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celestial-specter · 4 months

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I haven’t seen it as much online these days, but when season one was still airing, I often saw criticism that the batch, other than perhaps Hunter and Omega, ‘lacked character depth.’

It was something I didn’t think too much about at the time, but now, on my final re-watch of the whole show before the final season begins (😭) I couldn’t disagree more.

Sure, as there is so much action and plot occurring during the series premiere Aftermath, there is not much screen-time remaining to dedicate towards the emotional depth of the characters.

However, I’m a huge fan of the ways writers can use unconventional methods to show audiences the traits and roles of characters; As the bad batch are soldiers in every sense of the word, I believe there is no better way to highlight their individual personalities and talents than to show it through their battle strategy.

So, if you’re like me and love both star wars and unnecessarily in-depth analysis, I present…

Aftermath’s battle simulation: How one scene reintroduces us to Clone Force 99, and possibly foreshadows later events in the series.

(Part 1)

Across all star wars projects, the empire is always presented from above (in the context of The Bad Batch, think of the broadcast of Palpatine shown to the clones earlier during Aftermath, Raven’s Peak towering over the cloud cover on Eriadu, and Mount Tantiss surging over the natural jungle on Weyland). During the battle simulation, Tarkin watches from the viewing platform above the training ground, suggesting this scene will illustrate how the batch will respond to the new power of the empire.

When the team first enter the training ground, Hunter is the only one without his helmet on - he is already more humanized than the rest of his brothers. Of all the team, Hunter is the one who looks most like a ‘regular’ clone, despite his obvious attempts otherwise. He understands the importance of humanizing himself and his brothers - when he tries to save Caleb on Kaller, he removes his helmet in an attempt to get through to him. In this scene, Hunter only puts on his helmet and regains his status as a soldier when it is clear that a battle is about to begin. Even this small action could be interpreted as showing that being a soldier is not what Hunter truly wants, whereas the rest of his brothers are satisfied to continue in the way of life they have always known.

Once the battle begins, Hunter gives his brothers no instructions besides ‘You know what to do.’ Even as their leader, he trusts his team enough to know that they will succeed without his direct intervention. Even without a clear approach in mind, they all fall into places without any preamble - showing that Hunter is correct in his assessment of the situation, and that his brothers know each other well enough to do so without guidance.

The positioning of each member at the beginning of the battle is also important- as they move to the barrier, Echo, Crosshair and Hunter go left, while Wrecker and Tech go right, as seen below.

These positions could be indicative of their current roles within the squad at its peak. For example, the split between the right and left side could represent their difference standards of morals. Hunter, Echo, and Crosshair have, at this point in the series, been shown to be the most complex and strong willed members of the team - it is clear what each one of them believes in, and each one of them is unafraid to speak up when something goes against their personal moral code. This this shown prior to this point during Aftermath, as most of the discussion over Order 66 is between this trio, while Wrecker and Tech seem to be simply going through the motions rather than challenging them.

This is not to say that Tech and Wrecker do not also each have strong personalities, but so far they are much more focused on their individual interests than the morality of their lives as soldiers and their prospective roles in the formation of the new empire.

In this formation, Hunter is caught in the middle of all of his brothers, a position he is often placed in during group shots throughout the series. In this scene however, he is closely drawn to Crosshair’s side. Hunter’s reaction to Omega has shown that he has complex feelings about children being on Kamino, likely an attitude he has formed due to his own upbringing on the planet. It can be assumed by CT numbers that Crosshair (CT-9904) is the youngest of the batch, explaining the close yet intense relationship shared between him and Hunter.

Echo is also on the left side, but remains on the outside of the group. This could be interpreted as Echo simply arriving late to the batch and their having to reform this battle strategy to include him, but I prefer to think of it as a way to highlight Echo’s continued isolation, even amongst his brothers.

The placement of Crosshair between Echo and Hunter is also interesting. Echo, who has always been very focused on rules and regulations, and Hunter, the leader of a squad who openly flaunt their ability to break them. This positioning could be indicative of Crosshair feeling torn between two places, and his emotional conflict due to the effects of the inhibitor chip.

Located on the right side, Wrecker and Tech are both much more placid and easygoing. They are both often involved in childish bickering (as is Crosshair), but these two are never typically involved in intense conflict as the others are. As shown by the batch’s first appearance in The Clone Wars, Wrecker can be quick to anger when his brothers are threatened, but is easily dissuaded from violence by Hunter. Meanwhile, Tech is attempting to stop the fight from occurring in the first place, and is seemingly averse to conflict unless he deems the situation to be inescapable without it (e.g. the cafeteria fight).

Wrecker and Hunter are technically next to one another, but there is a huge space between them. To me, this gap represents the difference in their personalities as a result of their upbringing. Wrecker truly symbolizes the more easygoing, often-childlike comedic character, while Hunter is burdened by his concerns and responsibilities for his family. The pair were shown to have a closer relationship during their arc in The Clone Wars, with Hunter joining in with the jokes and antics of his younger brothers, and assuring Wrecker that he will beat Crosshair’s kill count during their next mission. In this scene, the space between them could foreshadow the upcoming degradation of their relationship due to the rise of the empire.

Tech is also on the outside of the group, but on the complete opposite side to Echo. Interestingly, since their very first meeting, Tech and Echo have been shown to have quickly developed a close relationship, with Tech being the main clone (other than Rex) to liberate Echo from captivity. The pair being on opposite sides likely is due to their similar technical skillsets but opposing ways off approaching situations- Echo is shown to possess a great deal of tact and patience when it comes to other characters such as Omega, whereas Tech can come across as nonchalant and uncaring at times. These positions also highlight how these two are the most independent of the group, both of them having no issues in leaving to compete missions alone.

#the bad batch #the bad batch season 3 #star wars spoilers #star wars #star wars analysis #star wars the clone wars #tbb crosshair #tbb hunter #sw tbb #star wars tbb #tbb wrecker #tbb echo #tbb tech

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kimbureh · 3 months

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Rescue = Family

The new episode of TBB (S03E04) further develops the theme of "rescue means family". Since season 1, Hunter is occupied with rescuing Omega cuz she's family to him. Echo rescues regs cuz they are family to him. Rescuing someone means accepting them into your family; not rescuing someone means rejecting them from your family. The latter thing is what happened to Crosshair (kinda like in a messy breakup, where Hunter takes the kid cuz Crosshair is a neglectful parent, lol).

Crosshair is the lone wolf, lonely sniper type. He doesn't have a family because he hasn't mastered the art of rescuing someone. The series has established the connection of "rescuing someone means they're family" numerous times, and Crosshair has never managed to rescue anybody. He arguably tried in the season 1 finale by offering the squad a place with the Empire, but while this might have been a good offer in Crosshair's mind, it was ultimately toxic and bound to fail. Crosshair tries again to save someone on Barton-4 where Mayday dies in his arms after a long struggle; Crosshair was ready to form a bond, but external circumstances (aka the Empire) prevented that. The Empire, of course, has a vested interest in isolating its soldiers from each other; the brotherly bonds between the clones are a liability and are therefore replaced by conscripted recruits who don't share a familial connection. There can't be a family under the regime of the Empire, that's why Crosshair's attempts of rescue have to fail as long as he's with them.

In season 3, Crosshair no longer is with the Empire, and *finally* his rescue attempts aren't toxic anymore, he just complains about them all the time, haha. Healing kinda feels uncomfortable and Crosshair is very vocal about that discomfort, but he *is* on a path of learning how to bond. Omega and Crosshair rescue each other during their escape. And then Crosshair saves the dog in episode 4, the very same episode in which Crosshair is called a Dad. He is finally crossing the threshold of being toxic and isolated and steps towards becoming an actual parent/family member.

That's the analysis part, speculation ahead.

I think The Harbinger (title of episode 8) refers to Tech who is now with the Empire. If that was the case, Crosshair gets a chance to rescue him. If Tech is with the Empire, he represents Crosshair's former self. Crosshair would not only be able to rescue his teammate and affirm his family bonds with him, but he also metaphorically gets to save himself. Imperial Tech needs saving, just as Crosshair did when he was with the Empire and suffering from this decision. It would be a chance for Hunter to make things right with Crosshair via Tech and not again leave behind a family member with the Empire, even if they act toxic (or incomprehensible).

I expect the family/squad only to grow from here on out. I think Echo isn't in season 3 so far for a very good reason; he'll show up to rescue Tech (cuz that'll be a group effort), and once Tech is back, Echo's role is to expand the family even further by connecting the Bad Batch family with the Reg family. Since Echo is both, a Bad Batcher *and* a reg, he is in the unique position to unify the two branches of the family. I think that would be a rewarding high note with which to end the series; the Batch and the regs overcoming their differences and reuniting as the family they have always been.

[all of my TBB meta here]

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askdacast · 5 months

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Life Series SMP/Eyes and Ears AU Thematic Discussion + Theorycrafting (pt. 1)

WARNING: Extremely long post

Kachow what’s poppin fellas, I’m back at it again talking about boomer block Youtubers and their surprisingly in-depth improv series. Now that the Life Series’ 5th season has finally concluded, I’m back on the lore train and poor Scar is left to suffer the consequences, and Martyn’s concluded yet another lore stream, I decided to compile a long master post of lore notes and theories about what we have so far.

Obviously all the ‘lore’ of the Life Series is purely unofficial; Grian has not approved any of it as being actually official/set in stone for what he intended the series to be. Most of it has been us in the crazy fandom extrapolating their really good storytelling, and also “semi-canonized” by Martyn in what he calls the Eyes and Ears AU (and this post assumes you are familiar with it). As someone who’s been a fan since the beginning way back in 3rd Life, I’ve pretty much hopped on the lore train since the beginning as well (if casually) and enjoying all the different extrapolations/analysis/angst written around the players. Rather than just theorizing lore details in a vacuum, however, I’ve always liked imagining the lore based around the reoccurring themes, symbolism and arcs we’ve seen across the series. I’d been bouncing my various thoughts and theories around these themes for a while, and finally I decided to compile my notes together.

This post is basically my imagining what the Life Series/Eyes and Ears AU story is “about,” as if it were a fleshed-out, long-running and story-driven tv show. Initially this post started as simply a gigantic “Eyes and Ears Theory,” me trying to sus out my own theories/ideas of what the Life Series’ mysteries were based on Martyn’s lore. However, considering that Martyn is ALSO writing the lore on the fly, and I have some details I would interpret differently or change, this ended up less a ‘theory’ and more ‘me writing an entire AU/interpretation of the Life Series as a whole.’ My intention is NOT to ‘correct’ Martyn’s lore, nor to claim my theory as the ‘right’ interpretation; rather, this is my personal interpretation of what the Life Series story is about, based on information shown in the original SMP and in Martyn’s AU.

One last disclaimer: I am ONLY drawing on lore details from the Life Series, Martyn’s lore streams, and Minecraft EVO, and also references to the iRL creators. I am not drawing on any story from other SMPs such as Pirates or Empires; there may be some Hermitcraft references here and there.

This is going to be very long, and a multi-parter, because I can’t summarize to save my life. And I promise I’ll come up with a proper name for my series of posts another time. If you’ve stuck around to read, I thank you.

Part 1: The Overall Plot + Understanding the Watchers

Recap of official lore details

Although Martyn hasn’t given specific details on the Watcher + Listener species (he hasn’t come up with a name yet), we know the following details for sure (from EVO, lore streams etc.)

Watchers + Listeners + The Council are all deity-like beings of the same species, and they all consume human emotions

The Council are the upper ranks/possibly leaders, whereas the Watchers + Listeners are separate factions

The Watchers are at LEAST two high-ranking members of the species (the two dots being outcast from the wider circle, as is their logo)

The Watchers were behind Minecraft EVO, where they gave all the players tasks (much like Secret Life) and eventually ending in them fighting the Ender Dragon separately

While the Watchers may not have been evil in EVO, they certainly became so AFTER, when they began to crave more negative human emotions, viewing them as “tasty” (Martyn’s words), s p i c y

They first kidnapped Grian at the end of EVO season 1, turning him into a Watcher to possibly have him join their ranks, but he’s gone rogue after realizing what their plans for the Life Series were, and plans to rescue his friends from them

The Life Series was the Watchers’ ploy to trap the players in an infinite death game where they betray and cause each other pain, all to harvest their negative emotions. Grian, in defiance to this, takes control as the ‘game master’ to make the whole thing…well, a game, so that his friends can enjoy, have fun and ease their anguish. In Martyn’s words, this is like “pouring ketchup all over the Watchers’ sundae.”

The Listeners (EVO season 2) are an opposing faction to the Watchers who disagree with their methods, although why is unknown. They’ve attempted to contact some players (e.g. Jimmy) before back in EVO in order to oppose the Watchers, but it’s not known how successful they were. They’ve also tried to swap in players in the Life Series before (e.g. subbing Lizzie and Gem for Pearl and Cleo in Lim. Life) in order to sneak them in and try to subvert the game. The Watchers kidnapping Gem for Secret Life is partially in retaliation to the Listeners. The Listeners may not be good and may have nefarious intentions also, it is as yet still unknown.

There’s potentially a third faction, the Speakers, but very little is known about them and Martyn doesn’t want to elaborate on them yet.

Okay, but what are the Watchers even after?

"Accept your fate."

From here on out is my real conjecturing/theorizing. The main question on my mind has been why are the Watchers doing what they’re doing? Obviously Martyn has confirmed that they are malicious deities who find negative human emotions tasty, but this raises further questions. Why exactly do they desire such emotions, or need them to survive (if they do, anyway)? Why do they favour negativity, when the other members of their species consume a wide range of emotions? They were confirmed to be outcast in some way from the other factions for this ploy, so what does that say about them then?

The whole species fundamentally do not understand human emotions (or perhaps do not even possess them)

This seems to me the most logical conclusion. These are powerful deities who can create miniature worlds/dimensions, life, and time to an extent (death loop). They should theoretically be self-sufficient, so I doubt that their consumption of human emotion is for survivability reasons (i.e. I don’t think Watchers will literally die if they don’t consume emotions, the same way humans die without food). What seems more likely is that human emotions bring them some benefit to their intelligence or power that they’d otherwise be quite non-functional without. (Think like the demons in The Promised Neverland, who regress to feral natures/lack of sapience if they don’t eat humans)

The Watchers’ powers and their lab-rat experimentation on the players gives a huge vibe of not being able to understand human emotions in an involved way, but only from a distance. They know methodically things like murder and betrayal cause panic and anguish, so they enforce these experiences through the game, mechanics like the Boogeyman, the Secret Tasks etc. But they don’t really know internally why these emotions come about the way humans do. Being above time, they probably don’t understand why the funny small animals have so much attachment to their transitory experiences and memories (more on this later).

world's angriest pumpkin

The Watchers are Losers, Actually

Going further, don’t you think the Watchers have a very misanthropic mindset all around? “Anguish and panic are s p i c y.” They conversely have a complete disgust for positive emotions, and can’t stand Grian making things fun for everybody. It almost feels like they have the mindset that only things like hatred and fear are exciting, bringing motivation and life to the humans, whereas things like happiness and fun are ‘useless’ because they don’t bring about the same results. Let’s also not forget their name – Watchers – and that Martyn’s confirmed them to be symbolically based off us, the audience. It’s almost like a commentary of the worst of the entertainment industry, of an audience who crave watching anything and everything to satisfy their own desires, even at the expense of the privacy and safety of the entertainer. Given the current state of the internet and social media, I don’t think I need to elaborate how awful things can get.

In other words, I believe the main motivation the Watchers are eating humans emotions is because they WANT to understand and ‘take into themselves’ such emotions. I don’t think they’re totally emotionless – Martyn does portray them with moments of glee and anger. But their understanding of emotions is superficial (self-centered, if you will) at best. As deities with no needs, being above time, they have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to feel sad or anguished over. It’s a boring, dull and empty existence. And that’s precisely why they’ve set up the Life Series game: by kidnapping a few humans and putting them through the artificially constructed wringer of panic and betrayal, they think they can create a human farm of such rich, complex and exciting emotions, all for themselves to enjoy at their own pleasure and fill the void they have.

(Listeners’ side note: If all that is the philosophy of the Watchers, it’s probably not difficult to see how/why the Listeners oppose them. The Listeners likely disagree that negative emotions are the most optimal state of humans, and unlike the Watchers do not think human suffering is just tasty popcorn one can eat at one’s pleasure. Their name – Listeners – implies they’re a more sympathetic faction, as in they listen to one’s troubles and heart rather than take delight in suffering at a superficial level. But if they are the same species, it’s very likely they have the same lack of instinctive understanding of human emotions that the Watchers do, and this could cause…problems.)

Why turn Grian?

All this is also why I believe the Watchers kidnapped Grian + turned him into a Watcher in the first place. Firstly, if they were going to concoct their plan to trap humans, they needed a collaborator from the humans in the first place. Secondly, and most importantly, this collaborator was going to be their only direct source of how human emotions work/feel like, and therefore what were the most optimal conditions needed to ensure their death game would generate the most pain and anguish. They picked Grian because he’s always the ‘leader’ of the SMP players, the person gathering and organizing everyone, so logically, he is the most ‘representative’ of the humans, and the one with the greatest ability to control them.

Of course, it’s also true that Grian was a little $#@% throughout EVO and actively rebelled against the Watchers’ tasks, so making him their collaborator might seem strange. Ignoring the meta reason that the ending was written to explain Grian’s exit from the series. But I figured in this case, they considered the benefits more than the costs. Grian’s chaotic nature is not unlike the Watchers’, considering how much he loves causing pranks and trouble to others. So, as a huge oversight, they think Grian is just like them: he loves to see people suffer, so they think. Additionally, the Watchers are desperate to understand how Grian gets his fellow humans to follow him and do what he asks with little effort. You’ll notice the Watchers have very direct, authoritative ways of trying to wrest control (e.g. the tasks, “do this or you fail”), and they get very petty and upset when people rebel against them (re: Scott’s refusal to be the Boogeyman, their motto is a very demanding “OUR WILL BE DONE.”) They see Grian’s charisma as yet another aspect of human emotions they fail to understand and thus WANT to possess for themselves.

Pictured above: The Watchers, coping and seething

Of course as we know, the Watchers believing Grian would help them is a major oversight. Becoming a god doesn’t just fundamentally change who Grian is, and he definitely doesn’t want to consign his friends to an infinite death loop of suffering. That being said, I don’t think Grianhas truly gone ‘rogue’ so much as taken as much advantage as possible of his ‘deal’ with the Watchers. We can guess the Watchers promised to him some kind of control/leadership over his friends’ circumstances as long as he worked for them, which led to them giving him the keys to the Life Series. In other words, so long as he fulfils their requirements of things being a death game that will generate ‘food’ for them, and lets them revive everyone each loop, he gets to decide how the games go.

And we know exactly what Grian’s done with this: he created the green-yellow-red lives system, he creates a fun gimmick each season, he inserts himself into the game as a player, all to bring out the best and most creative side of his friends rather than the worst. The Boogeyman probably is the only gimmick the Watchers added on their own initiative (re: Martyn’s POV in Last Life) in order to make things more spicy. Probably Grian’s conversation with the Watchers each time goes, “hey, I got an idea on how to bring out the most creative ways for everyone to cause pain in each other, [comes up with some bullcrap justification for the game’s fun mechanics].” I like to think the Watchers were going to make the death games even more vicious, cruel and competitive, but because of Grian’s wrangling he’s convinced them that a slow burn from joy to horror creates better results, and they tolerate it as long as they see him useful.

Memories and Emotions

There is also one BIG detail of the Watchers’ plan I’d like to mention: Martyn claims that the Watchers do NOT erase the players’ memories. At the end of each season, they consume everyone’s emotions so that there’s no more angst/ill will towards each other, and they start each season afresh. The players remember what’s happened in past seasons, but they don’t continue to hold the pain and negative feelings they had towards each other.

I don’t buy this, for numerous reasons.

For one, Martyn has confirmed the Watchers ARE capable of removing people’s memories. The one memory they have outright altered was the ex-EVO players’ (Martyn, Jimmy, BigB etc.) memory of what happened to Grian: they don’t remember that Grian was taken to be turned into a Watcher, and instead remember it as him either going missing or dying after the Ender Dragon fight. All this presumably to not give away the Watchers’ schemes and to ensure they still listen to Grian as if nothing ever happened.

More importantly, however, memories are vital to humanity’s emotional experience and mental health. I am not an expert by any means, but there are studies showing how people with amnesia, PTSD or other conditions affecting memories have flashbacks/emotional reactions to trauma they don’t remember consciously. The Watchers have (supposedly) done something far more simplistic yet fantastic by just eating up everybody’s emotions. All this, even though they see humans as emotion factories, constantly able to generate emotions just by existing, by their ability to draw and create meaning through emotional experiences, and by creating memories – the clearest embodiment of a mortal’s attachment to time (which if you remember, I believe the Watchers have no concept of).

You cannot just tell a human to stop feelingcompletely (under normal circumstances anyway), but especially not if they remember something very very traumatic.

Besides, there ARE clear instances when some of the players remember the events of past seasons and are STILL not over them! Impulse and Tango still being bitter/distrustful after Bdubs betrayed each of them separately, Cleo distrusting BigB for the same reason, Scott referencing Flower Husbands a lot, Pearl feeling betrayed by Cleo/Scott when they supposedly broke up the Gaslight/Gatekeep/Girlboss trio at the start of DL, Bdubs’ “I wanna be your favorite son” in Secret Life, the list goes on. Note that I’ve only listed negative/bittersweet instances; there are plenty more cases of the players remembering past seasons and alliances positively which the Watchers may have ignored. The point is, if the Watchers truly consumed everyone’s emotions to the point of a clean slate, they haven’t exactly been thorough. Nor do I think it’s very conducive for them either – don’t they want players to have enduring, unending, unresolved pain, the sweetest of all (to them)?

No, I think the Watchers HAVE been erasing/suppressing the players’ memories – they’ve just been very selective which ones. Martyn’s said that the Watchers do not care what families or connections they separate so long as they get the people they want and the plans they want. I’m going to assume the players in my theory/the Eyes and Ears AU are exactly the same as their CC counterparts. In other words: they’ve stolen Grian away from his wife. They stole Martyn away from his and his daughter. Ditto with Skizz, Impulse, Tango etc. They stole Scar away from his family. Joel and Lizzie are the only couple they didn’t separate, perhaps because they needed both for their plans, and also so they can inflict the most torture on them by ripping them away from each other, over and over again. And in order to ensure the complete submissiveness of the players to the game, the Watchers have taken away their memories of their past lives, their families, basically anyone who isn’t a fellow player in the game. The Watchers don’t erase the memories of bonds between seasons, because it’s a pain to have to teach the humans how to play all over again, but they erase any memories they find disadvantageous to keeping the game running.

They might even go one step further: while they haven’t erased the players’ memories of who each other are (so as to not cause confusion), they do try to suppress important memories. Things like how they met, the times they confided in each other after a bad day, cried on each other’s shoulder, laughed in each other’s successes, the times they hung out with each other’s families. Imagine the different alliances constantly gravitating to each other, but never being able to remember why they care about each other so much. Imagine Bdubs’ “Come on, you know you and I go way back!” when trying to justify taking Cleo’s stuff, and Cleo laughs back, even though she can’t quite remember what exactly Bdubs has done to warrant that. Imagine Joel or Lizzie trying to remember why they loved each other so much.

They fight and kill some of their friends, and protect others, because…because why again? It’s for survival value, surely, so the Watchers whisper. It’s because the strong must congregate with the strong and leave the weak to die, surely. It’s because Martyn’s always been a loner, and always will be, and should remain so. So they tell him. So they whisper, this is a deathmatch for a reason.

Grian’s Fundamental Rebellion

I think all this is the real reason Grian is rebelling against the Watchers. The most immediate reason is obvious: he wants to free his friends from this death loop. But the deeper reason as to why he’s rebelled is that the Watchers are torturing and robbing his friends of their humanity. They’re taking a tight-knit group of friends who love and would do anything for each other, and turning them against each other in a cruel and unescapable death game. On TOP of this, the Watchers have constantly messed with their heads in order to make them obedient and submissive to their schemes and the worst of their human nature, trapping them in fear, pettiness and paranoia. Of course Grian is upset. Of course he wants to save them from this fate. It’s an insult to who he knows these people to be.

This all leaves Grian in a pretty precarious position. While outwardly the Watchers want to make him a lackey as the “game master”, both he and they know he really wants to save his friends (they probably see it as their ‘cattle’ showing a bit of resistance, which once again they need to suppress). And while on one hand he’s making the games fun to ease his friends’ pain and bring the best out of them, this is just a hotfix rather than a real solution. In order to really rescue the players, Grian’s got to get them to rebel against the Watchers as well. Refuse to play by the rules, by the expectation that they must murder and kill without mercy, without any attachment to their alliances or past friendships. Make everyone like Scott refusing to be the Boogeyman, or Skizz constantly trying to be wholesome (until the bloodlust gets the better of him anyway).

Ironically in order to achieve this, Grian’s best bet is to try to jog everyone’s lost memories of each other and the things they lost, both good and bad. But ultimately, this is going to make them (in the short term) suffer more. This is where you can insert all your Desert Duo/Flower Husband/whatever alliance you like most angst. But more practically, I like to imagine when “the cameras” are not watching, when Grian knows no one will notice or catch him, he sneaks around to the different alliances, even the ones he’s not part of, to ask them how they’re doing, if they remember anything from the past etc. (in a meta sense, the players edit and cut stuff from their videos all the time; who’s to say he isn’t trying to catch a quick chat while everyone’s mining?!) It also reflects in why Grian is constantly trying to make alliances with different people instead of just gravitate to one person, he needs to check on everyone and capitalize on every single opportunity. (besides the meta reason, being that cc!Grian wants to be creative, and sticking to the same person all the time isn’t very entertaining from a content creator perspective)

One last detail about the winners: I don’t have much to say about the fragments yet, because Martyn (sneaky boi) hasn’t yet revealed the significance of the fragments nor of their healing, although he has hinted Bad Things™ will happen if a player gets too fragmented. But I do think the winners are important: with the game finished, they give Grian a very short window of time to talk to one person directly, without Watcher interference. They’re always the last to be killed/swept away/revived by the Watchers, and I can imagine there’s a brief period of time when their souls are being transferred to The Void w/e where Grian can step in and interfere. In my theory, Grian passes on some sort of clue/push to the winners, as like a subtle message about what they can do to stand up to the Watchers. I’ll detail on what I think these individual messages were in part 2. Needless to say, 3rd Life was a traumatic experience for Grian for many reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the fact that he won, and therefore there was no way for him to pass a message onto anyone.

Conclusion

Hooooooo jeepers that was long @A@; Thank you so much for your patience reading this if you made it to the end, I really appreciate it. As I said, I’ve had these lore ideas bouncing in my head for a LONG time, and with the end of Secret Life I couldn’t get out of my head the different trends/symbolism that was popping out of an improv series. It honestly speaks a lot to how genius our favorite block dudes are at improv, that they can turn their improv nonsense into a coherent narrative. I really wanted to try my hand at fleshing out such a narrative, and with Martyn constantly drip-feeding lore to the fans, I had more than enough material to not just put out guesses but construct something a full XYZ. As I mentioned, I enjoy workshopping themes and characters a LOT more than just worldbuilding or “what if this or that” details in a vacuum, hence why I’ve written all that I have, so this was a fun exercise for me all around!

Next time in part 2 I talk about Character Development™, or character specific notes and details I’ve noticed and extrapolated from what we’ve seen of each individual player, as well as what their different arcs across the seasons mean for them within the lore. Stay tuned for another wordbarf!

Bonus list of works I was inspired by for this loredump:

Log Horizon

The Promised Neverland

Danganronpa (ironic as I’m not really a fan of this franchise, but the first game has an otherwise solid premise which I found really similar to the Life Series)

The Fate franchise (when Martyn asked “what’s Fate?” on the latest lore stream, let me tell you I couldn’t stop laughing; NO MARTYN DON’T GO INTO THE WEEB RABBIT HOLE)

Various amazing animatics from the Traffic fandom: Earth, Bang!, most of Melloz Heist’s works, and of course all the amazing fanart

Way too many conversations with my friends about fantasy species

#what have I done #trafficblr #traffic life #traffic smp #life series smp #life series #eyesandears #eyes and ears theory #inthelittlewood #thematic discussion #theorycrafting #3rd life smp #last life smp #double life smp #limited life smp #secret life smp #long post

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megabuild · 1 year

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oh okay so pixlriffs empires season 1 is an allegory for complex ptsd and dissociation from past trauma and having to reckon with being a functioning person in society and relationships with others despite that while also looking at how grief can be so large it feels impossible to bear and serving as a metacommentary on storytelling in mcrp and their often unsatisfactory nature while pixlriffs empires season 2 is a partial allegory for depression and dissociation from ongoing trauma but largely serves as a metacommentary on mcrp not just from the perspective of a creator but from the collaborators they work with and also the fans and the different worlds and perspectives they all have on one single character or storyline and the impossible notion of one singular canon or correct interpretation despite people constantly latching onto and striving for that and its own comparisons to real life not just in analysis of history but also in other people and how we treat one another. and also he looks like this

#pixlriffs #empires smp #mine #rare empires maintag because i feel like im goinfg crazy #actually iforgot that people might not agree with me on the s1 part but its alright. Thats the point after all

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salemoleander · 6 months

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I think what you osserved about Cleo and Lizzie is a result of many factors.

Gender is of course one and a major one at that but it cannot be the only one as both Pearl and Gem have much more fandom characterization. Pearls characterisation especially can be attribuited almost entirely to Double Life.

There is also the factor there are a lot less females then males in the mcyt scene and that has always been a problem. But this means that there will always be way more discussion over man because there are so much more.

We should also consider that Lizzie did have a lot of characterisation back in the Empires s1 days that has been swept under the rug as she became inactive for long periods of time, she had a characterisation but this characterisation didn't even apply to the life series because she was never in it like the others, she missed 3rd life, Double life and Limited life which definitely didn't do her any favours. Mumbos characterization on the other hand still existed because he was much more active and when he was in hiatus his fellow Hermits kept reminding us about him... But Lizzie kinda dips for a while and then comes back and is never really mentioned.

Cleo always had the problem of being simplified as either chaotic arsonist, doting mother figure or talented artigian with dark humor... It's been since the 2020 that I have seen people discussing about her characterisation being basically cut down to one of these 3 personality instead of actually giving her actual personality. This was because newbies at characterization back in season 6 usually put either her or Stress as the nurturing mom friend in fanfiction who then other newbies took as inspiration and it kinda stuck around in a loop.

In a way one would need to analyze this problem at the olden days of minecraft content but then we would be here for days.

Putting most of my response under a cut because it got LONG.

To start, I will point out that "this is the result of many factors" and "in a way you'd need to analyze the origins of this, but we don't have time for that" are extremely common & toothless reasons to derail talking about misogyny (or any other -ism).

I do not think you are intentionally replicating that, but anytime an immediate response is "well it's not really ____-ism, and it's so complicated we could never hope to unpack it," that maybe isn't a useful addition to the discussion.

"[Gender] cannot be the only [factor] as both Pearl and Gem have much more fandom characterization"

I agree that gender is not the only factor, but I think going "well SOME women aren't as affected by misogyny so clearly it can't just be misogyny" is inaccurate. Also, if you look at Pearl and Gem's characterization - Gem is pigeonholed to a very particular type of cutesy fighting-princess role, akin to many YA protagonists of late.

Pearl does have more complex characterization from specifically Double Life, but the majority of analysis & attention only started going to Pearl after she won. As DL was airing, much more attention was paid to Desert Duo Redux and Team Rancher and Impdubs etc. I also think the fandom has taken to holding up Pearl as a token and going 'but look, we can write women! Look how many emotions she has. She's sad and likes murder and dogs."

I agree, it has been a problem forever (I've been watching MCYT since 2012. I watched Cleo & then False join HC. Believe Me, I Know.) But you'll notice my critique wasn't [All Life Series Dudes] are talked about more than [The Much Smaller Number of Life Series Women]. My critique in my post was 'if Lizzie's death happened to a man I would see more posts about that other hypothetical person" - comparing 1 person to 1 person.

We should also consider that Lizzie did have a lot of characterisation back in the Empires s1 days that has been swept under the rug as she became inactive for long periods of time, she had a characterisation but this characterisation didn't even apply to the life series because she was never in it like the others, she missed 3rd life, Double life and Limited life which definitely didn't do her any favours. Mumbos characterization on the other hand still existed because he was much more active and when he was in hiatus his fellow Hermits kept reminding us about him… But Lizzie kinda dips for a while and then comes back and is never really mentioned.

So this paragraph is definitely where you lost me. Your point seems to be 'Lizzie had characterization in S1 of Empires, and we're forced to borrow it because she's so inactive since then, there's nothing to pull from'. Allow me to share a screenshot of her series playlists here.

Let's leave aside the question of why people would pull from Empires S1 characterization when Last Life happened in the middle of it, and would evidently be a more logical place to pull from for Life Series characterization.

She had a whole Afterlife series, and she wasn't inactive after that! She had only 6 fewer episodes in S2 of Empires than in S1. It is patently ridiculous to claim that Lizzie is just so inactive and absent her Empires S1 characterization is necessary to fall back on, when Mumbo has better characterization despite vanishing for an entire calendar year to go biking. That is sexism.

Cleo always had the problem of being simplified as either chaotic arsonist, doting mother figure or talented artigian with dark humor… It's been since the 2020 that I have seen people discussing about her characterisation being basically cut down to one of these 3 personality instead of actually giving her actual personality. This was because newbies at characterization back in season 6 usually put either her or Stress as the nurturing mom friend in fanfiction who then other newbies took as inspiration and it kinda stuck around in a loop.

I'm glad you agree it's a problem! I can definitely see how that problem originated, but I've seen new fandom members for the Life Series - who don't watch HC or read HC fic- duplicate the same problems. I think at some point it's less a fandom-specific issue than a replication of the social division of women into Virgin, Whore, Bitch, or Mother categories, with no ability to imagine women complexly outside of those boxes or continuums.

This fandom seems to think moving the women in and out of the 'Bitch' box is the same as complex characterization*, and we've all just kind of gone 'okay' because the other option is nothing about any women at all. But we can and must do better, because I have to believe we're capable of writing and paying fandom attention to women as people.

*This is where DL Pearl generally falls to me, and why I am dubious of claims that she's well characterized. I think much of the fandom equates cruelty or sadness with good writing/interesting characters. But she's still fundamentally defined by the questions "How nice or mean are you? Are you in a relationship or alone?"

#salem tag #fandom criticism #life series #slsmp #secret life #lizzie #cleo #salem meta #I was trying to stay open minded by you absolutely lost me at the lizzie is inactive so we have to make her a sister bit

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stellanslashgeode · 1 month

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I'm happily educating myself on all things Barriss via your wonderful blog. If you'd ever feel like unpacking more of your Wrong Jedi thoughts/intrigue, I'd love to hear more of your analysis.

Oh my, you've put a quarter in the machine now you have to hear the whole song.

The arc is very divisive with Barriss enjoyers because her character veers so far from her Legends depiction. She was a pretty prominent character in the original Clone Wars multimedia project and was a caring and selfless healer. And the arc doesn't do much to explain her motivations for turning.

Another thing that vexes me is because it is essentially a police procedural (they even hired a writer from Third Watch for this arc) so much occurs off-screen. So, we do not know quite what happened but have to infer.

Let's start with motivation. In her very few post The Wrong Jedi appearances they've tried to hint at Barriss falling mainly though post-traumatic stress disorder. And that's sort of a good explanation? She was at Geonsis at the start of the war, and was one of two Padawans we know of IN the arena who lived and the other was Anakin! You have to think this is a healer, someone who was trained to be a pacifist, and the battle was so sudden and frantic that she had to witness other Padawans she knew in the creche die all around her and she was too busy defending herself to do anything. So that's trauma and guilt. The short story A Jedi's Duty shows that she sat out nearly the entire first year of the war healing others back at the temple, explaining why she wasn't there to deal with Asajj Ventress with Luminara in TCW season 1. Also, she is having trouble sleeping because of memories of that first battle. She asked for help but they told her to meditate if she couldn't sleep, but she couldn't meditate properly because of this haze of the dark side invading her perceptions. She's even having trouble Force healing and she feels guilty that others are taking risks that she is unwilling to take. She consults with an old friend, Tutso Mara and is finally able to meditate, but right then Luminara calls her to a briefing, and wouldn't you know it, they're going to Geonosis again. She is frightened but memorizes the tunnel formations under the weapons factory they need to destroy because that's her duty to the Light and to her Order. The last scene is her joining Luminara and Gree to depart for the battle. And it's such an ironic story because Master Mara is one of her later victims and the place she bombs is right there in the temple hangar where the story ends. I think that's why she chose it as her target, it was the place she went from safety to chaos.

And what happens next? She almost is buried alive Right Away, then as she's reeling from that she gets a Geonocian brain worm. She was also at the Battle of Umbara, and you know how that goes. So I guess trauma is a fairly good reason, as well as her love and admiration of Jedi ethics and pedagogy that just went right out the window when the Jedi had to do what it took to fight in this war. Barriss is a bookworm, all that heritage meant something to her. And really, that was the purpose of the war, to isolate the Jedi by having them betray their morals and sully their reputation with the public.

Fanfiction writers also can pick and choose from Legends, such as all the crazy stuff that happened to her on Drongar but that's a story for another day.

So we get to the Wrong Jedi Arc itself. We aren't shown how she meets Letta Turmond, how much of a partnership that was. Letta says Barriss was the mastermind of the operation but that's after she's jailed. I don't trust her. I mean, Letta is a grown woman and while Barriss was an idealistic and heartsick Jedi at that point she's just 17-18 according to Feloni. I can see it as a situation where a teenager gets politically radicalized and taken advantage by a woman she trusts. If we get a Letta flashback in Tales of the Empire I will be so happy!

Ahsoka is framed. But there's a multi-step aspect to it. Part A, Letta calls Ahsoka to the prison because she was told she was the only Jedi her collaborator trusted and gets Force choked by someone we do not see. Part B, after she is arrested someone leaves a key card outside her cell and she follows a trail of first injured then dead clones to make it look like she broke out and went on a killing spree. Part C is the only one we actually see start to finish, where Ahsoka contacts Barriss and she lures her to the factory that made the nano-droids.

Barriss is guilty of Part C. But did she do Part A and B? She was at the funeral with Ahsoka and heard same time as her that she was transferred to a military compound. Then in the maybe hour, two hours Ahsoka was in a mission briefing Barriss supposedly broke into a brand-new high security compound, got in the walls, and strangled Letta as Ahsoka was in the cell alone with her. Then Part B, she hung around undetected for a few more hours to set up the escape while also erasing the audio off the recording of the murder.

I personally think Palpatine MIGHT have done part A. He has much greater access and he has the motive (to take away a pillar of stability for Anakin). If Barriss did do Part A, what was the motivation? The most pessimistic reading is she did it to save her own skin and purposely framed Ahsoka. Another is that Barriss genuinely talked up Ahsoka to Letta, and did NOT do so to set her up but because she was one of the lonely girl's only friends (and maybe love interest) and then Letta goes ahead and calls her there, Barriss is in the walls, and she just cannot have Ahsoka's opinion of her ruined. She killed Letta to silence her from tainting this one friendship she had left, did so out of panic, and wasn't thinking of the consequences. Then Part B, oh no I got my girlfriend framed for murder. So she springs her out. So why does she kill those clones to further frame her?

Consider the conversation after the funeral, "Ahsoka, do you think it is right for us to ignore our emotions?" I think the subtext there was "Ahsoka, I'm hurting so much, join me to stop me." She was feeling her out to see if she felt the same about the war as she did. And she did Part B to see if Ahsoka would run, SO THEY COULD RUN AWAY TOGETHER. Sure, it's manipulative as all Hell, but that's the dark side for you. It was a test, and Ahsoka failed because as soon as she gets out, she calls Barriss to help clear her name. So that she could get back to the war. The war Barriss hates with all her being. So that's why she did Part C. She had been alienated by the Order and her own master by all these deployments and the one person left who she valued was buying into the propaganda that the Jedi needed to finish this war. It broke her. And she did something awful.

All and all I think her fall is fascinating because it wasn't for personal power or attachments, she wanted to sacrifice her own grace to save the souls of all other Jedi. She did it out of love for the Order, even if it came in such a twisted and destructive form. That's also why she'd become a lousy Inquisitor. They're the anthesis of all she stood for, an army fighting for the dark side.

I know a lot of fans hate this arc but... man that speech! I spent the whole Prequel trilogy and TCW waiting for a Jedi to stand up and say "What we are doing is wrong, we should stop." Yoda and Mace know their path is leading to the dark, but they see no other way but through. I just wanted someone to say no with their whole chest. And it was Barriss. That's why I love her, your honor. I admire the idealists, her and Satine. They should have teamed up and put a stop too all that nonsense.

Sorry this is so long? I have a lot of FEELINGS and now you can see why I have a lot of trepidation about this Saturday. You know, I thought of you last night when I was rewatching Tales of the Jedi. It was the scene were Dooku was leaving to meet Palpatine with Yaddle following in The Sith Lord. I was imagining how you felt watching that for the first time, and I remembered my reaction was "Oh no, it's the temple hangar! Barriss is going to blow the shit out of this place in a decade and change!"

#barriss offee #the wrong jedi #tales of the empire #barriss and staine could have hooped

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laughhardrunfastbekindsblog · 1 month

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A question of loyalty: an analysis of two perspectives in season 1

The past few years, I have loved rewatching season 1 with the context of the finale, because it has been so interesting to really see things from Crosshair's perspective.

Our first hint that maybe Crosshair's motives aren't what we first thought:

Hunter's (and our) perspectives on the issue are further challenged:

And then we reach the ultimate accusation:

So, let's take a look at both sides.

POINT #1: "Crosshair was the one who kept attacking the squad! How could he POSSIBLY accuse the squad of betraying him??"

COUNTERPOINT: Because from his perspective, they had. We as the audience know the whole plan was for the squad to get Crosshair back after they escaped the brig on Kamino - in fact, Hunter was prepping to go back for Crosshair at the same time Crosshair was coming for them - but Crosshair doesn't know that. He had been arguing with his squad ever since Order 66, trying to get them to understand how important it was for them to follow orders, and they had yet another disagreement right before he was singled out. His inhibitor chip gets intensified, he gets sent after his brothers (as if Tarkin needed to do anything else to thoroughly disgust me...), and he finds them in the hangar prepping the Marauder to leave. (Just to reiterate: from Crosshair's perspective, he had recently been arguing with his brothers, and now he finds them readying to leave.) Hunter never tells him that they were coming back for him; instead, they engage in some back-and-forth about surrendering and following orders before the shooting begins.

Having left him on that note, it would be all too easy for Crosshair to work himself up over the perceived abandonment - especially if he started feeling any sort of regret over his actions toward his squad (finding a way to blame the other party is, after all, a common defense mechanism).

And every time they cross paths thereafter, instead of his brothers apologizing or listening or trying to come with him, they keep running away from him after arguing with him about how he's being controlled and forced to obey orders. I can't help but imagine that any mention of "programming" only served to stoke Crosshair's ornery side: he and his squad are "superior," after all; he can't be controlled, he is being a good soldier and following orders because HE chose to, not because of some stupid chip. (Cue Crosshair claiming it "doesn't matter" when he got his chip removed: his ideology remains the same, thank you very much.)

And so, from Crosshair's standpoint: his brothers abandoned him, they won't even talk to him except to try to convince him he's wrong about everything, and they're ruining any chance they have of finding "purpose" by remaining soldiers and serving the Empire.

POINT #2: "Hunter and the others didn't try hard enough to get Crosshair back - actually, they didn't try at all."

COUNTERPOINT: I think we overestimate just how much time passed between the Batch escaping Kamino and the events on Bracca (unless the squad was just hanging around in open space for weeks at a time, which I doubt). Consider how quickly events occur in the first eight episodes:

The squad narrowly escapes Kamino

They try to lay low at Cut and Suu's, but that lasts maybe two days before they are on the run again

The Marauder crashes

It's necessary to find a way to scramble the ship's signature, so they have to make a quick landing on Pantora

Enter Fennec

Well, now they have to find out why a bounty hunter is after Omega

Enter Cid

Cid pretty much immediately starts blackmailing them

They have to do another job for Cid - we don't know exactly how much time passed, but Cid doesn't seem to be one to wait to order the Bad Batch around, especially as this next job reasserts her claim on them.

Rex reappears - we don't know exactly how much time passed here, either, but I would guess Rex sought them out as soon as he was tipped off about them.

(Lest anyone think Tech must have just given up on the chip scanner after the Marauder crashed, remember that he needed comparative data in order to properly use the scanner. I can only imagine how much it must have eaten at Tech to not have any way of finding a source with the necessary data to complete the scanner - especially considering everything else going on - until Rex miraculously showed up.)

So, until reuniting on Bracca, there is precious little time or opportunity for the squad to formulate a plan to get Crosshair back... And then Bracca happens. Here, they are confronted by Crosshair, who responds to genuine pleas to reconsider his stance by hitting them where it hurts: "Aim for the kid." Crosshair then sets things up to literally incinerate them, and they barely make it out alive before being attacked by Cad Bane.

Now, they had seen what the chip had done to Wrecker, true; but Wrecker had previously acknowledged that he understood the chip existed and was willing to have it removed, AND it was squad+Rex against Wrecker (and even then they barely managed to subdue him). Crosshair refused to acknowledge even the possibility of a chip influencing his actions, obviously wasn't willing to have it removed at that point, had never shown any inclination of wanting to rejoin them, and squad+Rex against Crosshair+vast Imperial resources would have been suicide - ESPECIALLY since Crosshair proves time and again that he can predict their moves. There's no way around that.

So what does the squad decide to do? They run. They can't take Crosshair with them, but they aren't going to try to kill him either.

Crosshair remains too well protected for the squad to go after him, but we can see on Hunter's face as the squad leaves Ryloth after peripherally tangling with Crosshair that the situation REALLY doesn't sit well with Hunter.

And yet... WHAT ELSE CAN THEY DO?

So, from Hunter+squad's perspective: as far as they are aware, Crosshair is refusing all offers of help, and trying to go after Crosshair would be suicide. Crosshair can't be rescued if the squad is all dead.

An impasse, then.

ANOTHER FACTOR TO CONSIDER:

But the accusation of disloyalty goes far beyond Crosshair believing the squad left him behind; he sees disloyalty in the fact that they apparently don't share the same views. It's not just a conversation about why/how Crosshair was left behind; it's also an argument over ideology, as Hunter tries to point out the Empire's flaws while Crosshair is determined to remain a soldier with the one purpose he has always known.

And then we reach the climactic revelation: Hunter is trying to convince Crosshair that maybe his views are being controlled by the chip - only for Crosshair to tell Hunter he already knows about it and the chip is gone, AND he won't even tell Hunter when it happened. We can make educated guesses as to when Crosshair's chip was removed, but Hunter has been spending all this time trying to keep everyone else on the squad safe from a fellow brother who is being controlled by an inhibitor chip... only to find out that maybe Crosshair was acting of his own volition for who knows how long. This, I believe, is the point where Hunter started to consider Crosshair as having actually betrayed the Batch.

And no matter when the chip was removed, Crosshair is still convinced that the Empire is the right side, and believes that anyone who won't join the Empire is against him.

So, before the confrontation on Kamino: Crosshair is convinced the squad has abandoned him. Hunter and the squad can't feasibly do anything about it.

During the confrontation on Kamino, we learn that unless the squad is willing to join Crosshair and the Empire, he's going to continue to believe they have disowned him. And the squad will not join the Empire, much as they love Crosshair.

CONCLUSION: Crosshair's and Hunter's perspectives are both equally valid, especially based on what they know and later learn of the other's stance. Hunter rightly points out that wanting different things doesn't mean they have to be enemies; but as long as the rest of the squad members aren't willing to support tyranny enforce order, Crosshair will consider them disloyal to him, since they are opposed to the views he stands by, the views that - at that moment - define him. It will take other perspectives, outside the squad, to shift Crosshair's views (but that's the topic of another essay 😉). In the meantime, having finally had the chance to hear the other's side - even if they don't agree - Crosshair and the Bad Batch separate on at least marginally civil - if strained - terms... Though both still consider the other to be guilty of betraying the ideals of Clone Force 99.

#the bad batch #tbb #star wars #star wars the bad batch #clone force 99 #this is longer than i intended it to be #sorry not sorry #from a certain point of view #tbb hunter #tbb crosshair #tbb analysis #just passing the time until the series finale #by (over)analyzing certain topics #still rooting for a full reunion #i love them all so much

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astoundingbeyondbelief · 3 months

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Kaiju Week in Review (March 3-9, 2024)

Shin Ultraman took an eternity to reach home video, but Godzilla Minus One will proceed as a more reasonable pace (by Japanese standards). Toho will release roughly one billion different editions on May 1, with Amazon- and Godzilla Store-exclusive physical bonuses both on offer. Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color is included with some of the pricier versions, or you can buy it as a standalone Blu-ray or DVD.

The black-and-white version of Shin Godzilla, SHIN GODZILLA:ORTHOchromatic, also hits Japanese home video on May 1. Like Minus Color, no 4K edition, just Blu-ray and DVD. A handful of new bonus features about ORTHOchromatic are included.

As is standard for Toho, none of these releases will be English-friendly. But given the films' popularity (and the lack of any legal way to watch Minus One since it left theaters), expect bootlegs to circulate at light speed.

Unsurprisingly, Godzilla Minus One cleaned up at the Japanese Academy Awards, with eight victories out of eleven nominations: Picture of the Year, Best Supporting Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Art Direction, and Best Lighting. That's one more than Shin Godzilla, and pretty much guarantees that the Toho Godzilla series will keep the prestige pictures coming. Strange times!

We'll see if Minus One can also capture Best Visual Effects at the American Academy Awards tonight. The Creator remains its biggest competition. The Gareth Edwards film is better-positioned by the usual metrics, with a second nomination for Best Sound and five wins at the Visual Effects Society Awards, but the enthusiasm gap for the films themselves may prove decisive. I'll be doing a much lengthier analysis during Wikizilla's Oscar stream tonight, which will start at about 6:00 PM ET, an hour before the ceremony begins.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire tickets may not be on sale yet, but Cinemark theaters have rolled out the above merch (much more efficiently than Target and Walmart have rolled out the toyline, if my local theater's any indication). I have a suspicion those plushies will be worth a mint a few years from now, small as they are; don't know about the other stuff. I bought the larger popcorn tin when I saw Dune: Part Two on Thursday. The promo image is deceptive, as the green area is transparent plastic and the Titan image is on the opposite wall of the tin, so that popcorn's either defying gravity or being held up by a hidden insert. There are Kong and Skar King variants as well, the latter revealing his height (318 feet). Poor Shimo; being the "secret" villain really narrows the amount of merch you get.

The other interesting GxK news this week (apart from the endless TV spot variants, which I'm not even trying to keep track of) is a collaboration with the American Red Cross, of all institutions. Donate blood, platelets, or AB Elite plasma from March 25 to April 7, get a free T-shirt. And for completion's sake, I'll mention the Roblox and Call of Duty cross-promos too.

Chibi Godzilla Raids Again, an unexpected delight last year, is getting a second season starting April 3. The official site revealed that Minilla is joining the cast, while those silhouettes to his right look like Titanosaurus (unjustly neglected in recent years), Gigan, and Gabara. Expect to follow the first season in being uploaded to the GODZILLA OFFICIAL by TOHO YouTube channel with English subtitles.

youtube

Here's another chance to watch Tsuburaya and Toei Animation's Kaiju Decode short, originally released in 2021. (It goes away at the end of the month, because every Japanese studio is apparently hellbent on making short films ephemeral, so download it now.) It's the basis for a recent mixed reality game for the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest Pro, hence its return to the spotlight.

UniVersus, a collectable card game predicated on pitting characters from various franchises against each other, is going all in on Godzilla after offering a couple of Minus One cards through highly convoluted means last year. They're releasing a couple of Godzilla Challenger Series (preconstructed decks) on June 21, one based around Godzilla and Mothra, the other around King Ghidorah and Rodan, with Mechagodzilla thrown into the mix for both. I've never played this game in my life, but the prospect of a shiny Godzilla card with James Stokoe art is sort of tempting.

#kaiju week in review #godzilla minus one #shin godzilla #home video #oscars #chibi godzilla raids again #godzilla x kong the new empire #king kong #kaiju

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phantom-of-the-501st · 1 year

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Crosshair Misconceptions!

Seeing as we seem to be getting some new Crosshair fans in the fandom, let's quickly run through some of the things people get wrong about his character!

1. He's heartless and evil.

Nope! An asshole? Definitely! Heartless? Absolutely not. He says a lot of things to purposefully piss people off ("besides... he's just another reg") but he doesn't truly mean half the shit he says. You can dislike him because he's a prick, but he's not straight up heartless or evil.

For example! 👇

2. He enjoys/enjoyed working for the Empire!

Once again, nope! Crosshair didn't enjoy what he did for the Empire. He was traumatised and didn't feel like he had a choice. "We do what needs to be done." It's about following orders. Crosshair can't imagine a life outside of being a solider and sometimes being a solider means putting the mission before anything else. Crosshair did what he was told to do, and yes, a criticism can be made for what those actions entailed, but to say he enjoyed them is incorrect.

3. His change of character in Ep 12 The Outpost was sudden and unpredictable.

We've been predicting that this would happen since season 1! Sure, we didn't necessarily know how or when it was going to happen, but we knew it was coming. It wasn't just because we wanted it, there was evidence there. This links back to the "evil and heartless" thing. Crosshair's moments of emotion are what let us know that there's a part of him in there that isn't happy with his choices and those are little bits that feed into his change.

I've said before that a redemption/recovery arc for Crosshair couldn't happen without Crosshair accepting who he is and the choices he's made, as well as him acknowledging the fact that while not everything was his fault, he still needs to work on himself. I also said that that realisation would most likely happen when he hit rock bottom. Which happens in this episode.

It wasn't a sudden change. This change was a long time coming and Crosshair finally snapped.

°•°•°•°

These are the main three misconceptions that I see surrounding Crosshair that I wanted to clear up. I'm very happy to see people appreciating this character more but there're still a lot of misunderstandings surrounding him that I hope will dissipate over time.

Saying that, I also don't want to say that you're a bad person if you don't like Crosshair. There are plenty of reasons to dislike him, but dislike him for the right reasons!

And there will always be subjectivity to what he needs to do to be "redeemed". The vast majority of Crosshair fans are fully open to acknowledging that his actions were wrong, we're not trying to claim he's completely blameless, but the level of things he needs to do to be considered "redeemed" is going to be different for each person. And for some people, he just can't be; for them, the things that he's done can never be forgiven and he can never be redeemed. And that's okay! This element of his character will always be subjective. But like I said, if you're gonna dislike Crosshair, dislike him for the right reasons. :)

Gonna point everyone to this article again because it's the best analysis of Crosshair that I've seen. 👉 Article.

Also gonna tag resident Crosshair stan and expert @eriexplosion in case they want to add anything that was missed and that they deem important!

#people get a lot of things wrong about angry toothpick #and i hope this clears a couple things up :)#star wars #the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #crosshair #ct 9904

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ashyybees-art · 1 year

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“Tipping Point” Hunter Analysis

Ya’ll gotta understand-

-part of Hunter’s character arc through this show is him finally taking action and not running or hesitating. Not being afraid.

Hunter’s always been cautious (as seen in TCW S7), and when the Empire rose, Omega came into their life, the chips, everything threatening his family in any way, he ran away with them. First choice was deserting the army and hiding from them. His response to the conflict and danger has been flight not fight. He’s continued with this through season 2-all the while no doubt still grappling with his own guilt that he displayed in season 1)

It’s a pattern of behavior with Hunter. While they’ll take jobs and help Rex at times, he still refuses to go into the direct fight and works to avoid the conflict. We see this again with Cid. Instead of facing up to Cid and strong-arming a better deal or formally breaking ties, he had them just leave and run once again. Every time he’s done this and made choices he’s fought with himself to rationalize it in some way (especially in season 1 with Crosshair, but then that was shattered when his rationalization that he couldn’t get Crosshair back and had to leave him because of the chip and there wasn’t a choice was untrue. And after everything he had to let Crosshair choose to stay with the Empire.)

Everything he and the rest of the team knew was pulled out from under them, and each are struggling with learning what it means to be more than just soldiers-to be their own persons. That’s also rocked Hunter’s confidence and how he’s acted.

He doesn’t admit or talk about how he really feels that much, only a few times. Being the leader of the squad, yeah, he’s gonna struggle to admit straight up he’s afraid. Him being cautious of Crosshair’s message is him being normal cautious Hunter, but moreso afraid of getting his hopes up and the danger.

I want to wager that it’s all leading up to “Plan 99″/the finale entailing the penultimate moment where Hunter picks fight instead of flight and takes the conflict head-on finally. The true Sergeant of Clone Force 99 coming in full power.

#the bad batch #the bad batch spoilers #tbb season 2 spoilers #hunter #character analysis #The bad batch has the in your face arcs but also subtle ones

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brotherdusk · 10 months

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it's time again for my favourite genre of post: tumblr user bee brotherdusk theorises wildly during the Foundation midseason!

on the menu this time is Poly and Constant's Imperial Vacation From Hell, or "oh god, I just wanted to make sure one of my favourite guys was going to be okay, but somehow I ended up sending over two dozen increasingly frantic messages to the discord while everyone else was asleep, pepe silvia-style"

(today I learned that grandpa joe shows up when you type "pepe silvia" into the gif search. deserved)

I'm gonna stick this under a readmore as it gets pretty long and image heavy, and potentially contains big spoilers for upcoming episodes, and I know some people want to watch the show completely unspoiled. all theories are based on official promotional videos already released by apple. no leaks or insider book knowledge here!

so I sort of stumbled into this theory in three stages, and I'm going to stick to that template as I talk through my analysis here, starting with:

Part 1 - I'm Genre Aware Now And Everything Hurts

let's be real, nobody saw Hari's (apparent) death coming in the last episode. death is far less of a concern in this show than in others, as the narrative all but guarantees the long-term survival of its core characters. Hari (apparently) dying so quickly after having his body restored was a massive shock, and jolted us out of the complacency that the show had lulled us into.

when the title and description of next week's episode dropped, fan concern quickly turned to Poly, who @gaal-dornick and @aquitainequeen noted has started to exhibit the classic symptoms of Tragic Mentor Figure Disease:

also, there's, y'know, The Guillotine Situation as shown in Trailer 1:

Poly's death seemed so likely that I was beginning to dread the coming episodes, but something was nagging at me; I had a vague memory of seeing a trailer where he was on Terminus and in a situation that we haven't yet seen him in. maybe he does survive his brush with Brother Day, then? I started rewatching all of the trailers, teasers, and character spotlight videos that Apple released in the run-up to season two, and came across something way wilder than I'd expected:

Part 2 - Star Bridge 2: Council Boogaloo

I found another camera shot of Poly and Constant's apparent execution in the Brother Dawn character spotlight video - note the pillars in front of the crowd, the flags in the back, and Dawn, Sareth, Demerzel, Dusk, and Rue standing on the platform behind Day and the prisoners.

note also the onlookers in the maroon robes, who are also visible in the guillotine closeup I posted above...

...hey, it's the Galactic Council as seen in 2.06, with their GILF-y leader at the front in both scenes!

remember how terrified Cleon XII was of their judgement in the season one finale? we still don't know what their exact deal is, but they're clearly big cheeses politically if XII of all people is afraid of them:

here's yet another angle of the execution from Trailer 2 - same setup, same arrangement of Empire on the podium:

let's see what happens in that shot, will we? ..... oh

... did an explosion just go off in the heart of Trantor and potentially take out the entire galaxy's government in one go???? (I mean, Empire are probably fine with their auras and nanobots and backups, but I'm not feeling too good about the Council's chances right now...)

wait - the pulse and shape that appear on the horizon bear a striking resemblance to the new Foundation whisper ships - especially Poly and Constant's ship, Spirit Rising, which is currently in the hands of Hober Mallow...

why did he take their ship, again?

holy fucking shit Hari Seldon you insane rat bastard (admiring, horrified, impressed). what have you DONE. a blade in case the religious hand of friendship doesn't work out, you say??

(sidenote: this was literally the Anacreon plan for the Invictus in the first season - the scale of the destruction would have been magnitudes worse due to the Invictus' size, but same concept)

honestly, I kind of hope the entire Council perishes in the Mallowpocalypse, if only because it would make this exchange in 2.06 deliciously ironic:

the worst detectives in the world finally found their shared braincell and made a deduction! I'm proud of them!

also, Glawen literally saw this coming in 2.04 and Bel brushed him off. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ sad!

regarding casualties - I think this shot from Trailer 1 is the aftermath of the blast. Day was standing much closer to the explosion than the rest of Empire and Dominion, and so would have taken more damage, aura or not. I also see Sareth, Rue (?), and Dawn - jury's out on whether being dead is the latest item added to Dusk's rapidly expanding list of problems?

a direct attack on Trantor would also explain why Day goes on a personal tour of the Outer Reach and ends up on Terminus, screaming for an audience with Hari Seldon (Trailer 1 again):

and hey, Poly's right behind him! he's Empire's best chance of getting a personal audience with the Prophet, after all. Poly also pops up in Day's character spotlight video, in what I'm guessing is the execution scene again, judging from the collar and the guard restraining him. it might even be the aftermath of the blast, since the shot is pretty chaotic and dusty looking. what's got him so upset?

... and it was at this moment that I realised that while Poly is present in the later Terminus scenes with Day, Brother Constant is not, and I started to worry that I'd been focusing on the wrong person the whole time, leading to...

Part 3 - What About Constant?

oh no. the question of Constant's safety has been hanging over both Poly and the viewer since 2.02. oh no

I thought I might have caught a glimpse of her in the Teaser 1 video - being restrained in the background as Day does his infamously-giffed-to-hell Big Steppy on Hober's throat - but I still wanted more concrete proof of her wellbeing.

and finally I found her in the Pillars of Foundation video, alive and well, but -

HER NECK!! HER NECK!!!

if Constant's life is just barely saved by Hober showing up in the nick of time to prevent her decapitation by an insane tyrant I will literally never be normal again. romance. that's romance. (also incredibly shitty of Vault!Hari to take her blind faith and turn her into a pawn for the Empire to slaughter, but I guess that's expected behaviour from him by now.)

... I was literally about to hit post on this theory, but I just realised; that scene in Teaser 1 where Day is facing down a bishop's claw... we all assumed he was being attacked by a wild beast in the Outer Reach - but what if he's lying in the ruins of the podium on Trantor, and the bishop's claw is a freed Beki going on a rampage? god I hope this happens. imagine being Emperor of the Galaxy, about to perform some casual executions before dinner, and suddenly you're flat on your ass with a Hell Dinosaur about to bite your face off. incredible scenes

and that's all I've got! TLDR; Hari knew that the emperors and Galactic Council would become increasingly paranoid and aggressive as the Empire contracted, and would jump at the chance to publicly end an attempted religious takeover by the "barbarian" Outer Reach. That mass gathering at the execution would be the perfect time to strike with a whisper ship, a technology which the Empire has no idea even exists. This enrages Day into visiting Terminus to deal with the Foundation in person, and potentially destabilises the Empire further if the Council have been wiped out. Empire's structure and dignity are decimated without a single shot being fired - and if there is going to be an eventual, physical war, the Foundation is now in a much better position to fight it.

again, this is just me making a theory and connecting everything together with red string etc etc. I haven't attempted to explain everything, such as the Spacers' or Riose's involvement, and have doubtless got some details wrong - but I'm really excited by how things are connecting and can't wait for next week's episode :}

#foundation #foundation season 2 #foundation apple tv #foundation meta #hari seldon #poly verisof #brother constant #hober mallow #brother day #cleon xvii

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chambers003 · 1 year

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I’m going to start biting, actually. Usually I leave the analysis up to everyone else but I’m pumped tonight.

So. The Crown of Empires is back. Has been for *checks clock* about 10 minutes!

Here’s some things I noticed:

1. Pixlriffs is the one that presented the Crown to the others, and they all seemed to know what it was and what it represented. Lizzie specifically said that she knows history. The Crown has remained a Big Deal™️ for the last 1000+ years.

2. More meta; again. Pixlriffs presented the crown. This implies that he found or uncovered it? Or if you’re like me and you subscribe to ‘Archaeologist!Pix is The Copper King but immortal’, he might’ve just had it this whole time. I like both. Anyway the meta part I was on about is this; Pixlriffs was the last to fall at the Banquet in Rivendell. He held the Crown, and he fell to Jimmy for it. He never wore it himself, leaving before he could.

3. Lizzie remarked to fWhip afterwards that she’d love to have something of hers immortalised, especially something so important to Animalia. I am still so, so deep in the E1 feelings? So the word ‘immortal’ coming out of Lizzie’s mouth when she spent her previous life as an immortal axolotl possible-(demi?)goddess who lost everything. Yeah. Yeah. But at the same time, Empires: The Musical has been referenced a few times this season, so the Ocean Queen does live on, I guess.

I am so insane about Empires I love esmp it’s. Yeah. Looking forward to Pix’s episode. And Sausage’s. I want to see how False approaches it too.

#empires smp #empiressmp #esmp #lizzie ldshadowlady #ldshadowlady #i guess this counts as #pixlriffs #too maybe?#empires spoilers #esmp spoilers #my post

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skellymom · 4 months

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thoughts on the new bad batch trailer?

(i saw it had come out thru @techs-goggles9902 and couldnt be bothered to watch it for hours and now i have im so excited)

~ Jamie <3

youtube

Heeeyyyy, @fionajames <3

I just posted a spoiler...looks like someone is back w/their brothers...*cough* Mosshair *cough*

Please take my analysis with a grain of salt as Disney can post flashback scenes, scenes that might look to be part of a whole sequence but are two separate/several ones to throw us off. Plus these is plenty that they AREN'T probably including in the trailer. Should be interesting if there will be a second trailer for S3.

I don't see too much serious evidence that outwardly points to Tech. HOWEVER, I do see two "maybe" possibilities in the trailer and they are both wearing helmets:

Timestamp 1:03, The "X" Clone Trooper shown in the second half of the trailer. Now I have seen one trooper who unalived himself in the last season w/Senator Chuchi and Rex, so we know there are clones still actively working for the Empire. And, if you look REALLY close, Timestamp 0:36, there are more X Clone Troopers in the trailer scene right before the one w/Omega getting scanned. It's a shot from the top of the room showing what looks like 3 X Clone Troopers and a droid. Could one of them be Tech? Don't know.

Timestamp 1:14, The scene with the Imperial armored soldier in the cockpit of his ship lifting his left arm up. Did Tech steal a stormtroopers armor to save his brothers? Remember Tech's "hand signal" callback to S1? Is he signaling to The Batch? Or, also in Tech fashion, is he flailing because of an explosion as Tech sometimes does? Or, is it just a random stormtrooper and not Tech?

Looks like we get Fennec, Rex, Echo, Phee, Howzer, Cad Bane, Ventress, Palpatine, and Scorch.

The scenes in the trailer that REALLY has me scratching my head:

Timestamp 0:28 shows an Imperial Transport ship crashed and smoldering on a large hill. Is it the same ship from Timestamp 1:07? Faraway shot of several figures walking away: The one at the top of the hill looks like Omega. There is a figure either rolling down the hill: Wrecker? Although, silly me who works with dogs...it almost looks like a dog running down the hill. And a figure at the bottom that I at first thought was Crosshair...but then it kinda looks like Rex with the shadowy person walking next to them on the other side. It looks like Phee's hair. Or did this ship only carry Omega as seen in Timestamp 1:23? Did she meet someone on the planet to help her hide? Someone with a dog (I just remember the wonderful scene with the space puppy licking Omega's face and how happy her laugh sounded)?

Timestamp 0:33 is that Crosshair in the left hand side of the screen walking calmly in the opposite direction (that everyone else is running)? Is he settling a score? Is that Clone Trooper "X" (possibly Tech?).

What does the "il" uniform patches on each side of Omega's shoulders mean. I checked the Aurebesh language keys online. Doesn't match up with anything.

Who is CX-1??? Timestamp 1:15. Boba Fett????

Timestamp 1:21, who is the dude in the white and grey armor??? Wait...OH SHIT...is THAT WOLFFE???

I DON'T trust Emerie. She's creepy. Sorry. Not all the clones are tight with one another. I worry she's in secretly with Hemlock.

Are Fennec and Cad Bane working with The Batch? Or against them? Is Ventress teaming up with The Batch against Palpatine? Or is she truly fighting them at the end? Or is that just two separate scenes meant to look like they go together?

And, something that makes me sad: Both Hunter and Wrecker look older, more aged. They are still so handsome. However, with the stress of what they have gone through, plus their advanced aging...well, how long do they have left? The still of Echo doesn't look like he aged at all. Could it be that he isn't as accelerated due to what the Techno Union did to him? Or were The Batch genetically altered to be so specialized...but live even shorter lives than the Regs?

#star wars #the bad batch #tbb #bad batch #clone force 99 #the bad batch season 3 #thoughts and musings about season 3 #skellymom #ask

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jeweled-blue-eyes · 8 months

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hello! Sorry for barging in like this! (also sorry for my poor english too)

First I’d like to thank you for the recents posts bringing some very welcomed nuance to the character of Iklies I’m VADD. After the release of the new season cover, I felt like there was a significant wave of hate directed to the character - and, well, kinda for the wrong reasons? I mean, it’s absolutely understandable to not like him and call out the toxicity, but there were some readers who actively spread misinformation to get the character in a very bad light? And using some colonising rhetoric?? Guys??? This is not the take you might think this is???

I think I might’ve wanted to vent a bit with someone more open to a nuanced discussion, since I think the whole work is too well crafted to be reduced to a ‘black and white’ interpretation.

First what really caught my attention was using the description seen in the novel about how “Delman’s are savages” like?? 1. the poster themselves recognises that it’s a description used by Derrick (if I’m not mistaken), who is anything BUT a trustworthy source; 2. I bet the colonising, slaving country won’t have nice things to say about the people they just conquered? Not to mention is a description frequently used to even justify such actions, as it was in our own world (colonising nations having the “duty” to bring reason, advancement and enlightenment to such poor, barbaric people, who couldn’t know any better); 3. even if all of that was true, who is to say that every single countryman is like that? Are they not allowed to have their own individuality? Should we judge every Eorka citizen using Derrick as the standard then? Would that be fair?

Then what most caught my attention was the description that “He had a nice childhood, despite being a bastard (???), therefore he had it easy and by being such a violent man it only shows how much of a monster he’s always been”. I don’t even? Aside from the argument itself not making the slightest sense, from my reading of the novel the whole “bastard-lost prince” (a very beloved common trope for MLs in any other case, mind you) seemed pretty vague, and I thought it might’ve even been the result of Leila’s manipulation/mindcontrolling - since this way, with Iklies having some sort of “pedigree”, he would seem himself as “worthy” of Penelope, like Callisto (the Crown Prince) is. Was that part of his backstory truly confirmed? It could just be a wrong interpretation of mine, since it’s been some months since I’ve read it (thought, quite sincerely, I don’t think it being truth or not would change anything - the story starts with him being already a slave, being sold in an auction after fighting hungry dogs that would devour him to show his prowess for potential buyers, no amount of happy childhood will make this less f up).

Sorry for ranting so much! I was just really happy to see your posts and analysis!

Hope you have a nice day!

I remember that post! The pro slavery and colonising rhetoric was very uncomfortable to read and I think I blocked them after they tried to "educate" me in the comments of my posts and eventually used insults to force me to change my opinion.

I'm interested to see the passage that says Iklies allegiently had a good childhood when he was an illegitimate child of the King, because manhwas traditionally show the struggles and trauma of being a bastard. Princes often didn't have a good relationship with their half brothers. See the Ottoman Empire where they eventually legalized systematic fratricide. Furthermore if Delman is a warrior nation as implied and Iklies was really treated as a prince then wouldn't he have been expected to fight in the Livius war and gain combat experience? If he was then he's a child soldier and still didn't have a good childhood. If he was not then it's likely that he was just treated as a nobody. And no matter how good his childhood was it's not going to become an armor that can protect him against the trauma of having his rights stripped off him and treated like human garbage. What kind of logic is that anyway. Penelope didn't have a good childhood but Iklies had one that's why he deserves to suffer in the future, because he never had to suffer before?

"such a violent man it only shows how much of a monster he’s always been" I have huge issues when they call Iklies a psychopath or claim he was born evil. Together with them claiming that the people of Delman are thieving, murdering savages consumed by greed and violence. It doesn't only sound like stereotyping but also as if the root of the evil is in their genes. Which we know was historically used to justify ethnic clensing. They echo the words of Derrick who believes in the superiority of the Eorkan military power and the intrinsic evil of the Delman's that is defined by colonialism ideology. Why should we trust the words of someone who treated his own stepsister as a subhuman because she was of commoner blood? His family owns a diamond mine, he directly benefits from slavery. Of course he would defend it with every breath.

Certain Callisto stans/Iklies antis say the Delman people had it better in slavery than in freedom. How can the country of Delman be poor and uncivilized when the Eorkan military suffered huge losses due to Delman's archery skills? For Delman to last for years in a war against an Empire, the country would had to have an organized and well trained army, a food supply and a functioning infrastructure. The farmers would have lived comfortably enough that they could work hard and keep sending their army supplies throughout the years. The war would have been won in a week if Delman was really just a bunch of unwashed savages who didn't know left from right. Moreover if Delman wasn't a wealthy country and rich in natural resources the Eorkan Empire never would have invaded it. I even question the claim that Delman had been plundering from smaller countries, because if they had an army that could damage the Eorkan Empire that much why did they never annex the smaller countries? The plundering at the borders might have been done by thieves that had nothing to do with the army of Delman. Or it might have been just invented and used as an excuse to conquer them. Either way even if it was true, as you said, does that justify what happened to the cripples, the wives and children at home? "Your father was killed, your mother raped by soldiers, your younger sibling tortured to death and you were sold into slavery but you should be thankful because now you get to live in a civilized society serving your family's murders until they decide to do the same to you."

#anon #answered asks #thank you for the message 🌸#vadd #death is the only ending for the villainess #villains are destined to die #ditoeftv #anti cha siyeon #iklies khan delman

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