#oh yeah she was the villain actually and murdered all those innocent children who loved being lab rats actually

[puzzledemigod]

Oh I HATE what they're doing with El this season Yikes

#stranger things #stranger things spoilers #st4 #oh yeah she was the villain actually and murdered all those innocent children who loved being lab rats actually #see how much of a scary freak she is she lost control and tried to kill that bully after lying to Mike #even though not lying is her Thing #and now they paint the guys who experimented on her and kept her locked up as trying to do the right thing?? #i hope there's a twist at the end that this was implanted on her mind or something because this is unacceptable #I'm already distrustful of the villains being communist russia and the way Lucas was being such an asshole and telling the jocks #where Eddie was after he knew they were about to kill him #like?? wtf #i hope i understood that last bit wrong

[kelyon]

I recently saw a take that Mr. Gold is antisemitic and was so confused??? What do you think?

Oh yeah, I've seen takes like that too. I think the takes are valid (especially when they're made by actual Jewish people who know more about antisemitism than us goyim.) Obviously, I don't think it makes OUAT "irredeemable media," but it is a lens by which we can and should analyze the work.

For the record, I don't think Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz set out to create an antisemitic character. (Eddie's wikipedia page says he's Jewish. Adam's doesn't, but Horowitz is a pretty Jewish last name so I'm making an educated guess.)

Long story short: Antisemitism is one of the backbones of Western society, whether we want it to be or not. It's in our stories (and especially our fairy tales), even when we have no malicious intent.

Let's start with the fairy tale. The story of Rumpelstiltskin has a lot of antisemitic tropes. It's a story about a weird little guy with easy access to gold deceiving a pretty young woman into giving up her child. We've got all the hits here! Any story about stealing babies is probably rooted in antisemitism. Stealing them, eating them, drinking their blood/adrenachrome (I refuse to google that word in order to spell it correctly)--bigots have been saying that about Jewish people for a very long time.

All of the tropes from the fairy tale get translated into modern times with Gold. He is rich and shady and he's always playing people and he can't be trusted. He knows things other people don't know, he dresses differently than the heroes, he's always apart from the crowd so he must be plotting something.

Then we have Bobby, who is not Jewish as far as I know, but who is short and has a big nose. I've seen people headcanon Gold as Jewish as a positive thing, and I can definitely see that. Intelligence and "tricky" cleverness, being small and still outmatching much larger foes--these are traits valued in Jewish culture, and they should be celebrated in characters.

(I've long wanted to read a version of Beauty and the Beast where Beauty is a Jewish woman. It makes so much sense--a woman who loves knowledge and is ostracized by the greater community, who can look a monster in the face and see his humanity, who has faith that if she does the right thing she will make it through this time of trouble, who has gorgeous curly brown hair! But I digress.)

The problem is, that even when Rumple is good, he's not trustworthy. Even when he's part of the group, he's still different. When something goes wrong, he's the first person the heroes blame. He's self-serving, he cares more about himself and his family than whatever the heroes need from him at that moment.

We lovingly call Rumple a lizard man, but the conspiracy theory of lizard people working their will behind the scenes is an antisemitic classic.

Before I end this, I want to go back to the idea of intention, and what we can learn from analyzing a story this way. A lot of the tropes that have antisemitic roots can be dismissed as "Yeah, that's just villains!" That was my response for a long time. Of course villains are well dressed and intelligent, of course they're deceitful, of course they have bad intentions for children--that's what bad guys do.

Then you have to think about real life. Stories--especially children's stories--are lessons. They're cautionary tales that tell us what dangers are out there, what we should be afraid of. As much as I agree that there is a difference between fiction and reality, we need to be cautious about who we think the "bad guys" are in real life. Because once we learn that certain traits equal villainy, we can assume that people who have those traits might be villainous. It's especially insidious when one of the traits in question is deceit. You can't trust any of them! They're capable of anything! We all know that, we've been told it since we were children!

And that's how innocent people in real life get murdered at a synagogue.

Watch out for the things that are in your brain. I said earlier that antisemitism is a backbone of western society. It's also like lead pipes: We modern, well-meaning people didn't put lead pipes in to carry our water around. We know lead is bad for us. We don't want it here. But it is here and taking it out would be a lot hassle and cost a lot of money. So maybe later. Meanwhile, the lead of antisemitism keeps leaching its way into our drinking water and our bloodstreams and it's never going to go anywhere unless we do something now.

#tmi tuesday #antisemitism #I've got a lot of feelings #now to figure out the 'cannot reblog' button

[teaveetamer]

Kaga said making Hilda as evil as she was difficult for him, but he still made her like that and made her old/unpleasant looking. Similarly FE4 had several other minor female bosses that were nasty and unpleasant. Also whilst not as much as the male bosses, they were made to look evil/nasty.

IS not only made Eremiya, an innocent brainwashed into evil, but she was still inexplicably young and beautiful looking despite being middle aged at least. They also made the only female enemies in Mystery of the Emblem to be kidnapped victims.

Oh and in the remake of Gaiden, they made ALL witches brainwashed victims AND had Celica brainwashed, all things that never happened in the original.

And we also have:

Actually every 3DS era has had a brainwashed female antagonist and not even ONE intelligent System developed Fire Emblem game since Radiant Dawn has had a female villain acting of her own agency.

New Mystery of the Emblem: Eremiya is mindcontrolled and this is revealed at the very last minute by the point when the Audience has no time left to empathize with her after all her ridiculous acts and has no effect given we knew the true Eremiya to begin with. They also retconned the one and only instance of female enemy troops in the original game to be kidnapped victims.

Awakening: Besides Aversa being brainwashed, Pheros explicitly only fights because she's in love with Walhart, Raimi battles only due to a misunderstanding, and Excellus is presented as a transwoman, thus acceptable to use violence on.

Fates: Arete is resurrected and mindcontrolled by Anankos to obey him.

Echoes Shadows of Valentia: Witches go from female cultists to brainwashed victims, which is emphasized constantly in remake original dialogue. Rather than fighting her way out like in the original, Celica gets brainwashed by Jedah and turned into a witch, requiring Alm to snap her out.

But wait, what about Nuibaba? Well the artbook reveals all she wanted to be was a housewife, but an evil rake turned her sister again her and murdered her, resulting in Medusa reviving Nuibaba as a shell of her former self.

Yeah, Kaga's not great and has his own issues, but one is definitely worse than the other in this case. It should be noted that the person that promoted "Kaga brainwashing fetish, LOL", was a huge proponent of Kusakihara. If brainwashing women is anyone's fetish, its Kusakihara's.

And we also have:

Not the same anon who mentioned post-Kaga IS being squeamish about evil women, but I think I get where they're coming from. (They'll probably explain too but) IS, not so much post-Kaga but rather post-avatar insert, seems very hesitant to make a female villain who leans more into her villainy than her sympathetic traits. Kaga explicitly stated he was uncomfortable with evil women like FE4 Hilda, and while she does have some pitiable circumstances like her son and husband being killed (for being active participants of military occupation lmao), it's still not emphasized for her character as much as her glee for personally making Tailtiu and the hunted children suffer, nor is it used to justify or excuse her malice. Now post-FE12, it's hard to find a villainous woman in FE that wasn't abused, brainwashed, and/or just has her evil deeds swept under the rug as an excuse for why she had to act so darn evil. About the only place that gets exceptions to the rules is FEH, and occasionally those excuses also get slipped in for some characters (Freya, Veronica).

And we also have

May as well add this to the Kaga thing, but I'm not saying Kaga is by any means perfect and he definitely suffers from benevolent sexism as well, that said he seems better by comparison and "this female antagonist whom seemed evil but was really a brainwashed victim all along" is something that became prominent after Kaga left Intelligent Systems.

The Kaga Saga games did have stuff like a girl willingly fighting the player characters because they killed her uncle for example, in addition to some evil women.

I have noticed with Kaga's evil women, they do tend to be middle aged and evil looking, albeit not to the extent of the male villains whom tend to have more "ugly" features.

Though most of Kaga's evil characters tend to be middle aged and not attractive in general, with the exception of Kempf clones, actually Kempf inspired characters showed up in alot of Kaga's games.

Sorry if the formatting on these is weird, but the new Tumblr post editor does not like letting me change the format of multiple paragraphs at once. I tried to keep the messages all together.

Anyway, thanks everyone for sharing!

I do say I give Arete and Fates a pass just because like everyone who opposes you in Rev are are brainwashed Anankos minions. Arete, Mikoto, Sumeragi, Gunther, Garon, and Takumi are all brainwash victims. If you bring in Heirs of Fate you can kind of add all of the father characters to that list, too. I really don't think it's on the same level of egregious as, say, SoV's handling of female characters (where basically every female character is brainwashed or needs to be rescued from kidnapping).

Having not played a lot of the Kaga-era games I get the impression that our post-Kaga world is sexist about evil women, just in a different way from the Kaga era. Back then it was just a general lack of acknowledgement that women existed, intentionally trying to make them old and ugly "witches" that you won't sympathize, and general disbelief that women can be evil. In the modern era it's more about removing their agency and trying to keep them appealing for marketability purposes.

I think it's also kind of hard to compare the two because... Kaga was making games on NES and SNES carts with kilobytes of space to actually put your game on vs. modern era where games can be a lot more eloquent and in-depth about the story and the characters and backstories because they have the space to do so.

[jackoshadows]

GRRM talking about exploring redemption specifically with Jaime and stating he personally hopes there can be a possibility of redemption for everyone is in his 2014 Rolling Stone interview. It’s a pretty well known quote, kind of a weird one not to know if you’re gonna weigh in on the big Jaime redemption debate... I guess you can just go for GRRM saying he finds it weird people crush on Jaime and the Hound instead, but it doesn’t really seem the most relevant one to me.

Alright, so I looked up his 2014 Rolling stone interview where he talks about redemption:

Q: Both Jaime and Cersei are clearly despicable in those moments. Later, though, we see a more humane side of Jaime when he rescues a woman, who had been an enemy, from rape. All of a sudden we don’t know what to feel about Jaime.

A: One of the things I wanted to explore with Jaime, and with so many of the characters, is the whole issue of redemption. When can we be redeemed? Is redemption even possible? I don’t have an answer. But when do we forgive people? You see it all around in our society, in constant debates. Should we forgive Michael Vick? I have friends who are dog-lovers who will never forgive Michael Vick. Michael Vick has served years in prison; he’s apologized. Has he apologized sufficiently? Woody Allen: Is Woody Allen someone that we should laud, or someone that we should despise? Or Roman Polanski, Paula Deen. Our society is full of people who have fallen in one way or another, and what do we do with these people? How many good acts make up for a bad act? If you’re a Nazi war criminal and then spend the next 40 years doing good deeds and feeding the hungry, does that make up for being a concentration-camp guard? I don’t know the answer, but these are questions worth thinking about. I want there to be a possibility of redemption for us, because we all do terrible things. We should be able to be forgiven. Because if there is no possibility of redemption, what’s the answer then? [Martin pauses for a moment.] You’ve read the books?

Q: Yes.

A: Who kills Joffrey?

Q: That killing happens early in this fourth season. The books, of course, are well past the poisoning of King Joffrey.

A: In the books – and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal – the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa’s hairnet, so that if anyone did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.The reason I bring this up is because that’s an interesting question of redemption. That’s more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Is it a case where the end justifies the means? I don’t know. That’s what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate.

Q: I don’t know if somebody like Jaime or Cersei can be redeemed. Cersei’s a great character – she’s like Lady Macbeth.  

A: Well, redeemed in whose eyes? She’ll never be redeemed in the eyes of some. She’s a character who’s very protective of her children. You can argue, well, does she genuinely love her children, or does she just love them because they’re her children? There’s certainly a great level of narcissism in Cersei. She has an almost sociopathic view of the world and civilization. At the same time, what Jaime did is interesting. I don’t have any kids myself, but I’ve talked with other people who have. Remember, Jaime isn’t just trying to kill Bran because he’s an annoying little kid. Bran has seen something that is basically a death sentence for Jaime, for Cersei, and their children – their three actual children. So I’ve asked people who do have children, “Well, what would you do in Jaime’s situation?” They say, “Well, I’m not a bad guy – I wouldn’t kill.” Are you sure? Never? If Bran tells King Robert he’s going to kill you and your sister-lover, and your three children. . . . Then many of them hesitate. Probably more people than not would say, “Yeah, I would kill someone else’s child to save my own child, even if that other child was innocent.” These are the difficult decisions people make, and they’re worth examining.

So reading through this, GRRM says that he is exploring the answer to the question - Can the villains in my story be redeemed? As he points out in this interview, the answer to this question in 2014, was that he didn’t know.

He also compares Lannister villainy to Michael Vick, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and Nazi war criminals. He asks if Nazi war criminals deserve forgiveness after feeding the hungry for 40 years. What do you think? Do you think Nazi war criminals deserve forgiveness and redemption?

But fandom has decided that according to this Jaime has now been redeemed and anyone who questions the existence of said redemption is a Jaime hater who lacks an understanding of how Jaime Lannister is totally a good guy now.

Oh and look, he is also talking about Cersei Lannister’s redemption in this same interview. Funnily enough, I don’t see anyone in fandom talking about Cersei’s redemption arc when GRRM is asking the same question with her character as he does with Jaime’s. He is talking about whether Cersei Lannister can be redeemed - Cersei has murdered babies!

GRRM is also asking if the Queen of Thorns deserves redemption for taking out baby Hitler. No one seems to be talking about that either.

GRRM also questions if Jaime’s attempted murder of a 7 year old is justified by framing it as the character trying to protect his own children. In my opinion though, this is a guy who is in his thirties, engaging in careless incestuous adultery with the Queen, in the enemy/guest’s home where the enemy could have come upon them anytime and then tried to murder a child to cover it up. Not justified, at all.  This is Jaime Lannister about Joffrey:

Because Joff was no more to me than a squirt of seed in Cersei's cunt, and he deserved to die.

I don’t know, the character does not come across as caring for his children. It was more about saving his and Cersei’s lives than it was about his children. And Cersei tried to stop him from murdering Bran.

Who had the harder choice to make? Jaime has sex with his twin sister, the queen, in Winterfell - because he just doesn’t care - and then tries to murder Ned’s child to cover it up. Or Ned, who wants to save Jaime’s children from Robert Baratheon’s wrath, warns Cersei to leave as soon as possible and in doing so dooms his entire family.

Ultimately the author is exploring the question of whether the baddies in his novel can be redeemed. Not that they will be redeemed or that they are on a path to redemption. He wants there to be a hope for forgiveness for his baddies at the end of their journey. Villains doing good for 40 years - can they be redeemed? In whose eyes do they need to be redeemed?

Jaime could be redeemed in Brienne’s eyes - because she loves him and he helped save her life. Does this mean Bran Stark should forgive him? Does this mean the small folk in the Riverlands who suffered and died because of the WOT5K brought about by his careless adultery should forgive him? Does this mean he is redeemed in the eyes of the reader?

As I stated, in my previous posts, from my interpretation of Jaime’s arc, I don’t see any redemption from Jaime Lannister in the books yet. He is still arrogant and self- serving. A little humbled by the loss of his hand - but able to brag all the same about being ‘Goldenhand the Just’ because he hanged some hungry outlaws. No introspection or acknowledgment of his past actions. We did see some guilt in the dreams he has about abandoning Elia and her children to the Mountain’s mercies despite having sworn an oath to protect them. What he will do about all that? I don’t know.

He did not abandon Cersei because she’s a bad person who murdered babies. He abandoned her to the mercies of the Faith Militant because she was unfaithful to him - because of the personal injury to him. He sees keeping his oaths with respect to Sansa as salvation and then sends off Brienne to do his job, while being engaged in enforcing Lannister rule in Westeros.

The comparison to Theon Greyjoy comes about because Theon has accepted his wrong, Theon is full of remorse and regret. Theon wishes he could go back and do differently. Theon is a broken man - and yet, despite being so afraid, he risks all to help Jeyne Poole - a character no one cares about.

'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid? ' 'That is the only time a man can be brave‘

Saving Jeyne Poole is not going to earn Theon Greyjoy any rewards. But he does it because it’s right - not because it makes him feel good. Does it mean that Theon Greyjoy - who murdered two little boys - is now redeemed and will get a happy ending?

So yeah, can Jaime be redeemed? The author will try to answer that question in books yet to be written and leave it up to the reader to decide if the character has indeed been redeemed.  Thus far I see no redemption, in my opinion and as per my interpretation of the text. Take that as you will.

#GRRM #Rolling stone interview #asoiaf #anti Jaime Lannister #Cersei Lannister #Theon Greyjoy #Queen of Thorns

[kookies2000]

My thoughts on the final. 8 out of 10 for me and here's why.

Positives first.

The villains. I love Bradford as a villain and his plan really was flawless. To me, Bradford is the scariest type of villain there is. Scrooge trusted this man for almost his whole life. Trusted him enough to be in charge of his money, and secrets. Only to get betrayed at the end. This is an actual thing that happens in real life. People we love, people we know for our whole lives, could just suddenly become horrible people and our love and trust in them breaks. And it hurts like crazy. And that's Bradford right there. He was close to Scrooge and betrayed him. Now the fact that Bradford never saw himself as the villian adds more to why these types of people are horrible. They blame others for their misfortune or for their bad traits. Like how Bradford told the family to look what they made him into after he grew into a monster. He's trying to put the blame on others instead of acknowledging that he's doing this to himself. Like at least the other villains like Glomp Gold and Magica know their villains. They're self aware unlike Bradford. Bradford doesn't like the thought of being a villain so he blames those that see him as the villain. Like dude! You imprisoned Gandra for indefinitely, trapped Ludwig Von Drake who just wanted to talk things out with you, imprisoned innocent people like Panchito and Jose. Why those two? Just because they were tricked into performing a concert at The Feast of the Flower? He straight up murdered his agents, and threw Donald in too. Not to mention he played a part in tearing the family apart once. And he keeps justifying it by saying "I'm not a villain". Which makes it worse! You can't just say you're not a villain or that others are trying to make you look like the villain. If you're not the villain then there's no need to say it. So yeah, I enjoy Bradford as a villain because he's the most realistic of the three main villains we had. Someone who has some good points but executes them poorly.

I also enjoyed the other villains like Phantom Bot and Pepper. I ship these two so much. 💖. Pepper being her talkative self and speaking her mind while Blot is being the strong silent type. My favorite line is also from Pepper "Look Blot! He's a full grown man with the strength of a baby!" I LOVE YOU PEPPER!!! And Blot being his aggressive self is enough for me. And thank you Lena for setting Gene free! Rockerduck being his spoiled self was also a treat. Having his servant fight for him and ordering a drink while he fought. 😂 Don Karnage was his lovable singing self, also he is dead now right? No way he survived that plane crash. Congratulations Dewey, you murdered a man while singing just like I always knew you would. Heron was also great. There's no doubt in my mind that she had some kind of attraction to Bradford after that "Oh Bradford, how villainous 😏" before dying. There's just something hilarious about Heron gracefully accepting betrayal and death like that. 😂 Steelbeaks was great. Finally using that smart ray on himself and still being the imbecile he is! Glomp Gold, Magica and the Beagles special appearance was also a treat.

Ok so our heros! I have to talk about Drake, Fenton and Launchpad! I love Drake for his balance of goofiness and heroicness. He's clearly a man who wants what's best for everyone and loves to be in the spotlight as well. Not to mention just how much fun it is to watch him being all goofy. He may have a child-like side and loves being the goofy hero he is, but he has his serious moments. Showing that just because you have a child-like personality doesn't mean you're not mature enough to handle serious situations. Just the way Drake comforted Fenton by telling him he isn't alone on this, to let others help him warms my heart. He knows Fenton so well and grew a personal connection with him. To the point where he refuses to believe Fenton is Gizmoduck. 😂 Poor guy is in denial. I feel bad for him because he's always in GizmoDucks shadow, which is why I screamed so loud when he and GizmoDuck shared the spotlight in the beginning of the fight with Steelbeaks. Great moment! And Fenton! I adore him and I love him so much more after this episode too! He was always the man with a heart of gold and always put others first. And they added even more to his character by making him such a romantic towards Gandra. I'm 100% sure she was on his mind throughout this whole adventure. Just the fact that he says it out loud that he wants to rescue her and his first reaction when they landed at the Lost Library was to rescue the prisoners was adorable. We all know he wanted to go save the prisoner's to find Gandra. Yeah I know he also cares for everyone else just as much but Gandra will always hold a special place in his heart. And then we have the moment with the two in the end credits. Just pure adorableness! Falling together, Fenton becoming GizmoDuck and catching her like he always does!!! Ah I can't help it! These two are cute!!! I also like how Fenton never did get to rescue her but it was Huey and the others that did and then she helped on rescuing the others. Breaks that whole damsel in distress cliche. I'm so sorry Fenton that you didn't get your shining armor moment, maybe next time? Then we have Launchpad. That guy finally had his shining moment. He was so insecure about not being a superhero that he couldn't see he was the one that inspired Fenton and Drake to become heros. That moment was so sweet and the fact that Launchpadpad became Gizmoduck was what made it perfect. And I loved how he crashed the suit too. 😂 and even the Gizmo Suit has an attitude "Eh, close enough."

Then we have the kids. Each one had their moment and I loved it. Violet was under used I'll admit, just wish they used her more. Like her woodchuck knowledge or her book smarts to find their way out of a maze, open a certain door to another room or help Lena out. Lena had her moment as well, making the airplane invisible showing just how powerful she has become. And let's consider that she nearly got killed by Phantom Blot in the first battle but this time she was able to battle him much better. Friendship really is her magic. Boyd is my favorite! I just love how him being just a head didn't even bother him one bit. Instead, Lil Bulb just uses his body to create a bobblehead Boyd. Let's not forget that "Take care of your brother." line. That one line made my heart sing. Louie was very realistic, "That is not at all comforting. I do not want to die." and he was also the same sharp boy we all know and love. I love the scene where he's pep talking Dewey into winning the battle against Don Karnage. And then we have Dewey flying the Sun Chaser by himself, fully embracing his talent. I'll talk about Huey and Webby later. Scrooge, Donald and Della also had their moment to shine as the original three! Loved it so much, just watching these three fight one last battle together was enough to almost make me cry. Beakly also had her moments like getting the chance to tell Webby the truth, even though it was a trick. I love how she wanted to make sure everyone was safe and went to fight F.O.W.L on her own only to learn her lesson near the end. The lesson that she can't keep secrets forever and she has to have trust in her family in order to win. And sure enough this lesson came from her oldest friend Scrooge Mcduck.

The humor was also the best! I loved the fact that Manny is actually some world ending monster and what does he have to say? "People change man! I just want to live a normal life!" 😆 I never expected Manny to talk let alone his voice sounding like that. And then we have the Gargoyles reference "I live again!..... Again!" Loved that, gold right there. Then we have Von Drake who admits that he isn't dead all because he doesn't have time to die! Oh if only life were that easy! Gyro was comedy gold as well with his line "When they do something right, they're heros! When things get too hard, we're children!" 😂 Love you Gyro!

Ok so one thing I have an issue with. You all know what it is so I'll make it as short as possible. Webbys backstory. I didn't like it. I have no issue with her being a clone and that Beakly found her, but Scrooge's daughter? It was unnecessary and here's why. Scrooge was already her father. He took care of her as his own, protected her, kept het happy, and was a wonderful role model to her. She was already his official none blood daughter. Making her Scrooge's blood related daughter does nothing to improve her character. If they wanted her as a clone, they could've done something else. Like maybe she could've been the clone of a well known F.O.W.L agent that died or disappeared. So F.O W.L tried to clone that agent by creating Webby. Nothing would need to change either, Beakly could've still found her, took her in and kept her safe with Scrooge. Webby would still have an identity crisis thinking she's the clone of a F.O.W.L agent and is destined to be a F.O.W.L agent. If they wanted to add June and May in, then use that same reason. Cloning F.O.W.L agents and raising them to be the evil like them. Or what about this? Use Beakley's story about her daughter. How Beakley wasn't there for her as much as she wanted to and maybe one day F.O.W.L talked Beakley's daughter into joining them. Making Beakley regret not being there for her daughter more. When her daughter tries to leave F.O.W.L she disappears all of a sudden. But then Beakly finds a baby clone of her daughter (Webby) and she takes this as a second chance to raise her daughter again. I'm just saying, anything would've been a better back story for Webby other than being Scrooge's clone. And as for Huey, he should've been the one to find the papyrus. Branford had him in his grasp. He had managed to manipulate Huey into helping him, so why not have him grab the papyrus. He is a direct descendent of Scrooge so why complicate things by having Huey talk to Webby? They weren't even sure if the papyrus was going to show itself to Webby!!! HUEY WAS RIGHT THERE BRADFORD!!!! It was so easy!!! Kidnap Huey, manipulate him into helping, then lock him up with Gyro, Drake and Gandra!!! I'm not saying I didn't enjoy Huey and Webby here, I did. Huey using his woodchuck knowledge allowing his brothers to find him and Webby using the skills her granny showed her made me proud. I love seeing these two using the skills they learned while living in the mansion.

Other than that, the final was great and I loved it. I just wish Webbys background was different and more unique than being Scrooge's daughter. Oh! And the end credits were wonderful! I love how the poster was basically a foreshadow of it!

 8/10 I loved the finale!

#ducktales #ducktales 2017 #dt17 #ducktales spoilers #dt spoilers #dt #dt 2017

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)

Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!

For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip. 

Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background. 

So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order

PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN:  Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe. 

Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:

While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally. 

So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut.  Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about  please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day. 

The Man From Room X:

We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains.  Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula. 

We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”.  His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal. 

Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with. 

As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne. 

He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job. 

But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult. 

We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it. 

Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off:  The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well. 

The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago. 

So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?

I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve  read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me. 

So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast. 

Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off. 

Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....

Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun. 

Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him.  Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself. 

It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share. 

That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run. 

The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people. 

We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet. 

But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped.  Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn. 

And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time. 

This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course. 

Danger Rooms:

We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student. 

This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.

But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles. 

Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great

Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits. 

Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually. 

In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...

Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process. 

That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did. 

Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....

This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them. 

Germ Free Generation Issue 1: 

So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me. 

So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me

Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work. 

So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity. 

This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation. 

So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up. 

And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome. 

Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her. 

Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one. 

Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs. 

A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit. 

Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.

So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise.  We then get this. 

So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason. 

So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching. 

A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear. 

Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line. 

We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept. 

The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further. 

Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species. 

Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart. 

Germ Free Generation Part 2: 

Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon. 

So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel. 

They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it. 

Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect. 

Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it. 

However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”

Germ Free Generation Part 3:

So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it. 

We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha. 

Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits. 

Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror

The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power. 

Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him. 

Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge. 

So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:

Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation:  This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo

Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks. 

Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow. 

If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow

#new x-men #grant morrison #cassandra nova #shen xorn #beast #hank mccoy #jean grey #cyclops #scott summers #wolverine #logan howlett #angel salvadore #beak #barnell bohsk #the stepford cuckoos #the u-men #john sublime #marthan johanson #ethan van sciver

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Rose the Hat

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Stephen King really seems to have some sort of vendetta against kids, huh? It seems like some of his most vicious and terrifying creations exist solely to abuse, consume, and eviscerate kids, and almost all of those creatures have serious pedophilia undertones to them. Obviously the most well-known example would be Pennywise, and for good reason; a killer shapeshifting alien clown demon that devours kids and lives in the sewer is going to stick in the mind, in no small part thanks to being brought to life onscreen by talented men like Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard. But there is another child predator straight from the pages of King’s work who made her mark on cinema: Rose the Hat.

Rose is a sort of psychic vampire, who consumes the shine from children to preserve her immortality alongside a gang of fellow monsters known as the True Knot. Think Dracula, Pennywise, and Elizabeth Bathory all rolled into one. And if that isn’t a terrifying combo, I’m not sure what is.

Motivation/Goals: Rose’s goal is simple: consume the shine from innocent kids, when their power is strongest and the taste is far better. Unfortunately for the kids, eating the shine out of them is horrendously unpleasant and fatal. And unfortunately for one of our protagonists, the young Abra, she is one of the most powerful children Rose has ever seen. After becoming aware of her existence, Rose sends the True Knot after her and pursues her herself to an absurd degree, even after hitting numerous setbacks, from her hand being mutilated to her followers being massacred. Part of this seems to be the implication that those with the shine are rarer nowadays and they desperately need to eat something like this to stabilize themselves, but at some point it does seem like Rose is going out of her way for the thrill of the hunt, though it is also evident she wants revenge for the death of her followers, because there is every indication her affection for them is genuine.

Performance: I’m really happen I got to see the 2010s Mission Impossible films before I saw this, because it gave me a deep adoration for Rebecca Ferguson. She is an excellent actor, and she manages to give Rose a sort of sub-Pennywise sort of creepiness. She definitely has a child predator vibe to her, especially as seen in the opening when she tricks a little girl to her death; seing a female character written as a child predator is not quite as common as the alternative, so it’s interesting to see it. But that being said, she’s honestly the opposite of Pennywise in a lot of ways – where Pennywise is ugly she is beautiful, where Pennywise is uncanny and creepy she is sweet and inviting, where Pennywise’s affection is faked Rose genuinely seems affable at first. It definitely helps set her apart and make her a great, unique villain in her own right. Plus, gotta love that dapper hat she rocks for most of the film.

Final Fate: Rose shows that she has no idea what she’s actually dealing with as she follows Dan and Abra into the Overlook. Now, the Overlook has been established so far in the film and The Shining as a horrendously evil place, with Doctor Sleep in particular noting how the hotel hungers for the shine as much as Rose does. Now, Rose not only has the shine in her, but has also inhaled the stored-up steam from previous victims before entering in an attempt to give herself the upper hand. Can you guess what happens when Danny finally decides to unleash the imprisoned ghosts of the hotel?

Her death is actually a beautiful little bit of karma. After centuries of picking on defenseless children, Rose is made as helpless as a child at the hands of the ghosts of the Overlook. For bonus karma, the way her death is presented is very similar to how her and the True Knot devoured a terrified little boy earlier in the film. She dies screaming and in agony, a truly fitting death for a monster such as her.

Best Scene: I mentioned briefly in the Psycho Analysis for Jack Torrance that there is a scene near the end where she reenacts the scene where Jack menacingly walks up the stairs towards his wife. This here is probably my favorite scene of hers, as it leads into the disturbing sexual assault-esque attack she unleashes on Dan before he reveals that he has her right where he wants her and unleashes the imprisoned ghosts of the Overlook. It’s a great finale for a villain like her, and Ferguson really does a good job at coming off as menacing as Jack Nicholson in her own way.

Best Quote: Rose has a very simple and sweet quote that I think sums up just what’s so great about her: “Well, hi there.”

It’s not flashy, super impressive, or the most memorable line of all time. It is, however, very affable, friendly, and delivered in an inviting tone of voice all the time, masking her true personality under a persona that has led countless children to a grisly end. Yeah, she’s a Stephen King villain alright.  

Final Thoughts & Score: Rose is one hell of a villain for sure. A lot of it comes down to Rebecca Ferguson’s stunning performance, which really helps you endear yourself to Rose; she just exudes a natural charm and charisma throughout the film, really selling you to the idea that Rose is a charming, cunning individual who could convince someone to her cause. You wouldn’t think someone like Snakebite Andi, whose entire deal is acting as a honey trap to punish pedophiles, would then join up with a child murdering psychopath, but Rose is just that outwardly charming that yeah, you know what? I fully buy that this kid fell for it.

Of course, even with all that said, I think Rose only ends up as a 9/10. This is mainly because she really Isn’t a household name or a true icon among Stephen King villains like, say, Pennywise, Annie Wilkes, or Jack Torrance. She’s so close, and maybe her score will change if she ever becomes a well-known icon like those others, which I think could happen considering how good the film was. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

And aside from that, the fact remains Rose is ultimately not the ultimate, final evil of the film that must be confronted. In fact, she pales in comparison to the true villain, a villain whose presence is felt throughout the movie and is alluded to many, many times before it finally appears. I am of course referring to…

Psycho Analysis: The Overlook Hotel

Yes, I am doing a Psycho Analysis on a building.

The Overlook is not a typical villain, of course. It’s not something that can truly be dissected in the same way as other villains, because there is not one single performance here – rather, there are multiple performances here that are all apart of the nefarious machinations of the hotel. But all of them work together to prey on the weak and frightened, and help build up the Overlook as a terrifying force the likes of which cinema rarely sees in more obvious villains, let alone evil, sentient buildings.

Motivation/Goals: Despite the numerous ghosts all doing different things and despite all the supernatural goings-on, the hotel has one very clear goal, even in the much vaguer Kubrick film: the Overlook wants to drive people to madness and take their power for its own. This is explicitly spelled out in Doctor Sleep, where it is made clear that the hotel was preying on Jack’s weakness as well as on Danny himself, wanting to consume him as much as Rose does. To this end, the ghosts all play a part in pushing people over the edge.

Final Fate: Danny decides to finally allow the fate of the book version of the hotel to catch up to it, and cranks up the boiler and burns the hotel down, opting to stay in and sacrifice himself to ensure he doesn’t become overtaken by the hotel again and allow its evil to spread out into the world.

Best Scene: It’s really weird to think of the hotel having a “Scene,” but if we’re referring to the ghosts… The Shining features the iconic scene of the creepy twins in the hallway as well as the lady in Room 237, both scenes that have stamped themselves into the cultural consciousness.

Doctor Sleep has one that may actually be even better, though; in a scene reminiscent of a scene in the first film, Danny sits at the bar and is offered a drink by the bartender. However, here the bartender has taken on the form (or perhaps even is the spirit of) his father, Jack Torrance. This scene really cements Danny’s character arc and shows that, for all of his flaws, he was still able to overcome his addiction and prove once and for all he is a better man than his father.

Oh, and if you just want something big and fanservicey, every ghost appears all at once to kill Rose. It’s pretty awesome, if I’m being honest.

Best Quote: There are a lot of ghosts in the film, and a lot of them have interesting things to say, but only one quote has wormed its way into the cultural consciousness to any great degree, and that’s the twin’s invite to Danny: “Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever... and ever... and ever.”

Final Thoughts & Score: The Overlook is one of the most famous locations in cinema, and as a villain – no, as a force of malevolence – it is utterly perfect. Of course, things are kept rather vague and mysterious in The Shining to fit with the oppressive, terrifying tone, but even then there are so many little touches such as the bizarre, shifting, and even nonsensical architecture (there are rooms there that could not reasonably exist at all) that add to the unnerving atmosphere that when the sequel outright states plainly that yes, the hotel is a malevolent entity with a will of its own, it’s not even the least bit surprising.

The ghosts go the extra mile to making the hotel feel as evil as it is. The woman in 237, Lloyd, the twins… all of them add their own creepy flair to the proceedings. What’s even better is that even in Doctor Sleep it is never entirely clear if the hotel is just empowering the evil spirits or if it is outright creating them based off of the horrendous tragedies that occur there. It’s also interesting how it only ever seems to target people when there’s only a few there, functioning as normal hotel when it’s fully operational. The thing is almost an SCP, with the mysterious and sinister ways that it operates.

Obviously, there’s no way I could give this place anything less than full marks. 10/10 is the easy score for a villainous building the likes of which cinema has never really been able to top. Can you name a single evil building as memorable as this one? I suppose there’s the titular building from Monster House, but as good as that film as, can you say with a straight face that that house comes close to the sheer unchecked malevolence exuded by the Overlook? Rose really didn’t comprehend at all that this hotel is not something to be trifled with.

#Psycho Analysis #The Shining #Doctor Sleep #Rose the Hat #Rebecca Ferguson #The Overlook Hotel #Stephen King

[hitchell-mope]

(First film. Prologue. Instead of an iPad activated by Mal, Jay is in a white void room dressed for the coronation his hands are glowing brightest gold with magic)

Jay: once upon a time, well, two decades ago. The town loony’s daughter. Married the accursed beast. Of course he wasn’t a beast when they tied the knot (his magic creates images of the story as he tells it) true loves kiss solves everything. They had no honeymoon. Instead. Adam brought the kingdoms together and became the king of the United States of Auradon. And guess what he did? (Chuckles darkly) the overly shaved bastard pooled together his resources and magic. And engaged in necromancy, bringing back all the villains (passing by a line of said villains) you know the usual suspects, crown head, dragon lady, the psychotic furrier and my father. The mad genie. (He pauses in front of Jafar’s frozen form). Along with many many others who died in their stories. The “heroes”, for want of a better word, brought them all back. Along with the sidekicks and basically anyone who didntbfir in their perfect widdle bubble. To add insult to injury. The barrier they put up around the prison prevented them leaving even though the god of the dead were among the throngs punished. Can’t get out with out the fairy godmothers wand you see. There’s also no WiFi. So the days and nights are positively tedious. So it left them with nothing to do but procreate. How did they think villains would tear their own offspring when they’ve tried to murder innocents on multiple occasions. Needless to say their absolutely shit as parents. So we try to stay away as much as we can. Form gangs. Safety in numbers. It helps when you can turn some creepy old man who’s looking at your friend inside out with a snap of your fingers. You’ll meet more of us soon. But for now (he walks up to Ben’s portrait) you get to see the oh so handsome prince fight on our behalf against his nimrod of a father to give us basic human rights. See you soon

(His body glows completely gold and he disappears in a flash of light. Ben’s portrait is zoomed in on and changes to him rushing down a hallway with Doug)

Ben: oh darn we’re late

Doug: it’s alright. It’s not like they can start the meeting without you. You did call it after all

Ben: good point. Ohhhh if this doesn’t work I swear I’m holing myself up in my room with teenage dirtbag on repeat for a week

Doug: it’ll work

Ben: oh I hope so

(They burst into the meeting room. Several adults turn to look at him. Ben looks like he might pass out)

Ben: heh hhhhhhhhi heh heh

(He falls backwards but Doug catches him)

Doug: sorry about that but it was a long walk

Belle: it’s ok Doug. There was more then enough tea.

Adam: son.

Ben: mom. Pop. Uhhhh

Leah: Benjamin will this take long. I’m sure Audrey is waiting for you

Ben: pardon.

Leah: I’ve set reservations at a What was it Aurora?

Aurora: Burger King mommie. I suggested it.

Leah: why?

Belle (every fibre of her being fighting to not roll her eyes): anyway. Ben. What is it you wanted to talk to us about.

Ben: uh. Heh heh. As you all know I’m going to be king in a few months.

Adam: and we couldn’t be prouder

Leah: Audrey is so looking forward to your coronation then there’s the cotillion and we all know what comes after.

Snow: your majesty’s. Please. Let Ben speak. The poor child looks as though he might faint. Hello Doug dear

Doug: hi aunt Snow.

Snow: carry on Ben dear

Ben (slightly less nervous now): thank you your highness. As I was saying. I’m going to be king in a few months and I needed to decide on my first proclamation. And I’ve finally thought of one-hang on. Where are mr and Mrs Dearly

Beast: who?

Snow: the ones with all the delightful doggies

Leah: mutts. They are mutts. Who need to be shot

Aurora: I’m sorry for her. She’s recently been taken ill and hasn’t been quite the same since

Belle: she broke a leg coming back from a hunting trip. That is no excuse for her god awful behaviour

Leah: whatever do you mean?

Belle: I’d tell you. But then we’d be here forever

(Ben stays standing there unsure of what to do)

Doug: I think it may be time for Ben to say his piece yes?

Belle, Aurora and Snow: yes.

Doug: thank you. Carry on Ben

Adam: why are you here.

Doug: pardon?

Leah: yes Adam. I would like to know as well. Why are you here. Whoever you are

Doug: ah ha ooh boy. I’m Doug. Ben’s future major-domo. I’ve been in his class since pre-K.

(Leah just stares blankly at him)

Doug (long suffering sigh): my father is dopey the dwarf. Diamond miner. Made Audrey’s tennis bracelet

Leah: oh yes. So why are you in a meeting meant for royalty

Ben: IWANTTOBRINGCHILDRENOVERFROMTHEISLANDOFTHELOST

(All adults are silent. The the Dearly’s burst in)

Anita: we are so sorry we’re late. BB-8 got hold of my patent leather pumps and why does it feel like death warmed up

Belle: Ben. I’m. I’m

Leah: appalled. And so is everyone else. You have have something to do with this don’t you dwarf?

Doug (under his breath): that didn’t take long

Adam: this. Really. This is your first proclamation? Of all things

Leah (damn near hysterical): why not just tax the rich!

Aladdin: oh shut up you old bitch. Go on Ben

Ben: thank you. Al

Leah: you will address the sultan by his proper title you little bollocks

Belle: ok that’s it. Get out you psychotic old biddy

(Leah gasps dramatically)

Belle: Lumiere would you please?

Lumiere: of course ma’am

(He physically drags Leah from the room)

Jasmine: I’m assuming that us being here has something to do with what children you are picking

Ben: I

Doug (not willing to let Ben take the blame if it all goes wrong): we

Ben (immensely grateful): we, thank you Doug, looked through records and dossiers and found the first four, of many, we’d like to bring over.

Belle (encouragingly): go on dear

Ben (more firmly): the children of, Jafar, Cruella De Vil, Queen Grimhilde. And Maleficent

(From the hallway Leah lets out a hysterical screech. Belle throws a stress ball at the door to shut her up. The rest remain silent)

Roger: they, they uh. Oh my god.

Adam (trying to regain control of the situation): Dearly calm down. It’s not as bad as you believe

Anita (laughing hollowly): not bad. N. Not bad. How can it not be bad. Cruella De Vil has a child!

Aurora: oh those poor dears

Snow: stepmother has a baby? I’m a sister. No. Wait. They wouldn’t be fathers.

Phillip: how old are they.

Adam: it matters not how old they are

Aladdin, Roger and Phillip: THE HELL IT DOESN’T

Phillip: TWENTY YEARS. I SLAYED THE DRAGON. YOU BROUGHT HER BACK. AND NOW WE FIND OUT SHE HAS A CHILD. Oh my god!

Snow: I feel sick.

Adam: now look what you’ve done Ben.

Aurora: Ben didn’t engage in necromancy and bring people who have hurt us back from the dead, dump them on an island that we can all see from our windows. And leave them to raise children. I for one commend him on wanting to try and do what’s right by those that we have left to squander.

Ben: thank you Aurora

Belle: when do you plan on bringing them over dear?

Ben: about that.

(Aladdin laughs. Well. Cackles is more like it)

Jasmine: today?

Ben: yes. At least. I hope so.

Anita: pardon dear?

Doug: we don’t know what their parents are like. If they are like the sultan and her husband or if they are like

Phillip (looking directly at Adam): I completely understand. It’s just

Aurora: we’re going on vacation to Malta. Right after this meeting in fact. So

Ben: no matter how much you want to meet Maleficent’s child. You can’t.

Aurora: if it helps. Audrey will be here I’m sure she’ll support you in your des... (Belle gives her a withering stare) yeah I know.

Ben: I told her last month, when I came up with the idea in fact

Phillip: and

Ben: she laughed me off. Then made me take her shopping.

Doug: if it helps Lonnie Jane fairy godmother and I are 100% behind him king Phillip

Phillip: it does actually Doug. Thank you

Ben: dad. Just hear me out. Every time I look out there over the water I feel like we abandoned them.

Adam: then close the drapes

Leah (from the hallway): hear hear

Belle: SHUDDIT

Aladdin: I for one love the idea. I look forward to meeting them.

Ben: thank you sir

Belle: when do we expect them

Ben: this afternoon. Hopefully.

Belle: and I’m assuming you’ve had this set up for a while

Doug: fairy godmother had helps us get everything ready.

Belle: that’s good. I suggest we adjourn this meeting so Ben can put the finishing touches on the task.

(Everyone leaves the room. Ben and Doug stay behind with Belle)

Ben: thanks mom

Doug: thank you your majesty

Belle: you’re welcome boys. Remember. My door is always open

(All three leave and go their separate ways. The boys head to Ben’s room where two girls are waiting)

Lonnie: well?

Ben: mom’s on board

Lonnie: and your dad?

Doug: who gives a shit what he thinks?

Lonnie: true.

Ben: thank you. All three of you. I couldn’t have done it without you all

Jane: you didn’t need me.

Ben: I did. Your my friends. I can hardly do anything without you guys

Lonnie: well there are a couple of things you need to do with our us. Exams for instance

Doug: thank god you said exams

Jane: uh oh

Ben: what?

Jane: 3...2...1...

(Another girl throws open the door and walks in like she owns the place)

Doug (aside to Jane): you have to teach me that

Jane: it’s magic. You can’t learn it. I don’t even want it.

Audrey: of course you don’t

#disney descendants #zendaya!mal #jay son of jafar #ben florian #anti leah descendants #belle descendants #anti beast descendants #snow white descendants

[nianderful]

so yesterday i saw the infamous emoji movie, and let me tell you, it was bad. like, i’ve seen worse things, and this movie isn’t on the level of a lot of them, but on its own? it’s astounding how bad this is. a lot of this movie sucked, but here’s what i can remember from the top of my head:

-the movie becomes an advertisement about 20 minutes in, and it has a lot of the apps you can think of; youtube, twitter, facebook....it’s almost insulting in its transparency, even worse when you remember that this was made for children.  there’s no jokes or any bit of self-awareness. it’s just ‘oooh, there’s an app’! there’s one moment where they make fun of the shallowness of facebook....everyone’s done that, movie. what do you want, a medal?

-gene is...well, for lack of a better term, meh. he’s too bland and generic to be hateable; what i really hate about him is how he gets away with destroying not only several apps (and the innocent people in them), but nearly wiping out the entire phone. which would have murdered the entirety of his people. he never shows any sorrow or acknowledgement of this. 

-the villain, smiler (oh, poor maya rudolph :<) was honestly pretty boring too, but by the climax of the film, i started to understand where she was coming from. yeah it’s crappy of her to wipe out gene for simply existing, but his antics could have (and DID) risked not only the safety of their home, but their ENTIRE EXISTENCE. 

-james c0rden’s character was awful. i normally like the guy but hi-5 is the worst. he’s a dick, he’s a nuisance, and the film clearly thinks he’s funnier than he is, because he never shut up. he spent most of his screentime acting selfishly, yet is treated like he made a change at the end....uh, hello. movie? can i actually SEE that, pretty please?

-this film clearly tried for a female empowerment angle with jailbreak (and her arc)...and this failed in so many ways.

for starters, jailbreak claims that female emojis can only be brides or princesses. ....except that smiler is a female. there is also a female emoji, gene’s mom. like if you’re going to call out gender roles, make sure it’s supported by your setting and its rules--not just through dialogue.

jailbreak and gene’s romantic arc. ignoring the fact that the movie doesn’t give them nearly enough time to bond (or even try to do so), and the transition is really sloppy....jailbreak ends up rejecting gene’s proclaimation of love, so she can follow her dream of going to the cloud. gene’s response? turn completely meh. this doesn’t get solved until jailbreak, under the threat of the phone’s wiping, breaks through to him by telling him she loves him.  in short: the film guilt trips jailbreak for not returning gene’s feelings, and strong arms her into making a confession. 

and that’s not even the worst part of how this arc ends--jailbreak starts the movie wanting to discard the idea of being a princess, in favor of making her own identity as a hacker--even when her past identity is revealed, she greatly resents it. and on paper, this is actually fine--until the climax. not only does she have to reveal herself as a princess to save gene--this again--but she ends up staying that way, completely discarding her hacker garb. so basically, jailbreak has to give up her dream and the identity she made and liked, for a designation she clearly hated. not to mention she’s constantly told ‘you’re fine the way you are!’/’be yourself!’ which is clearly meant to be interpreted as ‘don’t disregard your previous identity!’ it flies right in the face of the movie’s message at best, and at worst sends a terrible one to any girls in the audience. boys get to be interesting and unique, and embrace the fact that they are, but girls? just sit down, shut up, and conform to the role society gave you! that’s being your TRUE self!

jailbreak was actually one of the few things about this movie i tolerated, and seeing her so poorly treated by the narrative was just another sprinkle on the doo-doo sundae. and that’s not even getting into all the cringeworthy ways this movie tried to sprinkle feminist topics in its dialogue (’men are always stealing women’s ideas!’)

-speaking of characters treated terribly....the just dance avatar, voiced by christina aguilera. she essentially served as a minor helper character...until smiler’s robots get into the app, looking for gene. the app gets destroyed, aguilera’s character with it...and that’s it. the next time we see her, she’s in a trash app, dancing (it’s heavily implied that’s all she’s capable of doing, even KNOWING she’s been left to die). and that’s the last time she appears. ever. gene’s antics resulted in the destruction of her home, and possibly her own death, assuming the trash gets wiped out. even worse? gene eventually goes to the trash app...to rescue hi-5, who was caught in the destruction of the just dance app. he only shows concern for hi-5. that’s one thing, but hi-5 being an exceedingly unlikable character is another. and just like above, it’s another example of gene getting away with the destruction that came from his adventure.

-this movie is STUPID. stupid, in so many ways. from the user character, alex, deciding to wipe his ENTIRE phone when some apps act up, to a lot of the representations of apps being inaccurate at BEST (there isn’t actually an app of the just dance game--not one that doesn’t serve as another controller anyway). for a film that’s a love letter to smartphones and the internet, it gets a lot of stuff wrong.

-there is so much.....pompousness in this movie? especially when it comes to the emojis. the movie acts like they’re the ULTIMATE form of communication, to the point where the kids in this film almost never communicate through speech. (‘words aren’t cool!’--an actual quote of the movie) this is so SO not true, it’s laughable! emojis are basically sentence enhancers, like undersea swears. they’re not shortcuts for actually talking to people with, you know, words. (example of this: the emojify feature tumblr tried out. turn that on and just LOOK how incomprehensible everything becomes.)

overall, it was well intended as a film conveying individuality, but those intentions are killed by EVERYTHING about its execution--the derivative way said message is presented, the treatment of jailbreak, and the fact that there's nothing about this film that wasn't done before or better. it’s a little hard to internalize a ‘be yourself’ message coming from a film that is a frankenstine-ing of wreck it ralph, toy story, and inside out with a splash of the lego movie.

if anybody’s interested in seeing this for a good laugh....well, i guess i can’t stop you. but i’ll tell you--you will have a lot less fun with this than you think. as for me...this is one movie i am never touching again. 

#nia....reviews things #sorry mobile users #long post

[lightchildofthespring]

The fantastic adventures of Takeru Takaishi

Chapter 5: Old foe

Summary:  As Sora faces the man responsible for her father's death, Taichi has to decide how far he's willing to go to save his sister.

Before they headed to the mansion, the group stopped close to a huge lonely tree on the field. Underneath it was one of the secret spots where the revolutionaries kept extra guns, in case of emergency. After digging in the dirt and retrieving a chest, Yamato opened its lock with the back of his shotgun. Once the chest was open, Koushiro reached out to get one of the weapons, but Yamato stopped him, reaching his arm to keep Koushiro at a distance. The others, who were surrounding them, observed silently their exchange of gazes.

“Who are you?” Yamato asked Koushiro, coldly.

“I thought we were past introductions at this point,” Koushiro told him, seemingly annoyed.

“I'm not lending you a weapon until I know I can trust you,” Yamato stated.

“Yamato, didn't you see how he was willing to die to help us?” Sora asked.

“He also warned us about the invasion! He saved our camp!” Daisuke pointed out.

“He kind of saved my life without even knowing me...” Ken murmured.

“Just because he's clearly a conman doesn't mean he can't be useful for us,” Miyako gave her opinion. “His fake death trick was really convincing.”

“Besides, we're already letting a henchman of Yamanaka join us. Koushiro couldn't possibly be someone worse or more suspicious than Ken!” Iori commented.

“I'm not a henchman!” Ken protested.

Yamato closed the chest, putting one foot on its lid. He crossed his arms and kept staring at Koushiro, refusing to be distracted by anything.

“Who are you?” Yamato asked again.

Koushiro had a somber look on his face. He closed his eyes for a brief moment and began to say:

“I was just someone trying to help my friend Hikari... I wanted to bring her back to life, and then I made everything worse... not only was I cursed, but I also doomed Taichi, Hikari's brother... my best friend...”

“You were trying to bring someone back from the dead?” Sora asked, softly.

“To be cursed with endless resurrections for trying to resurrect someone is quite the dramatic irony!” Takeru sounded impressed. “Was that how you got the clairvoyance as well?”

“No... that was before... it's not really relevant now...” Koushiro muttered, looking away.

“Is Taichi like you? Does he die and resurrect?” Daisuke asked.

“Taichi is invulnerable,” Koushiro replied. “He's incapable of getting physically hurt. He can't die nor age... and he also believes that if he kills me for good his sister will-”

“Who cursed you?” Yamato interrupted. He observed how Koushiro paled after hearing that question and grew more suspicious. Nevertheless, the other gave him an answer:

“It was a woman with a blue staff... she was guarding a door...”

“What woman? What door? What does that mean?!” Yamato was losing the little patience he still managed to have.

“That's enough, Yamato! Leave Koushiro alone!” Sora reprehended him.

“But he hasn't given us any satisfactory answer!” Yamato protested, turning to Sora. “How can you expect me to trust someone I know nothing about?!”

“You knew nothing about me back when I barged into your farm all those years ago and yet you trusted me right away!” Sora reminded him. “If you can't trust Koushiro yet, then trust my judgement about him.”

Yamato sighed, feeling defeated. For a long time, he had found himself unable to deny a request from Sora. He heard a smirk from his right and saw Takeru smiling maliciously at him.

“Soooo... she barged into your farm, huh?” Takeru teased. “Was it love at first sight? Why did you trust her so quickly?”

Yamato felt blood rushing to his face and stuttered:

“T-That's not r-relevant right now!!!”

“Hey, now that I think about it, I never heard how you and Sora met!” Miyako said.

“Yeah! She just showed up with you one day and told us 'it's a long story!'” Daisuke added.

“Like you were a lost animal she had taken in because of pity,” Iori commented in a serious tone.

“You're kind of a harsh person, aren't you, Iori?” Ken observed.

Iori narrowed his eyes and looked at horizon as he stated:

“Life is harsh.”

Relieved that he no longer was at the center of attention, Koushiro approached Sora. She had been watching Yamato being interrogated with an amused face.

“Thank you for defending me,” Koushiro told her, bowing slightly.

“It's alright!” Sora said. “Don't mind Yamato. He might seem difficult now but once you two get to know each other better you'll be friends in no time.”

Koushiro lowered his head, bearing a depressed look.

“Anyway,” Yamato spoke again, turning to Sora. “We still have to discuss what we're going to do once we reach Yamanaka's place.”

“What is there left to discuss?” Sora asked, giving him a serious look. “We'll kill him.”

“That would be a terrible idea,” Yamato told her. “Remember how the revolutionaries of the Pine Tree Archipelago were villainized after they killed their nobles ten years ago?”

“Don't you think they deserved to be villainized after what they did?” Takeru questioned. “Aside from murdering innocent wealthy people, they're Devil worshipers who dance naked around bonfires and eat children for breakfast! I read all about it on the Imperial Press!”

There were a few seconds of awkward silence. Then, Miyako and Daisuke began to laugh.

“W-What is so funny?” Takeru was confused.

“See?” Yamato talked as if he had proved a point. “That's the kind of imperialistic propaganda they'll use on us if we kill Yamanaka. They'll turn the people against us and the revolution will lose! We can't kill him!”

“Are you suggesting we should let that tyrant live because otherwise people would spread lies about us?” Sora inquired. “I don't know if you noticed it, but we're already villainized! You heard what Ken said about the revolutionaries earlier!”

“Sora, we have to be smart! We can't afford to make mistakes now!” Yamato stated. “If we kill Yamanaka, we'll be risking everything we've ever fought for! The Empire will strike us at full force!”

“Oh, because the Empire hasn't been striking us so far? Is that what you're saying?” Sora retorted. “I suppose all the people we've lost were due to the Empire going easy on us!”

The tension between the two of them was making everybody nervous. Takeru decided that he should do something to bring those two into an agreement. He couldn't refuse an opportunity to use his mastery of oratory for a good cause.

“What if you put Yamanaka through a trial?” Takeru suggested. “You could assemble the revolutionaries and prepare a public trial, in which you'll list his crimes and get testimonies. And you have to make sure everybody on Turtle Island will follow the trial. A talented public speaker could convince the people of his villainy. Also, get someone to be his defender, so people will see that it's a fair trial.”

“That's... actually a good idea...” Yamato murmured, seemingly astonished.

“I have to say, Takeru, that's the smartest thing I've heard from you!” Daisuke praised Takeru, enthusiastically.

“I suppose a trial could have a positive effect for our cause...” Sora muttered.

“I still think we should kill Yamanaka while we have the chance,” Ken said.

“No, a trial would make things more legitimate,” Miyako told him.

“It'd be a way to expose all the bad things he's done,” Daisuke added. “We can't underestimate how many supporters he still has.”

“That way, more people would see Yamanaka as their enemy and not just as the enemy of the revolutionaries!” Iori concluded.

“I guess it's decided, then...” Sora said, looking down.

“It's the right way to do things. Everything will work out,” Yamato promised her.

Sora smiled at him, but there was no joy in her eyes.

 *

Daisuke and Miyako tied Yamanaka to a chair while Ken and Iori kept aiming their shotguns at the old man. Sora observed the scene a few steps away, keeping her arms crossed. Although she tried to remain calm, the fury in her eyes was evident. Yamato, who couldn't take his eyes off of her, could only imagine how difficult it was for her to be close to the person responsible for her father's death.

“Why don't we just kill this guy now, anyway?” Ken wondered.

“We're not having that discussion again!” Iori replied. “We must assemble the other revolutionaries and put him through a trial!”

“And what do we do with him before the trial?” Ken asked. “Throw him in jail?”

“You bandits wouldn't dare to incarcerate me!” Yamanaka shouted. “I am a noble! The very rules of the universe dictate that I am a superior man!”

“Oh, be quiet already!” Daisuke ordered while tightening the last knot. “Your reign of terror is over! It's time for you to face all the people you've hurt, Yamanaka!”

The old man's eyes widened in terror when he heard that. But then his scared expression was replaced by one of outrage.

“You wouldn't dare to touch me!” Yamanaka roared. “All the disgraces of the world will befall you if you hurt me in any way!”

Miyako slapped Yamanaka.

“Oh my goodness, look at this!” she said in an exaggerated surprised voice. “I hit a noble man and nothing happened to me at all! It's almost like the so-called divine nature of monarchy is a fraud designed to keep mediocre people in power!”

The look on Yamanaka's face was of someone who had been slapped fifteen times in less than a minute. Meanwhile, Ken looked at Miyako with profound admiration.

“How are you more blasphemous than that damn monk?” Yamanaka asked in a weak voice. “He was spitting some crazy nonsense about the Devil but you, young lady, really outdid him! What are you going to say next? That all humans are equal and deserve equal rights?”

“All humans are equal and they deserve equal rights!” Miyako stated.

“You really are crazier than the monk!” Yamanaka affirmed.

“Stop talking to that man already!” Sora ordered, startling everybody. Even Takeru, who had been observing Koushiro and the monk staring at each other at the garden for a few minutes, turned his attention to Sora.

Yamato looked at her with concern. Sora's body was shaking and her eyes shone with tears she refused to let go. Being in the presence of that man was clearly too much for her.

“Those eyes of yours...” Yamanaka had malice in his voice, “could you possibly be Takenouchi's daughter? Tell me, how much did she like the death I arranged for her husband?”

The fury that Sora had been controlling for so long exploded and she advanced in that man's direction. Yamato put himself in front of her just in time.

“Sora, you can't let him play with you!” Yamato pleaded.

“Right! Sora! That was the name of their daughter!” Yamanaka laughed. “My men told me that your father died crying both your name and your mother's! I wish I had been there to watch, it must've been tremendously entertaining!”

“Shut up!” Sora shouted. She wanted to hit Yamanaka with all the pain she had borne for years, all the heartbreak that he had caused. But Yamato wouldn't let her do it. No matter how much she tried to evade him, Yamato continued to block her path.

“Get out of my way! Why are you protecting him?!” Sora inquired.

“I'm protecting you, Sora!” Yamato answered. “Don't fall for his mind games! You have to be strong!”

“I'm tired of being strong!” Sora cried, at last letting the tears she had been holding back flow. “I'm so tired! He has to pay for what he did!”

“He will! I promise you that!” Yamato assured her.

He gently wrapped his arms around Sora. She hugged him back and buried her face on Yamato's shoulder.

“Pathetic!” Yamanaka mocked.

Miyako hit his head with the back of her shotgun, which made the old man lose consciousness. That action made Ken's admiration for her grow even more.

“I'm going to go get Leader and the other revolutionaries,” Miyako announced. “I'll be back soon, unless I get hit by divine punishment.”

“I'll go with you,” Daisuke offered.

“Thank you...” Sora said, letting go of Yamato. She wiped her tears with the back of her hand and showed the others a small smile. “Let's do things properly and bring justice to my father and every other person wronged by Yamanaka.”

They all nodded.

“Hold on, what happened there while I wasn't looking?!” Takeru suddenly shouted, pointing at the garden. Taichi had pinned Koushiro against the grass and crossed the redhead's heart with his sword. A puddle of blood was forming around them.

 *

Taichi was expecting Koushiro to give his usual excuses, like he always did.

The redhead's lies had long lost the ability of deceiving Taichi. Nevertheless, Koushiro always insisted that he wasn't the villain Justine had made of him.

However, Koushiro also never denied trying to rescue Hikari's soul. Nor did he deny that she was sent to Hell because of him. Those facts alone were more than enough to prove his guilt. So what if Koushiro had good intentions? His excuses wouldn't save Hikari. Only the purging of his soul would.

Taichi never enjoyed taking his friend's life. Because of that, Taichi always tried to do it as quickly and painless as possible, always hoping that Koushiro had finally died enough times. But he kept coming back, asking Taichi to trust him... promising that he could still save Hikari but couldn't tell him how. Taichi could only wonder if his friend would ever get tired of repeating those lies.

Judging by his current silence, Koushiro seemed to be done with the lies at last.

“Have you finally given up?” Taichi asked, slowly approaching the other.

“Never,” Koushiro replied.

“Are you going to fight me, then?” Taichi inquired.

Koushiro put the shotgun on the grass and kicked it to his left, out of his reach.

Taichi was a few steps away from him, close enough for the tip of his sword to touch Koushiro's chest. Koushiro didn't flinch.

“When I kill you this time... please, don't come back...” Taichi pleaded. “She told me that you just need to yield. Just say that you've learned your lesson and this will all stop. Our souls will be able to be at peace. Hikari will go back to Heaven and we all will be together again. Don't you want that? Give up now! Let me save you!”

Koushiro gave him a serene look, as if Taichi's words weren't affecting him at all. Could he really be that heartless?

“Hikari told me that she wanted to leave Turtle Island and see the world,” Koushiro said.

“Enough with that story!” Taichi roared. “Hikari was happy on Turtle Island! The three of us were happy together! She would never say such a thing!”

“To you, she wouldn't,” Koushiro let him know. “She was always trying to protect you. Even in her deathbed...”

“How many times do I have to tell you the truth until you get it?!” Taichi was losing his patience. “Hikari had accepted her death! She accepted that she was sick and nobody could do anything about it! But you...” Taichi pierced the other's chest with the sword, “... you just had to play the savior, didn't you?! You went there and played with forces you didn't understand and because of that my sister is in Hell and I am a monster!”

Taichi sunk his sword in Koushiro's chest. Not satisfied, he plunged his body to the grass. Koushiro kept looking at him, not breaking eye contact even once, no matter how much pain he was feeling. Taichi kept pushing the sword, until its hilt was touching Koushiro's body. Its blade was nailing him to the ground. At that moment, Taichi was kneeling by his side, watching as life faded from his eyes like he had done so many times before. Once Koushiro took his last breath, Taichi closed his friend's eyes.

And then, the sword was forcefully pulled out of Koushiro's body by an unknown force and launched into the sky in such high speed that Taichi lost sight of it. The wound in Koushiro's chest rapidly closed. In a matter of seconds, the redhead opened his eyes and stood up again.

“You had never come back this fast before...” Taichi muttered, in shock.

Koushiro had an exhausted look on his face. He took a step forward and nearly fell, but was able to stay on his feet.

“I don't think I can afford to take breaks anymore...” Koushiro murmured. “You can kill me a thousand times... one billion times... and I'll return right away...”

“Stop it!” Taichi ordered. “Don't you understand that I'm trying to save your soul?”

“Even if you were to break my resistance, that woman wouldn't bring Hikari back...” Koushiro told him. “When will you understand that she sees you only as a tool to use against me?”

“Quiet!” Taichi shouted, grabbing Koushiro by the arms and pulling him closer. “How is it possible that after everything I've done, after all the times I've killed your body, you continue to be as blasphemous as you were back then? What will it take to make you yield?”

“I promised Hikari...” Koushiro said; his voice was so weak it was barely audible. “I can't stop... I can't stop now...”

At that moment, a distant memory resurged in Taichi's mind. In the room where he had been watching over his sister's body, Justine appeared before him. She told him what Koushiro had done and what he, Taichi, had to do. He could hear those words again, almost as if she was muttering them in his ear.

“Angel of Death, I give you wings made of holy fire. They will protect your body from everything and purify anything they touch.”

For all those centuries, Taichi had refused to resort to that. To submit Koushiro to that kind of death would be unforgivable. But what other choice did he have? If Koushiro wasn't broken by the countless deaths he had gone through, that one had to work.

Taichi summoned his wings.

They were six at total. Each one of them had two to three meters of wingspan and were made of orange flames.

With one flap of them, Taichi took flight with Koushiro, rising several meters into the air.

“Yield!” Taichi ordered.

Koushiro didn't say anything. He stared at the fire with eyes filled with horror. Taichi could feel his friend's body tremble, despite the heat emanating from his wings. Koushiro couldn't resist that, he just couldn't! He had to give up!

“I know you don't want to die like them,” Taichi told him. “I don't want to put you through that, so, please, just yield! Koushiro, I'm begging you... please, don't make me do this...”

Koushiro began to shed tears. It had been a long time since Taichi had seen him crying.

*

It had been a couple of months since Taichi and Hikari had rescued him from the sea. Koushiro barely talked to anyone and seemed to be scared all the time. They didn't really know anything about him.

Koushiro had said that he was from Shrimp Island, but gave no explanation about how he got to the middle of the sea. When asked if he had family, Koushiro looked down and muttered “not anymore.”

Taichi tried everything he could imagine to cheer the other boy up and make him talk more, with no effect.

During an afternoon when the siblings were spending time with Koushiro, who was brushing the Izumis' horses, Hikari said something that shocked both boys:

“I dreamed with your parents last night.”

Koushiro stared at her, astonished.

“Hikari, you shouldn't joke about that kind of thing!” Taichi scolded her.

“I'm not joking!” Hikari retorted. She then turned to Koushiro and continued “Their names were Ame and Shunsui, right? You really look like them, especially your mother. Her red hair was very beautiful...”

“How do you...?” Koushiro began to question.

“They asked me to tell you that you shouldn't feel guilty for running. They didn't want you to die with them... they didn't want you to burn...”

 *

Those tears were just like the first ones Taichi had seen Koushiro shed. At that moment, Taichi realized he couldn't do that to his friend. Even though he was determined to save Hikari, that was a line he wasn't able to cross.

Then, Taichi felt something strange, a piercing sensation that seemed to set his nerves on fire. The sword that had been launched to the sky had fallen back. It made a hole in one of Taichi's wings and crossed his right arm.

The pain and the shock made him let go of Koushiro, who fell towards the garden. It should be impossible for Taichi to get hurt. But then, he noticed something else that was even more disturbing. There was a weak blue hue coming from the sword. He had only seen a hue like that once.

Taichi flew away. There was only one person who could give him answers.

“He's dead... he's actually dead this time... it's not a trick...” Miyako murmured, horrified, looking at Koushiro's body lying on the crater created by his fall.

“Don't worry, he's going to be okay!” Daisuke assured her. “How many times have we seen him resurrect today?”

“This isn't like one of his fake deaths, Daisuke! He fell from a really high place!” Miyako yelled. “He must've broken all his bones and his organs... I don't even want to think about his organs!”

“Miyako, you're the only one who still thinks he wasn't dying for real before,” Iori said.

“How can you deny Koushiro's supernatural nature after we just saw...” Takeru took a deep breath before continuing “... an invulnerable monk with wings of fire! How amazing was that? That man has to be on the cover of my book!”

Yamato kept observing Koushiro, waiting for him to come back to life like he had done before. He was getting apprehensive at how much it was taking for the other to resurrect.

  *

Once again Koushiro found himself in that dark place. The cold wind whipping his face felt as painful as all the other times.

“I can't waste time here... I can't... I have to go back... I finally found Miss Sora...” he repeated to himself, trying to walk against the wind, “I can't stop now... I can't stop... I'm so tired... so tired... no, I can't take a break... I can't stop... Hikari... I can't stop...”

Then, he saw something he had never spotted at that place before. It seemed like a bar of flickering blue light floating a few steps in his front. The shape and the color of it reminded Koushiro of the staff used by that woman to curse him. Koushiro took a step in the direction of the light bar and stretched his arm, but a familiar voice made him stop.

“Don't touch that! It'll break your soul!”

He turned around and saw Hikari surrounded by pink light. She was wearing the white kimono she had when she passed away.

“You have more important things to do than coming to my rescue every time I get stuck in one of these...” Koushiro muttered, looking away. “I'd find my way out eventually...”

“You said that last time, and it took you 52 years,” Hikari said, giggling. “There's nothing to be embarrassed about, I help people in your situation all the time. Escaping Hells is my specialty.”

She approached him and offered him a hand. After Koushiro held it, he felt Hikari's warmth fill his soul. Almost instantaneously, the dark space was replaced by a flower field. The morning sun gave him a peaceful sensation. As he looked down, he noticed that there were no blood stains on his skin nor on the clothes Yamato had lent him earlier that day.

“Do you want to rest for a while?” Hikari asked.

“It's too easy to lose track of time here, and I can't afford it anymore, I finally found Miss Sora!” Koushiro replied. “We're so close now, closer than we've ever been... I can finally be more of help to you!”

“Don't burden yourself too much, we have many allies helping us,” Hikari told him.

“You have many allies helping you here... on my side, I'm alone...” Koushiro reminded her.

“Not anymore! You've found Sora! You've been waiting for her for so long, and finally you're with her! And her friends seem like good people,” Hikari said.

Koushiro frowned, thinking about how Yamato was still suspicious of him. There was no doubt in his mind that he would inevitably be betrayed by that man down the road.

“I know how hard it is for you to trust people after everything you've been through,” Hikari acknowledged. “But not everybody you befriend will turn against you. Trust me on this.”

“You're not the one who has clairvoyance...” Koushiro commented.

“My intuition is just as good as that,” Hikari affirmed, smiling.

He smiled as well.

“I need to go back...” Koushiro said. “I need to help Miss Sora get to where she has to be... I can't risk the plan by getting separated from her. And Taichi... I have to find a way to save Taichi...”

“We will find a way to save him,” Hikari assured Koushiro. “Don't burden yourself! There's nothing wrong in asking for help, you know?”

Koushiro didn't say anything. He let go of Hikari's hand, closed his eyes and felt himself fall. When he reopened his eyes, he found Sora, Miyako, Daisuke, Iori and Ken surrounding him. They all had relieved faces, but Miyako also seemed perplexed.

“You really can return from death...” Miyako muttered. “Are you... an actual demon?”

“I'm not a demon,” Koushiro replied.

As he sat up, he thought to himself:

As a matter of fact, I am the Devil.

#the fantastic adventures of takeru takaishi #basically supernatural taishiro angst #with some revolutionary Sora angst as well #koushiro izumi #izumi koushiro #taichi yagami #yagami taichi #sora takenouchi #takenouchi sora #au fic

[askharryhook]

Promise [One-Shot]

Anon Said:  Can you write a jealous harry one shot?

OOC Notes: So this prompt was not specific so I made it Huma (obviously lol) and post-coming to Auradon. It ends kinda abruptly because the ending I wrote felt irrelevant lol. Harry and I are still getting used to working together so we hope this is good enough! Warnings for very minor swearing.

Though he’d always jokingly called it Bore-adon, Auradon was far less boring than Harry had ever imagined. A full month after Ben had accepted more villain kids from the Isle and Harry was still finding new places to explore, new shops to nick cool trinkets from, and the hero kids didn’t seem to hate him yet.

As much as he loved the attention, it could be incredibly overwhelming to be constantly surrounded by strangers asking to hear about his frankly terrible childhood, even if it was “exciting”. Back on the Isle, feeling overwhelmed was rare, and if he ever did, Uma immediately put his mind at ease, reminding him about everyone he had to take care of, herself included.

Here in Auradon however, he didn’t have the same responsibilities and he wasn’t the only one getting the attention. It was growing increasingly difficult to talk to Uma when the puppy-eyed boys were drooling over her. Today it was especially bad, as she’d allowed Gil to fix her hair in public and suddenly every boy within earshot wanted to help.

Harry stood a considerable distance away from the trail of boys crowding her locker. He leaned casually against the wall, waiting with an indifferent expression, though he wanted nothing more than to carve permanent frowns into their smiling faces. He wouldn’t touch them (Uma would murder him if he got himself kicked back to the Isle), but the urge to do something was too strong to stay still and wait for her today and he stormed over.

Even without his hat, Harry was taller than most of the other boys, and it was easy to shoulder them away when Uma started to snap at them.

“You heard the lady.” He sneered when she told a plump-faced dwarf son to fuck off. He towered over the kid, slammed his hook against the lockers and sent the terrified pup cowering down the hall. The rest of the boys backed up a considerable number of steps, looking at him warily.

“Thanks, Harry.” Uma sighed, placing a firm pat on his chest as she finished pulling her books out of her locker, “Those little rats were going to make me late.”

“Uh, actually…” Harry swallowed, reaching for her hand as she turned to head to her next class. If it had been anyone else, even Gil, she would have punched them clean in the nose for touching her without permission, but Harry knew this was the only way to tell her what he needed, “I was hoping we could go for a walk.”

Her fingers gave his a squeeze, her eyes avoiding his own, “I can’t right now, Harry. But I’ll see to you later, okay? We’ll do something fun. Promise.”

‘Promise’ was something the three of them had started when they realized how badly AP had split up their schedules, sending them all to different parts of the school at different times so they were barely together during weekdays. They’d promise to do something together together when one of them needed it.

Harry held onto that promise while he elected to stay in his room the rest of the day, half-buried under the mountain of blankets the school provided and earbuds shoved so far in his ears he could feel the music penetrating his brain.

It wasn’t until the door to his dorm was slammed violently that Harry realized he’d dozed off. He jolted awake, ripping the headphones from his ears and nearly knocking his head on top bunk of the bed. He’d done that one too many times already.

Standing carefully, his face fell when he realized it wasn’t Uma who had come to talk, it was Gil, a giant grin spread across his face and his bookbag hanging wildly off one shoulder,

“Good morning!” He shouted unironically, “We were wondering where you were all day.”

“Where is Uma?” Harry rubbed his right eye with a knuckle, smudging his eyeliner slightly before he checked his pocket watch. Sure enough, school was over for the afternoon and Uma should be free for their peptalk.

“Uhh...I think I saw her out in the garden with Ben.” Gil said, rubbing his chin cluelessly.

“Move you oaf!” Harry growled, shoving his room mate aside to get to the door. Uma with Ben? Of all the stupid, rich boys in this school, that bloody prick of a king was the one she wanted to pay attention to? Flashbacks of their sword fight played in his mind, reminding him of how he’d let the king outsmart him and get away.

Not this time.

There must have been a look of murder in his eyes as the gaggle of hero kids that always gathered in the dorm hall split straight down the center when Harry stormed through, staring at him out of the corner of their eyes. He reached the main door of the building just in time for Uma and Ben to arrive at the bottom of the stairs.

Ben had one hand resting on her shoulder, and she was...laughing. Not at him, like usual, but WITH him. Harry felt his stomach turn at the sight, especially when she turned to give him a half-hug.

“Uma!” He shouted, startling her and everyone else in the area. He swooped down the stairs faster than they could break apart, ignoring Ben’s cheerful greeting.

“What are you doing?” Uma asked, confused and irritated as Harry shoved his way between them, making the king stagger backward, “Harry! Chill!”

Immediately her hand sought his, pulling him toward her and away from Ben; though he knew she was breaking up the inevitable fight he’d pick, Harry let her anyway. Her concerned albeit stern touch and proximity was all he needed to clear his head.

“Come with me.” Uma hissed, dragging him by the hand around the side of the building, out of view of the kids who had all stared at the confrontation, “What the HELL was that? Are you TRYING to get us expelled?”

“You promised to see me after school!”

“You’re really trying to start a fight because I’m not giving you enough attention?” When she put it that way, Harry’s actions did sound childish, and he looked at the ground in shame. Why was he being so aggressive? Uma tore her hand out of his and grabbed the collar of his jacket instead, pulling him down to her height, “Boy if we were back on the Isle I’d wring your neck. Just because we’re not on a ship anymore doesn’t mean I’m not still your Captain. I promised, and I’ll keep that promise, you got that?”

“Aye, Captain…” Harry muttered when she released him. She stormed away without so much a goodbye.

Well she didn’t quite keep that promise, as neither Harry nor Gil saw her for the rest of the night. She was missing the following morning too, and Harry skipped his first block of classes to wait on a bench near her locker. He hadn’t been able to sleep since their fight; usually he found her frustration and dominance to be amusing and, frankly, attractive, but it hadn’t been directed at Harry in years. Even when she was mad at him, she was always more lenient and caring than hostile. He must’ve fucked up real bad this time, and he needed to apologize, something he learned to do in the “Goodness” class that was mandatory for all VKs.

The bell for lunch chimed gracefully through the halls and still, Uma hadn’t come to her locker. Either she was sick or she was trying really hard to avoid him. Harry discovered it was the latter when he joined Gil in the Mess Hall. She wasn’t sitting with them today; instead, she could be found at Ben’s table, in what was usually Mal’s place. They were facing each other, and she was laughing again, touching his arm with a flirty look in her eyes.

“What the hell’s she doing?” Harry grumbled to Gil, who was paying attention to nothing except his tray filled with bite-sized egg salad sandwiches. As he asked the question, Uma’s eyes slid over to their table. She locked gazes with him, winked, then returned to flirting, no doubt just to spite him. Mustard from his burger smattered the table as he squashed the food in his hands, his stomach boiling.

“Harry?” Gil mumbled, spitting chunks of egg everywhere.

Harry was already on his feet, storming over to Uma, who met him halfway to the table. Without a word, she grabbed his collar, yanked him into the nearest hallway, and shoved him against the wall. He didn’t have time to confront her, or ask her what the hell she was doing with Ben before her lips were crashing into his.

Harry froze against her kiss; it wasn’t like they’d never kissed before, but it was usually alone, when they were alone after a fight or particularly rough day. This was...different. Not as aggressive or fiery, but still so distinctly Uma that Harry melted into her, kissing her in return.

“You need to calm down.” She whispered in his ear when they broke apart, gasping for air, “I’m trying to get close to Ben so I can convince him to drop the barrier.” Harry swallowed, his brain still fuzzy from the kiss.

“Oh..” Was all he managed to get out and Uma rolled her eyes,

“You really thought I was into him, huh?”

“Well...he is a king.”

“I’ve found he responds better to emotional manipulation. Besides, you know I love you.” She elbowed his ribs playfully before they both froze, realizing what she’d just said. That word was all but outlawed on the Isle; it was censored from history texts and not even mothers dared say it to their children.

“I...love you too.” He stuttered. It looked like Auradon was rubbing off on both of them.

“Promise?” Uma asked innocently, playing with his hook instead of meeting his eyes.

“Yeah. Promise.” His heart leaped in his chest, threatening to rip it’s way out.

“Good. You’d better not break that.” She teased shoving him back into the Mess Hall with her usual smirk.

#huma #harry hook #harry x uma #huma fic #one shot #request #this is only 30 minutes late im proud of myself

[pinksweatergettingbetter]

Aura VS Godot, Aka my short essay about Aura being terrible Aka hopefully once i write this i’ll never have to complain about her again 

Aura Blackquill and Diego Armando are both shitheads. One of them gets a lot more flack than the other for some reason, (ok, well, I know the reason), but today I’m going to explain to... no one in particular the reason that if both of them were placed in a death-match, I’d be rooting for Godot. Yeah. Godot.

Now I am by no means defending Godot. He’s an asshole. He ruined several peoples’ lives, nearly killed a child, put an innocent woman in jail and was generally a shithead to everyone he met. He’s a douchebag. I don’t like him as a person (gr8 character tho). But I still prefer him over Aura Blackquill. 

And you might be saying what?? How could you prefer a sexist man douche over poor, heart-in-the-right-place, probably-lesbian Aura? Aren’t you attracted to women, too? Well yes, I am. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this, imaginary questioner. 

I’m gonna compare the last two moments of knowing both these characters to prove my point. With actual verbal proof from the games themselves.

So let’s look at what Godot says just before he’s taken out of the series.

Wow! Douchey! But wait...

This right here is why I’m more inclined to like Godot than Aura. Shu Takumi once said that he wanted to make Miles Edgeworth a ‘tragic but ultimately unlikeable character’, and while he (thankfully) decided to go a different direction, I think he succeeded here with Godot. Godot is an asshole through and through, but... He’s an asshole who realizes that he's an asshole. Who admits that he’s an asshole. 

While every other single character in the scene desperately tries to go ‘nooo no no no your heart was in the right place!!! you were only trying to do good!!’ Godot says “no??? i was a selfish shithead and I wrecked everything. I’m an asshole. I’m terrible.”

He shows legitimate remorse, even going so far to shed tears over it. Does that excuse what he did? No. But it does show that he realizes what he did, and feels badly about it. Which means that he has the ability to change. Godot sucks, but given time, he might not have sucked so badly. I don’t really care to see him return to the series, but if he did, he would probably be trying to make amends, and that is a good thing (tho i don’t trust the new writing team so he’d probably be shit lol XD)

Now let’s check out Aura’s final moments.

:)))))))))))))))

No no, Aura’s not here to apologize for threatening death on 12 people who were most likely, given the circumstances, families out on a day trip. No, no, the one doing the apologizing is... Us! Edgeworth apologizes to Aura! Because a system that’s way larger than himself hurt her feeling!

Yes, the biggest problem here is whether Aura trusts the system again. That’s what’s important.

Aura gives no shits about what she did. In fact, she’s proud! Because she’s the real hero, guys! If she didn’t do what she did, none of this would ever happen! So you better bow down to the great and benevolent Aura Blackquill!

Alright, sarcasm aside, it’s worthy to note that Aura shows absolutely no remorse about what she did. When she expresses concern about her brother, she quickly follows it up with the fact that it was SHE who saved him. And then, when she actually tears up to show human emotion?

She’s crying because Blackquill was apologizing to her. For making her worry.

Aura shows absolutely no interest in feeling bad for anybody but herself. Like Godot, she spent her years in the dark resenting and hating and never once thinking that somebody else could be hurting at the same time. And in the end, where Godot realizes he was being a shithead, Aura cries because someone finally said “Sorry for making you sad, never mind what I went through. Thank you for the suffering you went through for me, never mind my own wishes or my own sacrifices.”.

Another comparison is that in both situations, the game tries to play Godot and Aura’s actions off as unfortunate but admirable:

But where Godot denies it, Aura does nothing but enforce it. And we’re supposed to agree with her. Here’s the scene of Phoenix reuniting with Trucy:

That’s about.. three? Maybe four lines devoted to the trauma she and Phoenix went through, and it’s quickly swept away. Because if we delved any further, we’d have to realize that Aura is a fucking assshit. In the aftermath of Godot’s misdeeds, Maya is shown to be extremely upset and hurt, but trying to put on a brave face for Pearl, who’s probably suffered the most. You really feel the effects of what Godot did, but here, Aura’s kidnapping and near murder is simply swept under the rug.

They even have this... disgusting line further proving that they don’t really assign any weight to what Aura did past it being an obstacle for you to overcome.

This, by the way, is being said by a robot with the sentience level of a small child. A robot that still calls Aura ‘mama’ until she physically beats it out of him. Not only is Aura an unrepentant kidnapper and near murderer, she abuses children. And it’s not played for laughs correctly, since the robots are specifically stated to be ALIVE and FEELING and even mention that they are ‘frightened of what miss Aura will do while we’re asleep if we don’t keep our batteries charged”. They’re kids. Who Aura beats. Because she never took the time to go to the therapists that we know exist in this world to work out her major grudge against another child who, if you think about it, couldn’t have possibly committed the fucking murder. Athena went to Europe after her mothers’ death, and thank god; just imagine what would have happened if they’d left her in Aura’s care?

Now I sympathize with Aura’s situation, I really do. I genuinely feel for what she went through, and I even understand why she took the steps she did to ensure the problem would be solved. It’s sad, it’s genuinely heart breaking. Aura is a heartbreaking character.

But the thing that stops me from labeling her a well-intentioned extremist or a good person who had to do a bad thing is that she plainly doesn’t give a single fuck about what she did. If she’d shown any kind of remorse, I’d have definitely cared more about her and her predicament. I’d have put in a few good words. I’d have hated the phantom as much as I hate the other AA villains. But she doesn’t care, and the thing about people who don’t care is that they’re liable to do the bad thing they didn’t care about again. 

Aura sees nothing wrong with what she did, so what’s to stop her from doing it again if she sees fit? She has no qualms about murder; if you get the bad earlier ending, she and the hostages “disappear”. Even the wording is trying to protect her; kidnappers don’t just disappear with their hostages. They kill them. Aura was ready to put a bullet in twelve peoples’ heads, including Trucy. Trucy, who we know and love and care about deeply. 

Godot would not do what he did again. Godot looked back and went “I fucked up, I did wrong, and I’m going to hang my head in shame and go without a fight.”

But Aura... Aura walked into the detention centre like a martyr going to the stake. She walked there with her head held high, and a satisfied smirk on her face, because she did a shitty thing, but damn did it show those nasty lawyers! And if she’d had to kill everyone? Well, who cares about the families she would have torn apart? It’s not like she ever went through anything like tha–– oh wait.

Aura and Godot both did what they did for selfish reasons intermingled with good intentions, but where as Godot and his game acknowledge the negative impact of what he did, Aura and Dual Destinies do not. Aura doesn’t give one shit. And apparently few other people do, either?

So that’s why I hate Aura. That’s why I legitimately cannot stand her, and place her among the likes of the rest of the Ace Attorney villains. And now, hopefully, I can just lay this thing to rest once and for all and get to more positive things about Dual Destinies. 

#Dealing with DD #rant #hopefully its all over now and i can continue on to positive things about DD #i swear i will someday] #its all out and over with now. time to - as sadmad says- let it go and move on. #positivity from now on! positivity from now on!!