforts were completely in vain because her agency was rotten to the core and he never told her.

Every horrifying act committed by HYDRA under the guise of SHIELD was permitted through Steve Rogers’ negligence. And that’s just the wider big-picture worldview, large and shocking, but not personal.

What about the people that Steve claims to actually care about?

This means that Steve lived his whole life in contentment with his wife and children while his best friend was physically and psychologically tortured for over seventy years and just...let that go.

He allowed one friend to murder another in the nineties, when the Winter Soldier was sent after Howard and Maria Stark. Then their child was being advised by a greedy self-interested warmonger who paid terrorists to drag him off to be tortured and slaughtered, and Steve did nothing about that, either.

Bruce Banner was exploited, experimented on, and made into a monster against his will in the failed pursuit of recreating what was done to Steve, resulting in billions of dollars in damage and dozens or even hundreds of lives lost, and Steve allowed that to happen, too.

Like Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanov was physically and psychologically tortured for others to use her as a living weapon - except that this was probably happening to her since early childhood, and a man her future self loved and trusted implicitly did nothing to save her from this upbringing.

The Maximoff twins are shown to have not wealthy but loving parents who are murdered in front of them and they both endure days of laying in the rubble of their ruined apartment, wondering if the bomb in their living room would go off and kill them. Later, they are taken in by HYDRA, experimented on, and recruited as child soldiers to the cause when they show signs of having supernatural powers. They start a series of events that result in the destruction of a major city and the loss of what is probably thousands of lives. Pietro is murdered while trying to help the Avengers to stop this, and Wanda suffers the loss of the very last living person she loved. None of these things seem to have bothered Future Steve.

Steve “I can’t sit on the sidelines when I see a situation go sideways” Rogers, planted himself on that fucking sideline and observed for nearly eighty years as friends, colleagues, and his own wife were lied to, brainwashed, tortured, vilified, and hunted down like animals.

And then there Steve Rogers himself - not the Endgame Steve Rogers, the Steve Rogers who brought down a Nazi plane and will lie beneath the ice for seventy years while everything he knows disappear (mostly) innocent of these horrors, the life he would’ve lived stolen from him by a stranger with his name and his face from another universe.

What I’m saying here is that if you consider this idea for any amount of time, it took Steve Rogers less than ten minutes to become the most evil and disturbing figure in the entire MCU, only (not really tho) contested by Thanos himself.

Gross and poorly reasoned libertarian ethics aside, Thanos genuinely believes that he did what he did for the sake of the entire population. It’s made fairly explicitly clear that Steve didn’t do this for anyone but himself.

Call me crazy, but if everyone you know needs to suffer and multiple planet-wide devestations have to happen in order for you to get your happy ending, you might be the bad guy.

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned?

#forever bitter about what they did to steve #steve rogers #captain america #the avengers #marvel

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mariposalass · 3 years

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Sora’s Time to Shine

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Summary: Mari is already not putting too much expectations going into watching the Final Smash Presentation when someone close to her besides Kirby and Edelgard’s beloved Professor pops out of nowhere in said Presentation. All hell breaks loose (but in a good way).

Setting: Mari and co.’s house in Daly City, California; October 5, 2021

Notes: I was pretty behind in seeing the reveal since I was pretty tired when it came out and I had to check a friend’s post on Plurk to make sure that it was not all for the jokes before watching it on Gamespot and writing this story down. And yes, the Byleth in my S/I verse is the female version in case anyone is curious. And yes, it took me until around 8 AM to write this up. Featuring Luther Vandross. Here is an ask I made on Sora’ behest during a F/O takeover long before he got confirmed recently. #SakuraiHasReachedtheImpossibleDream #Sora4Smash

Tags: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Super Smash Bros., Swift Keyblader, Smash Reveal, Sakurai has reached the impossible dream!, Sora for Smash, #Sora4Smash

“Hurry Mari, you’re about to miss it!” Kairi is dragging me out onto the sofa to see the final Smash Ultimate Presentation on the living room pretty early before plopping ourselves onto the sofa.

“Look, Kairi, guys. I hate to be a party pooper, but I have no clue about who could it be,” I try to be realistic in my views.

“Well, at this point, my beloved, it could be anybody from the video game world,” my dear Philip chimes in while trying to reassure me, “Besides, as soon as it is done, we shall try to reply back to this non Smash invitation that El had found in the mail today.”

“Huh, is that correct, El dear?” I asked my regal adopted daughter for confirmation.

“Why yes of course, Mother,” she replies as she passes me the invitation, “I believe that a friend of yours has sent us one, but I didn’t want to open it immediately since this is addressed to you.”

“Okay then, I will get to read it and reply back once the Presentation is over and see who gets to fight with Kirby and Professor Byleth,” I smiled back at her.

“I couldn’t believe that there was a leak that just came out before this Presentation video and it is about music. Who was that dense enough to do it at a time like this?” Riku mumbles as he gets the video streaming on the Nintendo Direct page in his laptop.

“You know, Riku, sometimes people can act very idiotic at times, so there isn’t much we can do besides ignoring and avoiding that as much as possible,” Harry sighs as he is bottle feeding and gently rocking Serena as she had cried a while ago to be bottle fed.

“Guys, have you guys seen Sora lately?” Issa asks us while carrying Chris in her arms, “I haven’t seen him in the last few days. He didn’t even reply back to either my or Kairi’s texts and calls. Do you think he’s off to visit Jack and Sally in Halloween Town? It’s nearing Halloween soon.”

“That’s really a good question, Issa,” Ahk agrees, “I had given up trying to find him by calling over on the phone since last Thursday. All I have gotten from it were many ‘The subscriber could not be reached’ messages.”

Even Riku and Kairi are in a loss for words as they turn to each other and wonder what is up with our friend lately. Did he just went poof without us knowing? Kirby always informs us through his many Poyos that he would have to head off to Smash whenever a new tourney starts or a newcomer arrives and Edelgard’s class often gets shorter class schedules or early dismissals whenever Professor Blyeth gets to fight in Smash: she is the professor handling the Black Eagles class. Sometimes even El, Petra and Dorothea along with a few others (and yes, that includes the Gatekeeper) would come over to Smash to spectate from the sidelines and support their beloved Professor.

There is a long silence when the Nintendo Switch title card plays in the laptop and Karina directs us all to watch the screen to see many clips featuring many Smashers in the current tournament before it transitions to Sakurai-san in the studio explaining about the video as well as showcasing the Mii Fighter costumes.

“Hey look, Isabelle the Dog’s demon slaying friend from Bethesda is now coming to Smash to rip and tear up the competition!” Moana screams when the Doomguy Mii Gunner costume appears.

“Good for him; I know that many fans really did want him to be in Smash, though the costume is a nice addition,” Issa agrees. “That now makes three Bethesda franchises represented in the costumes.”

“Even the Octolings and Judd the Cat got hats based on them too,” I chime in as well.

“Oh hey, guys! Sakarui’s about to reveal the last fighter for the Second Fighter’s Pass, so keep down it and don’t expect too much,” Karina informs as Sakurai transitions to the main event and we all stay silent and stay glued to our seats.

The screen turns black before the usual Smash logo opening shows up, but instead of the usual zoom in, it then turns into a flaming Smash logo with all the Smashers up until Kazuya Mishima (yeah, the guy who tried to drop Kirby off a cliff) looking at it and covered in the shadows. Did MH decided to get them to show up in there and meet the last fighter in the dark? Probably, I bet that he might be keeping it as a surprise and possibly even conserving electricity at the same time. Then cut to Inkling Girl looking in awe with the Smash logo reflecting onto her pupils as a nice ode to the first reveal trailer for the game/tourney, I honestly love this shot.

Wait a minute, the logo turns into stars and the next scene shows everyone frozen in place as toy-like ambiios?!? How is it even possible? Well, it does certainly confirmed once again that the video game version of the tourney is set in a world of make believe after all. I could swear that a lot of people crying their eyes out as they are watching this. It looks like this is the end of one great video game series about mascots fighting among each other. Or is it? Because the camera is aiming at Mario as if he looks like he’s trying to take a nap while standing up.

Riku then proceeds to mumble some words to me incoherently that something big is coming the moment Mario wakes up to see a glowing light to see the last remaining flame glowing on the floor, which I do agree with him. Suspicious right? Oh God, Mario no! Please don’t touch the fire for everyone’s sanity. Wait, hold on a second: that isn’t not just fire that he just grabbed on and then tossed it into the sky like a boomerang: the mystery object looks like a Keyblade and there’s that Mickey keychain! Yep, that’s a Keyblade alright. Could it be...

I could recognize that beam of light that Keyblades often produce whenever they lock and unlock Keyholes to other worlds, so does everyone in the room. Riku and Kairi hugged onto each other as if we’re about to brace for an emergency (Karina and Moana also did the same), Ahk stares at the screen to see if he’s not imagining things all the sudden, Issa has her mouth drop in shock, Chris and Serena didn’t cry throughout this entire presentation, Harry gasps and nearly drops Serena’s bottle, Philip turns to me for answers while Edelgard begins to sweatdrop in concern.

No words are exchanged as the light grows and shines brighter before it proceeds to shoot itself away from the Keyblade to reveal a Keyhole on another part of the room. It then glows bright within as the camera switches back to the rest of frozen Smashers as the light begins to fill the room and revives Link, Cloud, Incineroar and Mewtwo as they all gawk at it as it reveals something from the World of Light with the orchestral rendition of Simple and Clean playing in the background. And that’s when it hits us right at the gut: the familiar spiky brown hair poking out from that Keyhole.

“What!?!” Kairi shouts as the Keyhole ‘spits’ out Sora from the World of Light.

“H-h-he actually got in, for real?” Riku squeaks up.

“Oh my…” I gasp in pure shock as we watch the whole thing played out.

“Sakarui finally did it?” Issa adds in to the discussion.

“Well, it’s about time that they managed to get his darn behind into the tourney,” Karina seconds in.

Soon enough, Sora finally wakes up from his nappy time and takes notes from Peter Pan and Tinkerbell as he flies around, sprinkling fairy dust all over the other Smashers, before landing on the floor and the Keyblade flying back to his hand.

“Damn it, Sora!” I scream as the splash screen pops in.

“Kai, your boy has finally made it big time!” Moana shakes Kairi in congratulation rather rapidly that it nearly gives my lil sis a dizzying spell.

“Moana, please don’t make Kairi that dizzy,” Harry had to tell her that.

“Whoops! Sorry Kairi,” she apologizes to her which she accepts.

So with that, we switch back to Sakurai going in depth with Sora’s moveset after he discussed about the Kingdom Hearts games and world. And he has gotten 4 costume changes, man Sora, that’s a big wardrobe you’re bringing in, oh wait, he even got the Timeless River costume too. That makes it 5 then.

“Oh gods, Sakurai is making us suffer by watching Sakurai using Sora to beat up everyone,” Ahk tells us as the Sora moveset showcase begins.

“No kidding,” Harry muses as we see Sora beating everyone in Battlefield.

“Whoa, they went for Sealing the Keyhole instead of having Trinity Force with Donald and Goofy? What a bummer,” Karina bemoans in dismay.

“Well, you know modern Disney: too overprotective of their IPs,” Philip reminds her.

“Oh new stage, what could it be?” Riku gleefully chimes in before they reveal Hollow Bastion as the stage, “Whoa, Hollow Bastion. I never thought that you will return again.”

Then the stage changes into Dive to the Heart and it had Riku and Kairi in the stained glass in one, Riku being the main focus of the second one, Roxas in the middle of the third, Xion in the fourth, Terra for the fifth, a sleepy Ven in the sixth, and Aqua’s in the seventh.

“Pretty!” I complimented the look of each stained glass.

“Quite impressive I will admit,” El agrees with me too.

Then Sakurai begins a playthrough with Sora facing Cloud and Sephiroth in Hollow Bastion, for a while, we all thought that he’s going to be a goner with Cloud and Sephiroth beating him up in the Stamina match but then the tides begin to turn in his favor after Sephy lost his full stock and with Sora having to take down Cloud next. When he did, the scene begins to go into a slow white fade out with a Game!

“Alright! Sora did it! He defeated both Cloud and mean old Sephy,” Riku cheers on.

“Woo! Go Sora!” me, Kairi, Moana, and Karina screams aloud.

“That was brilliant!” Harry agrees before he turns to Serena, “Did you hear? Uncle Sora managed to defeat two opponents in a Smash Ultimate playthrough.”

“9 songs is better than nothing at all,” Issa observes, “It would be a licensing nightmare to talk to Disney if they can borrow a couple of songs from them and they straight up refuse to assist, oh well. Oooh, a Dearly Beloved Swing arrangement, nice! I better get that save file on the Switch prompto!”

“And check out that Spirit Board: Aunt Kairi has a Spirit of herself,” Edelgard informs us as the Spirit Board for KH is revealed.

“Oh gee, never thought that it could ever happen, but thanks,” she blushes.

“Hey, I got one as well, same with Axel, Xion, Roxas, Aqua, Terra and Ven,” Riku joins in, “Marina is so going to be happy to see her boyfriend as a Spirit. She will probably try to get him real soon.”

“You bet it right, Riku, you bet it right,” I nod and agree with that last statement.

“Oh hey, he’s going to be ready within a few weeks’ time,” Karina speaks up, “Neat! The roster is now complete.”

“Even Steve and Alex have amiibos of themselves being made, that’s even more wonderful,” Ahk takes note of it, “I’m pretty sure that Sora will have one of his own along with Pyra, Mythra, that jerk who tried to threw Kirby off a cliff, and even Sephiroth soon.”

“WHAT?!? Kingdom Hearts are coming to the Switch too!?!” I am surprised to hear the news as Sakurai reveals this new information, that is so mind-blowing.

When it fades to black then to the Ultimate mural, the camera then goes for the space between Ganondorf and Dark Samus to fill in Sora’s spot before panning back. Man, this Presentation is long and is finally ending, thank God; it must be tiring to sit down and watch a nearly hour long video as Sakurai showcases the screenshots he has made and showed off in Twitter. Man, so many memories and montages. And the achievements, wow, that is a lot of them, it will be a game feat that I don’t think it will be broken for a long time.

Man, I will miss the presentations and Sakurai’s corny jokes for sure. I wish him a nice deserving break from all the game development for sure as he gives thanks to everyone from the devs to the players to the people prompting the game and ends it off with a heartfelt goodbye as it fades to back into the full reveal trailer.

“Oh gee, I’m going to miss the Smash Presentations,” Kairi sighs, “I can’t believe that we’re coming to an end.”

“Man, it’s finally over,” Riku gasps in remark as the full trailer plays out, “I don’t think that there will be a game like Ultimate for a very long time. That’s for certain.”

“I agree, Riku. It’s to going to be a tough act to follow up on,” I add in before I look up at the ceiling and murmur some words, “It’s been a long time coming, Sora. You truly deserve that last spot, you really do. Have fun in the tourney and Smash Mansion, buddy.”

Sora is Finally Here!

The End

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rachelbethhines · 3 years

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Tangled Salt Marathon - Short Cuts

So the reviews for Rapunzel’s Return are taking longer then expected and due to real life complications I’ve now fallen behind in my intended schedule. So in order to catch up, I’ll be doing a series of rapid-fire mini reviews of all the official shorts that the series released in addition to the usual reviews.

Summary: Ten shorts were released throughout the three seasons of the show detailing Rapunzel’s misadventures in Corona.

Check Mate

Pascal tries to get Max to play chess with him, but the horse is too busy with guard duty to play. Pascal’s antics wind up causing a fire and Max must save him.

This short, plus the later Unicorn-y short, and the episode Pascal’s Story pretty much confirms that chess is pascal’s favorite game. Shame that’s the only idiosyncrasy that the series gives besides being the conscious of the group that sometimes gives the other characters guilty looks.

I said it before and I’ll say again, the animal sidekicks in the franchise don’t have enough personality to carry whole episodes by themselves, but shorts like this are ok and where things like this should have stayed.

Prison Bake

Attila recounts how he used his baking skills to break his fellow pub thugs out of prison back before they met Rapunzel.

This just raises so many questions. Why were they arrested? What was their punishment besides jail? Why weren’t they just re-arrested later after escaping? If they were all wanted criminals before meeting Raps then why did they try to call the guards during the movie to collect the reward money on Eugene’s head? Do we really think “crack-down on crime” Frederic would pardon them before Rapunzel’s return? How do we know they weren’t just framed given how shitty Corona’s legal system is?

Like I just need a tiny bit more context show. Two to three minutes isn’t really long enough to set up conflicts. These shorts should have been more like five or six minutes really.

Also Ludwig the Castle Cook is also just wasted. They built a model for him and hired a VA and everything and all he does is appear in this one short and nothing else. Like I think he makes a non-speaking cameo in The Alchemist Returns or something, but that’s it. It’s a clear mismanagement of resources.

Make Me Smile

Rapunzel tries unsuccessfully to make Old Lady Crowley smile, but it’s not until she holds an honest conversation with the woman does she find a solution.

This is best short out of the bunch, and not just cause it stars the great Pat Carol either.

This is how Rapunzel should have been handled in the main series proper. Which is why I screen-grabbed this whole convo. It’s perfect.

Rapunzel spent 18 years lock in a tower. Of course she doesn’t understand different perspectives from her own cause her development has been stunted. She’s compassionate but lacks empathy. So she has a hard time connecting with others, but once she slows down an actually takes the time to listen to people she is capable of learning.

We needed more of this; just on a larger scale. Have Raps make mistakes, have people be annoyed with her or right angry when she messes up, and then have her learn.

Why the series thought it was a good idea to have everyone kiss her royal arse instead while she dug in her heels and consendinly took charge of everything even while still screwing up, I’ll never know.

Hare Peace

Feldspar asks Rapunzel to take care of his “precious”. Rapunzel thinks he means a pet rabbit, and is run ragged trying to keep up with it, but it turns out he was talking about his prized cabbage instead.

These shorts overall work a lot better than the main show. They know what they are and don’t try to be anything else. Therefore they deliver what is promised competently. They’re nothing amazing nor groundbreaking and in truth I wouldn’t want a whole series of them, but I get the feeling this is what the head executives at Disney were expecting when they signed off on the show and not whatever mess the main series turned out to be.

Night Bite

Rapunzel, Eugene, and the animals are out camping for the night and Max gets irritated by all the bugs.

What doesn’t work so well is the placement of some of the shorts. This particular short aired during season two and indeed that would make sense given that they are camping out here. Which why would they do that if they were still in Corona...

Yet some of the later shorts, which also aired during season two, clearly do take place in Corona debunking that theory. Just some context would be nice show, that’s all.

Also this short is meh.. not bad, not, good, just there.

Hiccup Fever

Rapunzel gets the hiccups and everyone in Corona seems to have advice on how to get rid of them, but only Eugene has the solution.

I’d argue that this is the funniest of the shorts. I legit laughed out loud at some points which is rare.

However it does sadly prove on thing.

Rapunzel was always a shit girlfriend, even before season three.

Being a douche to your boyfriend isn’t funny show.

Snowball

Rapunzel and Pascal plan to have some fun in the snow and things go awry.

So where and when is this exactly?

Unlike the other shorts, the context and setting for this one is paramount to whether or not Rapunzel is a simply lazy or a an outright dick.

For you see, Rapunzel had never been outside in the show before Queen for a Day. Ergo, this can only take place during the latter half of season one or during season two.

Now season two makes a lot of sense. They’re at some cabin in the woods that was never mentioned are seen on screen before and this did air during season two anyways. If that is the case then Raps just avoiding her planned road trip like always.

However, the last short and the next two also aired during season two and all of those do take place in Corona during season one and even the wiki states that they were all meant to take place during season one in original concept.

Yet if that is the case then Rapunzel is ignoring Varian right now and playing around in the thing that almost killed him...

Oh and that still doesn’t explain where this cabin is. Is it the mountain retreat that the King and Queen were going to spend their anniversary at?

What’s really mind boggling though is that they made this short in order to reuse the character models from Queen for a Day in order to save money, but then went and built this whole set that’s never seen outside of this short.

Like seriously who was on charge of the budget decisions in the series?

Hairdon't

Rapunzel offers to cut Eugene’s hair but then messes it up. She spends all day trying to stop Eugene from seeing his new do, but turns out the hairstyle becomes a hit with the Corona townspeople.

Rapunzel seriously lucked out here and it borderlines on the main series style levels of BS. She asks Eugene not to get upset before he sees what she’s done and, guess what, he is rightly upset.

Honestly the series needed to let Eugene get angry at Rapunzel for stuff. That’s what happens in relationships, you will make your partner mad at times and that’s ok. It’s all about how both of you handle that.

We never get to see how Eugene and Rapunzel would handle a real ordinary conflict and not just magic/ex girlfriend shenanigans that don't end with them putting off talking about it.

Even their best episodes in season two still are over conflicts that don’t have any immediate impact on their lives and are mostly hypotheticals to them, like kids or how other people should approach dating. And of course by season three Eugene is just reduced to a doormat.

Unicorn-y

Rapunzel tries to help Vladimir find his missing prized unicorn figurine in this spoof of old detective movies. Turns out Max and Pascal had found it and were using it to play chess.

Ok, first off, Eugene has the patience of a saint and deserves so much better than Raps and her bullcrap here. Same goes for Lance who is tied up as well during this scene.

But also this is another short that needed to be more than three mins long. The “mystery” is over before it even starts and the film noir parody only barely has time register in the viewer’s mind and then it’s over with.

Shorty’s Theme Song Takeover!

The last of the shorts aired after the show had ended as part of the Disney Channel’s on going promotional gimmick “Theme Song Takeover!”

Shorty finds Rapunzel’s journal and sings his own version of the show’s theme song, “Wind in my Beard”.

It’s ok.

All of Disney’s animated shows for the 2019/2020 line up has done one and some are funnier than than this and others not so. The Shorty one is pretty middle ground but what makes it work is that Rapunzel is completely oblivious to what’s going on and only Shorty, always the anomaly of the series, can perceive the fourth wall. Thus proving he was never really human.

As for placement, we know it’s season three cause of Rapunzel’s dress and they’re mostly likely inside the Snuggly Duckling right now. So just slot it in wherever you see fit.

Conclusion

That’s it for the shorts. The rest of Rapunzel’s Return should be up later this week and then hopefully I’ll be all caught up in time to cover the next episode next week.

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzles tangled adventure #short cuts #anti-rapunzel #anti-tangled

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hb-pickle · 3 years

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Favorite Quotes from Frozen 2: Dangerous Secrets 🌃 🌌 🌠 🎑

Quick list of all my favorite quotes and scenes from the book "Frozen 2: Dangerous Secrets" by @marimancusi 😚💜!

Dangerous Secrets came out almost 7 months ago, and despite my harsh criticism, DS was actually very fun, flavorful, coherent, brought something to the table, complex, had lots of fun lore and additions, and all that good stuff a super fan would love. I was VERY entertained and I do stan 😌. It felt like a genuine, heartfelt addition to the Frozen canon and I love and respect it, despite its flaws. So here's a little Dangerous Secrets appreciation featuring my favorite quotes! 🌟💛💫🎉🎊🎖🌙

➽───────────────❥

#1 - 12 year old Iduna, after first arriving in Arendelle for the 1st time, is interrogated by some townsmen who don’t recognize her.

"Please," I whispered, my voice hoarse from the smoke I'd inhaled. Though I hardly knew what I was asking for. Mercy? - PG 31

I just think this line f*cking SLAPS. “What was I begging for? Mercy?” NOW THAT’S REAL LITERATURE.

#2 - Iduna goes to the Enchanted Forest and is stopped by the mist.

A crushing despair began to weigh on my chest. Everyone I ever loved was there behind that wall. - PG 61

I like this specifically because I like how its a subtle reference to the rest of the Frozen franchise i.e. Elsa from Into The Unknown “Everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls”. A lot of tie-in books tend to go heavy and obvious with the references, but this felt very well crafted and professional.

❂

#3 - Agnarr, in a fit of passion, ask Iduna to always tell him the truth and that they should never keep secrets from each other (making Iduna panic a little because she has been hiding her true identity their entire relationship).

I trailed off, unsure what to say. Not sure if I'd ever know what to say again. Every word that came from my mouth tasted like a like, even the ones that were true. - PG 106

This one felt REAL good because Iduna’s anxiety around Agnarr has been built up really well throughout the whole story, so we really feel her panic. Especially coupled with Agnarr’s blinding ignorance (affectionate) 🤣🤣🤣 Also just.... that last line... POETRY.

❂

#4 - Teenage Iduna and Agnarr go on their bi-annual trip to investigate the mist. [Purple = Iduna, Green = Agnarr]

"Did you finish your section?"

"Yup."

"And...?"

"Oh. There's a big gaping hole. Crazy huge. Sorry, was I supposed to tell you?"

She didn't laugh.

"Sorry. Bad joke." I felt dumb. I should know better than to mess with her at the mist.

"And yet somehow you manage to repeat it every year," she grumbled, testing out another section of mist. - PG 87

This is definitely the funniest line in the book because you can really tell Iduna is SICK of his ass 🤣. Also the fact that this isn’t the first time Agnarr tried passing this same shit is hilarious. I also feel like this really nicely exemplifies both character’s personalities as lighthearted, stupid, and unweildy (affectionate) and stern and serious but forgiving.

❂

#5 - Adult Iduna tries to comfort panicking teenage Elsa. [Purple = Iduna, Blue = Elsa]

"I understand, sweetheart," I said at last. "Just... hang on a little longer, okay? My brave girl." My voice cracked on the last part and I felt a tear fall from my eye, sliding slowly down my cheek. Elsa saw it and to my suprise, she suddenly stepped forward, closing the distance between us. I watched, breathlessly, as she reached out with a shaky hand and swiped the tear from my cheek. It froze on her fingertip-a perfect crystal trapped in time. The she flicked it away, looking at me with her great, deep, deep, sorrowful eyes.

"I love you, mama," she said slowly. - PG 268

I like this scene because it really caught me off guard!! I didn't except Elsa to touch her mother, especially this deep into her trauma. And this scene is just so sweet 😭 and a nice small bonding moment before the tragedy at the end. Plus the tiny crystal tear is beautiful imagery ❄

❂

➽───────────────❥

Honorable Mentions for other scenes I just liked:

• Iduna rejects Agnarr's first proposal and he drops the love spoon out of the tree. - I think that's a very good use of setting, plus trees are very important symbols in A&I's story <3

• Iduna and Agnarr get married and they do the wedding ritual where you pull the top rings of the Kransekake to predict how many children you will have. - This one was really fun because I liked the little bit of lore/culture! Plus its a little fun nod to their beautiful babies uwu

• All the horny^TM scenes - because it made me question what the age range of the book was for 🤣🤣🤣. Plus it was just super funny

#frozen #frozen 2 #disney frozen #disney frozen 2 #agduna #iduna #agnarr #frozen 2: dangerous secrets #dangerous secrets #king agnarr #queen iduna #elsa #elsa frozen #anna #anna frozen #northuldra #arendelle #frozen analysis #frozen 2 analysis

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ayankun · 3 years

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a lil essay of self-psychoanalysis re: hsmtmts & s2 finale

I have this outsider, "objective," kind of 3rd person observation that the stories crafted for Ricky, Nini, Gina, and EJ are great! In the context of, "how nice it is to have these modern, healthy stories modeled for the youth to absorb into their precious minds" spoken by a wise old millennial with a knowing nod.

And I do think that. But what I really mean, deep down, is "!!!!!????? I NEEDED THESE STORIES (?????!!!!!)."

I'm chewing on the fact that youth's media is celebrated when it's successful in Teaching The Youths(tm), or, you know, is just wholesome and positive by whatever standards are deemed wholesome and positive by the adults who are creating it in that moment, even while there's this assumption that in order to do or be those things, the overall product has to be, well, immature. Lacking nuance. Cheesy. Easily digestible by developing minds. ie, developed minds should not be able to enjoy the end result, and will in fact be looked at strangely when they admit that they do. (because enjoying products intended for immature minds is a sign of immaturity)

So yes, I do and have grappled with a need to "manage" my interest in this franchise, specifically the movies, as an adult. To casually never bring it up, you know? Because they're dumb movies for dumb kids, and I was a legal adult when they came out. Fifteen years ago. Even though, over the last fifteen years, it's constantly been something that I can engage with as-is, AND I've seen it evolve with me as I evolved, in that I have been consistently able to project some hyper-specific perspectives back into it and still see them echoed back to me when I needed the external validation (Troy Bolton is AFAB, Taylor is ace, etc).

High School Musical is just fucking important to me.

So now this new show comes out, and obviously it's millennial-bait because we're the only ones who would care -- we were the Youths targeted by this Youth Media, after all -- but it's fifteen years later and the post-Youth Adults are told it's not cool to be into kids' shows, and the kids (Gen-Z folks, who are themselves also sometimes literal adults today), may or may not even targetable by commercial media at all, much less tempted by a bygone relic of a prior culture. So who is this show for? The fans or the kids?

And the answer is yes. Yes. It's for the fans and the kids. Anybody who can get something out of it should get something out of it. And they show this by having Gen-Z characters alongside Millennial characters, and they're having these Millennials speak from experience, not all of us grew up to be Troy Boltons, some of us (and some of you) will be Coach Boltons, and Ms. Darbuses, or whatever else you want to be, because we were told we had to want to be championship basketball players and Broadway stars, and we had to learn on our own that being a pizza man or helping out on the family farm is okay, too.

So that's my appreciation of the standards that are deemed wholesome and positive by the adults who are creating Youth Media in this particular moment. BUT IN ADDITION TO THAT, the craftsmanship of the vehicle for these messages is astronomically higher-brow than most mature media created by and for mature adults, so I'm also having to re-learn something that I already knew, in that Youth Media = Trash is just an unfair stereotype that perpetuates the righteousness of those that will bully others for engaging with "trash" when they ought to have better (less immature) tastes, and perpetuates my state of "oh, better never tell anyone about the things that are important touchstones for me and my personal history, because they'll get the wrong impression & think less of me." Which is, as you may know, a perspective that bleeds into every last aspect of my social life, and generally has made just being a human pretty overwhelming to date.

I need to (attempt to) stop wasting my time on people who are going to judge me for being authentic. If anything, I need to start judging them. I need to learn that I'm not doing anything wrong, just being me. I honestly don't know if that sounds believable, that I haven't learned this yet.

So yeah, HSMTMTS. I'm not a kid who needs a helping hand through my formative years. That's what HSM was for. What can this show offer me, someone who is 15-20 years older than its target demographic? Oh, only everything?

When I say, I'm so glad to see these stories told --

I'm glad Ricky gets to understand how his unexamined trauma has affected his (social) life, and I'm thrilled that he gets to work on finding productive ways forward even though that path looks different than the one he thought he wanted;

I'm glad Nini gets to find her voice, her independence, her sense of self through creative expression, and get to feel that validation from putting herself out there and getting something back from an appreciative audience, even when doing the thing that's right for her appears inherently selfish, I'm glad she gets to be selfish;

I'm joyous that Gina gets to take a risk on dropping her mask and being her authentic self, to find a place where she can be the person she is, where she's appreciated for being exactly that and not some can-do persona she's constructed, that she gets to find satisfaction in being vulnerable and understanding her own needs, and that she's told time and time again, "stop running, you idiot, this is home, we want you here;"

I'm staggeringly sympathetic with EJ's sense of "shit, I'm so dumb and I overstepped and ruined everything, shit shit shit what's wrong with me," 'cause hell I've been there too many times and it's all-consuming and awful, but I'm euphoric at his courage to go out on that limb, and I'm vicariously smitten as all heck that he gets to experience what it's like to have those feelings reciprocated in the end --

I don't really mean that I'm glad the Youth of America get to have their impressionable minds sculpted while there's still the chance to sculpt them, I'm saying any person of any age can find resonance in these stories, and that I, SPECIFICALLY, AN OLD-ASS MILLENNIAL, FIND AN OVERWHELMING AMOUNT OF RESONANCE IN THESE STORIES THAT ARE PAINFULLY AND BEAUTIFULLY IMPORTANT FOR ME TO ENGAGE WITH TODAY AND CERTAINLY FOR MANY DAYS TO COME.

And I'm going to stop judging myself for that.

#what hsm means to me in 1100 words #have I had Second Chance playing on repeat since Friday?#YES

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johnny-and-dora · 4 years

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you and i are very close

"A younger Holt less familiar with Jake Peralta would reprimand him for being so easy to read – but it seems to be in his very nature to wear his heart on his sleeve, and the truth is, it suits him."

or, jake & holt talk about fatherhood. (post 7x10)

read on ao3 -

“…So that’s the lowdown on the Broughton case. Charles and I are gonna head out and arrest them as soon as the warrant comes through.” Jake finishes, bouncing slightly on his heels as he finishes the update. Raymond Holt leans back in his chair, content with their plan of action.

“Excellent work, detective.” Holt says – but then finds himself mildly concerned when he only receives a subdued nod in reply. While he may deem it an appropriate workplace response to a captain’s praise, it is far from the excessive energy and enthusiasm that Jake usually exudes.

Raymond recalls the previous night’s events – a biological sex reveal party that led to Jake’s father being taken to the ER – and wonders if that might be placating the detective’s usually golden Labrador-like temperament.

“I trust that your father is in good health?” He asks tentatively, gesturing for Jake to sit down- he pauses for a moment before doing so, leg jostling in a way that increases Holt’s concern by 17.5%.

“Yeah, he’ll be fine. Sorry our party was kind of a full-blown disaster. Guess I should have expected that with three generations of Peraltas in the room.” He makes the self-deprecating remark with the light-hearted bravado Holt has come to expect from the detective, though it’s notably flatter than usual.

What’s more, his smile is more of a grimace, and he can’t stop fidgeting with the badge around his neck – a classic Peralta tell. Something is clearly bothering him, likely related to his complex relationship with his father and his own fatherhood looming.

A younger Holt less familiar with Jake Peralta would reprimand him for being so easy to read – but it seems to be in his very nature to wear his heart on his sleeve, and the truth is, it suits him. It is an openness, a trust and a sincerity that Holt has earned over the years as Jake’s superior officer. Though he still finds himself exasperated by his stubbornness and fixation on action films, Holt sincerely values his respect and loyalty.

He frowns, trying to assess the best way to discreetly discern what could be causing the detective’s distress.

“I actually found the party to be rather enjoyable, save the alarming bloodshed. The carrots were rich in nutrition and I thought the cake’s green colour made a very interesting and progressive statement.”

Jake’s lips quirk up a little at that, and he sits straighter in the chair, so Holt must be doing something right.

“Thank you, Captain, but that actually wasn’t our intention. Just another screw-up.”

“I see.” He considers this new information briefly, before attempting to continue the non-case related chitter-chatter, something he usually avoids. “So, you are now aware of the biological sex of your child?”

“Oh, yeah! We’re having a boy.” Jake finally smiles genuinely, and Raymond can’t help but return it. He may not personally care much for small infants, but the thought of the bickering detectives he first met when he came to the Nine-Nine having a child together does inspire some fatherly pride over how far they’ve come.

“My congratulations to you both.” He nods again, but his gaze is still far away. Holt decides to subtly switch tactics.

“You know, whatever doubts may be plaguing you, I am certain you have absolutely nothing to be worried about. Your son is very lucky to have you both as parents.”

“What? I’m not, um, there’s absolutely zero doubts to be found here.” Jake’s eyebrows briefly shoot up to his hairline as he stammers some typically poorly concealed denial. Holt remains neutral, wishing he had done some research on the subject but doing his best to power through.

“It is perfectly natural to be anxious about such things.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the gentle encouragement is all that it takes for a veritable avalanche of emotions to trip over themselves as Jake speaks.

“I guess I just…I want to be the best dad I can be. I don’t want him to ever feel like…like he’s been abandoned or he’s alone. It’s crazy how much I already love this kid and I haven’t even met him yet, but I know I would do absolutely anything to keep him safe. And with my dad talking about this stupid Peralta father-son curse and my grandpa being a jerk and walking out of our lives all over again…I don’t know. I just know that I don’t want to let him – or Amy – down. Ever.”

Holt is admittedly, a little overwhelmed. He and Kevin have never seen the appeal of conforming to heteronormative ideals of family life, and yet he values his place as the head of the chosen family he’s found at the Nine-Nine. The mysteries of pregnancy and childcare are complete unknowns to him, yet he finds himself completely certain that Jake and Amy will be great parents to their future son.

So, Holt does what he has always found it easiest to do, and he tells Jake the truth.

“I am not sure of this family ‘curse’ you speak of, but as your commanding officer for the majority of the past seven years, I know your doubts are ill-founded. On the contrary, the dedication and loyalty you have shown me, and every member of this squad, only makes me surer you will be a great father.”

“Really?” Jake says, hopeful but apparently still unconvinced.

“This job is not an easy one. You and I know both know first-hand how our lives can be affected by circumstances we cannot control. But you would never willingly let your family down, and the fact that you are so committed to doing everything you can for them is a sure sign that you never will.” Holt pauses briefly to let his sincerity sink in.

“Your son is going to love you, Jake. He will grow to enjoy many Thomas Cruise films with you, and I’m sure he will come to share your passion for…the transforming robot sewer turtles?”

“Feel compelled to tell you those are two completely different franchises, but I really appreciate the attempt and I will be emailing Michael Bay’s team about a potential cross-over.”

“Well. Regardless of the specifics of these cartoon turtles, I am sure you have understood my point.”

“Yes. Thank you, sir. I- that means, uh, a lot.” His thanks is, as usual, completely earnest, and Holt finds himself glad to have helped in any small way. He cannot completely solve the detective’s issues with fatherhood, but he is happy to be one consistent and stable presence for Jake to rely on. Just as he knows he can rely on him.

“You are welcome. And you are free to discuss any other personal issues you may have with me, although I assume Santiago may be better suited to such conversations.”

“She’s been telling me pretty much the same thing.” Jake admits, shifting in his seat. Raymond briefly wonders about the intricacies of their home life, whether they will discuss this conversation over dinner or perhaps during the commercials of some form of media content.

“Well, I recommend you listen to her. She has proven herself to be extremely perceptive and is rarely ever wrong.”

“I know.” Jake grins, a very specific smile on his face that Holt recognises has long been reserved for talking about Amy, even before they began their courtship. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she married me.”

Holt thinks of years spent watching them endlessly bicker and argue and tease each other, thinks of the intimacy affection he sees most often when they are inebriated at Shaw’s bar. He thinks of how ragged and distraught they’ve been each time they’ve been forced apart and how relieved they were to be back together. He thinks of officiating their wedding and accidentally intruding on their honeymoon, and above all, he thinks about each moment of their shared happiness together he has been privileged enough to witness.

“I do not believe she was wrong about that either.”

It’s an expression of sentiment which breaches many of his strict rules of conduct and professionality in the workplace, and he’s partly reluctant to be debasing himself so willingly. But then Jake’s eyes are shining with gratitude and his usual enthusiastic bright demeanour has returned and Raymond can’t help but feel relieved.

“Oh my god, I always knew you were our secret number one fan. Charles is going to be crushed.”

“You are dismissed.”

“Noooo, but I really want to stay and talk about how invested you are in our relationship- “

“-Please leave my office.”

Holt maintains his usual stony-faced composure until Jake shuts the door – only then does he allow himself to relax in his seat a little, fondly thinking of Kevin, Cheddar and the family he has found in the Nine-Nine. He makes a note to discuss stuffed animal varieties with Kevin at a later date so that they may have something to present Jake and Amy’s son when he arrives.

And when he gets to meet the newest addition to the Santiago-Peralta family a few short months later, held oh-so-carefully and preciously in the arms of a man he has come to consider a son, it is a meeting that he treasures for the rest of his life.

#b99 #b99 fic #brooklyn 99 #listen. i have a lot of emotions about soon-to-be-father jake and his gay work dad #so here you go #my writing #shut up sian

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ageofdragon · 4 years

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The Next Dragon Age, Analysis #3

Analysis #1 Skeletor | Analysis #2 Location, Location, Location

*Due to length, a Read More has been added. TDLR under cut, at the end.

It is finally time to talk about That image. There is so much going on in that image. It’s brightly colored, full of motion and detail. We see familiar faces and new ones. It’s another eye-catching and gorgeous concept art. I am of course talking about this one.

Now rather than touch the obvious first. Because oh the Obvious it is so great and exciting, that we’ll leave it for last.

Rather I want to start with the overall concept. We see a group of characters diving underwater into a coral reef area. They are doing so, presumably to escape the archers above; as we see a rain of arrows into the water.

So there are two ways this could happen. This could be a scripted event within the game, in which this scene needs to take place or is an option that can take place. This could also be showing off the PCs and NPC companions abilities to FINALLY after three games be getting a swim mechanic. As we’ve spent two games confined to land and a third insta-drowning on the Storm Coast. It would certainly open up new options for moving across maps and exploring beneath them, with new treasures and areas to unlock. The last game gave us jump puzzles, we could be looking at swim puzzles in the near future. It also makes sense for this to be the game for underwater travel and just water travel in general. As the entirety of Northern Thedas has some access and dependency on coasts, bays, and oceans surrounding it.

Now let’s return to the image. If we look closely, we can see some fish among a coral reef and far in the distance is the shadows of sharks. Which could be enemies similar to those found in the Assassin’s Creed franchise or just environmental/aesthetic additions.

I also want to point out that we can see where this group is coming from. At the top of the image is the shadows of boats, which again hint towards at least having ship exploration in cutscene or mechanic. These people aren’t jumping from a dock or shore, but from ships.

The last thing I want to touch on briefly, before moving onto the characters populating this image is the treasure. At the very bottom of this picture there is a skeleton, it has pieces of coral growing out of it. Obviously it rather gruesome in a way, but has a level of nature overcoming beauty to it (for some). So I’m not going to post a close up of it, but just wanted to point that out. The skeleton also has a treasure chest in it’s arms and the lock glints, to draw attention to it. Similar to the mechanics used in many games to distinguish loot chests, again hinting towards possible underwater exploration.

Now then...the characters, I’m still going to hold off on the obvious cause I’m cruel and I Mean ;) why not. So I’m going to start in the very back first.

In the back we see the skull-headed individual from before. Though this one doesn’t have any glow to the skull. I’ve seen a lot of other theories being brought up about this character too, so I still can’t definitively say much about them.

I am still kind of under the impression they are a Mortalitasi or tied to them. Many others have pointed out it could be a Higher Undead (mentioned in Tevinter Nights, as I stated in Analysis #1), a self-aware spirit in the body of someone who once lived and I believe similar to what Justice and Kristoff became. I’ve also heard some people wonder if it isn’t Audric, a specific higher undead that was a main character of the aforementioned Tevinter Nights story; he is known as a guardsman who was killed before filled by another character with a spirit, and later became an archivist for the Mourn Watch. Which would tie him to the Mortalitasi, but if it is him and he is shown in all concept arts; it makes me wonder why he would be performing a dissection of a Dragon.

Next we have this woman.

I have a friend who on first glance thought it to be Scout Lace Harding, which could be possible given the company. She also has similar armor, a possibility of freckles, and similar physical features. However, it is strange that they would choose to loosen her hair, unless it is specifically to give more convincing towards the underwater scene. And the foreshortening of the drawing, makes it hard to gauge the woman’s height as dwarva or not. It’s a bit of an unknown. That said, if it isn’t Scout Harding, I have a strong feeling it could be a default PC stand-in. There is no extremely distinct feature about her and her face is rather basic to be an instantly recognizable companion. Which says to me she’s a NPC, like Scout Harding or a PC stand-in. Unless of course Scout Harding is a companion, which I certainly won’t say no to.

And Finally, I suppose we can talk about our last two characters in this concept art.

Still working from the back, we have this handsome and fine piece of art who I really wish I could 100% confirm is our favorite Tevinter piece of ass art. However...I cannot. On first glance, it absolutely looks like Magister Dorian Pavus.

The hair, skin color, and even aesthetic all seem to match. However, there are subtle changes to the hair and facial hair (against his long-haired epilogue look) that could be enough to claim it’s another person.

He is also wearing something similar to a crow uniform and wielding a rapier. In fact, in another concept art, what I originally thought could have been Zevran; actually seems to be this guy. Though I can’t confirm that either and Maker do I hope the other guy is Zevran. If this guy is Dorian tho, then Dorian could be undercover or has a few new tricks (maybe dual-classing or going back to dao unrestricted-class weapon loadouts?) It could even just be a style choice, though it still begs the question why.

So the possibilities are that he is Magister Dorian Pavus of Ventus or some unknown Crow. Either of which aren’t bad options, but one is definitely more exciting to me than the other.

Lastly, my favorite character to ever grace the Dragon Age fandom. The Queen of the Seas herself, and beloved Rivaini.

Captain Isabela of the Felicia Armada (allegedly).

She is honestly the only one in this entire picture, I can say with almost no doubt, who she is. There is such a slim margin for this not to be her. She has her gold decorations (including the overly large, penis necklace), her captain’s pants as seen in the comics, and her top and sash as seen in the Dragon Age Inquisition multiplayer. Her appearance is one of the most unique in the series, so for her to be unrecognizable would be a hard sell. She even has her one shouldered armor piece and her earrings.

Which Isabela has been in every game to date and I do mean EVERY game, even the spin-offs for PC and mobile, why wouldn’t she be in the one game that goes north near her hometown and the seas she roams? She could be working for herself, the Inquisition, or even Hawke. But it seems no doubt we’ll be running into her and she’ll be running into a good bit of booty. After all is it even a Dragon Age game anymore if the Queen of the Seas isn’t there (and like fewer dragons than the number of times she shows up?).

tldr; underwater or at least the sea seems to be a part of the Next Dragon Age game. And Captain Isabela seems to be too, in passing or sticking around a while we don’t know. We can also count of some new companions and maybe more familiar faces, but wherever it takes us we’ll be in good company.

#Dragon Age 4 #DA4 #DA4 Speculation #speculation #long post #ageofdragon speculates #idk what to put down but there is coral growing from a skeleton and that's kind of disturbing #tryphophobia #DA4 BTS Analysis #Analysis 3

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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THE WEEKEND WARRIOR 6/25/21: F9, WEREWOLVES WITHIN, THE ICE ROAD, FALSE POSITIVE, I CARRY YOU WITH ME and More!

Well, June is quickly coming to an end, but that means it’s officially summer. No, for real this time. Summer started June 21, and that means we have the latest attempt to revive the box office, and really, if this doesn’t do it, then we’re sunk. Doomed. It’s over, and Jeff Bock, the Streamer Relations guy, has won. We’re in the endgame now. Go to the movies this weekend, and don’t let Jeff Bock win!

Before we get to the theatrical releases, the 20th Tribeca [formerly Film] Festival ended over the weekend, and it certainly “looked different” as we were reminded every time some local celebrity introduced a movie on the festival’s virtual platform. As far as the movies I saw, a few are mentioned below but generally, the documentaries once again outplayed any of the narrative features, which was pretty much the same with other festivals this year. Besides the Rita Moreno doc that I reviewed last week, I quite enjoyed A-Ha the Movie, a documentary that covers the famous ‘80s “one hit wonders” travails since their first hit album and the ubiquitous “Take on Me.” It’s a great doc that really shows what can happen when you try to keep the band together even when you stop travelling or even talking to each other. Also Bitchin’: The Sound and Fury of Rick James was another great musical doc about a funk/soul singer who I really never knew very much about, so it was quite educational. I also liked 7 Days quite a bit, and that was one of the better narrative films at the fest.

It felt like there were two very different Tribecas. There was one for the elitist journalists who were allowed to attend all the in-person screenings and parties, and there was the one for the rest of us -- where we were just sitting at home watching stuff on our TV sets, just like we did with Sundance and SXSW. And make no mistake, as someone who has been covering Tribeca since Year Two (where I *bought* all my tickets), it definitely felt like I was being pushed aside by the current Tribeca regime who just wants to be seen as something exclusive just for certain people, including as a woke festival catering to the underrepresented (but not really… if that was the case, they would have given free tickets out to people who live in the areas of the city where they set-up their pop-up screenings). I only know a few locals who received the better in-person badge -- pretty much the entire staff at IndieWire, for instance -- but as someone who has covered the festival for years and received a Hudson Pass for the effort, it definitely felt like I don’t really need to cover Tribeca anymore. It’s just not the elite festival it thinks it is, and as far as I’m concerned, it will never be Cannes, it will never be Sundance, and it will never even be SXSW. It continues to be a festival with zero identity that caters to the rich, white New Yorkers that already get special treatment wherever they go. I’m not even sure how much of it even takes place in Tribeca anymore, since the premier location for movie premieres seemed to be at Hudson Yards, which is about four miles North of “Ground Zero,” the area affected by 9/11 that precipitated the need for something like the Tribeca Festival in the first place. I feel that this year’s festival was an even bigger disappointment than last year’s virtual only, but that’s because they’ve finally just given up on the press they don’t feel are worthy of covering them. So yeah, not for me.

It’s hard to believe that F9 (Universal Pictures), the ninth movie in the “Fast Saga.” is finally being released in North America, since I felt like I reviewed it five years ago. Actually, it was only a month ago, but it just seems like forever since I’ve been so busy this month.

In case you have no idea what to expect and wanna know: Vin Diesel is back as Dominic Torreto, and this time we meet another member of his real family, brother Jakob (John Cena), who is now working with the criminal spy organization Cypher. Most of the gang are back, except for Dwayne Johnson’s Agent Hobbs and Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw, who you may remember went off to make Hobbs and Shaw a few years back. In fact, that last movie was the last movie in the franchise, which was supposed to act as a tie-over between 2017’s Fate of the Furious and F9, which was originally supposed to come out in 2020. Got all that?

Hobbs and Shaw opened with around $60 million in early August, which is generally one of the few weekends in the late summer where a movie could still open big. That was the lowest opening for the franchise in over ten years, because ever since 2009’s Fast & Furious, every single movie has opened over $70 million and closer to $100 million or more. 2013’s Fast and Furious 6 and 2017’s The Fate of the Furious didn’t quite hit a $100 million opening, but still, it’s a pretty good barometer of how big the franchise was in the before-times. James Wan’s Furious 7 still sports the biggest opening with $147 million in early April 2015, hampered by the year-long delay after one of the film’s stars, Paul Walker, died in a car crash a year earlier. Walker’s death may have helped drive audiences to the movie with the same morbid curiosity way as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight back in 2008. (Furious 7 grossed $353 million domestically, which is also a high watermark for the franchise domestically.)

The Fate of the Furious grossed slightly less than the previous two installments and then Hobbs and Shaw ended up with $173 million, which is nothing to sneeze at… unless your movie ended up costing $200 million, which that one did. We’re talking about very expensive movies here, and one presumes F9 is up there in that $200 million range, but it bodes a couple questions. Was the success of the franchise since Fast 5 mainly due to “franchise Viagra” Dwayne Johnson and was that helped by the addition of Statham? With the two of them gone, does that take away from the movie’s potential or do people like Diesel, Tyrese Gibson’s Roman, Ludacris and the other long-timers like Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster enough to make this an opening weekend must-see?

There might some questions whether theaters in bigger cities like New York and L.A., where F9 would generally do big business, will be as full as normal -- even with full capacity finally being allowed. The other question is whether Universal may have released this movie overseas too far in advance of the States. Think about it. When you start to think about movie piracy and where a lot of that comes from, it goes right to China, and a movie like this at a time like this when people are cautious about running to theaters, well if you walk down the street and someone is selling a copy for 5 bucks, why wouldn’t you buy it? That’s the reason why studios release movies day and date across the globe, or at least they try to. Piracy used to be a big thing hurting the movie business, but that seems to have been forgotten.

Reviews for the movie have been mixed -- I already reviewed the movie over at Below the Line -- but about the same as the last two installments, so those won’t necessarily stop people from going to the movies, since this is a classic summer popcorn movie where it feels like everyone should go see it opening week. Like in the past, F9 will open Thursday night for previews, but it seems to getting more Thursday night previews than normal -- I’ve seen five to six screenings in many locations -- and that might because Universal realizes how important this release is and how many people will be looking to see if it can revive theatrical.

I think I’m going to say that F9 will make around $72 to 74 million this weekend, which takes it back to Fast & Furious days, but I do think audiences will like the movie more than critics, and because of that, the decision to make two more movies will probably be warranted.

I was very excited to see Josh Ruben directing another movie so soon after last year’s Scare Me -- a terrific horror-comedy you can watch on Shudder -- and his latest film, WEREWOLVES WITHIN (IFC Films), based on the Ubisoft game, is just as funny AND scary. It stars Sam Richardson as Finn Wheeler, the new park ranger arriving in the small and remote town of Beaversfield, which seems to have just as much politics and backbiting as the biggest of the cities. He quickly becomes friends with the bubbly postwoman, Cecily (Milana Vayntrub), as she introduces him to the quirky townsfolk… oh, yeah, and there is something brutally mauling them to death.

The premise for Werewolves Within seems fairly simple, and maybe that’s because it is based on a VR game where I assume you have to figure out who is the vampire, so that’s pretty much what’s going on as Finn, Cecily and seemingly the entire town wind up locking themselves up in the Beaversfield Inn trying to figure out who is killing the others. Thankfully, there are more layers built into the ongoing relationships between the townsfolk.

Ruben’s got a lot of things going for his second feature film, the first thing being a super-funny script by Mishna Wolff, but also the amazing cast he put together that not includes Richardson and Vayntrub with some brilliant chemistry but also the likes of Michaela Watkins and Michael Chernus, who can never do wrong in my book. Those two elements alone would make Werewolves Within worthwhile, but Ruben ably takes on the challenges of a much bigger cast than his previous movie and finds a way to keep the viewer constantly on edge and interested in what will happen next, especially to some of the characters who are not as jovial or friendly as Richardson’s Finn.

But what works best about the movie is that there are plenty of unexpected twists, maybe some more obvious than others, and the fact you never really know who might die next or house keeps the movie quite entertaining. It also shows off Ruben’s great skills at combining horror and humor, something that’s very difficult for even the best directors, but when you’ve got it -- as Ruben proved so perfectly with Scare Me -- then you might as well use it to its fullest.

It’s hard to describe how well the humor works without using jokes ala something like Shaun of the Dead, but it’s more of a light-hearted charm that one wouldn’t expect to go so well with the dire situation in which the characters find themselves. It doesn’t hurt that many of the characters are so unlikable that getting their comeuppance adds to that humor. If you’re expecting a lot of werewolf transformations or even werewolves plural, you might be slightly disappointed, but it’s nice that a movie can be its own thing without trying to copy other films in the horror subgenre.

Either way, Ruben is 2 for 2 with his second attempt at comedy-horror, which ventures just far enough away from Scare Me to make me think that he’ll continue to be a great voice in the much-maligned and hard-to-muster horror subgenre.

Werewolves Within just debuted at the Tribeca Festival, and it will be released in theaters this Friday and then be On Demand and Digital starting July 2. I’ll also have an interview with Josh Ruben over at Below the Line a little later today, too, so check that out!

Not getting a theatrical release in the United States unfortunately is Jonathan Hensleigh’s THE ICE ROAD (Netflix), starring Liam Neeson as a truck driver in Winnipeg, whose special skill is driving that truck across the frozen lake up north. When a diamond mine collapses in the very north side of Canada, it’s up to him and a crew of other ice truckers to drive their big rigs across the frozen lake to save the men trapped in the mine.

I quite liked this movie that definitely marks a return of Hensleigh to some of those great action movies he wrote in the ‘90s, like Die Hard with a Vengeance, but this is also a significantly better action movie than some of the ones he’s directed, like the 2004 The Punisher. The sad fact is that I’ve been pretty disappointed with Neeson’s recent film choices, particularly in the last year when disappointments like The Honest Thief and The Marksman managed to get theatrical releases even during the pandemic. The Ice Road is a much better movie, maybe because Hensleigh wrote and directed it himself, but also he had much better source material in the docuseries, Ice Road Truckers, and he clearly did his research into these 18-wheelers on these dangerous trips across iced-over lake that could crack at any time. Hensleigh uses this idea well to tell a story where much of the movie takes place on that dangerous ice.

There are elements to the story that might not work quite as well, such as the decision to have Neeson’s brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas) be suffering from such horrible PTSD that it makes him almost a bigger hindrance than a help on the trip. On the other hand, the movie does have the always great Laurence Fishburne in a smaller role and the real breakout has to be Amber Midthunder, the bad-ass Indigenous Tantoo who proves that she can drive as well as the guys. I also found that Hensleigh’s use of the corporation as the ultimate antagonist in sending these truckers to their potential deaths more for the money than to actually save lives works well to add to what would have been a simple rescue mission.

The Ice Road is a pretty solid (ugh, bad pun) action-thriller that has some elements of other similar movies but then really throws the viewer for a loop with the amazing on-ice truck driving stunt work, that keeps one invested while really putting it ahead of some of Neeson’s other recent action fare.

You can read my interview with Hensleigh over at Below the Line.

Next up are two very different movies that played at the 20th Tribeca Festival over the past week

Heidi Ewing’s I CARRY YOU WITH ME (Sony Pictures Classics) finally gets a theatrical release after getting its Oscar qualifying run way back in December and premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020! Based on the true story of Mexican immigrant lovers Ivan and Gerardo, who travel from Mexico to New York City and are reunited after decades apart and many struggles to rekindle their romance.

This is an interesting movie for Ewing, best known for her award-winning docs like Jesus Camp, because it’s not an easy story to tell or movie to make, covering a span of decades, and using flashbacks to tell the individual stories of how these two men discovered their homosexuality while surrounded by a toxic culture who hates them for loving each other. We meet Iván as he’s cooking in a Mexican restaurant in New York before we flashback to Pablo, Mexico in 1994 when he’s younger (and played by Armando Espitia), married with a young son, but when he meets Gerardo (Christian Vázquez) at a gay club and the two click, he’s put in a place where he has to keep his sexuality hidden if he doesn’t want to lose his son. As the romance blossoms, Ivan realizes that he needs to go to America if he really wants his culinary skills (he even went to school) to be used, because in Pablo, he’s relegated to being a dishwasher.

Ivan decides to make the dangerous trek across the border with his best friend Sandra (Michelle Rodríguez -- not the one in F9) with the promise to return to Gerardo. Things don’t necessarily go as planned but decades later they’re reunited, and struggle to make it in New York City as restaraunteurs. As you watch their story unfold, you can fully understand why Ewing might want to tell this story, co-writing the script with Alan Page Arriaga, but there are still elements of documentary in this narrative beautifully shot by Cinematographer Juan Pablo Ramírez AMC.

Unfortunately, those elements of documentary are what really confused me, because there are moments in the present day when the real Ivan and Gerardo are playing themselves, but then there are times when the two main actors are made up to look older, and I couldn’t really figure out what was happening at times, maybe due to some of the more dream-like nature of the storytelling.

Even so, Ewing has created a terrific character piece and quite a warm and wondrous love story, even if it’s plagued by violence and discrimination due to their roots and their homosexuality. I couldn’t help but think that I might have liked Moonlight more if it wasn’t told in such a linear fashion, separated into three chapters. By using the flashbacks to keep the viewer fully focused on what’s happening, Ewing creates something more on par with Cuaron’s Y Tu Mama Tambien that feels just as authentic as if Ewing were a gay Mexican herself.

Probably the weakest part is the second act where we watch Ivan trying to get to America, because that’s been done in so many other movies, including Cary Joji Fukunaga’s earlier film, Sin Nombre, and that feels a little less unique or special compared to the rest of the duo’s story.

It’s a shame that I Carry You With Me wasn’t able to build any awards traction, partially due to Covid and the long gap between festival appearances. Either way, it proves that Ewing is a lot more than a “mere” documentary filmmaker, able to mix those skills with that of a sharp narrative filmmaker with a keen eye for storytelling. This is a particularly strong character piece and a beautiful love story based on two real men, unlike anything I’ve seen in recent memory.

Honestly, I’ve given up on figuring what Sony Classics is doing in terms of their theatrical releases. I guess this could be opening in New York and Los Angeles or in more cities. I have no idea, because no one tells me anything. But I also wanted to share the review by my friend J. Don Birnam that he wrote out of the New York Film Festival last year. He has reasons to be able to connect with this material much more than I can, which is probably why his review is so damn good: http://splashreport.com/nyff-film-review-i-carry-you-with-me-an-inspiring-story-of-triumph-by-rarely-depicted-peoples/

Not quite as good is John Lee’s horror-thriller FALSE POSITIVE (Hulu/A24), starring Ilana Glazer from Broad City, who also cowrote the screenplay with Lee. It’s a very different non-comedic role for Glazer in which she plays Lucy, a pregnant woman, who finds her pregnancy turned into a nightmare, as she puts herself in the hands of the nefarious ob/gyn Dr. John Hindle, played by the great Pierce Brosnan, who happened to be her husband’s (Justin Theroux) medical teacher.

Man, did I want to like this psychological thriller, because I think Glazer is just the best in Broad Street, and the fact that she co-wrote this and is trying to do something unexpected out of the ordinary just thrills me to the end. That being said, her character Lucy seems to be a rather standard powerful NYC woman with a good job where she’s better than the rest, who ends up going through a torturous experience as an expectant mother who isn’t able to trust her own doctor. Part of the conflict comes when Julie is told that she is having more than one baby, but she has to choose between twin boys or a single girl, because she’s told that she won’t be able to take all three of them to term.

It’s an okay premise dealing with the many worries that women must have while pregnant, and things get crazier and crazier as Julia begins seeing everything, and while Glazer isn’t bad while playing a straight-up no-humor dramatic role, it’s hard not to see her more as a Debra Messing type when she has her hair straightened out to look different.

The horror elements are decent whether it’s the body horror idea of having a number of dead baby fetuses inside you, which is pretty creepy, and Lee doesn’t do a bad job with the trippier parts of the movie, though I feel like it overuses and leans on the use of blood to step up the horror, and it doesn’t work that well. There are also aspects to the story that feel somewhat predictable only because there are only a few way things can go the way things are set-up.

It’s obvious that Glazer and Lee wanted to make social commentary on the male-dominated field of childbirth with some of the weirder aspects of the movie, like the Stepford Nurses that constantly surround Brosnan’s Dr. Hindle. Having them there smiling eerily always boosts Lucy’s suspicion that her husband might be cheating with one or both of them. Still, there are too many aspects of False Positive (including the fact it was produced by A24) that makes one think that this is another attempt at the kind of “elevated humor” that’s been done so much better by the likes of Ari Aster and Robert Eggers.

Ultimately, False Positive is okay, it certainly tries hard, it’s maybe not quite as good as I hoped or expected of what might have been a perfectly fine vehicle for Glazer. I certainly had high hopes for what she might do with a pregnancy thriller, that this movie just never quite delivers.

False Positive debuts on Hulu this Friday.

From Sweden comes the horror film THE EVIL NEXT DOOR (Magnet) from filmmakers Oskar Mellender and Tord Danielsson, which follows a new stepmom Shirin (Dilan Gwyn), who has moved into a duplex with her partner Fredrik and his young son, Lucas (Eddie Eriksson Dominguez), but they soon learn that strange things start happening that seem to be coming from the abandoned house next door.

I’m always open to see what’s coming from the Scandinavian countries, because there’s been a lot of particularly good genre over the years -- Let the Right One In, for instance -- but I got the impression right away that originality was not going to be in the cards for this one, which immediately has the small boy having an imaginary friend, who you know is either an evil spirit or one of the spirit’s previous victims. Sadly, that’s the case here, and without the originality of some of the original horror films it's emulating, The Evil Next Door just seems like an international copycat.

If you’re even a modicum fan of modern horror, you’re likely to have seen many better versions of this movie, which is just kind of bland overall, but constantly resorts to scenes of a woman walking through the house acting scared and the cheap scares that inevitably come. This one even uses the eerie “next day” chapters that have been used in so many other horror movies, including the Paranormal Activity movies.

Mellender and Danielsson certainly come off as capable filmmakers, and they could do far worse than the incredibly dramatic and emotional performance by Gwyn -- the movie does get slightly better as it goes along -- but the feeling that you’ve seen it all before and know what to expect completely detracts from appreciating any of the finer aspects. For instance, there’s some decent creature design work but even that sometimes goes for the expected in terms of the spirit’s look. The filmmaker’s skills are also evident from the use of music and sound design, which is crucial to a movie like this working in any fashion, but it’s hard to fully appreciate it when you feel you know where things are going.

The Evil Next Door just feels like a movie made by fans of the far superior “Conjuring” movies who managed to cop some of the tricks to scare the viewer, but without fully understanding why those movies work due to original characters and storytelling ideas. These are decent filmmakers, but I’d really like to see them do something more unique or original.

If you live in NYC and feel like going up to Harlem, Questlove’s documentary, Summer of Soul, is opening a week early, this Friday at the AMC Magic Johnson in Harlem, New York, and it’s also opening at El Capitan in Los Angeles. It will open in theaters elsewhere and on Hulu NEXT Friday, July 2, so I’ll write more about it in next week’s column.

Debuting on Apple TV+ Friday is Drew Zanthopoulos’ documentary FATHOM (Apple TV+), which follows scientists Dr. Ellen Garland and Dr. Michelle Fournet as they study the whale songs of the humpback whale and try to figure out ways to communicate with them and understand whale culture. Oddly, this is one of quite a few whale documentaries coming out over the next few weeks.

Another movie that I just don’t have time to review just now is Eytan Rockaway’s gangster thriller, LANSKY (Vertical), which stars Harvey Keitel, Sam Worthington, John Magaro, AnnaSophia Robb and Minka Kelly. Worthington is down-and-out writer David Stone, who gets a call from the legendary gangster Meyer Lansky (played by Keitel), who has been of the grid for decades but worth a fortune. Stone meets with Lansky as the FBI closes in on the Godfather of organized crime, and he’s told about Lansky’s time with Murder Inc. and the National Crime Syndicate.

Other movies out this week, include:

SILENT NIGHT (Samuel Goldwyn)

SISTERS ON TRACK (Netflix)

TOO LATE (Gravitas Ventures)

Next week is the 4th of July (on Sunday), and we’re getting FOREVER PURGE (Universal) and THE BOSS BABY 2: FAMILY BUSINESS (also Universal!!?!?)... I guess someone really wants to dominate the box office again, huh?

#The Weekend Warrior #F9 #Werewolves Within #False Positive #I Carry You With Me #The Ice Road #Movies #Reviews #Streaming

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