#the fact that he chose himself honestly says minimum about his character

[normal-thoughts-official]

I see so many people saying that lydia was/is a qUeEn and a hEro for being okay when alec kissed magnus at 'their wedding' but like...She knew that alec had feeling for magnus before the wedding and still was going to go ahead and marry him which meant that alec well them both would've been unhappy🤷🏽‍♀

I just don't like lydia tbf, she kinda rubbed me the wrong way but that might be just me😕

diaiduahs ok so i debated with myself whether or not to answer this question for like 0.3 seconds before i realized that wait a minute, i have never shut the fuck up about what i think ever in my life. who am i kidding. but anyway fair warning that my opinion on lydia is pretty unpopular among "both sides" of that debate (i don't think there are ever just two sides to any issue but anyway)

also warning that i'm not dissing you or your ask in particular, just giving my opinion based on what i've seen and heard on this debate in the fandom

here's the thing. i don't think she did wrong by accepting alec's marriage proposal. i wouldn't say she did right either, in my opinion her choice was pretty morally neutral

because it would have been different if alec had no choice on the matter and she chose it knowing it would make him miserable. but that's not what happened at all

alec did have a choice. in fact, the fact that he proposed to lydia was something that made his parents (who are the main responsibles for his closeting) fucking pissed. he wasn't doing it to please them; he was doing it as part of his own plan

and again, don't get me wrong, i'm not saying that this wasn't extremely traumatic and awful to him. he wouldn't have even considered it if it weren't for the awful conditions of his closeting and abuse, and he would have been miserable for the rest of his life. but alec had agency. he wasn't helpless. he was making a decision based on the shit conditions that he was in, trying to ensure his own safety and success. the conditions were horrible, but every decision we make is based on the environment we are in. and acting as if lydia was somehow forcing him into this marriage is acting as if alec didn't have autonomy to make his own choices, which i think is pretty unfair to him

one more time! i'm not saying it isn't fucked up that he had to make that decision. i know that ppl a lot of times say "lol it was their choice" regarding ppl staying in the closet to wave off the trauma of closeting and debates about queerphobia in general. the closet wouldn't even be a choice that's presented if queerphobia didn't exist. no one's choises exist in a vacuum, we are all dealing with the material conditions of our lives, and queerphobia is a huge part of that; one that makes the best choices for us impossible. so like, no, he wasn't BY ANY MEANS 100% free to choose what he wanted. but he DID have agency in his decision to propose to her

besides, what was she supposed to say? "no ur gay lol"? it's not like outing him would have been an amazing move. and of course she could have said no and not said that it's because alec is gay and would never be happy with a woman, but honestly, what the fuck kind of right does she have to make that choice for him? she doesn't even know him. she has no right to tell him what he should do with the plate of shit that homophobia and abuse has handed to him, especially when he obviously is trying to keep his agency and have control over his situation and choosing to marry lydia was a part of that. again, maryse was pissed. when alec chose to marry lydia, he was doing it for himself

what would have happened if she had said no? he would have ended up marrying another girl. and probably one that his parents picked, not him. like, let's please give alec credit here. he chose to stay in the closet, but he was fighting being just a pawn in his parents' game from the start. and it's not like either of them had any illusions about what this marriage was; it was a business arrangement at best. alec called it a partnership. they both just wanted to use that situation to their favor. and in shadowhunter culture, that's normal (i'm not saying that's a good thing, just that it's a fact that influences her decision to say yes as well). like, do you think maryse and robert loved each other? we haven't really seen any other shadowhunter marriages so i can't say for others, but it sounds to me like marriages of convenience were pretty standard. if i were alec, id probably be relieved that she had said yes, because then they'd both be in a situation where they knew exactly what they were getting into and he didn't want to pretend

and don't get me wrong, i'm not saying she did alec a favor or some shit. i'm just saying i can't really see how she is doing him harm in that situation, and that i think this take is taking away a lot of alec's agency and if i were him i'd be pretty pissed about that lol

but tHEN we have the Lydia Stans who ALSO take his agency just as much with this absolute nonsense take that she was a "hero" because she "let" him call off the marriage. excuse me lol? he wasn't hers for her to "let" him do anything. what could she even DO to "not let" him kiss magnus? at best, she could have thrown a tantrum. which would have been pretty ugly, but like. pointless. she can't make him stay and if she had tried to this would make her a fucking asshole and a villain. but the fact that she wasn't a villain doesn't make her a hero lmao

she did the bare minimum! sure, she was gracious about it, it was nice that she said that he deserved to be happy, but still the bare minimum. it was alec's choice, not hers. she doesn't have any right to force him into this marriage, and she didn't have the means to, either, which is part of why i think her choice to accept his proposal was morally neutral

and god it's annoying as hell that ppl act as if she was doing some kind of favor by not being incredibly violent and homophobic and trying to force him into a marriage with her lol? like not being homophobic should be the least we expect. and again, alec can make his own choices. he didn't need her permission to do jack shit

so when it comes to the whole alec situation, i'm pretty neutral towards lydia. it's whatever. she was barely there for that plotline anyway. when it comes to the doyalist perspective of it all, i am pissed as hell that she seems to be so popular within the fandom as if she did something incredible or whatever, but my feelings towards her as a person/character would have been pretty neutral

but tHEN we have the fact that "both sides" of this debate openly and completely ignore all the other fucked up shit she did, like trying to arrest izzy for saving a downworlder's life (idc if she changed her mind, it was still gross) or her openly racist comments. her comment about raj should "cut back on the smartass after being manhandled by a warlock" was one of the racist comments that stuck with me the most in tHE WHOLE ENTIRE SHOW, because like. what??? warlocks are literally immortal powerful beings with access to magic shadowhunters can't DREAM of. and the "warlock" she's talking about is MAGNUS BANE, not only one of the most powerful of them, but someone that she supposedly admires??? like, my god, she was all but fangirling about him coming to the institute and then it's like. wow raj how could you lose to someone so inferior

like are you kidding me???? tell me how this comment makes ANY sense whatsoever unless you are the most shadowhunter supremacist person to have ever lived. there is no reason at all to presume that losing to a warlock is humiliating (especially considering how them powerful they are) unless you believe that shadowhunters should be inherently better than them at everything

but we never talk about that, now do we

so...... the super lydia-positive corner of the fandom annoys me to no end but overall this whole discussion just tires me from "both sides". i don't like her, and i hate that she is so loved when the shit she did is ignored and most of the stanning comes from a pretty belittling vision of alec anyway, but i also think the anti-lydia side focuses entirely on the wrong issues regarding her character

#this isnt me dissing you anon im just giving my opinion on the subject #salt #anti lydia branwell #anti sh fandom #ask #anonymous #q #anti lydia stans

[paramedictk-archive]

it’s hard to put into words how much skam france has disappointed me this year but s6 is finally over and i felt like i needed to kind of... say goodbye to this shitshow and get a few things off my chest.

s3 will always hold a special place in my heart, it came into my life when i really needed it and honestly, it was their only genuinely good season from start to finish. i will always be grateful for s3 and for eliott and lucas and for all those little moments we got to see with the grew in that season as well as in s4 and s5, when they actually acted like teenagers, when they were there for each other, when actions had consequences, when subplots weren’t abandoned just after 2 clips and when they used this show to educate teenagers and give them hope... those very few moments that actually made me feel like i was watching a skam remake.

it’s hard to make peace with the fact that this remake gave us so many good moments but also managed to completely ruin this entire experience for most of us this year. i think if skam france was genuinely, consistently trash from s1 to s6 i wouldn’t be half as angry as i am right now. but truth is, it wasn’t all bad. that’s the worst thing. we’ve seen they can do better, they just chose to be lazy and use the popularity s3 gave them to churn out mediocre and half assed plots time and time again because they knew they had devoted fans who would defend them no matter what.

when s3 was airing i actually felt like they listened to us sometimes and cared about us but something changed after s4. it no longer mattered what we wanted to see or what we thought about a scene, we were simply told what we should be feeling. and that’s a huge red flag. i don’t have to be a scriptwriter or a director to know that good storytelling isn’t about throwing excuses and explanations (and then damage control pictures) at your audience. it’s about them engaging with the content you put out and bringing their own perspective to it. otherwise, what’s the point?

and you know, this isn’t even about what’s ooc and what isn’t. it’s about the people who were supposed to finally get their representation but instead ended up being too triggered by the show to continue watching it. it’s about muslim, deaf/hoh people, people dealing with addictions or self harm or eating disorders speaking out only to be silenced by david and his fans just because their opinions weren’t always supportive and positive. it’s about us saying that they should have never used sexual or domestic abuse for shock value and then being told to shut up because a few pacifists in this fandom seem to think we’re ruining the show for them this way. it’s about david and niels flat out lying to us and promising so many things in order to get us to watch s6. it’s about being disrespected by the creators of your favourite tv show so badly that you end up having to distance yourself from it and the fandom. you obviously can’t please everyone, but the least you can do is listen to the people whose stories you’re trying to tell.

i obviously can’t tell any of this to david even though i wish i could. not because i want to rub it in or prove that i’m right, i just simply want him to know how much his childishness hurt the very people who once fought so hard to get his show renewed for him. i can’t tell him any of this because he would never read my messages since i’m not one of his certified bootlickers singing his praises all the time. because he blocked one of my insta accounts last week for a comment i posted under one of his pictures during s5. because that’s the kind of person he is. someone who would rather hide and ignore constructive criticism and let his little fans fight his battles for him. someone who stayed quiet for weeks while said fans kept sending death threats to people. and yes, you could say he’s not responsible for other people’s actions and that’s true in a way. but when you create such an unhealthy and hostile environment within your own fandom by playing favourites and silencing anyone who has a different opinion than what is considered acceptable, you do encourage that kind of behaviour.

despite all this, i still stayed and tried to put up with all the bad writing because i cared about the grew that much, maybe even more than niels himself, it seems. i don’t have a reason to stay now. the concept of having female showrunners sounds good, sure, but i know francestvslash and i know skam france. it’s the good old bait-and-switch. during the last two seasons, they kept baiting marginalized communities to earn woke points but a season that was supposed to be about arthur’s deafness entirely got turned into some cheating fest and lola’s season was pure misery porn with wlw rep thrown in there as bait. 

david and niels leaving won’t solve this problem. francetvslash needs a reality check too. they used us to renew the show and then turned around and called us obsessive. they blocked my comments under the live because i asked them why wasn’t the sexual assault plot mentioned again. they joked about addictions. they don’t care, okay? not about us, not about giving people representation. the only thing they care about is money. so them suddenly hiring female directors and writers after they saw us complaining about the way this show treats women? bait. the same kind of bait niels and david used when they tried to throw all kinds of rep in s6 because they knew lgbt people want to see themselves represented so badly that they would watch it no matter what. i would love to be proven wrong, obviously. i want to believe the new showrunners have nothing but good intentions but their hands will obviously be tied by francetvslash to some extent. and i’m done being used by them and then being forced to settle for the bare minimum.

all in all, both s5 and s6 fell flat and were extremely disappointing. skamfr under david and niels will always remain a one hit wonder, nothing else. it’s a good thing they are leaving now because at least characters like max or sekou have the chance to be treated with respect by the new writers and directors. and i’m happy for all of you who decided to stay... i wish you guys the best. i honestly hope you guys will get the stories and the representation you’re looking for. i really do. i want to be proven wrong about francetvslash and the showrunners... but i don’t have the energy to dedicate so much of my life to this show again, not after them breaking my heart so many times. 

and i guess i’m a petty person. the grew deserved great stories too, not just lamif. arthur deserved a great season, deaf/hoh people deserved to see themselves represented, instead they were forced to watch niels disrespect noée and camille and then act like they never existed in s6. and after everything wlw have done for this show, we deserved a great season too, not to be baited like this. maya was in 18 clips out of 83 (!!!!). if niels and david didn’t want to give the grew a chance to have a good send-off, then i’m not giving this show a chance again. why would i?

anyway. i’ll stick to rewatching s3 every now and again. and i will miss the way the grew made me feel. thanks for all the good memories and let’s hope we’ll forget the bad ones soon. this is what we’ve come to.

alt er love and all that crap i guess.

#skam france

[rhywhitefang]

Blank Rune + Inner Shadow characters ranked by how much you can trust them to babysit your children

Mary Poppins is seething in envy:

- Avery; Hugger of children and literal angel. There’s no better option. No, you cannot change my mind. Your children will come back, happy, safe, and goth. They will form an unbreakable bond devils bargain of friendship

- Jademis: Smart, responsible, and nice. What better qualities for someone to take care of your kids? Not only is she capable, she actually cares about doing her job AND she will probably help your kids with their math homework also.

- Coal: Obviously an amazing choice. Not only does he have common sense and makes responsible choices, they are also fun! I can also see Coal really liking kids which makes him great for this.

- Caravel: On her own? God tier, no question. She takes her job incredibly seriously, gets attached to the kids immediately, and will defend them with her life. She will give them great food but also be responsible and also the kids will love her. Her taste in men is not her fault!

- Kester: He is literally a dad. The only reason why he’s ranked lowest in this tier is for slight overprotective tendencies, but you know what? That’s also a good thing. He would also LOVE tormenting your little ones with his dad jokes :)

- Idokras: This is a really protective person who is really enthusiastic and will do anything to keep them safe. Fun, but also strict enough to discipline them without being too harsh. The kids will have a great time!

Great tier:

- Acorn: Nice, smart, and full of great advice. Has kind of a hands-off approach which is why he’s not in the first tier, but overall a very solid choice.

- Fatima: Why is Fatima so low, you ask? She is across both stories the character with the most solid moral compass.She is responsible. She cares about their safety and wants them to be not traumatised. Perfect! But on her own, she is a bit awkward and “no fun” around kids. However!! If Oxyll joins her the pair of them instantly move up to God tier. 

- Astrid: Astrid is amazing! I don’t even have anything negative to say that put her down, she’s all around great! No complaints! Just not so extraordinary as to put her any higher, but if you chose her as your babysitter, your kids will have fun and learn some wilderness skills.

- Soleya: Probably already makes mad cash babysitting. Smart, responsible, snarky. Shame she’s not the biggest fan of children.

- Sora: Sora is a literal angel. An actual disney princess. A precious flower who is soft and nice and will take good care of your children. She can be a bit of a pushover though!

- Rhy: Canonically a great babysitter. Fun, good with children, and just all around a charmer. Maybe not the great role model, but I’ll doubt you’ll have any complaints about him. 

Decent enough:

- Oxyll: Also dad energy, but lesser efficiency than Kester. He’s more oblivious, and way less of a grip on the kids. He’s fine, but definitely not the best. Again, though, if you combine his powers with Fatima, they become god tier together. 

- Skipio: Decent enough, responsible, and will do his damnest to keep your little ruffians out of trouble. He’s gonna be strict with them, too - which is also his downside. Your kids won’t want them back.

- Tave: He’s doing his best! He’s trying! Who knows, maybe he can work himself up the tier list. For now he’s getting an E for effort. 

- Kain: A good boy! He’ll try to look out for them, but also, he’s very stupid, so emphasis on “try”

- Pan: I don’t think he’s really a “kids” kinda guy, and probably won’t know what to do with them. Still, he’ll try his best to keep them alive. 

- Agnes: Honestly, considering the fact that she’s like, what? 14? This is hella impressive. A responsible girl! I’m very proud of her!

- June: Your kids will love her! She’ll let them ride on her motorcycle, stay up past 2 am, and let them eat as many cookies as they want!

Meh Tier

- Lyn Amara: Completely uninterested in your brats. I guess if you paid her, she’d pay attention though. 

- Ash: Can be bribed into doing a good job, and depending on the kid might also grow attached enough to do it out of their own volution, but they might also not bother.

- Blake: He just wants to sit in his barrel, bro.

- Anianno: His honor demands him that he protects him from threats and he’ll definitely run head first at any large animal that tries to attack them. 

- Tilly: Stimulate your childrens creativity! Teach them valuable life lessons! Repeat after me: Murder is okay :)

- Laure: I mean, she *might* sacrifice them to her death cult but I feel like she’d be responsible about it, yaknow?

- Wren: That’s a bit too much responsibility for our anxious little bean. They will try their best though!

You Might as well have left them alone

- Allen: This is the same as leaving them alone.

- Swift: Will probably get distracted & overhwlemed. 

- Copper: Anxious chihuaha. Will cry. 

- Jakob: Oh boy... probably not the greatest idea. I mean, he’ll try his best, but I can’t see this going too well. Maybe they can write sad poetry together?

- Finn: He does nothing for them and might accidentally... drop them.

- Elvin: He’s a baby but at least not actively completely irresponsible, and has some physical capabilities? He’s really dumb tho.

- Phillip: He will ditch them half way through the night to go fight and/or make out with his boyfriend

- Prion: Too busy staring at himself in the mirror.

- Lexa: Herself a baby and also has no concept of fear or danger. Don’t.

- Kyra: Might steal their arms... but eh, too small. 

- Barnacle: Looking at his intentions and general vibe, it’s great! He is a soft cuddly sweetheart, who I can totally see liking children. He’s also a mess and a disaster and a huge pushover. Also, what do kids eat again? Here have some uhhhhhh...... leaves from outside?

Just.... Bad:

- Delta: Do you want your kids babysat by a cat?

- Liam: I mean... look at the job he did with June. He kept her alive and fed, I guess. So, congrats on achieving the bare minimum, but he’s definitely not getting any awards here. And theres you know, him being an evil shithead.

- Midas: As irresponsible as they get and also kind of a shithead. There’s a chance he might use your child as a football. 

- Mikash: He is baby, dont give him this kind of responsibility!

- Arna + Firmin: The irresponsible children squad. Why would you let them babysit your irresponsible children??

- Dareios: Canonical child hater and overall horrible person. The only reason he’s not in the shit tier is that if you payed him, your children will survive. He will treat them horribly though.

KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE BABIES

- Artemisia: Well she might kill the kids, but unlike the rest of the people in this tier, here your kids might have a chance of survival ‘cause Misi is not that interested in them and might ignore them and do something else instead.

- Rubin: trash garbage man who will misuse your kids as “squires” for his fucked up murder tournaments

- “Ethan”: Almost the absolutel worst option. He is a terrible influence. We remind the reader that when Caravel asked him to get something to eat for the kids, he brought chips and alcohol. Awful role model, and thats not even getting into the fact that he literally murdered the two children in his care. Might not even keep your kids alive if you pay him!

- Esca: No :(

#blank rune #inner shadow

[itsnothingofinterest]

Ok so like...... I actually like how endeavor is in this chapter. Like, I might be the only one, but I really like how endeavor thinks he has changed and honestly thinks he's making his best effort, but as this chapter shows, someone can be honestly thinking all that and still be wrong. Like, it's not that I like endeavor because he abused his family, or that I think he deserves to be forgiven because he says he's changing, it's that I like how horikoshi (intentionally or not) wrote a character who wants to be rewarded for doing the bare minimum (saying he did a bad, but it was an oopsie!!! So he should be forgiven now please!!!), only to get slapped in the face with reality that says nah, not good enough.

Like, i'm a firm believer in "everyone can change" and I do think endeavor honestly thinks he's doing his best. But usually, in stories about domestic abuse, the abuser saying "I did wrong, but I'll try to change" is seen as good enough, and the victim will almost always forgive them after that. But trying isn't always enough; sometimes you have to actually DO better instead of just TRYING. Like, endeavor is trying, but we se his thought process--"I made mistakes", "there's nothing I can do about the past now", "touya was so tragic because he went from being a happy child to a miserable one (leaving out any part endeavor played in that transition)"--and... That ain't enough my dude.

Also it's telling to me that the first time we see the family come together to support and understand each other is when endeavor is in the hospital--as in, physically incapable of inserting himself into their business. In the house, there would always be that threat that endeavor could come into any room he pleased and kick out anyone he chose. But now everyone is free to leave his room and close the door in his face. They are free to say "no" and leave his presence and they don't have to worry about him inserting himself into their dynamics.

Tldr: shouto slamming the door on his crying father is the best thing to ever happen to that family

Yeah, I get what you mean. As much as Endeavor even now is still pretty ‘yikes’ in a lot of ways, one of the most interesting things he’s got going is how he wants sooooo bad to be a good person in hopes of making up for past mistakes and finding validation he didn’t get from the no.1 title…but he’s just soooooo bad at being a good person. And the fact that his family is more than happy to call him out on the things he’s done wrong and continues to do wrong really help that element to the character.

It’s like; the same way it’s upsetting to see people support Endeavor based on him just being a hero/someone they depend on/someone they know & like over his victims’ testimony, it’s very enjoyable whenever one of those victims gives him even the slightest shiitake mushrooms for all the awful things he’s done.

And this is especially true now, where it’s as you said. Endeavor’s sins have caught up to him and stripped him of practically all his power, leaving him hospitalized & allowing the Todorokis to speak freely. And speak they do, and it’s great.

#ask & reply #bnha 300 #bnha #endeavor #anti endeavor #touya todoroki

[vlads-yuka]

A few Ikepri suitor theories (hc?)

So just earlier (not really anymore, since this took me a few d a y s) I was talking on discord about who among the suitors would be which type (the mom, yandere, tsundere etc) and since I wrote such a long thing about Rio, I thought I could try to do the same for the others 👉👈

I base my assumptions on translations I found of canon content (as of June 7th) as well as my own understanding of Japanese (I might be wrong about things that I claim canon, so if I do please tell me).

♦

Leon

So it's pretty obvious that Leon is the Ore-sama type basic black haired first guy. I honestly don't have much to say about him, his animal is the Lion, often labeled as the king of animals (how funny haha) so he's going to be very proud and probably use MC just to do his thing and that's it. It's likely he treats MC unfairly and grants you a few misogynistic comments about how useless you are if not to allow him the throne. Eventually, he'll fall in love and become at first awkward af and then probably really sweet and somewhat protective (he has a goal to achieve and his pride won't allow him to let you be hurt in front of him). He'll have some kind of sexy scene when feelings are returned and single handedly resolve whatever drama happens while swearing to protect you and make you happy once everything is over.

♦

Yves

Yves is really awkward. He tries to act tough like he doesn't give a damn but that's to hide that he's too clumsy to say things honestly (unless it comes to Licht). Pretending to be a tsundere, maybe his lack of luck will also come with the fact that being a bitch to everyone draws them away from you, and he's probably scared of hurting the people he cares about with his harsh words, but that's his only way to hide his "weak" self. He actually doesn't feel comfortable with a lot of people so he doesn't bother opening up. He's dense as fuck and doesn't realize that Licht DOESN'T CARE. Once you try hard enough and keep on being nice to him even though he'd expect you to hate him by now, he'll be so thrown off guard that you'll get to see his adorable stuttering messy self. He'll probably threaten you to not spill what you know about this part of him. He'll gradually sweeten and allow himself to touch more MC and he probably has the cutest laugh once he fully opens up. He's not really clingy unless he's sleeping with MC (you're not getting out of the hug until he says so) and will act selfishly from time to time because suddenly he wants a hug but doesn't want to do it in front of everyone. Note that his earring will be an important part of his past and since there's only one of it, it's either that the other is somewhere else or it's originally not an earring and was something else belonging to someone dear to him. He might break/lose it at some point in his route (since he's unlucky). After MC help him trying to fix/find it for his sake he'll grow soft and tell her how she makes him happier than ever by being her lover and he doesn't need it anymore if he has you, thanking you to have let him love you (I'm thinking about that one adorable cg in the trailer where you can't see his earring and I can't tell if it's just hidden or not) and he'll find/have it fixed soon after. He'll probably tell you that being by your side makes him feel better because he's so lucky to have you that it's almost like his usual rotten luck is meaningless (or at least that's what he'll think if he's too embarrassed to say it). He probably needs to be praised (not exaggerated or he'll sulk thinking you're making fun of him) and he'll blush into an adorable mess.

♦

Licht

Licht is that one suitor who thinks he doesn't need anyone (and no one needs or wants him). He's super love deprived and will say mean stuff like he's too cool for you (it's canon he's a kuudere and misanthropist) and sincerely doesn't want to have to do anything with anyone. He's the definition of a lone wolf (funny innit) and will be cold, interested and mean with MC for a good part of the beginning of his route. Now this could go two ways. Either Nokto will reveal you about his/their past (because he's that bitch but he probably cares about him) which will allow you to somewhat find your way inside his shell and let you do something he likes, which would, for once, let him show his pure and cute smile, or something will happen causing him to have to protect you (it may be a real danger, but I'd rather think it would be something not necessarily dangerous but triggering to a trauma) and he'd drop his resting bitch face. I think his case could be similar to Kenshin's. He doesn't dislike people, he just hates that he can't/couldn't protect them. His animal being the wolf, I think Licht would become very protective once in a relationship. Him being the powerful male of you two, he'd act like the leader of a bundle of wolves and protect you as you and him. By that I mean he doesn't protect you especially, he protect what the both of you are, and it's like protecting himself at the same time. I think he'd be really quite but would love nuzzling in private. He's that one prince who's icy to everyone but warm to his lover in private. In the same logic as protecting, he'd make sure that you have everything you need and I can imagine Nokto working a bit behind the scenes too to make sure Licht can open himself in a good environment with MC. I don't think Licht hates Nokto, but I definitely think he'd be mad that Nokto is popular and can keep people around him (and in that way, somewhat protect them) so I can see Nokto understanding that and plotting things so MC can help his brother regain confidence. Licht would be the type to, like wolves, have his lover stick to him all the time, but it wouldn't feel obsessive, it'd feel more natural and protective (he's definitely not a yandere imo). In terms of displays of affection, he wouldn't be too vocal about his feelings (he doesn't know much about it yet, it's not really familiar to him to let himself feel so much) and wouldn't say much in general, he's more of an action person. In public, your hands would probably be GLUED but that's about it. In private he'd definitely hug a lot more than kissing and would be the big spoon most of the time when cuddling.

♦

Jin

I have a feeling Jin is one of those suitors who thinks MC is too pure for him and he shouldn't stain them with however disgusting he thinks he is. I expect him to be a fun mix between Shingen and Arthur and I'm pretty sure his route will be a RIDE. He's absolutely shameless and probably touchy (it's canon he's a boob man, Clavis said it so you better believe it), but I don't think he will with MC. Since he said in his profile he wants to watch MC chose a suitor rather than get involved in becoming king, I think it's going to start by him spending gradually less time with Clavis as he spies on you. Naturally, he'll fall in love (before MC does) and understand quite fast but might take some time to acknowledge it. Something will probably happen like MC randomly tripping or facing a dangerous situation for him to come out of the shadows to protect both her body and her pureness (the type of guy to fight while telling you to not open your eyes and remove your hands from your ears until he says so). Upon you thanking him, he'll go with a bitter smile because he knows he loves it but doesn't deserve it. MC will probably try to make it up to him and so he will spend more and more time being intoxicated with love while trying to push you away. Will come a moment where something bad happens and he realizes that the only way to protect what he wants to protect is with the throne. He'd probably say some cheesy line like "I didn't intend to become the king but I guess it wouldn't be too bad to have you as my wife" and will end up accepting. He'll be a king putting the well-being of the people before his and he'll keep on saying how proud he is of you. In terms of affection, he wouldn't go overboard in public but he'd definitely say some inappropriate stuff in your ear to make you blush in front of important guests. I think he would definitely keep PDA to a minimum because you're his woman and he doesn't want anyone else to see your pleasured face. But boy once you're together between 4 walls he has no self control and doesn't care a single bit if you want to work a little more before sleeping, because you're not going to be able to anyways with him in your bed. An eagle looks like it'd be free spirited and proud so I think this is where his personality will go.

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Chevalier

The information we have on him definitely makes him one of the hardest characters to guess for me, so I'm quite unsure and I'm sorry (I love him tho). For a start, I think a good comparison would be Nobunaga, since the first impression is pretty much the same. Now Chevalier certainly isn't as shameless as Nobu when it comes to touching women (in fact, I think that in the beginning of the route he'd be treating MC with respect but lots of distance). I'm pretty sure I caught him referring to himself as a monster several times, and he's convinced that his core is filth. However, the fact that he's a monster doesn't mean he can't do anything good. The fact that he's often drenched in blood means he fights a lot and this comforts him in his own thought that he's a monster (my best guess is that he's been called so by people in his childhood because he beat some brat up or something and he just decided to stick with it because it's just more convenient than trying to explain why he did), as well as the fact that he probably doesn't smack just anyone and does so it protect his ideals (in that way, he's quite like Mitsuhide). Again, I think that, like Mitsuhide, he overall doesn't bother supporting his acts with saying why he does them, and just does what he thinks is right. Rio mentioned that Chevalier is a late riser and Sariel added that tigers are nocturnal. During night, I think he secretly does some sort of charity stuff (secretly, because it's just laughable to have a monster do charity and he wants to keep acts of light away from his name, that's associated with filth) and probably also beats up some criminals here and there. I think that this would be uncovered a night where MC can't sleep and follows Chevalier out of the castle (maybe she's curious and wants to understand him more, maybe he dropped something) and finds about it. He's not stupid and MC probably is to some extent as usual so he'll notice and will start to tell her why he does this and why he doesn't want it to be known. Following this event MC will start to think that after all he's not just a monster and will stick with him when he goes doing charity at night because you can "Do whatever, it's not my business". While spending time there with you, you'll slowly creep up on his list of things he wants to protect even if he has to stain his hands. Of course, some kind of drama will lead him to have to do it, probably in front of a large number of people and I can see him leaving his sword aside and kneeling to the enemy to protect MC from danger. There, he'll show his sweet side and his desire to see you happy more than anything. Of course, you, who already loved him, will call him out on his bs and tell him you don't want him to be hurt either and you love his beautiful smile. He'll definitely be confused at first but then will take a new breathe and save you, who became a part of him. He'll obviously still think of himself as a monster, but he knows that doesn't mean you can't love him. He won't stop fighting for his ideals, but now that he has to protect himself to protect you, he'll stop being as reckless and definitely will be thankful that you helped him access the throne to pursue his dreams (even though at first everyone told you that you should stay away from him, but you loved seeing his eyes so full whenever he was doing something good). In terms of relationship, Chevalier will be reasonably protective and will trust you to not betray him because "Only you could love a monster like me, and I won't stop loving you either" or something like that. He'll definitely be quite of a tease in private when he wants things to get heated but most of the time it'll just be fluffy with small forehead kisses, hair combing and warm hugs (he's always the big spoon and he's soo warm).

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Clavis

You heard it, the court's number one problem child is romanceable (and this is so messy wtf I literally can't decypher him at all I feel like I wrote something so wrong for him ugh I'm so sorry). He loves to stir up drama and then sit back to watch and has no shame in doing so. Since MC will, as usual, be kinda dumb and innocent, Clavis will tease her A LOT, and use her to stir up even more shit. No one at the court really likes him (COUGH Sariel COUGH) but some somewhat tolerate him, like Chevalier (but if he goes overboard he'll end him). I mean I say no one important, because he sure has a lot of women swooning over him, but I can see him being all flirty and stuff but then not doing anything because he just doesn't really care, it's for fun (lol). When he mentioned Jin's preference, I think he said that he himself was more of an ass man (he said something like leg or something iirc but bruh we all know what that entails when the other option is boobs). Clavis will propose you to mess up the king election (more like drag you into it), but I'm pretty sure that it's because he knows that something fucked up is happening or bound to happen. It seems he will pull up a Mitsuhide except he drags you into it, probably to have you by his side when shit will go down so he can protect you (since you'll trust him, i guess ?). Everything will go according to plan, except for the fact that he's starting to be fond of you, so instead of just having you into the drama and protect you from afar, he'll start to actively stick with you, which will screw up his plans. I'm honestly not too sure about what will happen but basically he realizes he can't be as carefree as usual when something so big is going on and his love interest is in the middle of it because of him and decides to tell you what is happening so you can untrust yourself to him. I think from this point onwards, you both will somewhat have understood what you feel for each other, but nothing will have been said. Hand holding will be normal, and cuddling too if the situation forces you both to stick together outside and/or hide. He figures he'll just confess properly after everything will be over and he'll get to apologize for getting you into all of this. Once it is actually over, he'll turn into a big romantic (Chevalier but cringe) to start the relationship like it deserves to and then will proceed to tease the shit out of you. Overall he'll be a Mitsuhide or Leonardo type lover in my opinion. Now HEAR ME OUT, have you ever seen a leopard walking ? It's beautiful. He knows it. I can just see him walking while somehow seductively balancing his hips sjshid imagine him crawling on bed djdbjd MY MIND IS GOING DOWN THE GUTTER. He's such a flirty seductive ass but I swear he's loyal he just wants to see your cute pouting face. He's quite blunt when it comes to PDA (that's where the fact that he's an ass man comes in handy if you see me haha I can't help it he has a thot dot) and will not hesitate to straight up make out in public if he thinks it's needed (he's not dumb sjbsix he likes to stir up shit for fun but he wouldn't do something extreme if he knew it would end up bad when there are other ways).

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Nokto

Two words: skirt-chasing liar. The man painted his nails to have them black when he does the fox/kitsune hand symbol, he's totally trying to have people distrust him. It is mentioned that Nokto's behavior is a great contrast to his past heroic acts. Linking this to what I wrote of Licht, I think he might have been praised for whatever he did and he hated it because he didn't reach his goal (like nobunaga who unites Japan but hates the fact that there are victims nonetheless). What would be the most interesting would be if it was like I hypothesized of Licht, that he couldn't protect someone in particular. In that way, there would be a contrast between Licht feeling like he can't protect anything and Nokto who can protect everything but what he really cares about. Following this logic, his womanizer personality could be explained in the way that by chasing skirts left and right he can feel like he doesn't have anyone important and protect himself from the pain of loving someone too much and the pain of losing them. Now, either the two's traumas are totally different, or it might be the same event; if so, my best guess would be their mother's death. However, Nokto being a womanizer leads me to think that it was actually a love interest that he lost. Being a good liar and trickster (kitsune things), I assume he's good at reading people and is probably very observant of his brother. If his brother even confided in him, I'm pretty sure Nokto would hide his disappointment of not having been able to protect a few people for his brother's sake. I think his route (or at least the beginning of it) would be a mix of Mitsuhide and Arthur's, being some bold flirting at first as a warning because he wants to draw pure MC away from him. I think MC would then be drawn by his caring attitude toward Licht (almost like a big brother, even though he's the 7th prince and Licht is the 6th) and would make him notice how kind he is. Nokto would probably find a way to make her uncomfortable with heavy flirting mixed up with denying but if it repeats, he'll probably just say that he wants to protect the last person he dares to care about. MC would probably see pain and sadness in his gaze and choice of words and kind of like Arthur's route, she'd be drawn to this vulnerable caring side of him and understand the flirting is only a part of Nokto. Drama will happen, and Nokto will have a breakdown, because he got attached to MC and is convinced he won't be able to protect her. It's likely he tries to push you away even more to make you mad and break his own heart before he has to see you die before his eyes too. Due to this bring a heavy and very bottled up trauma, he will be looking very distressed and MC will rather try to soothe him. I do think Nokto might be crying at this moment (the other one I have in mind would be Yves) and both will realize their feelings at this very moment. However Nokto still won't think he can protect you, but maybe Licht would think something like "I can't protect anything by myself but I can help my brother protect what he cares for" and help him, which would easy Nokto into the idea of having to fight. It's also possible Clavis and Chevalier join in, but I'm not too sure about that. In terms of relationship, Nokto would be a super touchy fluffy lover, liking to feel your chest move in rythm with your breath against his chest while hugging you tightly reminds him that you're alive and that he could protect you and he always will no matter how many times he has to. Like Licht, he would be very protective, but he won't become too obsessive if you soothe him back enough and prove him that you won't break in his palm (the fact that he becomes king also helps since you can have personal royal guards). He's a bit more into PDA than his brother and won't mind resting his hand on your hip in public, but your cute facial expressions are for his own pleasure only~

♦

Luke

So Luke is the big brother one (but only for MC) and apparently he's lazy. Like a bear, he's huge but you can bet he would spoon you For his lazy traits, I think it might just be his personality, but I do think his doting comes from his past. A guess would be that he was very fond of his little sister but lost her to another man for arranged marriage. I don't know where or when Ikepri happens but arrange marriage can be planned very early, and this would explain his hate/disinterest for official affairs and his doting (it's like he would try to see his little sister in MC while treating her as such) and the fact that he tries to drag her out of official affairs as well. Like mentioned in his profile, his eyes sometimes look somewhat dark and dull, so I assume this could be when he thinks back about his past. I wouldn't go as far as saying he's a yandere, but he'll definitely try to drag her away from court life (not especially people, not especially violently, he'd just try to not lose her). It's sad, but you will probably get sis-zoned for a nice long time before he realizes that 1. he can't force you to do something you don't want to and 2. he doesn't just love you as a sister. Maybe this realization will make him want to become king with you to not lose you, or maybe he will be needing a little something else to be pushed to do so. In terms of relationship, he'll be doting and have remnants of big brother behavior but he'll finish his light scolding sessions with a big fluffy hug. Jokes on you if you wanted to spoon him. For PDA, I think he'd be pretty much just like hand holding and head pats/hair ruffling.

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Sariel

Sariel is known in the court as the "Devil". I would say his role is a mix of Giles (midcind) and Mitsuhide. As the profile says, his past, identify etc is quite of a mystery so I wouldn't get too much into this. Now Sariel expects MC in his profile to kind of suck up to him and do as he pleases while she finds a new king. Whether Sariel is loyal to the princess (you) and the crown or not will determine whether he's simply a shady suitor or the villain of most of the other routes if not all of them (William things hehe). He'll obviously be EXTREMELY shady and will make it very clear that it's best you stay away from what his job entails. However MC will find a way, consciously or not, to get involved way too much in Sariel's affairs (Mitsuhide things haha, he radiates the energy of other chaotic shady suitors only) and he will have to first of all scold her a ton shit and secondly a find a way to get her out of his business. They will probably struggle together their way out of an important job of his and MC will most likely have a good impact on the overall outcome but he'll mostly scold you for getting on the brink of death thanks to what he'll consider a foolish move. As a relationship, once king, I don't think Sariel would go any further than formal hand holding, arm holding and back of the hand kisses. I have a feeling that in private he wouldn't be the touchiest either (I mean he's busy with his shady stuff) but he would definitely pull you into his lap without asking and I could see him stroking your hair while your head rest on his shoulder until he finishes work before carrying you to bed, whether you're asleep or not.

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Rio

Rio IS the yandere and it's 100% canon I'm not accepting critiques on this (someone saying "Look only at me, you only have to think about me" screams yandere already, not to talk about my obsession consisting of comparing him with Toneri of Yuroma) and I honestly think it's soooo cool that the yandere is a butler I love it. ANYWAYS. Rio lost his memory 3 years ago (he was already your butler back then) which means his memories only consist of serving you. That said, you're literally his world, his only friend and his master. I think Rio would be scared not only to forget about everything again and see (I assume) you sad again and forget all your smiles he saw for 3 years (I definitely think he's one of those suitors that love you right off the batch but give you the liberty to be happy with whoever), but also lose you as easily as he lost him memories. If he lost you to someone else, either he'd be forced to watch you be happy with another man, or be left behind. As a loyal dog, he would totally hate the later. Now being your love interest's butler is extremely convenient as a yandere. If he doesn't want you to get out of your room he just has to give you some sort of somniferous stuff or lock you in saying you're sick and "My Lady does not wish to receive anyone in her quarters". Butlers not only attend to their master's wishes (he does say that granting your selfish wishes is also his job), but also are their first connection to the outer world. If your butler doesn't come with you outside, he'll at least be there to see you off and the first person waiting for your return. Now I don't know what entails the secret behind his memory loss at all so I'll leave it as it is. I don't think Rio will be as brutal as Toma from Amnesia or anything (Sariel is watching too) and will probably try to convince you that you need to stay in for a while and that he'll look out for you (bonus points if something bad actually happens). I'm actually not sure to what extent Rio would go. Would he harm others ? Just keep them away ? I don't know, but a dog sure knows how to bite to protect its owner. The route will probably follow the classic yandere schematic: everything is fine, he gets really obsessive, you try to push him away, he gets hurt, you explain him that you love him too but you can't stay locked in forever, he eventually chills. As a king, I think he'd take some time to stop being there for his Mistress' every needs but he definitely would in private, he just wouldn't want to embarrass you in public. For PDA, he would also not be too touchy, sticking to basic butler extent touchy, but he'd be extremely cuddly in private, trying to hook up as much time as possible from you. He'd give a lot of little pecks and smol kisses everywhere on your face and neck until you stop working so he can pull you on the bed in his arms for a slower making out session.

♦

THAT'S IT

That took me quite a while, phew ! Sorry if there typos and sorry for the huge length inconsistency !

If you have something to add, especially regarding the ones I didn't write as much, please do say so in comments or in my messages and if it adds something to the analysis (and if you're okay with it) I'll add it with credits !

I'm so excited for Ikepri I hope to be able to play soon but for now it's 3am haha

#Ikepri #Ikemen prince #イケメン王子 #ikepri leon #ikepri yves #ikepri licht #ikepri jin #ikepri chevalier #ikepri clavis #ikepri nokto #ikepri luke #ikepri sariel #ikepri rio

[aqvarius]

[WALKTHROUGH + REVIEW] Her Love in the Force: Ayumu Shinonome: S3 Love’s Battlefield + His PoV

Honestly, I think this route is one that I went into almost completely blind. With some other routes (particularly Ishigami’s and Soma’s), I kind of had expectations going in. But with this one, I basically had no idea what was going to happen.

Ayumu’s Love’s Battlefield is another example of how the quality of Her Love in the Force just keeps improving. I have been so impressed by every single route that’s come out this season in particular. It was heartwrenching and frustrating and some things are still unresolved, but I’m excited for the future. Ayumu’s routes have a knack of setting up the premise for the next part so well that I’m just left impatient for the second half of the season. 

With the walkthrough, please bear in mind that there is no good-happy ending meter in this route for some reason so I’m not sure if all answers will take you to the Happy Ending, but these are the answers I chose that brought me to the HE.

Walkthrough:

Ep 1: "His sharp tongue." "That's not the plan."

Ep 2: "I miss fried shrimp." "Kaga trusts you."

Ep 3: "Is that sarcasm?" Explain

Ep 4: Stay silent. "I meant it."

Ep 5: "What's your name?" Abstain.

Ep 6: "Move, please." (gives all options) Don't check.

Ep 7: It's Ayumu. Hug him. (one of the potential options is give him the finger? lol?)

Ep 8: "I prefer black tigers." "No thanks."

Ep 9: Don't answer. "It's panties."

I don’t have much else to say in terms of expectations or even as an intro, so click on through to read my thoughts about this route and his PoV, character and relationship development, my analysis on Ayumu and his MC’s dynamic vs her dynamic with Tsugaru, and my screenshot of the GREATEST BACKGROUND that Voltage has ever gifted us. Here, I have basically tried to keep major plot details to a minimum but beware of minor spoilers. 

Reality:

Ayumu is the person who had maintained strict boundaries the whole time during her time in the academy, so naturally it makes sense that he’s the one who finds it the hardest to detach from these roles and the dynamics that it causes. This is expressed beautifully in his PoV, which I highly enjoyed and definitely recommend. I’ve been thinking that with this new season in particular, the PoVs don’t cover all the key moments in the MS, but rather they complement them with new scenes that really wonderfully paint a broader picture of these two sides to the relationships. Despite the fact that he doesn’t quite yet know how to break away from these roles, Ayumu’s relationship with his MC changes a lot outside of the Academy. He’s a lot more open about wanting to help her. His hints to her are so obvious that even she gets it. I never imagined we would ever hear our favourite sour patch kid Ayumu straight up say “I’d do whatever it is she wanted if only she’d say something to me”?! Three times over, he practically begs her to open up to him and let him help her, and she’s the one pulling away and keeping secrets this time. I understood why she did it but dear God, I felt so frustrated for Ayumu.

This route is full of super heartwarming scenes where you can feel just how much Ayumu cares about supporting his MC, to the point where he almost breaks rank just to set her up in a good position. Ayumu is someone who, before now, hadn’t yet challenged the bureaucracy of the National Police Agency (unlike Kaga and Soma) and barely even ever goes against the orders of his own boss Kaga, but this route places him in a position where he almost commits insubordination for his MC. I love that we first get to see him deal with things when he acts out in a frustrated way, and then again when he’s calmed down and had a think, and that leads to that scene in the park in episode 7, which is one of my favourite scenes in the whole route. His PoV is (naturally) more enjoyable for seeing his own anxieties and frustrations about the situation. This route reminded me again that Ayumu is totally a one-woman man, and when he falls in love, he falls so hard.

Something that I find interesting and different about this route is thinking about Ayumu’s position now that they are both working in the same division. Ayumu is someone who has spent two whole years watching his MC and setting up the chess board for her behind the scenes so she can make the most of her abilities and execute the perfect checkmate. But now that he doesn’t have the position or ability to set the board up for her, we get to see his frustration at wanting so desperately to help and yet being unable to do anything. At the academy, he had a position of authority as a special instructor. But at HQ, he’s just another lieutenant. Sure, he’s a genius and a specialist unlike anyone else, but ranking-wise, he’s in the same position as Goto or even Kurosawa. That’s something that you also feel with Goto’s route – the inability to affect change in the same way that they could within the setting of the academy. In this new context, Ayumu isn’t like Kaga or Ishigami, who can stand on their own against Tsugaru. Soma too has a higher rank so the issue of power and bureaucracy isn’t something that needs to be explored as much (and also he’s kind of a wild card even within Ishigami’s team and has always done his own thing, including a lot of independent investigations, which is why in his route the main dynamic between Team Tsugaru and Soma is Tsugaru getting Momo and MC to spy on Soma).

I saw a couple of comments about how awful Tsugaru is in this route and one on hand I do think that he is a lot more fun to the MC in other people’s routes (mostly Ishigami’s, then Goto’s, then Kaga’s), but on the other I think that if you hate him here, you’re gonna despise him in his own route. I’ve said it a couple times here and there, but I really feel like the version of Tsugaru in Ayumu’s route is the closest to his true personality. Tsugaru’s own profile calls him the worst boss and the most malicious person. Even Momo calls him 天邪鬼, basically calling him someone who messes with people just for shits and giggles (the term used for a demon who is deliberately contrarian). If you don’t like how little Tsugaru respects the MC in this route, oh boy you are gonna be in for a ride when you see how he treats her in his own. There’s a reason she comes to loathe that smile of his. Weirdly enough, in the Good End, the Tsugaru Squad dynamics seem to get to about the same level as they are in the other routes. There’s even a cute scene in the Good End where Momose actually kind of attempts to console the MC when Misato screams at her, and the Special Story from the Ending Set also shows them interacting in about the same way as they do in other LIs’ routes, with the three of them working as a team. I wish there was more sense of development in terms of building that team relationship (and I will expand on this later too).

I don’t know if any of you have watched Agents of SHIELD but this need-to-know basis (and feeling like there are clearance levels for information) thing gave me severe AoS vibes. At the same time, you do understand why an institution such as Public Safety would need to isolate information, for security purposes. It would be no good to have someone, especially a rash new detective, get caught and tortured and spill all the beans, right? And the thing is, this need-to-know thing is not new to Ayumu’s MC at all. You only have to look at his Sequel and Graduation routes to see her being left in the dark by Ayumu himself in two consecutive seasons. The big difference here is that whenever Ayumu acts, he always keeps her abilities and strengths in mind, with the plan always taking advantage of the things only she can do (such as having an eidetic memory). So she doesn’t need to follow instructions (although he always leaves her clues), but the plan is already designed to work with her usual attack patterns and abilities. With Tsugaru, however, they don’t know each other. She doesn’t know how Tsugaru thinks (nor does anyone except Momo), and while Tsugaru may know what she thinks, he probably sees her as volatile and unpredictable. If she were working under Ayumu in this case, he may have taken into account the fact that his MC might have tried to accost Misato’s assailers in the basement, but Tsugaru (rightfully, tbh) expects people to trust him and follow his orders since he always has a reason for doing the things he does, even when no one (except Momo) understands what they are. 

I’ve previously touched on my opinion that Soma is probably the closest OG character to Tsugaru, which I’ll expand on here too. Actually, let me rectify that statement: Tsugaru is probably the most similar to Soma and Kurosawa – I would say his character maybe sits in the middle of their personalities. The common factor here is not just their enigmaticness, but the way they keep a friendly mask on while they use people as tools without remorse while keeping their plans hidden, or only understood by a select few people who get it without words (which is actually similar to how Kaga does things too). This is why he needs a Momo 2.0, to be able to have a similar sense of foresight and understand why they need to enact certain plans. He needs more pawns like Momo, who allow themselves to be used because they understand the bigger picture, even if, on the surface, the steps towards justice seem unethical. And sometimes they really may be unethical, but this is Public Safety so what do you expect lol.

So even though it’s totally legitimate to complain about Tsugaru in this route, it was necessary for him to be like this in order to demonstrate the shifting dynamic between Ayumu/MC and MC/her new superior in a new context. It’s important to note that both Ayumu and Tsugaru start out by giving the MC seemingly inane errands to do. Because she’s gotten used to the idea that all the small, seemingly useless things that Ayumu makes her do are for her own developmental benefit, she expects the same of Tsugaru. But frankly, Tsugaru doesn’t have the time to do stuff like this. He’s a captain, she’s a working detective, and she needs to start being responsible for her own growth, so when she finally gets it into her head that he isn’t going out of his way for her, she becomes despondent first and then insistent on doing things her own way.

What then happens is an obvious lack of trust between senior/junior between Tsugaru and MC. It’s something that we see her gradually develop over her years at the academy, but she hasn’t yet learnt to rely and trust on people other than Shinonome when they aren’t tailoring everything behind the scenes for her benefit because this is what he has always done. It isn’t said explicitly but this is what he (and Kaga and Tsugaru [and Namba lol?]) are talking about in His PoV when they talk about smothering bunnies, especially when they are in a new family. Because Ayumu has always gone above and beyond to pave the way for her to follow her own sense of justice and still have everything work out, she hasn’t yet learnt to develop trust in other people’s senses of foresight and that acting independently according to her own sense of justice isn’t always the right thing to do, especially when the plan isn’t set up for her sake. Ayumu sets everything up for her because that’s the way he shows his care for her as his mentee and then girlfriend (and we LOVE that about him!), but Tsugaru has no reason to do so at all.

The MC in this route was different. To be honest, I got flashbacks to Kaga’s first season routes, especially when she was just gonna pack up and go back to Nagano. It’s quite a different reaction from Ishigami and Soma’s MCs, who just naturally hone in on work and basically become workaholics when faced with adversity and heartbreak. If Ishigami’s MC’s defining trait is being a workaholic, Goto’s is sweetness , Soma’s is actually being able to do her job well without messing up dependence, Kaga’s is insecurity, and Shinonome’s is how chipper she is. Obviously this is an extreme dilution of her character (and I could write a whole piece just on her characterisation) and she embodies all of those traits listed above and more. But more than anyone else, Ayumu’s MC is the most upbeat and stubbornly optimistic, so seeing a more insecure and pessimistic side of her definitely felt different and a bit odd. In the past, even when she’s een down, she continues to just do her job. The reason why she gave me Kaga S1 MC vibes is because of that insecurity and pessimism. Kaga’s MC is someone who was initially prone to giving up because her sense of morals and justice does not align with what Kaga is willing to do for Public Safety. You get a sense of that with Soma’s MC at the beginning as well, but Soma is gentle enough on the surface and just encouraging enough at the right moments that she doesn’t give up. The relationship between Kaga and his MC at the beginning is similar to the relationship between Tsugaru and Ayumu’s MC in this route, since Kaga is also someone who acts on his intuition and expects others to be able to understand him without a single explanation.

In this route, the MC starts to break away from Ayumu’s protection and act on her own. This is well and good, but what I would have liked to see is her starting to be able to work with her team and prove herself as someone who is compatible with them and not just capable as an independent agent. I loved the silly Eiji cameo (with his yamato nadeshiko tshirt, naturally) but I think that sense of development could have been built up a bit more had she been able to work with Momose. And no I am not just saying this because I love the concept of bodyguard Momo lol, but because then we would get to see her demonstrate her individual capabilities and slowly earn Momo’s trust and respect (and by proxy, Tsugaru’s, since Momo is his dog). We know she is more than capable in terms of technique. In the Happy Ending, Tsugaru even acknowledges that he knows that MC’s specialty is hacking without being traced, so I kind of wish that they had let MC prove her abilities individually but also learn how to work in a new team that does things a different way. Essentially, I want her to get to a point where she can adapt to working under difficult people in the same way that Kaga’s MC understands exactly what he needs even if he just says “file”, or know what his strategy is with one clue, or know what she needs to do when he says the word “jailer” a particular way even when he’s pretending to sell her off to a rich millionaire.

(Once I saw the name Mr Hattori I was like.... this is a ninja name... it could only be ONE PERSON)

Personally, I think that in the Happy End scene where MC and Tsugaru are talking, what Tsugaru wanted to hear from MC was an apology not just for acting on her own but for not trusting him and just running off and doing her own thing. A big part of this route was about MC needing to prove the academy’s, Shinonome’s, and her own worth to Tsugaru and I don’t feel like this was necessarily successful, since the one thing she should have been able to demonstrate to earn Tsugaru’s acknowledgement is that she can adapt and make herself useful to him. Anyway, in the next part of the season, I really hope we get to see her begin to learn how to work in a new team. The unity between the three of them that we see in Goto’s route is incredible, and we even see the moments in Goto’s and Soma’s routes where Momo comes to respect her abilities. I think the best way to show off Ayumu’s effect on her life and value as an academy instructor would be to show off the techniques that he specifically taught her in order to help Team Tsugaru and prove her place on their squad as an IT specialist, instead of acting on her own. 

On a personal note, I also just really wanted more Momose. We’ve seen in other routes (particularly Soma’s) how kind he actually is and how much he cares. In Soma’s route, he even defies Tsugaru to support you. One of my favourite parts about the SS3 routes is seeing Momo gradually warm up to you. I’ve mentioned the little bit in the Good Ending, but it would have been nice if there were a few more subtle moments like that to show how the MC starts to prove herself to her team.

I don’t want to spoil too much about the plot, so I will say that HLITF always knows how to write a compelling mystery, and I enjoyed that they kept us in suspense even when MC cracked the case so as to preserve the element of surprise. I also enjoyed the last couple chapters as well, and what happens just when you think everything is sorted… Of all of the SS3 routes, Shinonome’s sets up the most clearly not only for his Episode 0, but also for the second half of the season.

I did find the pacing a bit odd and not as tight as Soma’s, Goto’s, or Kaga’s (Ishigami’s was……. Wild……) but it wasn’t too confusing to follow, although I would struggle if I had to draw out a timeline since there are so many small ups and downs that it’s hard to pinpoint a specific narrative structure with clearly defined acts.

Aside from that, there were so many little moments I loved. The dinosaur planetarium date, MC being thirsty for Ayumu so many times (what’s new), MOMOSE IN A VINTAGE ROARING TIGER SUKAJAN AND SUPREME T-SHIRT LIKE THE ABSOLUTE HYPEBEAST HE IS, Ayumu’s desperation during the climax, and that one line where she says “Ow! That hoppity hurts, kids!” Let me know what little details you most enjoyed about the route too!

Edit: Can’t believe I forgot to mention this but that ONE SCENE WHERE HE’S ALL EXHAUSTED LIKE “BUY.... ME.... NECTAR” AND SOMA IS JUST STANDING THERE LIKE “WHAT NECTAR DO YOU WANT ME TO BUY FOR YOU” LMALSDKFSLSFDK LIKE AYUMU JUST ACCIDENTALLY ASKED HIS SUPERIOR TO RUN A PEACH NECTAR ERRAND.

The CGs were stunning too – I have absolutely nothing bad to say about them. The kabedon CG and the Happy Ending CG are my favourites in particular.

The appearance of the RMD doctors is definitely… gratuitous lol but I didn’t mind it. I thought they would at least play a bigger role (with maybe Sen in paediatrics at least). I so desperately wanted MC to acknowledge that Sen seems really similar to Ayumu?! But the appearance of the RMD MC in Ayumu’s PoV was even more gratuitous and I HATED IT LOL!!

I wondered if the translation and coding of this route was maybe a bit of a rush job? Or at least affected by the work from home situation. Firstly, there was no good – happy ending meter, which in one sense was quite nice because I got to read the whole thing in one go and just pick the options I thought would work without worrying about the meter not going up. It reminded me of old school Voltage games. Secondly, in episode 6, there’s an error with the option selection during the CG scene. If you select the first option (“Move, please”), it actually gives you the dialogue for all three options one after the other. Thirdly, in the Happy Ending chapter, after the HE end card goes up, there’s an extra scene which is actually a few slides from the ending of the Good End (re: Naru). I’m not sure if this is an error or just needed to give the context to set up for the second half of the season. In his PoV, they also left in a card from the JP version, which is delightfully, painfully heartwrenching to read but was left untranslated.

In Kaga’s, Ishigami’s and Soma’s routes, my heart hurt for their MCs. But in this route, my heart ached the most for Ayumu. I honestly feel that Ayumu’s Love’s Battlefield gave him more character development than his MC, which… I don’t mind, actually. This route was delightfully frustrating to read, actually made me cry once (but not as much as Ishigami’s or Soma’s; the latter made me have to take a break to sob for a good while), and also really hyped me up for his Love’s Trial route (愛の試練編). The special story in the ending set is WONDERFUL and I would highly recommend getting it if you can (although I’m still mad that we need to purchase these stories instead of getting them as a bonus for unlocking both endings like it used to be in the standalone app). Finally, it gave us this absolute gem of a background. Even if the route had been complete trash, it would have all been okay because of this one background.  

#ayumu shinonome #her love in the force #hlitf #takaomi tsugaru #takeru momose #seiji goto #hyogo kaga #hideki ishigami #shusuke soma #toru kurosawa #review #walkthrough #voltage inc #voltage otome #otome game #otome romance #love 365 #love 365 find your story #enjoy my 3500 word long review lmao #i still haven't published my soma review

[randomfandomfamily]

Manic episode just hit and I needed to type all this out.

Anyway, Karmi’s relationship with Hiro infuriates me and Megan’s relationship with Hiro fills me with indecsribable joy.

Analysis ahead, might be kinda ranty, but here we go. And remember, this is just my opinion, y’all ship whoever you want.

Prepare yourselves, folks. If you’ve clicked the Keep Reading button, then you are in for a ride. Buckle up kiddos, because I am dissecting the ever-loving shit out of Karmi and Megan’s relationship with Hiro. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom if you don’t want to go through it all.

Karmi and her petty jealousy have been a source of torment for Hiro since the beginning of the series. And we could go back and forth about how they were both mean to each other, but you know what? When they first met, Hiro tried repeatedly to make things work with her, and she was still a total jerk, being dismissive, making assumptions, and openly insulting him for no reason at all.

Then Hiro covered for her about the project, even though he could have--and should have--told Granville what she had done. I thought for sure that would be a turning point for Karmi, but noooooo. Hiro was nice to her, even though she had been awful to him, and she still super bitchy. Nothing changed.

So yeah, Hiro lashes out at her sometimes. He’s an irritated fourteen year old dealing with a seventeen year old asshole (or sixteen? I’ve seen sixteen floating around, but I’m going with seventeen because that makes more sense timeline-wise) that no one seems to realize is a total asshole. I’d be mad too!

And y’all better not hit me with that, “aw, she just a misunderstood bapy with no social skills, she can’t help it” because she is not misunderstood or some sad uwu bean. Hiro acknowledged that they have a lot in common, and tried to be her friend, and she continuously pushed him away. Karmi had a shot at friendship, a real shot, and she decided ‘nah, i’m just gonna keep being a bitch’, so she gets no sympathy from me.

Hiro even comforted her when she was kicked out of Trengrove’s lecture (despite the fact that she had teased him about not being able to attend) and still, after all that, she’s nice only momentarily. And continues her rivalry with him.

Also, for those saying she was better in Season 2: Where? She was only civil towards Hiro halfway through Season 2 when she needed his help with her serum, and she was still bitchy about it. Like, what the hell Karmi? You came to him.

We’ve seen him start to argue with her, stop, compose himself, and continue in a calmer voice. He’s done it a couple of times. He’s willing to acknowledge that some fights aren’t worth the time and energy, and step back from them. Which is a level of maturity we have yet to see from Karmi, who a few years older than he is.

I’ll give her the ‘broke mind control to save Hiro thing’, but honestly? Not wanting a person to get hurt (or die), or not wanting to kill said person, is kinda the bare minimum of caring for another human being. Other than that, we have no real evidence that she ever really cared about him at all.

Had Karmi made an actual effort into not being so bitchy, I could have seen her and Hiro as friends. The could have been really good friends, actually. But she was just so insufferable all of the time. She could have great development, but she did not. All around, she’s a pretty two-dimensional character fueled by jealousy and competitiveness.

And then we have Megan who, from the get-go, is already a well developed character and, amazingly, isn’t bitchy for no reason!

When Megan teased Hiro about bragging, he kinda recoiled, stammering over his words. Karmi had accused him of thinking he was better than everyone else (”You think you’re some special white blood cell”), and now he’s afraid Megan might start thinking the same thing. So he apologizes because maybe it did come off as though he was bragging, even if he didn’t mean it that way.

Megan obviously doesn’t know  Karmi did to him, it’s possible she doesn’t even knowing anything about Karmi, but she can tell he was worried about it so she reassured him that she was just messing with him. She’s actually very patient with him in regards to his lack of social interaction. 

During their first meeting, Hiro--embarassed and running his hand through his hair--said that it was probably weird that he had his own robot friend (yet another thing Karmi had called him strange for) and sounded genuinely surprised when Megan said she thought it was cool.

Things Karmi said and did are still affecting Hiro, even into Season 2. That, combined with Hiro’s already limited social skills, means he has a hard time making friends. Megan is very patient with him in that regard. She’s willing to work through the awkwardness and the overbearing aunt, because Hiro is a person she genuinely likes and wants to hang out with.

And Hiro isn’t pushing her away either, like Karmi did to him (he sometimes had to deal with hero life, but he never really let that interfere with their relationship). He’s actively trying to be better at the whole ‘social interaction’ thing. Meaning their friendship--and possibly more than that--is based on putting in actual effort.

But after Megan found out that Hiro had been keeping his identity a secret from her, she was upset. Of course she was upset. That was her case! Her mission! And Hiro knew the whole time! You can’t expect her to just brush it off. I certainly would’ve needed an adjustment period.

Then she saw what Big Hero did for the city. How much they were risking. Hiro threw himself into an unstable portal over and over again trying to catch Sirque, even though that place is a literal nightmare for him. He could have been trapped in there, or seriously hurt, or maybe worse, but he still did it.

And after seeing the team in action, Megan realized that Hiro was right. The police didn’t have the tech or the knowledge to deal with this kind of stuff.

Hiro said that whatever Megan did with the information was her choice, and she chose to not only keep their secret, but write a whole article on why their identities needed to be kept secret. Her father is obviously not going to be happy about that, but she did it anyway. Because it was right. And also because Hiro is her friend.

TL;DR

---Karmi put no effort into being a nicer person and was only ever kind to Hiro when she needed his help or when they were in mortal danger. (having a two second heartfelt moment after being kicked out of a lecture does not count as being nice. that’s just not being bitchy for once.)

---Megan was kind right from the start, has developed a good relationship with Hiro, hit a rough patch, worked through it, realized Hiro was trying to do the right thing, and are still friends. (how their relationship will grow from here remains to be seen.)

---All in all, Megan and Hiro’s relationship has developed more in just a few episodes than Hiro and Karmi’s did in a season and a half.

Obviously, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me on this. In fact, I’m absolutely positive that there are going to be people who very much disagree with me on many levels. This is a very popular ship in the fandom, for some reason, and people are going to defend it. Because that’s what fandoms do.

And like, I’m not telling people to not ship Hiro and Karmi. I may not understand why you would ship them, but y’all can do whatever you want. Tone can be hard to interpret through a screen, but this isn’t meant to be an angry or aggressive post. I’m just making observations and expressing an opinion.

Needless to say, this isn’t gonna stop people from shipping them, and I don’t expect it to. I just wanted to throw this out there in case there were other people who agreed with me. I’ve been on the quiet side of fandoms before, the side where someone has an opinion about something, but never sees anyone agreeing with them on it, so they’re afraid to make their own post, and then it just never gets out there.

Welp. This is the post. The unpopular opinion, complete with a rant. Me am big kid and I’m making the post. Enjoy maybe, but probably not. Peace out, scouts!

#big hero six the series #big hero 6 the series #bh6 the series

[janiedean]

Honestly, I would like to hear you rant about Brienne's s5 storyline and her killing Stannis. It felt weird to me that in the book there's this whole thing with Lady Stoneheart wanting revenge and using Brienne as a tool to to try and get it tho she probably won't get it, and then in the show it's Brienne still seeking revenge for Renly and actually getting it. Like there's a "revenge isn't actually a good thing" theme that got lost along the way.

... lmao.

well okay this is not for renly fans so just so you know, you’re warned.

now.

I don’t have.... like, anything specific against renly nor I think he’s a Bad Person which is why in modern aus I just let him be his best version, but.. canon renly Is An Asshole when it concerns his brother, his niece and brienne and that’s A Thing because like sorry but skipping succession ‘because no one likes you but they like me’ is not a good reason to do anything, ‘my niece is so ugly ew grayscale’ is just bottom level of being... let’s just say vapid, and it’s canon that the reason he keeps brienne around is not that he cares about her, it’s because he knows she’s good at what she does and doesn’t want nothing in return and actually would die for him, which........

considering that brienne would have died for renly because he was nice to her once and danced with her which is like bare minimum for decent human being, sorry if I side-eye this narrative that renly believed in her etc because sorry guys renly in asoiaf canon didn’t give a single fuck about that;

specifically, when it comes to brienne renly is that one crush you get at some point that you’re in love with the idea of, not with the person they actually are, and as someone wise said on some post once, brienne thought she would die for him and didn’t and didn’t know she could die for jaime but she immediately knew when she had the choice, so I think that just seals it, but ahead with that...

affc is also about brienne getting over renly because she was in love with the idea of renly, not with renly himself, never mind that renly wasn’t in love with her anyway and could have never been. like, all of her affc povs are about that. she thinks about him less and less, she superimposes jaime on him like ffs when she’s naked in the bath she has to MAKE HERSELF THINK ABOUT RENLY, at some point she dreams of renly’s death except it’s jaime in his place, then jaime puts renly’s cloak on her shoulders and at the end of it when she has that dream which is sort of very similar to jaime’s in asos where he sees people he thinks he disappointed and she sees renly and cat.... well. it’s because she thinks she disappointed them, or that she failed them, but she’s plain not in love with him (or his idea of) anymore;

now, she also swore to cat she’d kill stannis in revenge for him... and she’s never so much as thought about it. ffs there is ONE single instance of brienne thinking about stannis in affc. THIS ONE:He shrugged. "Sometimes. At tourneys, from afar. Once at Baelor's Sept. The gold cloaks shoved us aside so he could pass. Another time I was playing near the Mud Gate when he come back from a hunt. He was so drunk he almost rode me down. A big fat sot, he was, but a better king than these sons of his."They are not his sons. Stannis told it true, that day he met with Renly. Joffrey and Tommen were never Robert's sons. This boy, though . . . "Listen to me," Brienne began. Then she heard Dog barking, loud and frantic. "Someone is coming."IT’S WHEN SHE RECOGNIZES THAT GENDRY IS ROBERT’S SON AND THAT STANNIS WAS RIGHT WHEN HE SAID TOMMEN AND MYRCELLA WEREN’T HIS. that’s it. that’s all brienne has to think about stannis in affc. she doesn’t think about killing him once.guess why? because meanwhile she’s found better things to think about and she doesn’t feel the need to avenge renly as much as she feels the need to fulfill her vow to catelyn and jaime and she’s fucking over renly and she has realizes at least subconsciously that guess what she didn’t want to die for him;

the entire point was that she is over her crush on a guy who might have been decent to her though it was the bare minimum anyone should have shown her but who didn’t give two shits about her personally and that she thought she could and would die for, and sorry if being willing to die for someone because he danced with you isn’t healthy as much as people don’t want to accept the fact that brienne has Issues with the capital I;

therefore, the moment the show dragged her north FOR RENLY and OMG I HAVE TO KILL STANNIS FOR RENLY before getting her stuck watching a tower for a season for that crap joke of a winterfell storyline and don’t get me started on how they made brienne’s sl secondary to sansa for three seasons when surely her point in her narrative is not that ita) ignored that brienne had a character arc that included getting over renlyb) elevated renly to sainthood (forget saint tyrion) because it implied that yes he was that nice dancing with her so yes he deserves her avenging his death when sorry but what the fucking fuck he just paid her the bare minimum it didn’t mean she should have joined his army for it or that she should avenge him for having being a decent person oncec) made it look like renly actually gave a shit about her for real when lmao nod) trashed lady stoneheart when as you said they lost the REVENGE IS A BAD IDEA theme and all that she brought with bc stoneheart is fundamental for both jaime and brienne as characters but hey let’s just stick brienne serving other people without a personal storyline and let’s not let jaime have his arc because what the fuck amritee) missed all of the themes in her affc arc because where was meribald? where was the anti-war message? where was the fact that brienne is a vulnerable person with doubts? we saw none of that shit except oMG SHE KILLED STANNIS BADASSSSS. yeah, no. character assassination my old friend here we are;

now, specifically re stannis: what angers me on a molecular level in that choice, not counting the fact that never in my life I ever want to see character #1 I relate to in a series (and period) kill character #2 I relate to in that same series without any goddamned reason to do that but that’s personal is that....... since brienne doesn’t give a fuck about avenging renly anymore in the book it’s very likely that if she and stannis meet again they might actually like talk about things and now I’mma give you the other hot take of the year....

... which is that I would like it if people saw that actually if brienne were to get along with one baratheon brother, she and stannis would have a lot more chances to hit off than she and renly ever could have because sorry but:a) they’re both introverts with huge issues communicating with others who also have been treated like shit for their entire lives based on people judging them before they opened their mouthb) as much as brienne isn’t THAT hard on it she has a sense of justice that he’d definitely appreciatec) if we assume that a guy with a daughter with grayscale whom renly also referred to as ‘that ugly daughter of his’ who is considered disfigured by everyone who still treats her like his only heir and doesn’t gaf about her looks would give two shits about brienne’s looks and not about her skills instead then we assume wrong nvm that stannis has a hand who used to be an illiterate commoner and melisandre used to be a slave like.... come on he’d definitely treat her with respect and not just because he needs herd) reverse, if she saw how he is with his daughter thaaat might remind her of her father not having forced her to marry eventually and agreeing to let her join renly/learn swordfighting instead I mean... come one) never mind that as stated before both of them are way more similar when it comes to take your vows seriously than notlike........... okay but with these premises if they meet when they need all the men they can spare to fight the white walkers I’d presume they will actually talk about renly’s death and get an understanding, not that she’ll take out a sword and impale him there especially if it’s post lady stoneheart which is the point in her sl where she 100% understands you can’t follow all of your vows and you will have to choose at some point (btw she chose jaime already over stoneheart and we all know it bye)...

which means that having her kill him in the show after a thing they made happen from 0 to 180 just to make him look irredeemable, for renly when brienne doesn’t gaf in the books anymore and reinforcing this - excuse me - bullshit narrative of saint renly who was the ideal king and never did anything wrong except trying to pass over stannis who was ahead of him in the line and further creating drama in that damned war because his brother didn’t happen to be immediately likable (nvm that I have issues with the fact that renly doesn’t even seem to remember having been at storm’s end during the siege which means that stannis made sure he actually had to eat while everyone else was starting to consider cannibalism but hey who cares that my brother almost died and never let me starve with the entirety of the castle I’ll now go and stab him in the back because NAAAH WHY SHOULD I SUPPORT HIM? sorry but what the fucking fuck) while stannis was an asshole who eventually got what he deserved because he wasn’t fun amrite will never not irk me to a molecular level because that wasn’t brienne’s storyline anymore and it hasn’t been since asos, the renly vs stannis situation is way more complicated than renly was nice and stannis was an asshole, stannis is nowhere near the piece of cardboard dnd think he is and the fact that both characters didn’t move on from their renly-related trauma but that it went down in the cheapest most ooc way ever should have woken people up about how dnd couldn’t be trusted for shit with these books if the WF adaptation of the adwd storyline hadn’t showed that already.

tldr: it was ooc and an insult to both characters and also can we stop with the saint renly narrative, thanks.

#ch: brienne of tarth #ch: stannis baratheon #anti-renly baratheon #janie writes meta #1 #2 #3 #4 #anti renly baratheon #HOPEFULLY I TAGGED CORRECTLY #dnd hate tag #got negativity #Anonymous #ask post

[spaceshipkat]

I totally understand that we as a community need more explicit rep, but to call GO queerbaiting or the bare minimum of representation even though the two disasters known as Aziraphale and Crowley are very clearly meant to be a couple and you can tell by just their body language alone... It gets even more annoying when people within the community itself are putting down other LGBT+ people for liking it.

honestly, the entire situation with Good Omens and whether or not it’s queerbaiting is so fucking exhausting and disheartening, y’know? why do two people have to fuck to prove they’re in love? there are so many ace people beyond happy with the rep bc these are two male-presenting (for the most part) queer characters who are in a healthy, happy relationship that is clearly built on romantic love without sex: Gaiman himself has said that he wrote Crowley and Aziraphale in the show as a love story, and both Tennant and Sheen have said that their characters are in love, and the important thing about that is the fact that what they say is proven on-screen. so many creators come out afterward and say “oh yeah, that character was gay all along” or “i’ve always seen this character as genderfluid” but there isn’t anything on the page to back up their claims. 

with Good Omens, though, the entire show is literally rife with content to back up what Gaiman, Tennant, and Sheen have all been saying, and so many of us see that. it’s why it’s so disheartening to hear that there are more and more people coming out of the woodwork and saying that these two characters aren’t queer, aren’t in love, or any number of things bc Gaiman has said they’re not gay as they’re not men and bc they don’t bang on-screen. 

i had a post sitting around in my drafts for ages about how important the queer love in Good Omens is and how much it means to me, but i couldn’t figure out how to put into words what i’ve been thinking, so lemme see if i can manage to do that here...

so as a bi person, i dread the moments when a character is revealed on-screen as bisexual bc so often it relies upon the character being in bed with both a man and a woman. the most recent moment for me is in the episode of The Crown when Antony Armstrong-Jones is shown to be bi bc he’s naked in bed with a woman and a man and it’s entirely clear that they were sleeping together. it bothers me bc 1) it is further proof for those biphobic people who think that all bisexual people are inherently cheaters and/or only have threesomes and 2) bc why do queer people have to prove that they’re queer through sex and sex alone? i remember fast-forwarding through the scene (i had watched the show earlier) as i was watching it with someone who thinks that all bi people are inherent cheaters bc, if we’re with someone who has a penis, we’ll want someone with a vagina, and vice versa and so on and so forth. (that person has said as much, and worse, to me. they don’t know i’m bi, though they do know that my bestie is. my bestie, incidentally, is in a stable, healthy, happy marriage with a man and yet she is still bi.) 

so how does that relate to Good Omens? we finally have a queer relationship that is proven to be queer through actions and words but not sex. that’s not to say queer people should never be represented with sex, bc i think it would be very important for the stigma around bisexual people, to continue with my above point, to break so i no longer have to sit or fast-forward through another scene where a bisexual person is introduced through a threesome. Crowley and Aziraphale are obviously in love, proven on-screen and confirmed off-screen, time and time again (like how can someone hear what Gaiman, Tennant, and Sheen have all said numerous times on the topic of Crowley and Aziraphale being written as a love story and still think that they’re not actually in love and/or that the queer rep is either terrible, nonexistent, or queerbaiting???), and it’s not reliant upon the two of them falling into bed with each other. hell, they don’t even say “i love you” but it’s said over and over and over again in their actions, in “to the world,” in the looks they give each other, in the way that Crowley constantly circles around Aziraphale to watch his back, in the way Aziraphale said “you go too fast for me, Crowley,” in the entire bookshop burning scene, everything that Crowley was saying, the way he was so obviously broken inside as he drove away, the way Aziraphale reached out to Crowley after being discorporated, defying Heaven and basically doing as a demon by possessing someone, etc. 

one of my favorite moments is when they’re sitting at the Tadfield bus stop sharing wine bc of how soft Crowley is when he reminds Aziraphale that the bookshop burned down, and then says that Aziraphale can stay at his place, but also in the little things that exist in subtext and are to be dissected in meta. for example, the box of the Four Horsemen’s stuff sitting between them on the bench at the bus stop, basically the metaphorical brick wall of their respective sides ushering in the end of the world that was separating Crowley and Aziraphale until they both knocked it down to meet in the middle (the knocking it down was when Aziraphale sent Crowley to Tadfield before possessing Madame Tracy, and also when the two of them faced down the Horsemen, Satan, and their bosses together on the airfield). at the bus stop, Aziraphale, who had been sitting on the sword (the sword he gave away to the very first humans, the sword that made Crowley go all twitterpated over bc Aziraphale gave it away), gives the sword away (thus giving Heaven away) and then sits down in the bus beside Crowley to obviously prove to himself, Crowley, and the audience that he and Crowley are on the same side. the next day, Crowley and Aziraphale both face each other’s respective sides to rescue each other, and then they end up in the garden and Crowley says “time to leave the garden,” harkening back to when Aziraphale and Crowley were on the wall around Eden watching Adam and Eve leave the garden. in both moments, Aziraphale gave up his sword. they both meant something different (giving the sword to Adam and Eve meaning that Aziraphale, whether he knows it or not, rebelled against the Divine Plan, and giving the sword away at the Tadfield bus stop meaning Aziraphale gave up Heaven and thus chose Crowley). 

“it began, as it will end, in a garden,” as God herself says, and it really does (though there are several endings in a garden in the sixth episode). Crowley and Aziraphale’s rivalry of sorts begins in a garden and it then ends in a garden, with Aziraphale and Crowley having successfully outsmarted Heaven and Hell to save each other. humanity begins bc Adam and Eve leave the garden and the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale begins bc they leave the garden and go to the Ritz (one of the things Aziraphale mentioned to Crowley after telling him he’s going too fast for him, thus making it all come full-circle). 

okay, this turned into a tangent that i had not planned, but it felt so good to get that out bc it’s been stewing in my head for ages. i’m no meta writer, though i’ve worked to get better at picking upon certain things through both the spn fandom and the GO fandom, but i had to throw this out into the world, especially after some things happened today that left me kinda furious. i hope some of this makes a lick of sense, bc i just reread it and it’s all ramblings and parentheses. 

tl;dr Crowley and Aziraphale are hella queer and hella in love, and they don’t have to fuck to make that clear. anyone with a brain can recognize the constant “i love you” being thrown back and forth between the two of them as well as the “i’m in love with you”. so for the people who think it’s queerbaiting...i mean, maybe they have some valid argument that i have yet to hear, but, to me, GO wasn’t queerbaiting. it was showing a healthy queer romance that doesn’t rely upon sex appeal and/or fucking to show that two characters are both queer and in love with each other. 

#ask #anonymous #good omens #queer tw #ineffable husbands #long post

[daywillcomeagain]

I don’t understand the idea of finarfin choose peace? There is no peace to be had with Morgoth, he made that clear. Either he was gonna die or you were gonna be enslaved by him, if more people had followed finarfin’s lead it would have meant leaving men, dwarves, other elves to rot: I don’t think that’s peace I think that’s the same weak justification the Valar use to justify their gross inaction when it comes to beleriand and middle earth.

Oh man I have SO MANY FEELINGS. okay. (clears throat) 

(sorry for taking this as an ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY PROMPT i just. the feelings.)

So…. Finarfin has no way of knowing this. As far as he knew, that might be true, but it might also be true that all the elves and dwarves of Middle-Earth were already dead and Men wouldn’t exist for thousands of years–in which case the clearly right thing to do is “stay and build up strength until you can actually defeat Morgoth instead of just slowing him down”. They don’t know. None of the Noldor know! And it’s made pretty clear that the Noldor who do go to Middle-Earth are, by and large, not doing it from a motivation of “wanting to help Men” (the rousing speech that helps convince them to leave Valinor includes “No other race shall oust us!”, it’s remarked that both Fingon and Galadriel want to see the world and have a kingdom of their own, there’s the obvious motive of revenge and taking back what was stolen, etc.). The concern for the dwarves, other elves, and Men all comes later. I love reading and writing stories where that is a primary concern of the Noldor leaving Valinor, to be clear, but I just want to be clear that they are–not really on anyone’s minds, quite yet.

It’s also really relevant to me that the Valar disapproved and refused to help from the beginning. Finarfin wanted to help, he wanted to come, he wanted to join and do good.

And then he saw what people do for the sake of action and a worthy cause. He watched his neighbors fighting his family, his wife on one side and his brother on the other. None of them were Morgoth. He saw people say “let’s leave Valinor and fight Morgoth” and he said “yes, count me in”; he saw them stab innocents, and then he said “…wait, no, maybe not that, maybe let’s go with Plan B.” I understand and have argued on behalf of the Noldor, including Feanor, for making choices that were reasonable given their circumstances, but– “massacres are never okay actually, I am not going to follow people who claim they want to fight Morgoth but in fact have done nothing but kill civilians” is not a weak justification, IMO! It is a valid stance that makes a lot of sense! That is also a reasonable choice given the circumstances!

And… Finarfin didn’t choose inaction. He fought in the War of Wrath. Finarfin chose waiting. Finarfin chose to repair the peace of Valinor–alone, because he had a Telerin wife and his children left for Beleriand–rather than lead his people to what he knew would be their deaths. Repairing a community, comforting the grieving–this is not inaction. Fighting and war is not the only action that counts. You might argue that he shouldn’t be focusing on minor problems when there were bigger ones to hand, but that’s a fully general argument for never caring about any problems that aren’t the Worst Problem In The World. If my sibling were to massacre my town ~for a good cause~ and I were to build a memorial instead of volunteering for a charity that promotes the relevant cause, it would be a douche move to be like “oh but that’s the same weak justification that the government uses to not promote [good cause]!” 

I think that it’s fair to say that the Valar had an obligation to help; Manwe positioned himself as King of all of Arda, and that comes with an obligation to all of Arda. They do have information, and they have reason to believe that they would be able to win or at least give a good fight (they did it before!). I don’t feel that anyone else, ever, has an obligation to go to war. (Similarly, I can be like “x government should go to war with y government” without supporting a draft; I feel like the Valar are more analogous to a government in this situation than an individual, and that if they do not want to do the things that being-the-government obligates them to do then they should step down.) Nobody ever has an obligation to do things that will almost certainly kill them for the sake of other people. It can be a brave thing and a beautiful thing to do voluntarily, but it should never, ever be the bare minimum Requirement To Be A Good Person. That’s something I feel very strongly about; I made a post about that here. He’s not King at this point; he’s a prince, and not even the Crown Prince. For most of his life, he’s expected to be–let me count this–fifteenth in line for the throne, in a land where nobody dies (this can be brought down to ‘fourth in line’, depending on who you count, but it’s still pretty far from ‘next in line’). He’s told, flat-out, in a prophecy from Mandos, that if he goes he and all of his people will die. His job, unlike the Valar’s, is not “protect everyone, promote good things in full generality”–it’s “protect my people and do what my conscience calls me to do”. He does that.

Also: the Valar have a lot more power than Finarfin in this situation, given that they can do things like “sink all of Beleriand” when they decide to help, whereas if he were to go help, he would’ve done–what? Held a territory, protected some elves, and almost certainly died. In the Bragollach? In the Nirnaeth? Before then, on the Ice, in the battle of the Lammoth, in the Aglareb, in the Fall of Nargothrond? It’s impossible to say–honestly, it’s hard to tell if those later battles would even have existed in the same form if Finarfin had come to Beleriand, politics in Beleriand were very fragile–but I’m pretty sure that he wouldn’t have single-handedly defeated Morgoth. (Though he could single-handedly unite the Noldor of Valinor and work out peace with the Teleri, such that the elves of Valinor are ready to come and help when the Valar decide to help defeat Morgoth. Comparative advantage is a thing!)

I also feel that it’s relevant that Finarfin has just had, like, five traumatic experiences in a row. His father dies; he joins a rebellion; he watches his family, I repeat, massacre his neighbors; his wife and children leave him. I judge decision-making under those circumstances significantly less harshly than I judge “a panel with much less intense personal connection debates for a while and comes to a conclusion”. People make mistakes in intense circumstances! I love characters who make mistakes like that! (gestures wildly at feanor & sons, at turin, at half the characters in this book)! “Finarfin made a mistake” is something I think is absolutely a valid argument, though I don’t personally agree. But I don’t think his choice reflects badly on him, or that it was selfish/cowardly/callous; I think that he made a hard choice in a painful situation, and that he was trying his hardest to do the right thing, and that there are lots of basically good and reasonable people who would do the same thing. (I am willing to defend this as a possible interpretation for every single character in the silmarillion except for outright villains such as Morgoth, incidentally.)

#oh boy oh boy sorry guys #long post #Anonymous #abrabêl has opinions

[shi-daisy]

I've noticed that you're not very fond of Renji or the Kuchiki characters in general. Can I ask why? (No offense, just curious)

No offense here, anon. I'm more than happy to answer.

I'll start with Rukia since she's the easiest to explain. Rukia was one of my favorite characters up until the Hueco Mundo Arc. You see at first she was a dynamic girl, a little helpless but that was understandable since she had no powers, she was funny, kind and I really felt for her during the first arcs. Then Kubo just replaced her with another character. Rukia got more closed off, agressive, punch happy and tried to make Ichigo apologize about something that wasn't his fault. I didn't hate her, as she still had some of her best traits but this shift made her go from one of my faves to a neutral character. Worst off it's when she marries Renji after he left her for years and almost slashed her to bits, and the novel, oh that damn post canon novel gave me rabies. She's embarrassed by being called Abarai? I could buy this from Orihime, or Momo, hell I'd even buy it from Riruka, but Rukia? No, that's not her. Instead of forgiving Byakuya and Renji in a heartbeat, Rukia's character would've been better off if she told them both to sit on a prickly cactus and stay the hell away from her, then left with Ichigo and Co. to the human world at the end of the Rescue arc. Instead she forgives those two, who have been nothing but shitty to her and takes to hero worshipping Byakuya. No, that's the worst thing she could've done and to top it off she marries one of them and has his kid. That dude hit you once and you not only marry him but have his kid?! Gurl, that literally begging for trouble right there. I just felt disgusted with the way Kubo handled Rukia. I don't hate her but I don't love her as much as everyone else in the fandom does.

Renji And Byakuya though? Those two I absolutely despise.

During the first arc these two come to the human world to arrest Rukia, who need I remind you was completely powerless, and what's the first thing Renji does? Swing a goddamn sword at her. He literally just tried to slash her with his sword. Does Byakuya interfiere? Tells him to maybe tone it down a bit? Nope, he does fucking nothing. Renji keeps trying to hit her, with a grin on his face, and later on even chokes her. It's not until Uryu, who's a freaking Quincy, steps in that the whole aggression stops.

I know people defend this with 'oh Kubo meant for them to seem as villians at the time' but I think you can't come back from trying to slash your bestie/future wife or from letting my sister be slashed to bits.

But ok, if it was just that, I'd be willing to let it slide so as long as the two apologize and Rukia gave em a 'reason you suck speech' or something similar. Well next time we see Renji he's taunting Rukia in prison. He backs out and says it's a joke later but it was still scumy of him to do that. During that same scene Rukia says she knows she'll get killed and pinnapple dumbass tells her Byakuya would intervine, but she shoots him down by saying that he'd likely just kill her himself and has never once cared for her from the moment he adopted her. Like, what? This asshat hasn't even looked her in the eye in 40 years? I know in shinigami time that's like 4 years maybe but it's still a long time to be emotionality neglected.

After his fight with Ichigo we get Renji And Rukia's backstory and instead of growing sympathetic towards him, I hated him more. So he and Rukia grow up together with some friends in the poorest place in Soul Society, and after their friends death they join the academy to get better housing and food. That's good so far, only the two are separate because Renji has more potential and Rukia is average at best. He gets new friends and keeps moving forward. Rukia was alone and stuck. Sad but ok maybe they'll make up after graduation. Nope, because the Kuchiki clan wants to adopt Rukia, remove her from the academy and now she'll live as a Noble. It's clear in that scene that Rukia does not want this, that she'll take any excuse to not accept, does Renji tell her to stay with him, or to choose what she wants? Of course not, the idiot congratulates her, makes a light-hearted joke about it and then sulks when Rukia sadly thanks him and leaves. Then he suddenly decides to stay away from Rukia for... bullshit reasons. Like I get Kubo tried to paint it as a I have to stay away so the Kuchiki won't get mad at her, but Rukia didn't ask for that, she was lonely, even more so without Renji, and he didn't even attempt to communicate with her or just check in? She obviously didn't want that and he didn't either, but no, I'm apparently supposed to be heartbroken that they were speareted. Then when he sees her again, his childhood bestie, the woman he loves, his future wife and mother of his child, what happens? He tried to slash her with a sword when she was depowered. See how his backstory made the previous scene worst. Honestly I was glad he chose to help Ichigo not let Rukia get killed but damn, it shouldn't have taken this long!

After that we get the whole Renji vs Byakuya thing. Renji goes down like a chump, assists in the final battle for a bit and that's it. No apologies for the past, or for what he did when he arrested her, or the things he said to her in prison, zero apologies from Renji Abarai. This doesn't work, especially if Kubo wanted to marry these two off by the end of the series. Renji needed to apologize directly, we needed to see it play out, not just be told he did it offscreen. This left me hating Renji for the reminder of the show. He was now more friendly and even a bit of a comic relief but his first impression muddled that for me. On the Fullbringer Arc he refused to fight Jackie because a man who hits a woman is trash but... didn't you just do that to the chick you're in love with like two years prior? Did he forget? Was that an admission of guilt or something? I dunno. It felt like a last ditch attempt from Kubo to make him more likeable but to me it fell flat. By the end I was fully disinterested in Renji, wheather he lived, died, married Rukia, Byakuya, whoever the hell, I just didn't care for him at all. It did bug me that he took Uryu's spot in the final chapter cover. Uryu deserved better than Mr hypocrite taking his limelight. Renji would've been better as one off villian, Kubo should've given his backstory to another character and have them with Rukia instead. I'll never get over the fact that this dude spent his first appearance being the most unlikeable jerk, physically assaulting the woman he loves, talking shit like a cocky dumbass, almost killing two of the main characters, and taking the girl he loved to her death; only to be married to said girl in the end, with a daughter and on best terms with the people he fucked over. I ain't a fan of him.

Byakuya it's another character who I wanted to smack against the concrete, repeatedly. First appearance? Lets his lieutenant throw his sister around like a ragdoll, almost kills an innocent human, and basically acts like everyone's beneath him? Good, I already hate him. Next time we see him, he shows no emotion towards Rukia's sentence, he's still hell-bent on stopping the human squad from rescuing her, almost lets Renji die after he loses to Ichigo (honestly I was down for Renji bitting it but c'mon this dude is your employee and you don't care if he dies? Big yikes) Keeps messing up every attempt from the others to rescue Rukia. Almost kills Renji in a fight, then goes to fight Ichigo and here's where he became irredeemable for me. During his fight with Ichigo, he says he'll beat Ichigo and then kill Rukia himself. That's when I wanted Ichigo to chop him into sashimi. You can't say something like that and expect anyone to forgive you. He loses against Ichigo and at the very least honors his word to not kill Rukia. Okay then he defends Rukia from the real baddies. Nice, I still hate him. When he's being healed he tells Rukia that he adopted her because his wife was Rukia's actual sister, and he promised he'd keep Rukia safe if he ever found her.

All throughout the flashback I only felt sympathy for Hisana. Being put in the poorest place in Rukon, having to leave your baby sister to survive, marrying a guy who you love only for his family to hate you because you're not Noble, then getting terminally ill and not being able to help your lost sibling, all of that is horrible and broke my heart. More so when you realize that Byakuya didn't keep his promise to protect Rukia because it would break the law. He can stick his laws where the sun don't shine Rukia almost got killed unfairly because of him, Ichigo and his friends would've died unfairly because of him, he doesn't deserve any forgiveness. At least the dude had the spine to apologize on screen but that still just the bare minimum. I wanted to see him make up for all the shit he caused, maybe try and help change the law so a mistake like this dosen't happen again, just something productive. Well no, he's still the same cold and unlikable jerk we first met, only now he seems to treat Rukia better. This should've been a start, not the default. When he almost died in the final arc I thought it was a fitting end, he's humbled down, he apologizes to Rukia and Renji for losing, he leaves everything in Ichigo's hands, which mirrors how he was opposing him on the first arc but it's now fully on his side, it was the best way to salvage this unlikeable prick. But no, he dosen't die. He lives and its back to the grind again. Worst of all it's how he appears during Rukia's big fight and she uses her Bankai, he's there to mansplain and sour the fight and ugh I hated that chapter. Then he says he's proud of Rukia and it's meant to be a heartwarming moment, to me however it was vomit inducing. You're proud now? Two years ago you almost killed her! You ignored her and neglected her for decades and this is supposed to be cute?! No, his pride is worth less than dirt when he treated her this badly before. Heck if he had won back at the beginning Rukia wouldn't even be there. You almost killed her two years before, and now you're proud? Miss me with that nonsense.

The ending was especially jarring for me not just because Renji got with Rukia but also because they, along with Byakuya did nothing to fix the system that almost led to Rukia's unfair death. None of them did anything and if there's one thing I would love to see if Bleach ever got a sequel,would be Ichika yelling at the three of them for their ineptitude. They let the Sokyoku get rebuilt, they didn't do a smidge to change the system even though they're two captains and a lieutenant, and still live in prefect rich peep paradise when Rukon is still as shitty as it was when Renji and Rukia lived there.

Sorry for the long answer, I just wanted to let everything out as in most discussions people are baffled by the fact that I don't like these three characters all that much. Hope this answers your question anon!

#ask #anon #anti renruki #anti renji #anti Byakuya

[bat-lings]

Is Bruce a good father to Damian, specifically? I mean, he seems to have learnt from past mistakes... but in preboot, does he even care about Damian at all? Didn't seem like it most of the time (especially in Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, where he didn't even seem to care that Damian's life is in danger). Do you think he cared about Damian preboot?

Well, you are both right in that reboot!Bruce puts his preboot counterpart to shame where Damian’s concerned. The thing is, the reboot gave a much bigger place to Bruce and Damian’s dynamic than preboot ever did. Those two actually don’t have that many scenes together in preboot, and said scenes were usually part of a bigger plot/narrative that left little room to focus on their relationship.

I’ll answer this in three stages in order to address everything our Anons mentioned:

Bruce & Damian’s dynamic as portrayed by Morrison

The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul

Conclusion: does preboot!Bruce care about Damian? And was he a good father to him? (spoilers: yes and no, respectively.)

The conclusion summarizes everything so jump there if the argumentation part is too long.

A) Morrison’s Damian & Bruce

Disclaimer: I really, really hate Morrison’s writing. I’ll try to be reasonable when criticizing it but be extra aware of that bias. It makes me put most of Bruce’s action on the writer rather than the character and while I have my reasons & probably won’t change my opinion, it’s still a pretty categorical take.

Honestly I think Morrison’s Bruce does feel responsible for Damian. I’m even sure he cares about him too:

[Batman (1940) #657]

Actually, the whole issue is pretty good where Bruce & Damian are concerned. Must be my favorite thing Morrison has ever written. He installs interesting things character-wise, like Bruce making an extra effort to make Damian comfortable in the Manor & be patient with him, or Damian being an insufferable brat up until Bruce snaps at him, at which point he immediately switches off to “yes sir” in front of that new figure of authority.

Those are interesting bases to construct a dynamic upon. Problem is, they’re not gonna be exploited.

Here Bruce shows clear intent to provide guidance to Damian. But rather than give Bruce the occasion to follow up on that intent, and to develop a real relationship with Damian, Morrison gives us the incident Anon mentioned in the next frickin’ issue : an explosion set by Morrison’s godawful “““Talia””” that should’ve killed both her and Damian, and Bruce staring dramatically into the distance.

Does Bruce investigate their disappearance while Damian is being hardcore abused by his mother? Nah, he’s too busy skiing with one Jezebel Jet– a relationship Morrison needs to install since Jezebel has a notable role in Batman RIP.

My point is: as of #658 Morrison considers this arc finished & that there’s nothing to add. By that logic it’s valid to forget Damian until he’s relevant again plot-wise. It’s not (i think?) a way to tell us Bruce doesn’t care about Damian.

Let’s fast-forward to the disputable editorial & writer choice to launch Batman Inc/Leviathan  just after Bruce’s return from the “dead” without A) leaving room for a  confrontation/closure scene between him and Damian beforehand; or B) letting them actually interact more than the strictest minimum in said arc. From a strictly in-universe POV though, it’s not ooc for Bruce to decide unilaterally that Damian doesn’t need him or to focus on the crisis to come without talking to his son first.

I guess I should be talking about Batman Incorporated Vol. 2 too, ‘cause while it’s technically N52 it’s very much in the continuity of the storyline Morrison started in preboot. It also has a few Bruce & Damian moments where despite terrible miscommunication Bruce seems to worry for Damian… But then the plot requires Bruce sending Damian back to the mother who, in this dumbass version, abused him all his life.

[Batman Incorporated (2012) #4]

If I got that right this is a “Hero must make Big Sacrifice for the Greater Good” moment. The fact that Bruce loves Damian isn’t put into question: it makes the sacrifice more significant.

And that’s kinda my problem. First we’re told that Bruce wants to provide for Damian, but then whatever affection he feels for the boy is sidelined or even sacrificed to other narrative considerations.

So basically Bruce’s love for Damian has no significance in itself. It’s a given that doesn’t particularly need to be illustrated or expanded on; it’s stocked until we need it to breed impact in some scenes. Like the one above or, you’ve guessed it, Damian’s death. So yeah Bruce loves Damian. He loves him so much he’s sad when he dies. Ahem.

All in all it’s not a father-son story: else there would be more banter, slice of life sequences, time for the dynamic to develop, etc. It’s a hero-who-loses-stuff-in-war story. One story isn’t better than the other, they just appeal to different types of audiences.

“Does my father love me” is a personal thus small stake. Batman Inc/Leviathan or “Can I keep this future from happening” are world-wide to city-wide thus big stakes. I think a marked interest in the Big Ideas is what characterizes Morrison’s writing. Thus the portrayal of character relationships has a very specific place in his stories.

Anyway: I don’t think Morrison ever wanted to imply Bruce doesn’t care about Damian. It’s just that he’s a plot-driven writer and that both characters’ interactions & smaller stakes, although somewhat present in his narratives, will always come second in the big schemes of things.

If you consider that Bruce behaving like he does under Morrison’s pen proves he doesn’t give a damn about Damian though, I sure as hell won’t fault you for it.

B) Bruce & Damian in The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul

(God re-reading an in-character Talia these days is an oasis in the desert. Gotta love that arc all the more for that.)  

Not gonna lie fam. Our two Anons are right when they say Bruce is pretty cold in that one.

But A) Bruce is also dealing with a crisis, which means he’s emotionally removing himself from the situation; B) he’s not treating Damian differently than he is Dick or Tim… which we’ll see is the problem tho.

It doesn’t excuse Bruce’s behavior (I think he’s out of line myself), but I just don’t think it implies he doesn’t care about Damian.

You’ll notice that his apparent aloofness applies to Tim too (and Dick although he’s not mentioned), and that it equally unsettles Talia.

[Nightwing (1996) #138]

I want to stress the apparent in aloofness. On several occasions during RoRAG Talia reproaches Bruce that he’s not confronting his feelings what else is new. I believe he’s worried about the boys, all of them, but he also trusts them to handle themselves. He also thinks that if he so much as voices his worry, he won’t be able to focus and do what he has to. So he represses them and goes fully in Batman-mode.

Fast-forward. When Bruce is barking at Damian to pick up a sword and fight, it’s his way of protecting him– he needs Damian to defend himself.

[Detective Comics (1937) #839]

Because it’s not fair to show this without context: 5 seconds before Bruce legit bites Damian’s head off, chill out dude, he goes all protective batdad upon seeing Ra’s trying to steal Damian’s body.

So yeah. I have reasons to believe Bruce is scared out of his mind here. Hence the very aggressive way he tries to shake Damian into action.

So far Bruce gets a pass. It’s afterwards that he deserved to be punched in the face imo, and that’s probably the scene our Anons had in mind:

In fact, Bruce is expecting the same from Damian than he’s expecting from his two other sons. To be precise, he’s not treating either of them as sons— they’re on the field, they’re Robin & Nightwing right now. Aka soldiers/partners/teammates rather than family. And Bruce is putting Damian on that exact level when he shouldn’t be.

It’s harsh, and that’s emphasized next to Talia (who is actually written like a Talia). She’s all aggressively worried mother and Bruce’s all cold commander, the contrast is off-putting.

Talia reacts like a mother first by fleeing to save herself and her son. But Bruce can’t let Ra’s to his own devices, and he expect his sons to fight beside him.

It’s unfair to Damian ‘cause he’s not Robin yet, he’s not part of Bruce’s war the way Dick and Tim chose to be, he didn’t choose to be dragged into Ra’s schemes: he’s snapping to attention at Bruce’s order out of a childish need for validation, not out of a conscious & thought-out choice to make this his life. Also he’s ten. Yet those considerations fly over Bruce’s head: right now and unlike Talia, he’s not thinking like a father.

Do I think Dini balances the Greater Good vs Familial Attachment dilemma better than Morrison does? Hell yeah. He took the time to show Bruce ripping Ra’s apart at the beginning of the issue to prove us Bruce cares. And for all that Bruce’s wrong here, Dini has him fighting beside Damian, not sending him off on his own. Talia’s fleeing with her son gives the reader a reality check & puts the validity of Bruce’s choice into question as it should be. The stakes are also so much more concrete that “distant dark future to avoid”.

Next is probably my fave line ever written about Bruce & Damian ‘cause it gives so much sense (or depth) to Bruce’s hands-off approach.

And like. Everything that Bruce says here is true. That’s exactly what Damian’s character arc should be about. But dude maybe try to have a relationship with your son outside of the Batman legacy? The thing is Bruce built his relationships with all his kids through vigilantism and I think he just. Doesn’t know how to do it differently. The idea doesn’t even cross his mind for god’s sake.

By my understanding it’s not that Bruce doesn’t love Damian. It’s that he genuinely believes Damian’s better off without him.

It’s low key confirmed in Bruce Wayne: The Road Home.

[The Road Home: Batman & Robin]

((Don’t trust anything Bruce says about Dick’s “casualness” or whatever in this issue tho. Nicieza just… doesn’t know Dick’s character all that much.))

So Bruce is basically taking the easy way out, yeah. Both in ‘Tec and in choosing it’s not worth trying to work with Damian as his partner. He decides Talia is a better parent & Dick is a better mentor than he could be, and he’s off fighting the good fight against Leviathan.

We can stretch it and say Bruce probs decided he’ll take care of his relationship with Damian after the Leviathan thing is dealt with but tbh I don’t know if DC or Morrison thought that far ahead.

Conclusion

Morrison’s narrative installs that Bruce does feel morally obligated to care for Damian. And although I get why it can feel uncertain, I’m not sure we’re supposed to doubt Bruce loves Damian.

Bruce not looking for Damian after the explosion is is more due to the writer’s choice to consider the “Damian issue” closed for now so that he can focus on his next plot/installment. I guess.

When Bruce has the idea to send Damian back to fake-Talia, I guess his love for his son is a tool used to show how much Bruce is a selfless hero*. and a terrible dad but he’s a Hero™ so it’s okay.

Bruce in RoRAG doesn’t come as indifferent to Damian’s safety to me, he’s being his dumbass self in a crisis situation. He’s got no excuse for sending Damian alongside Dick & Tim when he did though.

On two occasions Bruce unilaterally elects that Damian is better-off without him. First with the in-character Talia who actually loves her son, second as Dick’s partner.

* Actually it’d be very interesting if someone who liked that comic-book could explain me wtf I didn’t get about its narrative significance. Sometimes our personal tastes just render us blind to some things guys.

TL;DR: Does preboot!Bruce love Damian? Yes. Was he a good father to him? No.

And I’m feeling way more comfortable giving a categorical answer here than when I was asked if Bruce is, in general, a good father.

To be fair Bruce does try to step into a fatherly role in Morrison’s Batman #657, aka just after he meets Damian. Afterwards we get sidetracked; and later storylines just. Don’t really give Bruce & Damian the opportunity so share father-son moments.

His behavior in RoRAG is just plain bad. The fact that it’s not due to indifference doesn’t change that. The ten-year-old who didn’t ask for shit should be treated differently that the seasoned vigilantes Dick and Tim are, period.

Obviously leaving Damian in fake-Talia’s clutches or wanting to send him back to his abuser goes under “bad father points” too. If you consider the whole of Morrison’s run should be integrated into your personal understanding of the character, that is. woops look at that terrible bias showing its ugly face again

In later episodes, it’s tempting to give Bruce a pass by saying that he just didn’t get the chance/time to be a good father to Damian, and part of it is true. But again, failing to invest in that relationship is completely in-character, and tbh it’s the part I find the most interesting character- and narrative-wise:

It’s A) self-depreciating (”Talia or Dick can provide my son what I can’t”); B) self-centered, in that Bruce doesn’t stop to consider what Damian thinks or wants; and C) cowardly, in that the second there’s someone else available to take care of Damian, Bruce stops trying to be a father and to invest himself emotionally because gasp, feelings!

As a comparison, think of how long it took for Bruce to go from mentor-protégé-e to father-child in his relationship with Tim and Cassandra; and to admit that’s how he felt about those kids. He didn’t adopt Dick until he was an adult either. Batdad needs time to un-constipate. It’s a Bruce thing, not a Bruce & Damian one.

(Jason is the only kid with whom Bruce immediately builds a wholesome relationship and that’s where you cry because if Jason didn’t die Bruce wouldn’t have half as much trouble getting close to his kids.)

Hope this word-vomit answers that. Thanks for the asks!

#bruce wayne #damian wayne #batman #dc comics #batfam #batfamily #meta #batdad #dick grayson #tim drake #talia al ghul #ra's al ghul #jason todd #robin #nightwing #red robin #zae chatters #asks #my stuff

[shotfromguns]

Overall, I think Avengers: Endgame was... about as good as we were going to get, given who was involved in making the film and what had already been established (or had failed to be established) in previous films. It was for sure massively better than Age of Ultron and a noticeable improvement over Infinity War. But there were still plenty of flaws (including things they easily could have fixed) and a few things that outright frustrated the hell out of me. 

My thoughts on Endgame follow under the cut. There will obviously be spoilers. This is for @pantsvaporation, but anybody else is welcome to read/comment/etc. as well.

I was pleasantly surprised that there was a minimum of obvious “actors swinging at CG enemies that hadn’t even slightly been described to them.” And while there were definitely places the film could have been tightened up, I had been expecting the three hours to feel noticeably slack, whereas the plot never seemed to me to drag at all. In retrospect, maybe I should have been less surprised by that, given that it was directed by Russos, who were also responsible for CA:TWS, which remains the most perfectly paced action movie I’ve ever seen.

Given the length of the film, however, I am fucking furious that the only (and MCU first-ever) LGBT “representation” we got was one of the Russos as a nameless extra in Steve’s support group who was framed as a mlm through the pronouns of who he was on a date with. 181 fucking minutes, and you couldn’t find room for less than 60 seconds to show us Valkyrie with a girlfriend? Carole Danvers got that amazing (as my girlfriend often describes my current look) ‘90s dyke aesthetic after the time skip, but she couldn’t have a wife? And, of course, anybody and everybody else was given a Big Case of the Not Gays, including and especially the male characters people have enthusiastically been shipping with each other due to the historical nigh-complete dearth of women in the MCU films (Tony, Steve, Sam, Bucky... and I will have more to say about Steve).

I did cry a few times, especially towards the end, which I honestly hadn’t expected to. But it all felt very... emotionally manipulative? For example, I didn’t cry at Tony dying, per se. I did cry at Pepper reacting to his death, his daughter, Happy, etc. It felt like they sort of realized that by this point Tony had become extremely unsympathetic and that they’d probably overly telegraphed that he was going to die, so they needed to make us sad about it by ensuring we were thinking about how other characters would feel about his death, versus how we ourselves felt about it.

And we sure did get a whoooooooooole lotta time to show the audience how sad everyone felt about Tony to ensure we did, too. But there was (a) very little for Natasha, who died in this film saving the universe even more tragically than Tony did, given that she didn’t even know her sacrifice would work to get the Soul Stone, let alone whether the rest of the plan would work even if she did; and (b) almost none for the characters who died in Infinity War and didn’t get a Comic Book Death resurrection through Bruce snapping or past!Nebula breaking literally the entire premise of the film (more on that in a bit). The Vision got a two-second reference, not even by name. Loki got just a flash of a cameo, with Thor not bringing him up once that I can recall, being completely focused on their mother even in a time when they were both still alive. Heimdall didn’t even get that much, nor was he even referenced; nor were any of the Wakandans who died so that Scarlet Witch didn’t have to lose her creepy robo-boyfriend (which, whoops, she did anyway). Regardless of how obnoxious some of these character and/or their fans may have been, they still very much should have mattered to the other characters, who should have been mourning them just as much as they were mourning Tony. And yeah, sure, anybody who didn’t get Thanos’d had had five years to mourn the ones who died in Infinity War, but (a) to anybody who’d just been brought back, they were still freshly dead, and (b) even the people who were around for those five years are probably dealing with that grief all over again, not least of which because they had the others who died then returned to them, and because not everybody (especially not Thor) had even properly gone through the whole grief process in the first place.

On the topic of Thor, boyyyyyyy howdy was it frustrating how thoroughly Endgame finished off the way that Infinity War had started cutting the entire legs of his Ragnarok character development out from under him. If it weren’t for the momentary appearance of a handful of characters from Ragnarok, the movie literally might as well not have happened: Thor no longer cares about being a leader for his people, he’s back to leaning on weapons instead of relying on himself, and he seems to have completely forgotten Loki after having finally reconciled with him. And making Thor fat as a joke was not only fatphobic and unfunny but really undercut the narrative’s ability to make the viewer take his trauma seriously, because of a continuously competing tension between “you’re supposed to laugh at how he looks” and “how he looks is supposed to make you sad” that was never really resolved. There was no “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it actually means, and you feel like an ass for having laughed.” It was clearly set up to be, “you’re laughing at this, but then you realize what it means, and you feel a little sad, but don’t worry, there will be plenty of more times when ‘Thor is fat now’ is a punchline.”

As for the film’s humor as a whole, while there were some genuinely funny moments that were well positioned in the narrative, the movie overall felt like it frequently ran into the same problem as Star Wars: The Last Jedi, where the writers were so desperate to have characters constantly quipping that they constantly undercut their own poignant moments.

Probably the biggest actual plot hole is, unsurprisingly, the time travel. They initially did an... okay job of justifying why the characters couldn’t just change the past (though it wasn’t until Bruce got to have his chat with Mx. Yellowface that it actually got in any way coherently explained). But after they did all that work of establishing that they couldn’t just change the past, for capital-R Reasons...

They did uhhhhhhh a whole fucking lot of changing the past. A few of these things could be at least fanwanked away. Maybe past!Steve forgets future!Steve telling him Bucky’s alive because he got knocked unconscious immediately afterwards. Maybe Tony’s chat with his dad had always happened. Maybe Steve had always spent decades with Peggy. But there is no way Sitwell et al. wouldn’t remember Steve pretending to be a member of Hydra, which would significantly alter the events of The Winter Soldier if they weren’t smart enough or lucky enough to verify that Steve wasn’t also a mole and therefore realize he was an “imposter” before one of those Hydra sleeper said something to past!Steve to make him suspicious. And Loki grabbing the loose Tesseract and poofing is a massive change in the timeline.

Their enemies did a whooooooole lot of changing the past when past!Nebula brought past!Thanos and The Gang through to the future, including effectively permanently restoring Gamora, i.e., someone who’d been “irreversibly” sacrificed to obtain the Soul Stone.

Once these things happened, there was literally nothing to explain why (a) the future!Avengers couldn’t at least bring back Heimdall, Loki, all those Wakandans, the Vision, Natasha, and Tony by pulling them from earlier points in the timestream, and (b) why the future!Avengers couldn’t just take their set of Infinity Stones to a point before all of this shit happened and prevent it from ever having happened. Which isn’t to say the writers couldn’t have cooked up some sort of internally consistent explanation, e.g., “this Gamora is basically stolen from the other timeline, which still exists on its own independent axis, and the Avengers wouldn’t kidnap their friends out of another timeline and leave that version of themselves without the person they want to restore just to have that person here.” But they didn’t bother, which presumably means no one involved in making the film even noticed the utter inconsistency.

Speaking of utter inconsistency... Steve. Steven fucking Rogers. Hooooooooboy. That ending was the biggest, stupidest, cheapest piece of schlock I’ve seen in a movie for a long fucking time. Let’s leave aside the fact that he chose to leave behind two perfectly good boyfriends and the fact that he barely said boo to Bucky, despite the film having reminded us how important Bucky was to him by having his name literally be the thing that so shocked past!Steve that future!Steve was able to beat him. You’re seriously telling me that Steve was still pining soooooooo badly for Peggy that he would literally risk the entire timeline so they could have their Hetero Happily Ever After? (Bucky, Sam, Tony, Angie: I’m so sorry, bbys.)

Yeah, sure, Peggy and Steve being parted was sad when it happened. But they’d been colleagues for a handful of years, then maybe sorta friends, and then kissed once, in a speeding car, just after they finally admitted they’d both been crushing on each other pretty hard the whole time because they were on the way to possibly both die. That is not “the love of your life” who you spend the rest of time sighing over. That’s, like, the guy I casually dated for a bit over a month in 2011 because, while we hit it off amazingly well, I didn’t want to get serious when he’d be moving in about a year once his postdoc was done, who sure enough moved to the east coast a year later and then abruptly died of a heart attack a few years after that. Is it tragic that he’s dead? Absolutely. Have I sometimes thought, “Gosh, I wonder what could have been”? Sure. Did I decide that I would never ever again date or even look at anyone else, because he was the only person for me in all of space and time? Lmaoooooo no. I am, in fact, deliriously happy with my current girlfriend, who I also happen to think is way better for me than he ever could have been.

It was already established that Peggy got married in the original timeline (in CA:TWS, Steve watches some footage in which she mentions that during the war he’d saved the man she eventually married). This means that either (a) Steve supplanted her original husband, which is pretty gross, especially if he didn’t tell Peggy “oh hey btw you originally married this other guy, wanna go check him out first,” or (b) Steve was Peggy’s husband all along, and she just obfuscated that. Either way, in the timeline we end up with, somehow for 50+ years this incredibly well-known woman and sometime Director of SHIELD was married to a man she kept absolutely secret and hidden, which somehow no one ever discovered the secret of or even ever commented on, apparently. It also means that, when Steve showed up on her doorstep, both of them agreed that (a) it was more important for them to play house than for Steve to ever openly use his abilities again and (b) Steve would sit on his ass and twiddle his thumbs through every major crisis he knows is coming over the next half-century. If the MCU serum slowed Steve’s aging the way the comic serum did, this might be slightly understandable, because they could justify it as, “Well, Steve will go back to adventuring after he closes the loop with his original timeline, and this will basically be an extended vacation.” But Steve did age (and they presumably had no expectation that he would not), meaning that he wasted decades of active time at most acting secretly and anonymously from the shadows. You really think that these two incredibly dedicated and driven heroes would both agree to that? Sure, I could absolutely believe they’d take the opportunity to finally get that dance. But there’s no way that Peggy wouldn’t have booted Steve’s ass out of bed and back to the 21st century, and it’s highly unlikely Steve himself would have so much as seriously considered staying for more than a more leisurely farewell and proper closure.

Steve’s Hetero Happily Ever After also further complicates the issue of that time travel plot hole I mentioned. If the stones were plucked from one or more divergent timelines (or changes made while grabbing the stones then caused the creation of divergent timelines at those points)... how did aging!Steve end up staying in the same timeline as the rest of the future!Avengers? It seems like it should be impossible for all these things to be simultaneously true, which means either I’m missing something huge or at least one of them is a huge fuck-up in terms of the plot’s internal consistency. EITHER the changes to the past happened in (or spawned) one or more divergent timelines, which is why, e.g., Gamora could be brought forward from her past and now be alive in the future without altering the past that led to her being brought forward in the first place, in which case aging!Steve would have spent his life in an alternate timeline and old!Steve wouldn’t have been able to come visit all his buds on the day young!future!Steve left to return the stones; OR everything took place in a single, unified, undivergent timeline, which would mean Steve could drop into the past and take the long way back to the exact point in spacetime he left, but the changes to the past would have altered the past events, meaning that because Thanos and The Gang skipped forward and Loki is at large with the Tesseract, the events of Thor: The Dark World, Thor: Ragnarok, Infinity War, etc. never happened, and we’re also back to having no reason why other dead people couldn’t be pulled forward from their past timeline, why Thanos couldn’t be stopped by time-traveling the stones to before he retrieved them and using them to stop him, etc.

Various other issues:

The “monstrous” single woman who can’t get pregnant sacrificing herself so that the virile man will have his wife and children restored to him is... not a good look. Also, it’s weird how “we don’t trade lives” when it’s about a robot coded as a white man sacrificing himself to save half the universe (though apparently even at the time a whole bunch of Wakandans was fine, whoops, remember all the Black people who died trying to stop Thanos from getting to the Vision, weird how those lives were okay to trade), but when it’s about Natasha or Clint throwing themself off a cliff, immediately they’re both all, “Yeah, it’s gotta be done for the greater good.”

Thor getting to be the one to axe Thanos’s head off instead of, you know, like, oh, I don’t know, Nebula? The woman he abused and tortured pretty much her entire life? Bad. Inappropriate. Disappointing.

Everybody kept talking about how the characters who got Thanos’d in Infinity War were their “family.” For Rocket, I believe it; one thing the GotG films actually did well was to establish that level of relationship for those characters. But the Avengers? Lmaoooooo. The MCU Avengers were not a fucking family. The MCU Avengers spent every single movie at each other’s throats. If you wanted us to believe they were even friends, you should have given us at least one film of them seriously working as a team instead of against each other.

Holy shit, do I not care about Clint Barton’s Manpain(tm). Also, if you want us to see how far he’s “fallen,” maybe do something other than giving him the worst mohawk I’ve ever seen (including one done backstage after a show and one a friend gave me in my bathroom in college) and a boring tattoo and having him badly pick up an ugly katana-esque sword to kill objectively bad guys.

Bringing Scott back was easy enough that a rat walking across a panel after five years of that shit sitting in a storage facility could do it, and yet no one else tried even once? Somebody saw all that shit set up, and went, “Welp, guess they’re all just dead,” instead of, “Hey maybe this running equipment indicates an experiment in progress that we should maybe investigate”?

The “let’s line up all the named women” shot in the final battle was the most patronizing display of pandering I’ve seen in the entire franchise. Not only did it make no sense for them all to be in the same place at the same time with no men even in the shot, but... they were utterly ineffectual? It was like, “Gosh, how will Carole ever make it through that??? Oh, she’s got US, GIRL-FRIENDS, DID WE MENTION WE’RE ALL LADIES, BUT NOT QUEER OR ANYTHING.” And then... Carole immediately blew straight past them, because her power level is so off the charts compared to almost every other named woman in the MCU, many of whom are simply very, very skilled peak human heroes versus being superhuman.

Speaking of superhuman abilities: Why wasn’t every time-travel suit an Iron Man-style suit like Rhodey’s? Obviously he needed an exoskeleton bit to walk, but since Tony took the time to build him a beefed-up full suit, why didn’t he do the same for everyone else?

Along that same line of stupid decisions made around the Vitally Important, We Only Get One Shot At Fixing This time-travel mission, why didn’t they wait until everyone was in better shape? Thor was clearly still an emotional wreck, and if Rocket hadn’t been on the ball, it would have cost them one of the stones. As soon as you’re traveling back in time to fix something, unless there’s a hard limit on how far you can go back (which there wasn’t), you literally have the rest of your lives to get ready for it, so can and should take as much time as you need to prep (and even over-prep) for that mission. A little more lead time also would have given someone the opportunity to go, “Hey, wait, why don’t we first make a quick stop to just grab more Pym Particles, so we have more flexibility with destinations and do-overs?” Or even, “Why don’t we make these suits modular? That way, they can join into a single unit for each team on the way there, thereby saving a bunch of charges, but also split off into individual suits with everyone having enough juice to get home individually just in case someone gets split off. That will leave us with a bunch of extra Pym Particles in case something goes wrong.”

Other than meta reasons like “we want there to be a big epic fight,” why was it such a struggle to fight Thanos? The Avengers very nearly beat him in Infinity War, when he had five of the six Infinity Stones. Here, he had none, and they still barely squeaked out the victory by the skin of their teeth.

Thanos’s rapid switch from “I’m gonna kill half of all living creatures to uhhh save the universe somehow” to “I guess I’ll just wipe out everything and make an entirely new universe” once again highlighted how deeply stupid his original plan was. If he has the capacity to re-create the entire universe, why doesn’t he just... make more resources, if that’s such a fucking problem? I mean, also, spoiler alert for the real world: It’s not. It’s always been an issue of distribution, not amount. People aren’t starving to death because there’s no food; people are starving to death because of capitalism. So unless you target your population elimination at capitalists exclusively, killing off a bunch of people is going to maintain exactly the same problems of unequal resource exploitation and distribution.

Speaking of which: Why is post-Thanos Earth presented as a mellow semi-paradise (except for everybody being sad about all the dead people)? The loss of half the world’s population would have been catastrophic, cascading into many more deaths. Nor would it have solved inequality... or even resource “over”-utilization. Earth hit a population of 3.85 billion (i.e., half the current ~7.7 billion) around 1972, which many people currently alive have personal memories of not actually being particularly idyllic. This also highlights once again how deeply stupid and nonsensical Thanos’s original plan was, given that his “solution” could easily become obsolete in another 50 years... or even sooner, given that Thanos also cut all non-human creature populations in half, which would have not only reduced related resources available for human consumption but devastated ecosystems worldwide.

There has been a huge official campaign to persuade audiences to not spoil the movie for others. As a general principle, I’m a fan of encouraging anti-spoiler culture, but I think it says a lot about this movie in specific that the studio has put in so much effort to try to stamp out spoilers: i.e., they’re worried that the only real draw it has is people finding out assorted plot points. If your film can be easily replaced by a bulleted list of who’s alive or dead at the end of it, it’s... not actually a good film.

ADDENDUM MAY 5, 2019:

Okay, so, per the Russos, the reason Steve's Hetero Happily Ever After DOESN'T break the entire rest of the film is that it happened in an alternate timeline, and he just jumped back to the MCU prime timeline later... somehow. I still think that's shitty, lazy filmmaking, because in three hours they absolutely should have, you know, made that more clear (or... at all indicated that's how it played out). But at least it keeps their time travel mechanics from completely breaking their own plot.

But that means that in THAT timeline there were two Steves. Which means the BEST-CASE SCENARIO is prime!Steve hooked up with that timeline's Peggy after being 100% honest about who he was, alt!Peggy... chose a different version of Steve over her own Steve, for... reasons?, and then together they found and revived alt!Steve, at which point prime!Steve was like, "lol sorry bro, she's my wife 'cause I missed my chance with prime!Peggy, but at least now you're not frozen for any longer than you already have been."

Other options include:

Prime!Steve pretended to be alt!Steve while leaving him in the ice, counting on him not getting rescued until alt!Peggy would be nearly dead.

Prime!Steve helped rescue alt!Steve, then left alt!Peggy and alt!Steve to have their personal Hetero Happily Ever After while he... married some other random person?

Prime!Steve straight-up murdered alt!Steve to take his place.

Prime!Steve and alt!Peggy rescued alt!Steve, and she married both of them. (Somehow I don't see Disney going for that option.)

ADDENDUM MAY 12, 2019

I just read another interview, this one with the writers. Buckle up, because there’s even more embarrassing shit.

McFeely: I mean, we did all of this before Ragnarok.

Markus: Yeah, initially we were writing drafts prior to Taika coming onboard. And it was once they got underway and they were off in Australia making the movie and it was clear that they were discovering new facets to Thor, Chris Hemsworth wanted to make sure that this new loosened-up Thor didn't vanish immediately upon returning to the Avengers world. And so he and Taika flew to Atlanta and we had long meetings with them and watched some footage and got a sense of the new Thor tone, and it worked perfectly with where we wanted to go.

... ... ... ... Literally WHAT FUCKING PART of Infinity War and Endgame matches AT ALL with Thor's character development from Ragnarok? I was all ready to go, "Oh, okay, that makes sense" at the reveal that this was written before Ragnarok. But then, nope, they admit that they just have no fucking idea what they're doing and think they actually integrated its changes WELL. JFC.

McFeely: So where we hit upon it was in order to become their best selves, Steve had to find a life, and Tony had to lose his.

Boring idea and poorly executed to boot. (Not to mention the extreme cringiness of “finding a life” necessarily requires “marrying a woman and having babies in the suburbs.”) How are they getting paid money for writing this trite?

Fandango: So people are asking... Does this mean an old Captain America was hanging out this whole time while another Captain America was saving the day?

Markus: That is our theory. We are not experts on time travel, but the Ancient One specifically states that when you take an Infinity Stone out of a timeline it creates a new timeline. So Steve going back and just being there would not create a new timeline. So I reject the "Steve is in an alternate reality" theory. I do believe that there is simply a period in world history from about '48 to now where there are two Steve Rogers. And anyway, for a large chunk of that one of them is frozen in ice. So it's not like they'd be running into each other.

HAHAHAHA HOLY FUCKING SHIT okay so NOT ONLY do the director and writers have COMPLETELY DIFFERENT IDEAS about what the fuck happened at the end (did they... not discuss this with each other? at all?), but the WRITERS' version is the one that is THE MOST OUT OF CHARACTER. HOLY SHIT.

McFeely: So we've always thought that the most perfect conclusion to [Natasha's] arc would be to die for her new family, or to sacrifice greatly for her new family.

GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG GAG

McFeely: We toyed with not doing that, and we had another version, and several women on the crew said, "Don't you dare take that choice away from her. The heroic thing is for Natasha to do it, not for Hawkeye to do it."

these are definitely real women who actually exist

Fandango: Do you think there's a world where we see the adventures of Captain and Peggy either on the big or small screen?

Christopher Markus: Possibly. I think maybe all I did was Steve was a stay-at-home dad and Peggy went to work at S.H.I.E.L.D. I don't know that there were any adventures.

lmaoooooooooo

Imagine being this bad at knowing your own characters. Imagine thinking either Peggy OR Steve would just give up their life to play house when there's important work they could be doing.

#Analyzing film #Avengers #Avengers: Endgame #Tony Stark #Steve Rogers #Thor #Natasha Romanoff

[sally-mun]

As someone who hasn't, wouldn't, and won't be experiencing Major/Minor (or whatever it was called) could you perhaps analyze more specifically some of the things you felt were missteps more in depth, so others who decide they might want to make a visual novel or even just a story, might be able to avoid the same issues? I realize this might not be your area of interest, but I'm always interested in these kinds of analyses.

Man, where do I even begin.

I suppose I should start by saying that this game could have been fine; I don’t necessarily hate this game for the story, even if I think it’s uninspired. I play lots of point-and-click games and usually enjoy them (even the stupid ones) so long as they have merit in one area or another. But that’s the core of the problems with Major/Minor: It has NO merit to work with. Its construction shows absolutely no understanding of this genre of game design. Or of writing. Or of entertainment in general. Or of simply respecting one’s audience.

First and foremost, let’s discuss visual novels.

The critical difference between a novel and a visual novel is interactivity; a novel is a set and done deal that takes its readers along for the ride, whereas a visual novel invites the readers to be part of the ride itself. The direction of the story is influenced by the player, and this allows them to personally take ownership of later events. It’s the sort of game that tries to put you in the role of the protagonist in the most direct form possible. Like other first-person games your view as a player is exactly that of the character you’re playing, but in a VN’s case it’s like reading a comic book in a choose-your-own-adventure format.

Major/Minor not only fails on both the visual and novel elements, but it also fails when combined as a visual novel.

1) Visual

For the most part, visual novels don’t have a lot of action. They primarily consist of conversations with NPCs and usually take place in static locations. For this reason, both the characters and the environments need to have a lot of personality. Players need to feel like they’re actually having conversations with the characters and that they’ve entered a unique location that sees real use. This is the red, meaty center of how VNs engage and gratify their players.

Designing characters in a visual novel is about more than giving each one a different face; it’s about giving each character enough of a range of actions and emotions to sell the idea that the character is actually interacting with you, and in a way that’s truly unique from every other character. In real life, people do all sorts of crap when speaking: Our expressions change, we gesture with our hands, our posture varies, and sometimes we even have small ticks associated with certain topics or emotions. Between these visual cues and the actual discussions themselves, players ought to know the NPCs well enough to be able to describe them like real-life friends by the end of the game.

This brings us to Major/Minor’s first serious offense: Every character has one face. Typically in a VN, each character has a minimum of half a dozen expressions, poses, and gestures/ticks to match the different emotions they’ll need to exhibit over the course of their conversation topics. The characters in Major/Minor can only make a single expression and pose throughout the entire game, which immediately leads to some seriously disjointed discussions. It’s hard for me to take a character seriously when they say they’re angry with me when the art staring through the computer screen is bright, cheerful, and apparently mid-laugh. Sorry, NPC #672, I really don’t care that you’re allegedly on the brink of tears, because your singular piece of character art is so smarmy and mischievous that I forgot you were trying to tell me something tragic.

What makes this even more annoying is that most of the characters DO have a secondary piece of art, but it’s only ever used ONE time as an introduction to a new character before the game chucks it in the bin and we never see it again. Each character COULD have had at least two expressions if the dev had planned his commissions carefully enough, buuut instead he chose to get two shots that are barely distinguishable from one another so there could be a ~=*FLOURISH*=~ when we see someone for the first time. Granted, two per character still isn’t anywhere near enough, but it’s a hell of a lot better than just one! It makes me wonder why he bothered to spend the money on a second image for each character at all, since half of these commissions only get about 10 seconds of screen time. What a waste.

And hey, speaking of wasted opportunities, let’s talk more about the environments! Lots of visual novels don’t spend much energy on their backgrounds, and although that’s usually fine (albeit not my first preference), Major/Minor seriously needed to think more about its settings. For the moment I’ll ignore the laziness of the fact that the backgrounds are generic photos with a blur filter over them; what’s more important is that this game loves to tell us all kinds of random crap about the rooms we’re in, especially during the scenes that take place in Japan. This game would’ve benefited dearly from simply having more detailed backgrounds and just letting us observe the goings on of the room on our own. Y’know, because that makes it more... visual.

Honestly, if it were me, I would’ve taken it all a step further and gone full-blown Ace Attorney on the environments. In AA games, investigating the scene is very important because you have to look for clues. I’m not saying Major/Minor needed to let you hunt for items, but I do think that it could’ve cut a ton of random information from the text by simply letting us inspect the backgrounds. That way the players that want to know what a kotatsu is can find out on their own time and players that already know or don’t care can move on.

Something else that would’ve brought the game a much-needed boost of interest is cut scenes. As noted earlier, visual novels don’t tend to have a lot of action, so when something physical DOES happen, it makes an impact. One way to maximize that flash of excitement is with a cut scene – or at least, the visual novel equivalent of one. A “cut scene” in a VN isn’t typically a full motion video like most video games boast; it still makes use of a static image, but it’s an image whose quality far surpasses that of the rest of the art in the game. Maybe it’s abnormally large and the camera slowly pans across for dramatic effect, or maybe it’s a scene drawn from an interesting angle that isn’t the player’s POV. Some games take this even farther and really do animate their cut scenes a bit (usually on par with a nice animated gif). Lots of VN cut scenes make use of sound effects or action-specific music cues to keep the player emotionally involved with the scene, as it’s a moment that’s out of the player’s control.

Major/Minor, on the other hand, does none of this. Much like the drought of facial expressions, the game simply pelts you with paragraph after paragraph to tell you about the events taking place around you, rather than simply letting you see for yourself and be, y’know, involved. Even a handful of cut scenes that had some real effort put into them would’ve really given this game some pep. Not only would it have kept me engaged as a player, but it would’ve weeded out even more unnecessary narration.

Oh, and speaking of weeding shit out of the text…

2) Novel

The writing in this game badly, badly needed to be edited. Like, so badly it makes me physically hurt from how poorly this text is constructed. I’m not talking about the simple things like misspellings and failed capitalizations, I mean BIG mistakes, like sentence fragments and improper conjugations and completely misusing some words all together. It’s also excruciatingly repetitive. Never in my life have I ever seen prose that recaps itself so frequently – sometimes literally within minutes of the event that it’s reminding you of. It even recaps itself within the same block of text a few times.

It’s pretty obvious the dev never allowed a seasoned editor to proof the text, but it’s so unbelievably bad that I’m not even sure the dev himself ever gave it a second glance. It reeks of being a first draft that was never once revisited; actually, it strongly reminds me of the sort of stories I myself wrote when I was about 13. At that time I wanted so badly to write big, dramatic stories! Stories that had deep themes and lots of intrigue! With a complicated plot and several subplots!! And lots of characters that would all totally be different and completely matter!!!! But the problem was I was so wrapped up in wanting to make my stories big, impressive epics that I stretched myself way too thin and everything came out incredibly shallow. It’s honestly kind of eerie to think back on the things I wrote as a kid while I play this game. The similarities are so striking that I can’t tell if this is something the dev wrote at that age and just never decided to polish, or if he did write it as an adult but has the writing skill-level of a teenager.

But honestly, I’d overlook all the technical flaws and melodrama this guy could throw at me if he would just show and not tell. “Show, don’t tell” is one of the oldest rules in the book when it comes to storytelling, and for good reason: Telling instead of showing is not only fucking boring, but it treats the reader like an idiot. If a writer knows what they’re doing, they shouldn’t have to tell, because they’d just demonstrate those things instead.

For example, let’s examine another huge flaw with the writing: Incredibly shallow characterizations. Early in the game the player meets a character named Rook. Rook is very rude. I know this because the game tells me. All. The. Time. I legit don’t remember how many times the game has mentioned that Rook is rude at this point. The dev seems completely oblivious to the notion that you don’t have to tell the player these things. You can just… write Rook as being rude. Trust me, my dude, I can figure out if a character is an asshole or not. Not only can Rook’s rudeness be demonstrated by how he treats me as a player, but it can be further reinforced by other characters reacting to him in a put-off manner. If you’re so concerned that I won’t pick up on the fact that Rook is a rude person just based on how he behaves, then you’re doing it wrong, end of discussion.

But then, as I said, the characterizations are shallow in general. Everyone tends to have their one basic trope and the story rests on the idea that you know what the character is. None of the scenes go out of their way to really dig into who someone is – which is kind of amazing, honestly, since the prose is so obsessed with making sure you know the most inane and unrelated shit half the time – and even after I’ve known a character for several chapters they still feel like a cardboard cut-out to me.

To be honest, I’m kind of impressed by the sheer volume of ways that Major/Minor fails at showing instead of telling. It tells you what characters are like instead of just letting you interact with them, it tells you about the places you visit instead of just letting you view them, it tells you every single time the characters have a mood shift or expression change because it couldn’t be bothered to give them each more than one face, and it hamfists unnecessary information into the script where it’s unneeded and interrupts the scene – and THEN, it makes SURE you notice that it’s telling instead of showing by repeating those things over and over and over again!

All of this is further exacerbated, by the way, because the dev has no idea how to tell a story in the first place. Even with all the above flaws, I miiight have still been able to enjoy this game if it was just a compelling narrative in any sense of the word at all. I will happily deal with poor construction and telling-not-showing if the story still has some intrigue. Even a flawed story can have a mind-blowing plot and keep you reading just to find out what happens next, right? I thought so too, until I realized that Major/Minor goes SO far out of its way to spoil its own plot that it frequently makes you sit through scenes that you, the protagonist, are not even present for. Yes, in a game that’s built upon being a first-person experience, the story will slam on the brakes and take you OUT of the protagonist’s shoes to make you sit by as an observer to events that probably would’ve been an great reveal later on had the dev just kept his mouth shut.

3) Visual Novel

So the visuals suck and the writing sucks, but hey, lots of games get by without investing much in those areas. Could Major/Minor pull it together and at least give the player an interesting mechanic? Hahahaha no, of course it didn’t. As far as the gameplay is concerned, Major/Minor is so bad that in many ways I hesitate to even call it a game.

The cornerstone of visual novels is making choices. They can range from serious decisions that determine the overall outcome of the game or small cosmetic details, but either way, the core of this gaming style is putting the player in the driver’s seat as often as possible. When playing Major/Minor, however, the player is strapped into a straight jacket, blindfolded, and tossed into the trunk of the damn car. This game is so reluctant to surrender control of the narrative that it’s not uncommon at all to go through entire sections of the game having made no choices whatsoever. It fails so spectacularly as a visual novel that I’d be willing to bet that the dev had never played one before. He is astonishingly disinterested in what makes a visual novel enjoyable to the player.

There’s a principle in game design called Illusion of Control. The goal of this idea is to allow the player to feel like they’re in charge of the game while actually keeping them within strict boundaries. It applies to a lot of games, but it’s especially important in visual novels. Players need to be able to dictate how the story progresses, even if some of those choices make no real impact on outcomes. For example, players can enter conversation trees with NPCs that seemingly offer a lot of control – perhaps the player chooses the discussion topics, or can decide if they want to be shy or snarky in their replies – and yet at the end of the scene there could realistically be no change to the story’s progress. The greater point is that the player feels like they handled the conversation the way they wanted to. This allows them to still feel like they’ve gotten somewhere and that they accomplished something.

Major/Minor appears to scoff at the very idea of this, like the game’s worried you’ll cramp its style if it gives you too much power.The player is allotted no input whatsoever on how the PC treats the other characters, what subjects to discuss, where they’d like to go, how to react to the actions of other characters… It’s truly mind-blowing just how consistently the game misses opportunities to allow the player even the illusion of control. For example, there’s a scene where the player character (PC) is awakened in the middle of the night by a pounding on the door, and no options are offered on how the player would like to handle this. A better game might allow the player to choose if they want to pretend to keep sleeping, or call out to whomever is knocking, or try escaping out a window, or crack the door open to see what the person wants. Even if it’s an absolute necessity to the plot that this person enters the room, it’s still better to let the player choose, because there are a plethora of ways to redirect each of those options back around toward the character getting in.

Unfortunately, Major/Minor is just too damn lazy to be bothered with gameplay, and the PC just lets the stranger in with no input from the player. Soon after, the stranger attacks the PC, which would again be a prime opportunity for lots of reactionary options: The player could duck! Or the player could punch their assailant! Or maybe they could kick instead! Maybe they’d try to run away or call for help! Buuut no, Major/Minor really doesn’t care what you want YOUR CHARACTER to do, and it’s already decided that you’re going to put up no fight at all and immediately pass out. It’s by far one of the most unsatisfying things I’ve ever experienced in a video game.

The disconnect between the player and the protagonist is so extreme that I honestly don’t feel it’s a fair assessment to refer to the protagonist as the “player character.” It’s not uncommon for visual novel protagonists to speak in the first person, but in most games it feels like the PC is speaking on your behalf because they’re acting according to your will. The protagonist of Major/Minor decides so many things for themself that it stopped feeling like “my” character a very, very long time ago. This character isn’t me and never was; it’s the main character of a book that I didn’t ask to read, who very occasionally pauses to ask my opinion on something.

HEY HOWDY HEY SPEAKING OF PAUSING… If you boot this “game” up for a session, you’d better hope you have plenty of time on your hands to get through it, because you’re at the dev’s mercy for when you can save your progress. Being able to save anytime you want is a staple of visual novels because 1) people read at wildly different paces, and 2) for many people, excessive reading makes them tired. Not only that, but sometimes life just plain gets in the way and you have to pick up and go on short notice. Major/Minor ignores all of these factors and leaves the player relegated to appointed checkpoints throughout the game.

Now, I’m not necessarily saying that checkpoints are inherently bad, but they do need to be used very, very wisely. Any game (VN or otherwise) that doesn’t allow the player to save anytime they want needs to be sure checkpoints are reasonably close from any given location, and furthermore that they’re spaced at regular intervals. As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, however, the dev flushed that idea down the toilet along with what was left of his common sense and parents’ love. Sometimes Major/Minor stacks save points practically back-to-back within the span of a few minutes, and in other cases I’ve literally played for over and hour before the game finally rewarded me with the option to save.

There’s no discernible pattern or technique that I can detect for when save points are bestowed on the player; you’re not even guaranteed an opportunity to save when the game switches chapters! I would say that I can’t fathom why the dev thought this would be a good idea, but let’s not kid ourselves here, it’s clear that the dev never thought this through in the first place. If he had, he might’ve noticed that players being uncertain about whether or not they’ll be able to save their progress discourages them from playing at all.

Also, before I fully move on from the game design, I just wanted to make a brief side note about the music. To be honest, I turned the music off a VERY long time ago, so I don’t even remember what it sounds like; however, I’ve read that all of the music in the game is from the free assets you get in RPG Maker. I’ve further read that the free assets (both audio and visual) were the entire reason the dev decided to use RPG Maker for this game in the first place, in spite of the fact that there are other programs out there specifically geared toward making visual novels. This is worth mentioning because it further highlights just how lazy this entire game is. It’s not a sin to use free program assets – that IS what they’re there for, after all – but when you ONLY use the free assets and then advertise your game on Steam for being sooo creative and original, AND have the gall to charge $20 for it?? Yeah, that’s a gigantic slap in the face.

Speaking of Steam, you’d think a game like this would’ve been weeded out by the gaming community for being the garbage that it is, right? After all, there’s a ranking right at the top of the page showing the proportion of good and bad reviews it’s gotten, and right now it says the feedback is “very positive.” I will say that I do take community feedback into consideration when I’m thinking about a game that I haven’t otherwise heard of before, and my misstep with this game has definitely taught me a valuable lesson. When I saw that the game is ranked “very positive” and I scrolled down to see several glowing reviews, I felt that was sufficient enough research to know if the game was worth my time and money.

However, upon trying out the game and realizing just how badly I’d been deceived, I did a little more digging. As it turns out, the dev is known for flagging negative reviews as “abusive” and getting them deleted, allowing him to effectively filter out the bad press so long as he can make some kind of a case to Steam. This debacle has taught me that it’s not enough to scroll to the bottom of a Steam page for user reviews, as those tend to be the most recent; what you do instead is click the “Read all [x] reviews” link, as those reviews are sorted by popularity. THIS is where you’ll find the reviews that the community has deemed the most helpful and informative, and in this case, it’s like night and day. ALL of the highest-ranked reviews of Major/Minor are negative, and the numbers are staggering. Literally HUNDREDS of people have ranked these terrible reviews as helpful, and most of them are in the 80-90% range on agreement. You have to load more reviews four times to find even one single positive post, and once you do start getting into the positives, the upvotes are significantly fewer.

SO, in conclusion...

I want to say that’s about all I have to give on this subject, but the sad truth is it’s not. I could probably critique this game line-by-line, moment-by-moment, if I really wanted to. Fortunately for my sanity, I really don’t want to. … Not right now, anyway. I’m sure I’ll lose it at some point and decide to go through and count all the missed opportunities in the game or something, but I won’t be doing that right now, thankfully.

So in the vein of others learning from the mistakes of this game: If you were thinking about buying Major/Minor, don’t. If you bought it a while ago during a sale and were thinking about starting to play it, don’t. If you’re interested in making a visual novel and wanted to learn from this game’s mistakes… Well granted there’s a lot to learn about what not to do, but still, don’t give this lazy, deceptive dev any more money. Learn from this guy’s shortcomings based on the feedback of players. Hell, read or watch a Let’s Play if you really want to experience it first-hand. Just please don’t buy and play this game. As a favor to ME, please don’t buy and play this game.

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#sciver #Sallymun plays Major/Minor #I hope you guys enjoy this because it was not easy #if you know someone who's thinking about this game please show them this post #REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE

[ehoiidoingthings]

‘The Winds Have Changed’ (Part 5) Noodlemoon

Part 5.

Note: Let me know what you guys think of this story so far i.e. things you like, things you don't like, what you might want to see next like characters or what-not, etc. Enjoy this next part! c:

    "Thank you for taking the time to help me out today!" Buster hopped out of the real estate agent's car.

"Anytime, Mr. Moon! Your apartment should be ready to move in this time next week. I've contacted the landlord about some of the questions you had and he should get back to you about them in terms of discussing your security deposit." The skunk called out the window of her car.

"Alright," Buster was opening his theater's doors. "Thank you again! And have a good night, Margaret!"

"To you as well, Mr. Moon."

    Buster checked the clock and saw it was 5:12. Just enough time to get ready, Buster thought as he dashed up the stairs. He first decided to go to the bathroom the theater offered and take a shower since he had been rummaging around the city more than usual today. Furthermore, Buster felt the need to look extra tidy considering the restaurant they were going to tonight they never really dined at. And the fact it's with Eddie. Buster grinned at the thought of trying to make something of last night's incident. He was excited for this dinner because it was a chance to start trying something with Eddie. He undressed and began to run the water for his shower. Once he stepped into the warm spray he suddenly realized how tense he had been. He let his fur soak up the moisture and allowed the water to run all over him. As he reached for the shampoo he began to sing a happy tune.

    "So-me day, when I'm awfully low~ When the world is cold~ I will feel a glow, just thinking o-f you," he began running his fingers through his fur, "and the way you look, tonight~ ♫"

    Buster hummed the next part and he went about washing and cleansing his face.

    "With each wor-d, your tenderness grows~"

    He grabbed the brush he kept in the shower for getting dirt out of his coat and used it as a microphone.

    "Tearing my fears, apa-rt!"

    He brushed through his coat some time before rinsing off.

    "And that laugh! That wrinkles your no-se~"

    Buster shut the shower off and hooped out. He dramatically grabbed a towel and wrapped himself in it as a prima donna would.

    "It touches my foolish hear-t~ ♫"

    He continued singing as he went over to the sink and started to blow-dry himself. Once he was completely dried, he put on another suit while still humming and singing the accompaniment to the Sinatra song.

    "Love-ly, never ever change, keep that breathless charm~ Won't you please arrange it?"

    He paused a moment to decide on the color of suit since he had purchased others since the theater's reopening. He decided to be fancy and chose an all black suit, white shirt and black bow-tie. He looked in the mirror of the bathroom. Classy, Buster mused. He finished the look by taking a small amount of fur-gel and did his usual neat, upright style. He took once last look in the mirror before turning away to his office to grab his bag.

    As he headed downstairs to the front of the theater to wait for Eddie, he sang out, "Just the way you look, to-night~ ♫"

    Expecting Eddie to be late, Buster didn't stress when he saw it was already 6:05. Guess I got carried away with my song, Buster thought happily. At least I look real good. His confidence was sky high. He even had silver cufflinks for the night; and of course they were in the shape of crescent moons. He opened the doors and turned to lock them. However, when he exited the theater he saw Eddie in his car awaiting the Koala.

    "Oh! Eddie, you're here already." He said.

    His ears dropped a little as he realized he had made the sheep wait on him. He quickly locked the doors and ran over to the car.

    "Yeah, been so for ten minutes but don't worry about it." Eddie put the car in drive.

    He didn't seem mad but Buster was angry at himself. Goddammit, Buster thought; his ears fell a little more.

    Eddie must've noticed because he said, "Hey, I don't care that you're late. You are always waiting on me anyway so I guess I owe you this."

"Alright, thanks." Buster was feeling better after his comment.

Eddie looked over and commented, "I also see why you're late. You look nice tonight, Buster."

    Buster looked away and flushed at the comment made.

    Before he could give one back Eddie started to babble saying, "I-I mean, you look good all the time! Like, I don't know, you just look extra good tonight. Uh, I mean... Whatever, you look good is what I'm saying."

Buster laughed at his display. "Why thank you, Eddie! I did spruce it up tonight considering we are actually eating there tonight. Can't be looking like my usual self at that place." He adjusted his bow-tie.

    Buster looked over Eddie and saw that he, too, dressed up with black slacks that tapered down, a burgundy jacket and a white dress shirt. Buster noticed the top two buttons were undone which gave Eddie a cool look. He also noticed that Eddie had gotten his wool cut and groomed so it made a cleaner version of what he normally wore.

    His throat clenched a bit as he spoke. "Y-you look good tonight as well, Eddie. I like the cut you got for your wool."

The sheep accepted the compliment but with slightly less enthusiasm than the marsupial expected with, "Thanks."

    The remainder of the ride was brutally silent for the two men. Buster just looked off while Eddie looked intent on driving. The koala had never seen Eddie so serious before and, in all honestly, it kinda scared him to see Eddie like this. Fortunately, the ride was short and the awkward atmosphere between them dwindled as they pulled up to the curb for the valet to take their car. Buster stepped out of the car and took a moment to catch up with Eddie who had been racing to the door. Buster was confused why he didn't wait for him but nonetheless jogged up to him. They entered the fancy squid-themed building and were greeted by a host.

    "Six o'clock reservation for two." Eddie said, his ears falling a bit as one hand went to grab his arm in self-consciousness.

"The name, sir?" The chimpanzee asked.

"N-Noodleman."

"Yes, a waiter will come seat you."

    Another chimp came over with menus. He looked at Buster and furrowed his brows. He recognized the koala and Buster, in turn, recognized him.

    "Let's see here, no lunch box or posters... Are you two actually eating here tonight or are you going to waste the staff's time again?" he harshly said.

Eddie was about to say something but Buster spoke first. "Yes, we are 'actually eating here tonight', good sir. If you want a good tip then please have us seated, if you would."

    Buster didn't like being rude but he knew when to defend himself when someone tried treating him unfairly. Eddie raised his brows at the smaller male's display of authority.

    The waiter sighed. "Right this way then, gentleman."

    They were seated next to a wall this time in the back corner of the restaurant. It was a booth seat which the both of them were grateful for. They sat across each other as usual and, once the chimp had set down their menus, they began browsing their options that they had seen before but never really acted upon. Buster looked up from his menu and saw Eddie had his head on one of his hands. Wonder what's got to him tonight. Buster tried to lighten the mood with small talk.

    "So, you see anything you like? Got a drink in mind?"

"Uh, not yet. I mean, I like cucumber water." Eddie said as he flipped the menu's pages.

"Cucumber water? We're out to eat at a fancy restaurant and that's what you what? I'd think more of a champagne type of evening..." Buster trailed off as he saw Eddie wince at the mention of champagne.

    Must not have that much money, he thought.

    "Well, I guess cucumber water is good. I'll get some 'strawberry infused sparkling water'. Gosh, why does everything have to be so long winded? Just tell me it's carbonated water with some fruit slices in it for God's sake."

    Buster noticed Eddie chuckle a bit behind his menu at his mini rant. Buster smiled at Eddie's reaction because he knew he at least was making whatever Eddie was worried about a lesser burden by distracting him this way. Buster went on another tangent about how the restaurant doesn't pay their squid entertainment enough while stifling their creativity and that's why most of the restaurant's employees went to his theater. Towards the end of it a waiter came with three kinds of breads and butter for them alongside an olive oil dip. They each tried the different combinations and chatted about the ones they liked and disliked. The same waiter who seated them came to the table. He got out a notepad and pen and asked them what they would like to drink.

    "The strawberry infused sparkling water for myself, thank you." Buster said cheerfully.

"Uh, just some cucumber water. Thanks." Eddie replied, the normal tone back in his voice.

The waiter jotted down the drinks. "Would you like an appetizer tonight?"

    Buster looked at Eddie for him to decide.

    The sheep looked back confused and shook his head before saying, "No, we should be good. The bread here is great anyway."

The chimp closed his book. "I'll get those drinks out right away, gentleman."

"Thank you!" Buster called after him.

    He heard a snort from across the table.

    "Surprised you didn't say 'merci'."

Buster laughed. "Well, I mean, someone told me to say otherwise."

"Glad you listened to them for once." Eddie chuckled.

    Buster gave a huff of a laugh and opened his menu to look through it. He kept Eddie's reaction to his champagne comment earlier in mind and kept to the cheaper options. Well, as cheap as they could be which was around $20 per meal at minimum. What was I expecting? Buster thought. Of course it's all so damn expensive; why the hell would it not be? Buster blew out some air and flipped some more pages. He came to their dinner salad section and browsed until he found something that looked good to eat. Although he was evolved from his ancestors, he still had a vegetarian diet that required some attention to else he would have a sick stomach. He decided on a berry and nut salad with hearty leaves and a choice of dressing. He also noticed it was a $35 dinner. I'll offer to pay for it. When he was going to tell Eddie his decision, the sheep spoke rather rushed.

    "Buster, uh, I-I'm going to go to the bathroom."

Buster was a little dumbfounded by his eagerness to go but just replied, "Uh, okay Eddie. Go ahead."

    Eddie just almost jumped out of his seat to go and had a worried look on his face. Buster almost chased after him but decided not to and that he probably needed a moment. So Buster just sat back into he booth with his fingers tapping on the menu. The waiter was back.

    "Have you both decided on your meals?"

Buster just looked to the bathroom doors. "Uh. no, we haven't. My companion is busy right now but should be back."

    The chimp shuffled off while Buster mumbled an apology.

    Meanwhile, Eddie was almost having a panic in the Bathroom stall. It was just him and a toilet and he felt like his chest was collapsing on him. The night had been leading up to this moment. From the moment he walked into that restaurant with Buster, as soon as he exited his car, he saw eyes on him and the smaller male. Eyes that were saying 'what a cute couple.' At first he tried ignoring it, tried enjoying his time with Buster. But as the night progressed, he couldn't help but notice the looks and the judgment and embarrassment he felt. While Buster had been flipping through the menu, he noticed so many things about the koala; the way his ears perked up and down while he read, the twitching of his nose, how he would flicker his tongue out when he was in thought, the furrow of his brows. Eddie had caught himself looking t the marsupial and couldn't help but find him in the slightest way charming like his Nana had said before. And that's when Eddie started to panic because he couldn't believe what he was thinking about his friend. That's right, Edward James Noodleman; friend! Eddie couldn't help the fact he was feeling this way. He was so conflicted about what this dinner was turning out to be. He partly blamed his grandmother for putting such thoughts into his head. He wouldn't be thinking this way if only she hadn't been so pressed on even putting the idea there. He groaned and leaned his back against the wall of the bathroom stall. He felt sick, he felt sick since Buster mentioned champagne. As is Eddie needed any more alcohol ruining his life. C'mon, you're being over dramatic. He just wants to have dinner with you! You never cared before having dinner with him this much before now have you? Eddie gave a sigh and gave in. You can do this, just finish the dinner and stop thinking about those cute little things he does. Like fixing his fur, fidgeting with his bow-tie, how he talks with a smile... He exited the stall and walked over to the silver, marble surfaced sinks. He splashed some water onto his face and dried it with a cloth which he emptied into the restaurant's wash bin. He jogged in place for a bit; a usual way of prepping himself with his life coach.

    "Okay, Eddie; you got this!" He spoke to himself in the mirror.

    He straightened his jacket and smoothed his pants before walking out the bathroom.

    Buster had his head in one hand while the other twirled a silver fork between his fingers. He had his ears in a dropped position while his body leaned over the table. Maybe it's something I did. I mean, I've been playing it quite safe tonight I feel... Buster heard someone approaching and figured it was the waiter again.when he was about to dismiss him, Eddie came into view again. Buster perked up and sat in his usual enthusiastic way.

    "Back I see." Buster said, happy Eddie was looking slightly better than before.

Eddie rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, just got lightheaded is all."

"Oh, I see. Anything I can do to help?" Buster offered.

Eddie shook his head. "Not much to be done in all honesty but I'm fine now."

    He gave a smile but Buster could tell it wasn't genuine. He didn't comment on it and just decided to let Eddie be. For the third time, the waiter showed up again.

    "Now, gentleman, do you know what you want to eat?" He seemed a little impatient and Buster couldn't blame him.

Buster made quick work of his order. "Yes, I'll take the 'Island Salad' with a cream-cheese base dressing. I do not want a side. Thank you."

The waiter scratched down what Buster said while asking Eddie, "And for you, sir?"

Eddie paused a moment before flipping to a page to say, "A vegetable garden burger, no pickle. Cheddar on that and a side of fresh greens. Thanks."

    They handed him their menus and he promptly strode off to put the orders in. Buster sat with his hands in each other atop the table with a smile while Eddie had his hands in his lap with a more anxious expression that he tried his best to conceal. Buster just awkwardly looked around the restaurant until he couldn't bear the silence between them. Buster sat up in his seat and scooted forward until he was on the edge. He placed his elbows on the table and was getting ready to talk with his hands as he usually does for emphasis. Eddie looked up when he noticed Buster's set tone.

    "Eddie, what's going on with you?"

Eddie sat up. "What do you mean?"

"You've been quiet all night, barely talking to me. Not one moment of a genuine smile or any kind of eye-contact. I just want to know; what is bothering you?" Buster was serious and placed his hands flat on the table.

Eddie could feel the back of his neck get hot. "Uh, nothing's wrong."

Buster was getting impatient with the answers that dodged any real conversation.

"Eddie, please talk to me. I know something's eating at you. You've been on edge all night-"

"Dude, I'm fine!" Eddie smacked a hoof against the table. He basically yelled the last part as he interrupted Buster. The restaurant fell quiet after Eddie's outburst. The sheep settled back into his seat, ears falling at his display. He watched as Buster hopped out of his seat and began heading for the entrance of the building. Eddie took a moment to collect himself before realizing Buster was walking away.

"Where're you going?" Eddie called after him.

    The koala didn't reply as he opened the front door and headed out. Eddie panicked and jumped from the booth and ran after Buster. When he came to the door, he was halted by the chimpanzee who had been serving them.

    "You think you're going to dine and dash? I'll have you know-"

"Shut the hell up, man!" Eddie was too frantic to deal with this right now. "Here!" He pushed the chimp aside and shoved $300 into his hands and bolted out the door.

    He looked left and right and saw Buster speed walking on the right sidewalk. He ran to the valet booth.

    "Where's my car? I need my car now!"

    The valet looked scared at Eddie's crazed state and hastily mumbled into his radio for a fellow employee to bring his car around. Eddie ran up to the vehicle and almost threw the man out of it. Again, he shoved a $100 bill into the guy's hand.

    "Thank guys!" He yelled to them as he sped off down the street to catch up to Buster.

    For short legs, man, that guy can walk fast, Eddie thought. But it was little to no time when he caught up to the marsupial.

    "Buster!" He called after him. "Buster, I'm sorry!"

    He pulled his car almost to the curb and, when he noticed that the koala had no intention of stopping, he slowly drove alongside him. Eddie drove a bit more, thinking about what he was going to say next, wondering why Buster had stormed out like he did.

    He decided on apologizing some more by saying, "Look, I'm sorry I embarrassed you like that. I was immature and I was letting my emotions get between having a good night with you!"

    Buster stopped walking and Eddie parked. The smaller male had his ears back which, to Eddie, was never a good sign.

    "It's not just about embarrassing me, Eddie! Like, where do you get talking to me like that? Huh? I was just trying to help you." He finished the last part of his sentence with a bit of a choke.

    He looked at the sheep and shook his head and continued his march down the street. At this point Eddie could understand why Buster was angry at him. He had been terrible company throughout the night and, rather than talk to Buster, just gave him the cold shoulder for no reason. After all, this is you making up for your fuck up, Eddie thought. His ears and face fell more. Because you couldn't just act normal. Because you couldn't be honest. You had to go and treat your best friend like shit because you couldn't handle the responsibility of your actions. You just hurt him more. And now he's walking away... Eddie put the car into park and sat there. He was ashamed. How could I do this to him? He put his arms across the steering wheel and buried his face into them. He doesn't deserve that, especially not from you. Not from your dumb-ass... He started to shake. More thoughts ran through his head. His mind became clouded with all the thoughts about how unfair he had been to Buster. About how he was a real shit for doing this to him. He didn't know what to do. Buster was long gone by now and Eddie didn't know where to begin with it all. He quickly became overwhelmed and felt helpless to it all. So he did the only thing he knew how to; he started to cry. He felt his face burn with each tear that fell down his snout. He made little noise but could feel the heat radiating in him and the amount of shaking his body was doing.

    At that moment, Eddie felt a small tap on his left shoulder. He peeked from over his arm to the side of his car. Buster was standing there with his hands fidgeting .

    "I, um..." Buster started.

    He rocked back and forth on his feet. Eddie just slumped into his own arms.

    Buster tried again.

    "Could I catch a ride home, Eddie?"

Eddie mumbled from his coat sleeve, "Sure."

    The koala walked around the car onto the other side and Eddie straightened himself. Buster took the passenger seat. Eddie miserably put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb. This time, the quiet ride home was definitely an uncomfortable silence. Buster and Eddie both had solemn looks and avoided any kind of eye contact or inclination of the other's company. Buster sat there with his head lowered, trying to make himself as small as possible. He was upset about the dinner and disappointed in himself that he let Eddie's outburst get to him. How he just walked out on him like that. But again, he also felt as though, no matter what, he had to maintain his own pride. This is all so confusing, Buster sighed as he thought. It started out kinda good, now here we are. Before he could delve deeper into thought, the car stopped and Buster realized they were at his theater. Eddie pulled to the side and parked the car, expectant Buster would leave.

    When the koala didn't, Eddie just said, "We're at your theater."

Buster sat there still and replied, "I know."

    The two sat uncomfortably. The thought of the night just going through their minds. Eddie started to speak when it became minutes of this silence.

    "Look, I really am sorry-"

Buster interjected. "No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have walked out. Shouldn't have even suggested this night-"

"But it's my fault it's like this!" Eddie looked at Buster.

"It's my fault for being a dick, I'm sorry. I really am. I wanted this night to be good and I, Buster, I am so sorry."

    Eddie couldn't help it anymore. He was too afraid to say what he wanted, about the fear of the kiss, about other people looking fondly at them, how he fondly looked at Buster. What Nana said, what he had said to Buster.

    So all Eddie could say was, "I'm sorry for everything." And he slumped into the car seat.

Buster's ears perked at his statement. "This whole night isn't your fault, Eddie." Buster turned to him. "It was just an off day."

"No, it wasn't." Eddie replied. "Me and my stupid self just couldn't deal with the guilt of it all. I'm so sorry. I should've just been honest with you. Buster, I'm sorry."

    Buster was perplexed. Is he talking about that night? Rather than ask, he tried driving Eddie to say it.

    "Eddie, what are you so sorry about? It was just a bad night tonight-"

"Not tonight, Buster!" Eddie sounded almost desperate as he looked to him. "I'm sorry I went after you. I'm sorry I basically assaulted you." Eddie gave a heavy sigh and looked towards the road. "I should've just apologized for kissing you, man. Yet, I decided to lie and try to make it up to you and ended up acting this way tonight. I'm really, really sorry I did that. I'm sorry I freaked you out."

    Buster was about to stop him but he kept talking. So listen Buster decided to do and let him finish.

    "Like, I didn't want to say it because I just wanted to forget about it. I wanted to have our friendship just continue like it was and have no issues. I didn't want you to think differently of me because I screwed up. But I guess I just made things worse by over thinking it all." Eddie leaned his chin on his arms crossed on the steering wheel.

    When he didn't speak, Buster decided Eddie was done with his speech. He reached a law over and touched Eddie's arm.

    "Hey. You know what? It's okay. I'm glad you told me, Eddie. Thank you." Buster said to him.

    Eddie still looked glum so Buster moved closer to him.

    "I-I don't think any less of you, Eddie. You're still the same person now as you were before. Although, I can't say nothing has changed..." Buster felt his stomach flip from the anxiety forming in his chest. Despite this, he pushed along. "I do think of you differently, but not in a bad way." Buster felt his voice give a slight shake.

Eddie looked over to him. He saw Buster fidgeting again.

He asked, "Differently how? How can you think of me not in a bad way?"

Buster swallowed before continuing. "Well, you see..." Don't stop. "When you kissed me, when you were saying all those lovely things to me, it made me think... Could you really be interested in me?"

"Buster, it's not like that-" Eddie started but Buster stopped him.

"And then I asked myself, 'could I really be interested in him?'"

    Buster got even closer to Eddie, now officially violating his personal space. Eddie opened his mouth, his eyes becoming wide at Buster' s remarks. Buster stood up on the seat so he was level with Eddie. Before Eddie could even muster a response, Buster leaned in close to his face. So much so the sheep could feel his heat and breath.

    The koala said, softly and carefully to him, despite his heart ready to beat out of his chest, "And I told myself, 'yes, I really am interested in him.'"

    Before Eddie could react, Buster took hold of his face. He caressed the side of him with the other hand and drew the sheep to him. Buster, despite the anxiety, the shaking, and worry, brought Eddie's face to him and kissed him. Buster, unlike the last time, reveled in how the other's mouth molded to his own. It was electric. Buster felt the adrenaline building up within in him like a sweet tingling sensation he couldn't control of he wanted to. He couldn't help but run the hand on Eddie's face down to on his jacket lapel and rest on his chest. Buster had closed his eyes, he wanted to feel nothing but the raw touch of the other man against him. He had thought about this, the fantasy of kissing Eddie again all throughout the day. However, the kiss had to end and so did the fantasy. Buster drew back from Eddie, his lidded eyes open again. He realized his hands on the other and drew them back as if it burned to touch him. He moved back, away from his object of desire. He looked at Eddie and saw that the sheep had raised eyebrows, open eyes and a half open mouth. Buster would've thought it cute to see the sheep in such a state but all he felt was fear. The both of them were breathing heavy. Eddie wasn't talking and Buster felt a panic begin to rise in him. Run, run away, Buster thought.

He was entering flight mode and was about to reach for the car door handle when Eddie said a surprised, "Um, okay." Eddie looked over Buster. "Okay, so that happened."

Buster tried catching his breath and replied lamely, "Yeah, that really did happen."

    He gave a nervous laugh to hide how scared he was of what Eddie would do. Eddie wasn't talking and Buster didn't want to either. Again, they were silent for another moment. Bust fidgeted some more. He decided to let Eddie decide on his own time what to do.

Not knowing what else to say, Buster managed to Eddie, "Well, uh, I'll see you around, Eddie. Goodnight." He felt a hot wash of shame go over his face as he talked.

    Buster turned and exited the car. He was thankful to have his back to Eddie so the larger mammal wouldn't be able to see his embarrassment mixed with disappointment at Eddie's reaction to his kiss. Was it not good? Am I not good enough?

    As Buster headed to the theater doors, Eddie said quietly to him, "Yeah... Night."

    Eddie watched as Buster unlocked the theater and headed inside. When the koala was out of sight, Eddie pulled away from the curb and drove home for the night. Both men were left with a sick feeling of uncertainty, confusion, and mainly a lingering sense of emptiness.

#noodlemoon #buster/eddie #sing #sing! #sing movie #sing movie 2016 #fanfiction #realationship #m/m #romance #drama #eddie is in denial #eddie noodleman #buster moon #part 5

[localrobosexual]

so how about The Last Knight huh

HECKO I totally forgot to make that post about what I thought about Transformers 5 after I watched it whOOPS

so here they are now!! :0 it’s kinda long though. Sorry about that. Unlike my post about GOTG Vol. 2 that one time, for this one I just kinda wrote down some erratic notes about thoughts and reactions I had as I watched the movie, and then I kinda summed up my opinion about it overall down at the end?? so yeah. That’s how this one is gonna play out lol. Generalized running commentary style.

(fair warning: this WILL contain spoilers!! Like I can’t,,, , talk about it without giving stuff away lmao. If you haven’t seen the movie, and still want to and plan on doing so, I don’t recommend you read this!)

alright u made it past the spoiler warning so here we go!!

-  Quintessa gave me a lot of G1 Unicron vibes with the whole "I made you, you are mine to command" thing

- "Why do we tell these stories, besides the fact that dragons are wicked" girl same lmao

- I literally cannot. CANNOT. Take Barricade seriously. With those ridiculous "punish" and “enslave” branded brass knuckles. Buddy. My dude. Please chill. You're literally trying to be so edgy man just. Turn it down a notch lmao - Optimus literally didn't sound at all like himself at first?? It sounded like he had a different voice actor for those first few lines he spoke?? That was weird. It wasn't until the second time he appeared on screen where Quintessa was telling him about where the staff was hid was I like "oh wait yeah there's Peter Cullen" - the "Cybertron is coming" shot looked sUPER fake and green screened to me for whatever reason?? like idk I think it was the lighting they had on him but it was reALLY FUNNY PFFFFTT

- Bee swinging his legs on top of that roof was sUPER CUTE THANK U IM BLESSED

- Mohawk. Um. Who thought turning Junkrat into a Transformer was a good idea bc that’s literally all this dude is lmao

- What kind of name is Nitro Zeus. Im cryin. PRETTY SURE HE HAS THE SAME VOICE ACTOR AS THE ONE TIGER ALIEN FROM BEN 10??? I DON’T REMEMBER HIS NAME BUT HE WAS THE ONE THAT ALWAYS WENT "LEMME TELL YOU SOMETHIN". WHY DOES HE HAVE SHOCKWAVE'S FACE. IM SO DONE

- I like how they had the whole holoform bike thing going on?? like how Prowl's was in TFA and Arcee’s was in TFP that was neato - I WILL NEVER GET USED TO HEARING BUMBLEBEE SWEAR I S2G but the Siri voice thing was pretty funny ngl. I saw that in a trailer on instagram and didn't actually think it was actually a real scene that they kept I thought it was just made for that specific ad but nOPE IT WAS REAL LMAO - Megatron musing over Starscream's decapitated head oh my god liSTEN MAN PUT HIM DOWN DONT BE LIKE THIS COME ON - HI CAN WE TALK ABOUT COGSMAN I LOVE COGMAN A LOT I LOVE HIM HE WAS REALLY GREAT EASILY A BIG FAVE HE WAS SO ENJOYABLE TO WATCH I love how,,, ok heck I don't know this guy very well bc I didn't watch Age of Extinction but it's the green dude with the trench coat built into him,,, Crosshairs?? I think it's Crosshairs yeah but the fact that he called him a C-3PO rip off was fUNNY MAN that also got a good laugh outta me and he totally rekt his heckin finger lmao. He was rlly short?? that surprised me kinda like from the trailers it looked like he was pretty average human sized but nope he’s super short - BEE'S DOUBLE CHEST POUND FINGER GUN "ayyy my dude" THING WAS ADORABLE THANK U - THEY ACTUALLY WENT THROUGH WITH THE WHOLE EARTH BEING UNICRON THING HOLY HECK now that,,, that was really interesting. Didn't expect that. AND the whole Nemesis Prime deal?? OP getting brainwashed?? THAT'S why he's heckin evil nO WONDER MAN GEEZ I didn't think OP would willingly do all that to the earth just because. That makes me feel a lot better actually lmao - Soundwave!! Shockwave!! u guys are famous!! wow way to go im so proud of u!!!! - Hot Rod tho,,,, , oh boy he was a mess lmao. I only really know Hot Rod through MTMTE and the 80s Transformers movie so,, , not too too much to go off of, but he just was so incredibly DIFFERENT and off-putting from what I was used to that I honestly didn't like him so much?? I mean he was alright. Grew on me a bit more as the movie went on I think. He was ok. That time warp weapon thing he had was cool tho!! nice!! seemed kinda overpowered a bit but cool!! - COGMAN SPINNING AROUND IN A CIRCLE WHILE HE WALKED THE DOG WAS ADORABLE THANK U - you know that movie trope where he background music will become like a song on the radio and then a character comes and switches it off?? YEAH THEY DID SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN THIS MOVIE WITH THE EPIC WORLD-CHANGING ORGAN MUSIC AND I JUST. COGMAN GOING HAM ON THAT ORGAN HAD ME CRYYYYYYYIIINNG HE WAS SO INTO IT MAN OH MY GO D. I LOVE COGMAN THANK U THAT’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE TROPES AND IT WAS HILARIOUS GOD BLESS - HE CAN SING OPERA TOO IM CRYYYYIINNNG MAN JUST. PLEASE LET HIM HYPE UP THE MOMENT HE'S DOING HIS BEST!!!! - THE TABLE WAS WRITTEN IN OLD CYBERTRONIAN yknow if you could get Cyclonus down there he could probs read that for you no problem. Or don't actually. Please don't drag him into Bayverse oh I s2g nevermind nevermind - HEY MAN I LOVED THAT ROBOT HYDRA WOO BOY THAT WAS COOL and it's like?? a Combiner?? but not really. Burton just said the twelve knights combined into the dragon but I doubt they can all unfuse from that form lmao it was probs just a one time thing. So not a Combiner. Still cool tho. Robot dragons. SICK!!!!!! - HEY they did the whole Unicron's a planet-eating god thing this time around too wow. Neat. Listen man all I'm saying is I glad I watched TFP and bits of G1 and that 80s movie bc if not I woulda had no idea why Unicron was important lmao. That was pretty neat tho!! Interesting. Interesting. - OK BUT COGMAN LAUGHING AND SINGING "MOVE B!TCH GET OUT THE WAY" WHILE DRIVING 200 MPH DOWN THE ROAD WAS HILARIOUS WHAT A BLESSING THANK U - Surprisingly Bee seemed to be ok in that open water??? Hanging on to the side of a submarine?? I mean. Salt water man. Buddy watch out ur gonna rust plEASE BE CAREFUL

- speaking of which didn’t they say there was gonna be a submarine transformer in this movie?? like didn’t they say that in interviews before the movie came out?? I mean. We never saw that. It might’ve been that the submarine WAS a transformer but it never spoke, never transformed, nothing. Didn’t give any indication that it was uniquely Cybertronian aside from Vivian’s magic touch thing. Idk. That wasn’t explained so I mean. Hmm.

- Cogman can make sushi!! dang!! wow!!! bravo!!! - OP'S HECKIN INTERDIMENSIONAL BOOB POCKET OH MY GO D dang wish I had one of those lmao - THAT FINAL FIGHT WITH OP AND BEE THO AAAAAAAA OH MY GO S H HECKO MAN!!!! OPTIMUS RIPS OFF BEE'S DOOR WINGS MAN!!! GEEZ!!!! what I wanna know is like since when did Bumblebee have a hammer lmao. Like,, , is it supposed to the the Forge of Solus Prime?? When did he get that?? How and why?? I don't know and it was never explained but I mean. Why tho. - OH MY GOD BUT BEE'S VOICE!! IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!! DANG!! WOW BUDDY!!! AAAA!! IM GLAD HE'S OK!!! and that's all it takes to snap Optimus outta his brainwashed phase lmao ok then. Cool. Wasn’t what I expected him to sound like either but then again I really don’t know what I expected in the first place lmao - I feel a LOT better knowing Optimus didn't willingly wanna destroy the earth like. He was brainwashed. And when he snapped outta it he felt absolutely awful about what he did. I mean it felt like that whole plot point was rushed, a lot of this movie felt very rushed, but it makes me feel better at least lmao. Optimus I'm sorry man can I,,, , give u a hug or something man it rlly looks like u need a hug - "YOU CHOSE THE WRONG SIDE" OOOOOH BOY FLASHBACKS TO THAT CAPTAIN AMERICA CIVIL WAR BIT IN PRI.ME(3) LMAOOOO - CADE. BUDDY. YOU CANT JUST BLOCK A SWORD LIKE THAT. THAT WAS A KILLING BLOW DEALT BY A GIANT ALIEN ROBOT I DONT CARE HOW SPECIAL THAT MEDALLION THINGY IS U CANT JUST DO THAT LMAOOOO. And then as soon as he whips that sword out the rest of the knights are like "oh wait yeah let's stop killing this guy we're chill now let's all point out swords together" lmaooooo - Crosshairs' "Love that guy. Goosebumps every time" line after Optimus gives his mandatory speech lmAO DUDE SAME - "You were by far the coolest" alright Cogman you ruined the moment a lil bit but man I still love u hecko - OK THIS IS GONNA SOUND REALLY STUPID BUT LISTEN MAN I'M GLAD THERE WAS,,,, , a lot of hand holding going on towards the end. Like fr. Cogman to dying Burton and Vivian and Cade as they were gonna jump outta that plane onto the Cybertronian tendril whatevers. Just. Small bits of physical reassurance and comfort in times of real great distress. I appreciate that a LOT more than like, watching two characters make out right before the big climactic final showdown lmao. Thank u movie wow I really didn't expect that - SO THERE WAS A COMBINER TEAM!! A COMBINER MINOTAUR!!! DANG NOT EVEN GONNA LIE THAT THING WAS NEATO!!! - Ok forget what I said about Hot Rod at the beginning he redeemed himself at the end. I didn't like him and first but now,, , now we chill. Granted I still can't see him as being HOT ROD bc he's just so different from what I know him as Rodimus but I can still appreciate him as his own character. Cool cool. - OPTIMUS RIDING THE ROBOT HYDRA INTO BATTLE AND BLOWING EVERYTHING UP WAS GREAT. MAN THAT WAS GOOD. "DID YOU FORGET WHO I AM" WOOOO BOY CHILLS MAN!!!! - OH COME ON they still made out. Lmao. Dangit. It was inevitable but I mean come on man. Alright. They kept it short and quick thank you tho if u had to put in a make out scene at least u kept it to a minimum. Thank you. Can we get back to the robots now pls. - AAAAA BUMBLEBEE'S "STING LIKE A BEE" LINE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA - that ending was pretty sudden lmao. A lot of this movie was sudden and fast. They just jump cut STRAIGHT to those credits man not even an ending panorama or clean slow zoom out shot or anything lmao - AND OH BOY THEY TEASED UNICRON’S GONNA ACTUALLY COME BACK AND APPEAR IN ANOTHER MOVIE AAAAAAA OH NO OH BOY NOT AGAIN GOSH DARN IT LMAO 

All in all, surprisingly, I actually ended up kinda enjoying it!! Like it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!! Tbh for me it might even be second best in the series!! (First being the first movie from 2008 lmao) Honestly I was really REALLY surprised at how much I didn't hate it. Like. I still dislike it to a degree because it's still Bayverse, and I probably won't watch it again unless I'm with friends (like I do with the rest of the transformers movies) but it honestly wasn't too too bad! It really exceeded my expectations as far as plot, and I wasn't hardcore cringing for most of the movie so hey that's a plus!! The movie had a lot of genuinely funny moments, especially with Cogman, which got some pretty good laughs outta me like I was really having fun at those parts!! Optimus’ absence for most of the movie didn’t sit well with me for some reason. Like it just felt strange. But it kinda had to be for the story to move forward so I guess I can forgive that lol. The pacing was REALLY whack and way too fast though. Like they were REALLY trying to cram a whole lotta stuff into a relatively short amount of time. The movie's almost two and a half hours long but it really didn't feel like that because of how fast the pacing was. Some of the dialogue felt really forced because of this issue too. It didn’t feel genuine sometimes. But that has to be like, pretty much my only specific issue with it?? surprisingly?? wow. I'm honestly super shocked lmao dang man I didn’t think I’d like this movie at all but I was very much proved wrong!! I hated those old ladies tho and their obsession to get Vivian a boyfriend and the whole innuendo thing. Yeah. No. Don't do that. Stop. I'm too ace for this. 

anyways yeah those were my thoughts sorry that was so long lmao whoops  

#transformers #bayverse #tf5 #transformers 5 #transformers the last knight #words of meg #long post