#like i cannot emphasize enough that overall it fucking sucks
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the terror a novel by dan simmons is. Bad. but i do think it was worth reading personally to experience the goodsir medical malpractice extended director's cut, peglar being gay and homophobic while gossiping with bridgens about mr hickey, and every time crozier described fitzjames like he was in a call someone a faggot without actually calling them a faggot competition
#🐉#why are you as a man so obsessed with that mans lisp 🤨#also the carnivale chapter. that rocked.#the terror#like i cannot emphasize enough that overall it fucking sucks#because it honestly feels like the author is delighted every time he gets an opportunity to break out the period typical bigotry#not to mention the attitude towards women in general... eugh#but the unintentionally funny moments and occasional snapshots of good writing buried in there do exist unfortunately
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Sonic Prime Season 3: Final episodes, final thoughts
Well, here we are. The final seven episodes of Sonic Prime are out on Netflix, concluding the story of Sonic's adventures in the Shatterverse. I've previously shared my thoughts on the first and second seasons, which I was pretty mixed on, but there were still glimmers of hope. The fluid animation, Shadow being fun in all his appearances, Nine being fairly interesting as a jaded alternate version of Tails, etc. There was enough to make me believe that after some highs and lows there was still the possibility that this show could end on a high note - or at least a decent note.
This did not happen.
Sonic Prime's final season sucks. The ending sucks, and the road to get there sucks. It's left me wondering what the point of all this even was. There are still moments I like that I'll try to highlight, and the animators and voice cast are still clearly giving it their all, but these efforts sadly don't outweigh the overwhelming mediocrity of the story. I would barely even recommend other Sonic fans who are on the fence go out of their way to finish it. I won't begrudge people who got more out of this show than I did, but I think overall I just really, really dislike Sonic Prime.
...The problem, of course, is that all other discussion of the show has been overshadowed by needlessly hostile arguments over its place in Sonic's canon. So we've gotta talk about that, too.
(This post will contain full spoilers for Sonic Prime.)
The show's out of ideas but they've gotta stretch that shit out to hit the 23 episode mark somehow
Season 2 ended with the big twist that Nine decided to betray Sonic and Shadow, taking the Paradox Prism for himself so that he could go turn the empty world of the Grim into his own little paradise, since he doesn't believe he'll fit anywhere else. Nine has made himself the true big bad of the show.
The main impact this has is that now, instead of fighting endless identical Eggforcer bots and members of the Chaos Council over and over, the good guys and the Chaos Council have to fight endless Chaos Sonic-style robots sent by Nine while he goes "grrrrr I need Sonic's energy to stabilize the Paradox Prism." This continues for six whole episodes until the series finale, when the show decides it's time for Sonic and Nine to quickly make amends, fix everything, and send Sonic and Shadow home.
That's pretty much the whole season.
I cannot emphasize enough just how much of this final season is just fight after fight after fight against Nine's bots, and how fucking boring that gets. The season feels like one long, drawn out final battle that did not need to be nearly this long, but Nine had his big heel turn 2/3 of the way through the show and we've gotta fill up the rest of the time somehow. The novelty of the bots being based off of Sonic's friends (including the Chocobo-sized Birdie from the jungle world) really wears off quickly when they're just used as generic, silent mooks that the good guys have to fight by the dozen like it's the climax of an MCU movie. The first episode of the season with Sonic and Shadow fighting the new bots is pretty good, especially because Sonic and Shadow's dynamic is one of the few redeeming aspects of this show's writing, but after that it just gets boring. Three full episodes in a row are spent showing all the characters fighting robots in an empty wasteland while Nine scowls next to a big beam of energy. I found myself missing the in-your-face attitude of Chaos Sonic so much. He truly was one of the best parts of this show.
While the cast is busy fighting all these robots for what feels like an eternity, various things of varying levels of interest happen. There's a halfhearted attempt to have some kind of rivalry between Shadow and the main Grim Sonic throughout the final battle, but it completely falls flat because Grim Sonic has no personality whatsoever. It's like Shadow beefing with an above-average Egg Pawn. (Actually, no, that would be funny.) There's also a death fakeout with the two other versions of Tails, where they make a makeshift bomb and throw it a little too close to themselves on the battlefield and seem to get vaporized. If they had actually died there they would have had the funniest, most pointless deaths in the entire franchise.
I also realized at one point that they were trying to do the Avengers girl power fight thing with the three versions of Amy fighting a bunch of Rouge bots. This was very funny to me. Actually, so much of this is just following the tired MCU formula to the letter. Fighting over a macguffin, two armies just kind of running at each other and clashing in a big empty field, constant one-liner quips instead of actual jokes, the need to take out key targets to make the whole enemy army disappear, a villain who has a point but has to randomly hurt people so that there's an excuse for the heroes to fight him. When combined with how shit the multiverse stuff is, this whole show really is just Man of Action tackling some of the most played out storytelling tropes in modern pop culture in the most bland way possible. What a bunch of hacks.
By far, the one truly fun thing that happens in this protracted final battle is when a giant robot based on Big appears. It doesn't have arms or legs, but it can swing itself around to use its tail like a giant mace, and it can also shoot Froggy-shaped missiles out of its mouth. I wish the rest of the show was even half as fun as this. Again, Sonic Prime has just enough good moments to make you mad that the rest of the show isn't better.
The thing is, all this repetitive (but well-animated) action and the thin excuse plot would be totally serviceable if I just gave a shit about the characters involved. But I don't. I don't care what happens to the pirate version of Amy who goes "arrr." I don't care about what happens to Hipster Eggman. And unfortunately, by the end, I didn't really care about Nine, either.
Nine as a villain
It's hard to criticize the story here without it coming off as a broad condemnation of the tropes at play. The thing is, I like many stories that try to do similar things. I love clashes between heroes and villains that are really just fantastical exaggerations of more personal conflicts. I love stories where a tragic, sympathetic villain lashes out at the world as an expression of the pain they feel, and a compassionate hero just has to get through to them. I eat that shit right up. Undertale is my favorite game ever made. Shit, I love other Sonic stories that do these exact things. And Sonic having to fight an alternate timeline version of Tails also has so much potential for drama!
So I can very easily imagine a version of the show where all this works for me. That just isn't the version we got.
Like I said last time, Nine's motivation is just too sympathetic and understandable for his sudden turn to supervillainy to make any sense. He just wanted to start over somewhere where he can be happy after a childhood filled with bullying and loneliness. Nine betraying Sonic and stealing the Paradox Prism to go make his own world? That tracks! Especially since we don't even know if Nine will still exist if Sonic goes through with his plan to restore his original world! But trying to kill everyone in New Yolk City by tilting the world 90 degrees, intentionally targeting the civilian population because it'll get to Sonic? Nope! Sorry, that's a bridge too far. I don't buy it. He's jaded and antisocial, but he doesn't strike me as cruel. Writing in an excuse about him needing Sonic's energy to fix the Prism does not make this make more sense.
This was really just one of those conflicts where it felt like everyone should stop and talk it out. Instead we got six episodes of fighting before one of Sonic's many, MANY attempts at reasoning with Nine throughout the season finally works. This isn't me pulling some Cinema Sins bullshit where I complain about characters in a work of fiction not always behaving rationally - the real problem is that it's just so damn repetitive waiting for this conflict to resolve. This could have been wrapped up in two or three episodes and instead it takes seven.
A brief aside about that weird Dorkly-ass Sonic Advance 3 flashback scene hacked together with mismatched sprites where Gemerl happens to be present, presumably just because he's a part of the sprite for the Sunset Hill boss, and seeing him briefly makes me remember the extended cast from the games and how much I wish they had just made a cartoon about them instead of a bunch of stock characters wearing the skin of Sonic's friends, but then Gemerl just explodes with the boss machine at the end while Eggman is shown to get away so I guess Gemerl just dies in this flashback
Yeah that sure happened huh
The ending
Despite having a final battle that felt like an eternity, Sonic Prime is a show that just kind of... ends. And that ending is weird and haphazard.
The understanding I had was that Sonic's normal world had "shattered" when the Paradox Prism was destroyed, and from those remnants these new worlds were created. This is why they use terms like "Shatterverse" and "Shatterspaces" and why there's shattered glass/crystal/whatever imagery everywhere. This is a broken, fragmented version of the real universe. Right? Right?? Isn't that the entire premise of the show? And therefore, if the universe has been shattered, then fixing it means putting all the shattered pieces back together. Which I would assume means that the Shatterspaces cease to exist.
So, in the ending... Sonic's world seems to just exist as another Shatterspace. Restoring the Paradox Prism doesn't seem to combine the worlds or anything, it just fixes the broken portal to Sonic's world that exists alongside all the others. So... what exactly was the point of all the shattered glass symbolism?
Things only get more confusing as the ending progresses. Shadow brings Sonic through the portal before the draining of Sonic's whatever energy makes him disappear, and they're transported back in time to right before Sonic broke the Paradox Prism. Only Sonic seems to remember what happened (Shadow might remember, but he doesn't say anything), and with the Paradox Prism never shattered, it's unclear if the Shatterspaces exist now.
I'm not particularly hung up on the time loop ending. It's very much in line with all sorts of classic morality tales like A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life, where the flawed protagonist goes through some kind of magical experience and then returns home with a new appreciation for the people in their life. It's always been pretty obvious that was the type of story they were telling. I'm more bothered by the fact that there's no time whatsoever spent on whether or not the other worlds and the characters in them continue to exist. Sonic seems to act like the worlds will go on without him before he leaves, but it's not like we get an ending scene that shows how the other worlds are doing, so they really truly might as well not exist anymore. Sonic just wraps up the adventure from the first episode when he gets home, and before he can explain what happened from his perspective he's interrupted by a mysterious energy wave from off-screen and it's off to the next adventure.
(Despite this odd cliffhanger ending, the show is extremely over and not coming back. I have to imagine this is just a "the adventures never end" type ending and not a hint that more shit is going on with the Paradox Prism.)
This ending is also a terrible resolution to Nine's whole arc, despite him being the driving force of so much of the show. The way I see it, there are are three possible fates for him:
The Shatterspaces continue existing, and things go as Sonic expects them to go. Nine is allowed to make the Grim into his own little utopia, and everyone else leaves him alone instead of punishing him for all the trouble he caused. Instead of finding love and acceptance so he can heal from a lifetime of bullying and loneliness, Nine is allowed to run away, isolating himself from every other living being in the multiverse, and live alone as the god of an empty world with only his own creations as company. Sonic was his only friend, and he's gone forever now.
The Shatterspaces continue existing, but because of the time travel ending, most of the events of the show never happened. Sonic never helped defeat the Chaos Council, so they still control New Yolk City. Nine is back to living in this dystopian city with no friends. He never met Sonic.
The Shatterspaces have been erased. After fighting so hard for his right to exist as his own person and not just a "wrong" version of Tails, when the timeline is altered, he just... stops existing. Along with almost every other character in the show.
Do I even need to explain why these are all unsatisfying?
Misc. thoughts
I skimmed over this, but a lot of the final season is just spent seeing Sonic's friends bicker with the Chaos Council and then Sonic has to beg them to get along to save the universe. It gets old.
We also never really got an explanation for why the Chaos Council exists. They can't have come from other Shatterspaces because there ARE no other Shatterspaces. If the original Eggman was just split into five guys or time travel was involved or whatever, it never comes up. I can live with this, but it seems like an odd omission for a children's show that's constantly bogged down in technobabble explaining the mechanics of its extremely small and finite multiverse.
I have no idea where Shadow was for the first part of the final battle. I figured Nine must have captured him off-screen after Sonic first left the Grim, but Shadow was just... hanging around until his cue in the script, I guess?
Sonic saying "help a brother up" to Shadow was funny
Hipster Eggman pointing to one of the few nameless extras who tagged along for the final battle and going "Who are you? Seriously, does anyone know who this is?" was the only funny thing he did in the entire show
Mangy Tails randomly pressing buttons on the Chaos Council's generator like a curious animal and managing to improve its output was cute
Rusty Rose randomly realizes that the Birdie in her chest actually isn't being used as a power source, and that the Chaos Council was just... using that to manipulate her, somehow? I don't really know how that works but whatever
The Sonic Advance 3 flashback uses the actual boss music from the game, but they can't use the real Sunset Hill theme because they didn't wanna pay Masato Nakamura for using the Green Hill motif, I guess
To my fellow fans of bad games: did you know that Man of Action wrote the story for the bizarre Square Enix game The Quiet Man? The one where the lengthy FMV cutscenes play out with muffled audio and no subtitles because the protagonist is deaf, so you can't tell what's going on? And you had to do a New Game+ playthrough to actually hear the audio and understand what's going on? The worst-reviewed game of 2018? That one? I only learned that recently and it blew me away
So yeah, that's the end of the show. I didn't like it, and I don't think I liked the show much as a whole. I am far from alone in this sentiment, but the reasons why people dislike the show... those vary a bit.
The canon conundrum
More than anything else, it seems like most other discourse surrounding this show has been consumed by one talking point:
How can this be canon? Why is it canon?
I want to state very clearly up front that I, too, am a person who's noticed and complained about the inconsistencies with the games in Sonic Prime. Some of the characters are a bit off - or, you know, completely unrecognizable when discussing the writing of some of the AU counterparts. I think it's lame to say Sonic and friends all live in Green Hill and act like that's the entirety of their world. That sort of thing. But if Sega says it's canon to everything else? Sure. Fine. There's weirder shit in the canon.
Really, most of this can be explained away pretty easily. The show was written at a time when Sega was still figuring shit out and there were looser restrictions. Why does Sonic act a little more immature? Probably just because Prime is aiming for a slightly younger audience than the games or the IDW comics. (And also it's, y'know, written by Man of Action, who people have accused of only knowing how to write one kind of protagonist for years.) Why do Sonic and friends live in Green Hill? Because that's the most recognizable location from the games, and the game world doesn't get enough screentime to justify modeling multiple different environments, so they just focus on Green Hill. Why is this considered canon to the games? Because this is the first Sonic cartoon that outright references events from the games as things that have happened to Sonic in the past.
But announcing early on that Prime would be canon certainly let fans' imaginations wander. It was one of the few things we knew about the show before it premiered. People wondered if characters from the games and comics who had never made any appearances in Sonic cartoons might get their time in the spotlight. We wondered if it would tie into the lore or any existing storylines in interesting ways, like the IDW comics do. But above all else, we hoped that its canon status would mean that Sonic Prime would finally be the Sonic cartoon that was faithful to the source material with no catches. We've literally never seen the actual world of the games brought to life in a TV show. Sonic X came the closest, but that still took its liberties. And so hype built for this Canon Sonic Cartoon.
And then it actually came out, and after a brief intro in Green Hill based loosely on the games, it spent most of its running time focusing on things like "what if there was a version of Eggman who was a bratty teen who just wanted to play video games?" The disappointment among fans is understandable. I am disappointed. Look at how much I've bitched about this aggressively mid cartoon.
Some fans, however, came up with an elaborate theory about the series. You see, when asked about the show's place in the game timeline during a live Q&A, Ian Flynn (who only served as a consultant on Sonic Prime and did not write any of it) said this:
"I cannot answer because I know the answer, and you haven't finished watching the show yet."
A couple days later, when answering another question about Prime's place in the timeline and also about a writing discrepancy, he said this:
"As to where it fits on the timeline, I can't speak to it because that would spoil the show to a degree. So you're just gonna have to wait 'til it's done. Towards the other point, I don't know how much I can say, so it's probably better that I not comment. That's a really dissatisfying answer, I know, I'm sorry, but my hands are kinda tied on that one."
I feel the need to quote Ian directly here, because these very basic statements about how he can't talk about behind the scenes shit or anything from unreleased episodes was GREATLY misinterpreted by the fandom. People clung onto Ian's claim that we had to keep watching like a life preserver. Some took it as Ian saying that the ending would explain everything. Finally, we'd have a definitive answer for every little discrepancy and the apparent differences in worldbuilding. An explanation for why Sega and the producers repeatedly insist this show HAS to be canon.
And to these fans, the only explanation that made any sense... would be if the ending of Sonic Prime pulled a Flashpoint.
As this theory explained, the Sonic we were following in Sonic Prime wasn't the Sonic we know from the games and the IDW comics, and likewise the world he comes from isn't really the game world. This is a different Sonic who fights a different Eggman in a world that's literally just Green Hill. It was a hint that something was off all along! But in the end of the series, this Sonic would sacrifice himself to merge all of the Shatter Spaces together and form a brand new world, and that would be the more visually diverse world of the games and comics. According to this theory, Sonic Prime was canon because it was a new origin story for the entire franchise.
I want you to really stop and think about how asinine of an origin story this would be. Really drink this in. The idea that there was another, slightly different version of Sonic who went on a kinda shitty multiverse adventure and then sacrificed himself to create the real Sonic that we've known since 1991. People convinced themselves this made more sense than the simple explanation that a different team of writers got some stuff wrong and Sega didn't make them change it. Interviews where producers talked about drawing on Sonic's "mythology" (ie: they reference the games in the show) were taken very literally - they must be saying that Prime's story is mythological in nature, and that this show would be integral to the games' mythology. Why bother making a show that's canon if it's not going to be crucial to that canon, after all?
The final episodes dropped, and none of this happened. Because of course it didn't. It was all Sherlock fandom-level copium. But fans were left confused by the lack of a grand reveal of where Sonic Prime fits in the timeline, believing they had been promised this, and they turned to Ian for an explanation. Ian's answer:
It doesn't matter, b/c Prime wipes itself out. It's sometime after Advance 3*, but otherwise, it's moot.
I didn't want to sour anyone's expectations or investment by spoiling how Prime resolves, that's all.
If you enjoyed it, awesome. Savor it.
If you didn't, then you can safely ignore it.
Simple as that.
* About a trillion people have um, actually'd Ian to point out Orbot and Cubot briefly appear in the show, but if we're really being pedantic here we don't actually know how long before Colors Eggman built Orbot and Cubot, so it wouldn't be fully accurate to say a story featuring Orbot and Cubot couldn't be set before Colors. Either way, a story set anywhere around Colors, or at any point later than that, could still be described as "sometime after Advance 3." Advance 3 is just the most recent game that has specific in-game events referenced in the show. Yes I can feel myself morphing into the nerd emoji before your very eyes
Anyway, this is the latest reason Ian is getting death threats on Twitter. This time it's over a show he barely even had any input on!
I'll cut to the chase. It is truly wild to me that people are getting this heated over canonical inconsistencies in a series as historically inconsistent as Sonic, to the point that they think threatening Ian is justified. The aesthetics of the entire world Sonic inhabits change every other game. Sonic Chronicles may no longer be canon due to the Penders lawsuits, but it was canon at one point, and it took huge liberties with Sonic's world, moving Green Hill off of South Island and reinterpreting Station Square as a tiny outpost in a snowy alpine forest region. Characters' personalities change from writer to writer and based on what Sega wants at the time, with some being WILDLY different across different games. One game Sonic will be stoic and cool, the next he thinks "Baldy McNosehair" is the funniest thing ever. Sega's STILL trying to figure out what Amy's personality is supposed to be. We still don't have the explanation for how the two seemingly contradictory backstories for Blaze can fit together. There have been multiple huge, sweeping retcons, and retcons to those retcons. Sonic Forces claims that Classic Sonic is from an entirely different universe than Modern Sonic, and the plot only makes any sense if that's true - otherwise, Modern Sonic would have already known Eggman was going to beat him and take over the world when he did, because his younger self had already lived through that war. All of that makes no sense in the newly reunified timeline, but Forces is very much still canon.
For fuck's sake, we're talking about the series where Eggman blew up half the moon and then it looked completely normal in every other game after, explained away as "the moon just rotated so we can't see the destroyed side from Earth." This has never, ever, ever been a franchise where everything lines up perfectly with no issues. It's not that serious.
The real core problem with Prime isn't that things don't line up 100% with our current understanding of canon, or that Sonic's characterization means this can't be the real Sonic, or anything like that. The problem, as I've been saying this whole time, is that the story is bad. None of these discrepancies would truly matter if the story was better. They'd just be nitpicks. The fact that Sonic and friends live in Green Hill would be the farthest thing from my mind if the drama was more engaging, if the villains were better, if the jokes were actually funny, if more of the alternate universe counterparts of Sonic's friends had more than one generic character trait each, if the multiverse was more creative and varied, if the final seven episodes of this show didn't devolve into the third act of an MCU movie and then just arbitrarily end, if Nine's character arc actually had a satisfying conclusion instead of ending with either isolation or nonexistence. Maybe we'd be seeing people talk about more than just whether or not it should be considered canon if the writing was any good.
"Canon" is not real, and it sure as hell isn't worth sending people death threats over. It's a storytelling tool. Real human beings decide what does and doesn't go into that canon, or how much they do or don't want to draw on past stories, when creating a new story. Serving that canon is secondary to creating a story where the emotional truth resonates with the audience. And Sonic Prime failed to do that. That is its true failing.
And finally, to close out...
Since people will ask, here are my current ranking of the Sonic TV shows, now that Prime is finished.
Sonic Boom
Sonic SatAM
Sonic X
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic Prime
Sonic Underground
Yes, I'd say Boom is my favorite. It's far from my ideal Sonic cartoon, but it gets a lot of points for being as funny as it is. But the top four are all shows I'd say I like, more or less. They all have their pros and cons.
So now, uh... I guess let's hope the live action Knuckles show coming to Paramount+ is better than the underwhelming synopsis of "Knuckles helps deputy sheriff Wade train in the ways of the echidna warrior" would imply? Maybe we'll get lucky?
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Hiiiii <3 I remember you talking about the boys comics vs the show, and I just finished the third season and it's really funny to me how almost every time there's an interesting storyline happening the little trivia window on Amazon says something like "this was not on the comics this was invented by the TV show" . Like yeah I'm not surprised lol
What character do you think is the most improved by the show? Is there anything that you think was actually better in the comics or is it just trash altogether?
hiii!! first off, SO glad you're enjoying it!! second off good god this may be long (i love to hate on mr ennis) so. under a cut :3
As for characters, let me first give a small run down of how every woman is treated in the comic:
the female (as she um. does not have a name in the comics) has barely any development other than oh she was raised in a fucked up lab and her mom sucks and that she and frenchie kind of have something going on. all of the really good stuff during the show w her brother or just... any of it is not there. again i need to emphasize she does not have a name. ennis does not care enough to give her an alt form of communication (like in the show, her teaching frenchie her own sign is SUCH a good thing. not in the comics lmao)
starlight. oh god where do i even START. so where the show handles her sa well and respectfully, um. well you see mr ennis loves to put rape in his stories and also loves to be bad to women. so its MULTIPLE scenes with her (where like. all of the men of the team line up for her to give them a bj. which to me really kind of... ruins the messaging he could have been going thru). hughie is like... genuinely really bad about her sa in the comics (as in. when he finds out via butcher getting tapes of the headquarters and purposefully setting it up so hughie SEES HER GETTING SA'D and goes to confront her about it. its great ennis loves women) and he BLAMES HER FOR IT. and then dumps her. and hes not supposed 2 be in the wrong there so thats great.
the only thing w her character that i DID like was at the start of the comics, she was pretty religious and as it went on, she started to lose her faith in religion bc she didnt get why jesus would let this happen to her. which was imo an interesting take but also ennis is OBSESSED w shitting on religion so like. its not surprising i guess that hes putting that in there lmao. she never really gets to confront the members of the team who REPEATEDLY either do/attempt to sa her other than doing a threat once or twice. theres none of the commentary on how society views women heroes or anything like that with her (i cannot emphasize enough that they kept like. the intro for the comics in terms of what kickstarted stuff and then just like... left the rest behind. which was for the best bc my god i think if u counted the amt of slurs and just bad stuff overall you would lose count (ik i did)).
maeve. good god its bad. so she was there when... homelander had part in 9/11 (tldr for that incident: in the comics, the supes are sent out to prevent one of the planes that was gonna hit (i believe the pentagon?) and then ended up crashing it elsewhere. but the plane scene in the show was THAT plot point done better) and that just made her become an alcoholic. and that is like 99% of her character in the comics. it is so so shitty bc the show did SO much w her and the comics just... did not.
the other non prominent women (stormfront was a man in the comics for like... clarification) are all... well what we call the ennis morality compass victims. a lot of the comics are the boys going to learn abt a supe group and learning they did smth bad (which youd think murder. or like smth equally bad. youd be wrong) and then its revealed that they are having orgies, being GASP gay, or being mentally ill (there is an entire team that hughie goes undercover w that the ... entire joke is that theyre too nice bc theyre not as mentally stable as the boys are. one of the bits is one of the teammates has tourettes so he has tics of just saying fuck or something similar and its treated as a joke). so if theyre not mentally ill or being gay or doing something that ennis sees as kind of fucked up (as the entirety of the comics is a test to how much garbage he can put in one series) theyre being used solely as sex objects. its pretty bad to put it lightly.
the men dont get out of the bad writing treatment either but. the women get it the worst. as for who gets improved the most, id say easily kimiko (it is NIGHT AND DAY) or maybe oddly enough butcher (his comic issues are... bad. we would be here all day if i got into them). and MM. oh my god you do not want to know how he was handled in the comics. honestly there isnt a character that DIDNT get improved a ton, all of them did. i dont know how the writers pulled it off but it is infinitely better for everyone.
as for anything i liked more... honestly not much. i think the shock value didn't work most of the time because ennis just made it the ENTIRE comics point to be edgy. i guess the fact homelander is bi in the comics is kind of funny but its just... not handled well (shocker right). as i mentioned earlier, i think the stuff with starlight starting out as super devote to religion and then becoming disenchanted with it was interesting. the only other really good thing about it is the art. it is HIDEOUS but i feel it kind of is intentional against the comic art of the time (as the artist is genuinely amazing outside of that). oh and if you can ignore all of the bad stuff, there was a kind of cool plot point that the show hasnt hit yet/wont touch, where they discuss the comics in the world with the context of them being propaganda. one of the owners of the local comic shop used to be a comic editor, and discusses how the comics were used to cover up the bad deeds that the supes were doing irl. it was an interesting take, especially since a lot of older comics WERE propaganda (ie like the wwii era comics are INSANE propaganda). tldr do not fucking touch the comics unless you want to see how many slurs ennis wants to drop (too many).
#asks#grain of salt on some of the details bc its been a month since ive read this#ask to tag#bc i do not fucking know how to tag this but like. god just know its a lot lol#sorry this is sooo long and prob not super coherent but i black out and get consumed by the anger when the comic is brought up lol#and unfortunately the comic is like... honestly some of the worst shit ive ever read. and ive read... probably 5k comics?
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"lucius contributes its just a different skill!" i feel like this is the same energy as when all the leftists are convinced that their role in the communist utopia is gonna be philosopher or teacher. like someone is gonna have to put a few hours a week into working the factory and someones gonna have to clean the toilets!
love and light to lucius, but his role on the ship is a self serving ego trip by stede. stede doesnt need someone to write his diary. he doesnt need someone to help him get dressed. lucius' job is a luxury stede can waste money on that contributes nothing to the ship overall. you cant even go "well he can read if the crew needs someone!" bc so can jim 😭
i understand excitement about representation, but lucius being disabled because of his back and therefore unable to do any physical work around the ship is a headcanon. if he twists the wrong way he gets back pain. this isnt chronic pain which is persistent pain that lasts for weeks. he could probably just stretch beforehand and be fine. i cannot emphasize enough that this is fr just part of being past your early twenties, sometimes you pick up a box or move your head wrong and shit hurts for a day or two. if you wear the wrong bra your back hurts. it be like that and we can draw a line of difference between "sometimes my back hurts" vs literal debilitating chronic pain.
i mean jim shoved him into a chest for days and he popped back up fine like come on.
do yall think the rest of the crew dont got back pain? manual labor hurts your body and i promise that they have consistent aches a lot worse than lucius. and that sucks and thats not how work should function, but unfortunately they are poor and on a pirate ship where everybody works. lucius is just the only one able to opt out bc of a privileged position he holds of being literate. and i love him and i want him to continue to sneak his way out of work, but that doesnt make the job go away it just means someone else has to do it. the deck still needs to be swabbed! it just means frenchie or oluwande has to do it while lucius fucks off somewhere.
seriously, this is fine to hold as a headcanon or even hope it becomes canon or whatever. but its not canon so stop telling me it is bc i said lucius is lazy which is literally just true 😭
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Hi! I know you're one of the older fans on Tumblr & I wanted to ask you about the anti movement. I'm 19 & when I see people talking about the ages of anti fans, they're often within the 14-25 age range & I have no idea why. I also feel it's a little unfair to say that younger fans tend to be antis, though it is understandable since I've also made mistakes when I didn't know things. Why do you think most antis are younger fans? What should younger fans who aren't antis do to be more involved?
Hee! I’m 40, which, tbh, actually isn’t that old for Tumblr (though it’s certainly old compared to the common perception of tumblr), so sure, I can probably answer this. I guess there are two questions here: 1. Is it true and 2. why, if so?
1. Experience suggests that antis do tend to be young... but it does not follow that young people tend to be antis. (You’d have to know the proportion of antis relative to the overall population of fandom, which we don’t. I think the majority of people of any age tend to want to read fic in peace and not be roped into endless wank.) I definitely see some ringleaders who are older and good at manipulating fandom trends for their own ends too.
2. Why would this be the case?
When I was in college, we used to joke about all the freshman year Marxists. It’s an eternal phenomenon: people who don’t have much experience learn a new thing and are on fire to change the world using the one tool in their toolbox. (To a man with a hammer, yadda yadda.) There’s no passion like the passion of the newly converted, and young people tend to have a lot more energy and often a lot more free time to yell on social media. Antis may be one expression of this among people currently in that age bracket. It’s not like people my age didn’t do other annoying-ass things when we were that age. You just don’t see it because it was 20 years ago, a lot of it was never online, and all the websites/platforms from then have been systematically destroyed. (Often by yahoo. Fuck yahoo.)
The other half of the reason, in my opinion, is that there have been concerted efforts to sway lefty/socially liberal people in specific--often TERFy--ways. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the right wing radicalization of gamer guys.
People are susceptible to it because their lives suck and because they don’t know enough history or have enough confidence to form their own opinions and stand up for them. Sure, some people are going to go hardcore for anti views no matter how much they know, but a lot of people are just being swept along with the tide because something sounds superficially pro-gay or pro-protecting kids or whatever.
I cannot emphasize enough that the things that make someone ripe for the alt right are the same things that make them ripe for cults and for various kinds of toxic fandom shit: it’s usually the smart, sensitive overthinkers who don’t have enough close actual friends and who aren’t in a good place in their lives.
---
So what can you do?
You can try to make fewer more significant friendships and make sure your support system isn’t people you only know because you currently share a fandom. Most of my offline friends are people I found through fandom meetups, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making fandom your life and only hanging out with fandom people, but we’re just regular friends who have dinner parties and shit (well, when it’s not the plaguetimes). Most of the time, we don’t share specific ships or fandoms. It’s vitally important to have a real support network that can’t be ripped away by social media wank.
The next thing we can all do is publicly stand up for what we believe in and not cave to pressure just because someone yelled “think of the children”. It’s important to be clear about the real history and logic behind these things, whether it’s the history of censorship that inspires people to support AO3′s extremely permissive policies or the fact that ‘queer’ was a fully reclaimed umbrella term in the 90s.
It’s okay if we don’t all agree. What’s not okay is appeals to emotion and ignoring science. A lot of anti bullshit is like “Rape fantasies are an abnormal red flag”, and this goes against every damn thing we know about human sexuality.
Part of this is examining our own stances for illogic and hypocrisy. If thought crimes aren’t real, then all of them aren’t real. I see way too many “Okay, but that one gross kink though!” comments from people who claim to be on my side, and this is very silly.
Possibly the biggest thing, though, is that we as a planet need to start being savvier about shitty social media and how it’s destroying our mental health. I don’t have a good overall solution, and obviously, I’m still on tumblr, but we all really need to cut down the amount of time we’re on sites like Facebook and Twitter and probably tumblr too. The more it has an algorithm and the less it has moderation, the more it’s a problem. Individual discords and spaces that can have moderation are better. It’s fine if some of them are 100% antis. The point is to have multiple spaces with rules that suit different groups.
A thing you can do is make your own spaces: be the owner of a discord for your ship, not just a passive participant at the mercy of shitty mods in an existing one. Run a fic exchange with rules you think are sensible and be firm when people try to scream about problematique things you don’t agree are a problem. One of the most pernicious anti problems is mods breaking the rules of their own spaces (usually a “no kinkshaming” one) to cave to social pressure from the loudest, most assholish set of people in the server. They don’t know how many people quietly disapprove and quietly leave their fandoms because they only fear the loud harassers, not the silent toll of caving to them.
Honestly, the climate of fear is the big issue more than a bit of yelling: I routinely meet 20-somethings who live in fear of being canceled and shunned. You can help this by... not being like that with your friends. If they’re friends with a canceled person, don’t ask them to drop the canceled person or face the same fate. If you disagree about some fandom hot take, talk about it calmly and don’t act like the friendship will be over in 5 seconds and you’ll use all your knowledge of them against them in a public callout because they didn’t instantly agree.
Basically, have some self confidence and don’t be fucking terrified all the time... which can be a tall order and probably explains the age thing also.
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how NOT to do a tournament arc
It’s kind of sad, I really enjoyed the first book in the “Darker Shade of Magic” series by VE Schwab, I even rated it 4 stars on my Goodreads! People told me that the second book, A Gathering of Shadows, was even better and I was pretty excited.
However, I cannot get myself to finish the last 80 pages or so. I am really close to the end, but I just Do Not Care. I have stopped caring about these characters or what happens to them. I think the main problem is that I actually really love “tournament arcs,” they are literally always my favorite arcs in Shonen manga.
the tournament arc in the Naruto series?? life-changing. the tournament arc in My Hero Academia? literally the only full arc I’ve seen of that show. The tournament arc in Yu Yu Hakusho? so much fun. even outside of manga, the second Hunger Games book is my favorite of the three because I think the arena/game itself is really interesting and I’m a shallow bitch.
Lee vs Gaara?? 😩👌
I think it’s this love of the trope that kind of ruined the book for me because Schwab fundamentally mishandles why audiences care about our heroes joining or winning these things. *SPOILERS AHEAD*
So I literally hated the reason for every single character joining the tournament. Not only are most of them way too OP to be joining this tournament (it’s like the reverse underdog trope and I hate it), but the reasons they join are generally weak and actively make me want them to lose.
Why does Naruto do the tournament arc? He wants to go up in the ninja hierarchy and it’s a stepping stone to his overall goal of becoming a hokage. And, as always, he’s trying to prove his self worth as a person by punching people real good. He is an underdog and seeing him win is thus satisfying. You want him to win for practical, emotional, and cathartic reasons. It’s not that complex.
None of the heroes in A Gathering of Shadows want to join the tournament for practical reasons and seeing them win achieves no catharsis. They do have emotional reasons for joining it, but their emotional reasons actively make me want to bully them. Let’s get into it.
Lila wants to join the tournament to test her magic and also run away from her cool pirate life she always wanted because of Issues I guess. I found her reasons for joining the most acceptable of the 3, but also frankly vague and boring. She kind of just has this sense she has to join. The thing that really got me is how she goes out of her way to kidnap and replace this rando in the competition.
She is technically an underdog here, but having guessed by this point she is a *SPOILERS* Antari, I already know she is super powerful and is way too magically gifted for being in this normal-people magic Olympics. I don’t watch Haikyuu for the tall people dunking on other teams! I watch it for the short king overcoming height-ism! Your stories about genetically superior magic people suck!!
If she had like, an actually compelling reason to insert herself into the competition-- such as being in poverty and needing prize money or seeking revenge or political sabotage or wanting to win the heart of a girl, I might be more forgiving. But the fact she just kinda wants to . . test herself, and fucks up someone else’s life to do that, just made me angry. I get that’s she’s a spunky, wild-card, the author describes her as a “self-serving badass,” but she was just so weakly motivated that the self-serving part made me root against her. She’s out there messing with someone’s entire profession just to “test her abilities.” This is some villainy shit.
This and the fact her “not-like-other-girls” fuckery was all over the place in this book (one of her love interests literally says “you’re not like other girls”) rubbed me the wrong way.*
*Note: the first book also had this problem too, but I was kind of willing to forgive it bc I was interested in the magic stuff going on. But Schwab did NOT course correct and I had to have this whole do-I-dislike-Lila-bc-of-internalized-misogyny debate with myself. Luckily, I discovered that the only character I really liked in this book was Rhy regardless of gender.
Alucard is also there. I don’t clearly remember his motivation for joining, but he is already wealthy and has status and allies and doesn’t really need to join this tournament so I also did not particularly care if he won or lost. He’s also just, very pompous. Which, yeah, made him likable enough, but again, pompous characters in tournament arcs are not the ones you’re rooting for. That’s not why you watch.
Finally, Kell, king of the Over Powered angst trope, wants to join the tournament because he dreams of violence. He wants to fight other people. He has some bloodlust which he feels real bad about, but also damn does he want to use his magic powers to punch people. Like, dummies and training are not enough, it has to be real flesh and blood people to pummel.
I can’t emphasize how thoroughly this turned me off. Characters who join tournaments literally just for the purpose of smacking other people around are villains in these type of stories. They aren’t doing it for the prize or redemption or self-worth shit or love. And I wanted Kell to lose so bad!! I wanted him to get water-slapped across the stage! Not only was he way too overpowered in this tournament for me to care, but the reasons he’s in the tournament actively pissed me off. You want to find freedom in violence Kell? :( absolutely not.
And like, he does lose, but it’s only because he lets Lila win. No struggle. No gay little speeches. No random heartfelt trauma reveal or character development.
I hate it here.
Naturally, a western book does not have to follow random anime tropes, but shouldn’t readers be a bit invested in this staging since it takes up a large part of the book?
None of these characters are in the tournament for interesting reasons that make me want to root for them. Some characters who I was neutral on to begin with, literally made that Sims relationship thing pop up above my head when I read this
I know what you’re thinking: But Insomniac! The book isn’t about the tournament! It’s just the set-dressing! You must have noticed, the tournament fight scenes were really brief and boring. The main conflict is between the real villain and the main characters.
And I’m like . . . then why were the magic olympics there? Also, the fact all these characters were joining this important sports event for shallow reasons really did a number on my perception of them. None of them even want to be Hokage. This is ridiculous.
Anyway, as a side note I was interested in the Rhy/Alucard interaction, but I’ll probably never finish this book so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#IA talks#IA reads#am reading#a darker shade of magic#a gathering of shadows#ve shwab#here are my thoughts you must all suffer through#long post cw#lol
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The Spring alts from last year are being rerun, and man oh man, is the teatime aesthetic just so much better. Still, the old Spring alts are worth talking about just based on being limited availability, and maybe you've heard some stuff. So we'll start off with May and Lopunny.
General Overview
I really like Lopunny, so I was eagerly awaiting this particular alt. And then Lillie and train bros decided to annihilate me this month, and Sonia's over there with Tsareena who's a top favorite, and while I don't love the shiny form I like Sonia a lot better than Mallow so it's like I gotta? Ugh. The whole situation's a disaster, please help.
Anyway, May has Lopunny and Mega Lopunny. Which I like! Unfortunately, everything about her kit is fucking insane, and not in the fun way like Guzma, or the good way like SS Dawn. Lopunny starts as a Normal type Striker, a notoriously difficult type/role combination to be in. Her objective is to transform into Mega Lopunny, where she becomes Fighting Type, and gets High Jump Kick. Which is good damage overall, but comes with the same nightmarish condition as the main series: 90% accuracy, and if you miss, you eat 50% of your max HP in recoil. Two misses and you're dead. So right off the bat, she needs accuracy. Her buff capabilities are bizarre, having Defense All in base form, and a trainer move that buffs speed and evasion +2. The speed is nice for Ramming Speed on High Jump Kick, setting up the clear "three trainer moves, then sync." When mega evolved, it gives +1 accuracy and +3 evasion. So okay, I guess you need four uses of this trainer move. MPR is bad enough at 30% when you need it once, and May needs it twice. "But support-" no, listen. She needs to do this herself. Because she cannot buff her own crit. And there is not a single unit in the entire game that can buff accuracy and crit at the same time. In fact I'm trying to think of options that buff speed and crit at the same time. I think Kiawe does it? So there you go, one (1) unit who's able to partner with her and take that MPR pressure off.
But like...man, even that's really bad. She gets one 30% multiplier on her move damage for speed, one 30% for having max HP, and no sync multipliers. Not that it matters, her first sync is always off-type. Only then can you start belting out High Jump Kicks left and right, and hopefully in the FOUR ACTIONS YOU TOOK TO GET HERE, the foe isn't going to just sync nuke your ass to oblivion. Which they will in CS.
I cannot emphasize this enough: Spring May sucks. Despite her base form and Anniversary form being pretty meta defining, Lopunny is just as bad in Masters as it is in the base games. Which sucks. I really, really wanted to see Lopunny succeed here, and instead it's just this awkward, painfully long setup phase for way too little payoff. I imagine there was value in how many of her own stats she could buff independently in the past, but in the modern meta, she just moves too slowly, and the traits she needs support with are not easy to produce. If you really need Fighting-type damage, Bruno is right there. Sure, Cross Chop isn't quite as powerful as High Jump Kick, but at least he's perfectly accurate instantly with Pinpoint Entry, and only needs support from Hop. I hate to say it but yes, May is that bad.
Team 1: Spring May, Sonia, Lisia
If it's not obvious that I'm grasping at straws on the first team, I don't know what would tip you off. I'm recommending Lisia for god's sake. Anyway, the game plan is stupid, but potentially effective. Sonia has the ability to buff crit, attack, and defense, all useful traits for survival. She can later debuff defense, making May's attacks connect much harder. Lisia is recommended because fuck dude, listen. CS is bad enough going full offensive parameters, and you need points somewhere, right? Lisia may not be great, but she offers two things: Twister with the flinch rate alongside Headbutt to earn turns toward High Jump Kick, and Defog to remove the Crit Shield condition and netting you a free 150 points. Defog also debuffs evasion of the foe, which circumvents May's need to buff accuracy with her trainer move after first sync. But oh my god, this just feels so stupid. If this works I think I'd be upset.
Team 2: Spring May, Spring Burgh, Kukui/Nanu/Bugsy&Scyther
Like most seasonal pairs, they operate well together. In this scenario, Burgh provides great defensive buffs to the team, alongside the crit rate that May desperately needs. She's free to use her own trainer move as needed, while the last slot is for defense drops. This does run a bit slower, and is more focused on defense, so a CS stage would need to apply HP parameters rather than full offense. I...do not know if they'd survive full offense parameters, even with Burgh's defensive buffs.
Final Thoughts
Look, maybe it's kind of shitty to just give up here, but like...honestly, you tell me what works out about this unit. It's so bad! Like sure, Halloween Caitlin can buff for her, but she doesn't have move damage until after first sync! There's exactly no one in the game who can sufficiently break through an entire round of setup for faster sync access, so it's dead in the water. There are no Fighting-weak Legendary Arena stages, and none of her tools are especially good for the team. X Def All and Potion are like...okay at best, but she's a striker for god's sake. She doesn't have defensive ability, and she's supposed to be doing damage. But even that runs the risk of killing her instantly if you ever miss. Maybe this is a bit of a cop-out, but holy shit she seems terrible.
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The Mandalorian Chapter 11; the rewatch edition
I have found a bit more enthusiasm for this one on the rewatch, so here goes!
- din snapping ‘I’m trying my best here!’ in a vaguely annoyed tone as his entire ship is going up in flames around him because he mostly doesn’t get angry as much as sulky... the height of cinema
- I love frog husband’s clothes, because they’re in a very similar style and colour scheme to frog lady’s but also incorporate the knitwear we see on the people of trask, so it both underlines his belonging with her and implies that he’s been on this moon for quite a while, they may have been apart for some time
especially his scarf is a darling detail and there’s a bit of contrast in texture to it next to his wife’s, it’s nice. he’s wearing a similar kind of vest to what we see on the fishermen later, too
- I think my favourite part of this entire episode (well second after din cradling the baby against him after nearly drowning) is just the design and Vibe of the planet and especially this harbour
for one I LOVE that it’s shown that even in the middle of the day it’s dark enough that the electric lights are still on when it’s overcast (it reminds me a bit of norway during the winter, actually, when dawn just never quite breaks and then slinks off in embarrassment before it’s even noon). and there’s also the... sails? nets? hanging around looking almost like flags, which are very Aesthetic but god knows what they’re for. maybe for drying fish on in the summer?
I think the building in the distance behind frog husband’s back here is a lighthouse? or it could be one of those towers for loading you see when they scout out the empire ship too, I suppose!
and one for my strange obsession with Texture on this show: these fabric-covered crates!!! they look exactly as dingy and moldy as you’d expect them to be in this climate, I wonder what they’re for (& I vaguely want to touch them)
- from the sound of it din’s vibroknife is uh ‘on’ when he pokes the squid thing, and he also goes for the tentacle the furthest away from the baby <3
proof the calamari flan have been scratched up a bit during all that time in din’s pockets! (the attention to detail in this show sometimes istg)
- this is 100% me reading too much into things again, call the overthinking police I’ll do my time meekly lol, but the boat looks a little bit like the mudhorn signet from this angle:
again din keeps his hand on or sooo close to his blaster in this entire scene, he knows this is sketch as all hell
a) once again I want to praise the effects team for how GOOD the aliens look in this episode holy shit and b) the hell is this dude wearing on the straps of his overalls tho
- the dude mando (axe woves) uses his little... wrist launcher thing to shoot with to finish two off the fishermen, so my theory that they can be loaded with other things than the whistling birds for slightly less effective use (maybe without the level of honing we’ve seen din’s be able to do?) is looking good!
- din actually has quite good form when diving into the water, I’m guessing he can swim at least tolerably when not in full armour, being stabbed at from all directions, having just had his son eaten by a sea monster and also being trapped in with said sea monster (I’m a strong swimmer and I can tell you that there’s a reason they make you swim with clothes on from time to time to see how hard it is, it sucks. with metal plates strapped all over you as well? yeah good luck) people don’t tend to hit the water that gracefully without some kind of training in my experience lol. might be some of the training with the jet pack has carried over too, considering he throws himself off that cliff in chapter 12 with similar confidence?
it’s interesting that they’re once again showing us a threat where the armour doesn’t help and even hinders him. we’re so used to the ways it can make him near-invincible, but it can also drag him down (literally, in this case. aha ha ha. well if I’m not here for my own entertainment then what am I here for honestly)
- din’s voice sounding like he’s just on the verge of crying as he cradles the baby (and the sound he makes as he realizes the baby’s alive) is my kryptonite, turns out. fucking breaks my heart into tiny pieces every time, I would die for this man and he wouldn’t let me
- in support of din’s paranoia: so far this season we haven’t been able to go five minutes without someone talking about peeling the precious beskar off a mandalorian corpse, I can see why his mind was primed to move in one particular way there
- I think the fabric of din’s cape has been treated with something that makes it waterproof; the water seems to pearl on top of it rather than soak in! can you imagine how heavy it would get if it did absorb water tho christ
(a bit hard to see at this size but that’s what it looked like to me close up anyway! could also be that it’s wool and that’s why it looks that way but I prefer an elaborate sci-fi explanation here, because it doesn’t look particularly weighed down afterwards) might also explain why he doesn’t seem worried about it catching on fire when he uses the jetpack haha, maybe this is something the mandos do with fabric they’re going to use for a long time
I also enjoy part of the gambeson/undersuit thing poking up from under the shoulder pauldron and cape; I think this is about as disheveled as we’ve seen him since immediately post-mudhorn
- the sound mixing in this scene, where din’s breathing is layered a bit over everything else so you almost feel like you’re in the helmet with him listening to what the others are saying........ oh my GOD, it embeds you so deeply in his POV but so subtly
- not to be biased or anything... but din and the armorer’s armour design is so vastly superior to these guys it shouldn’t even be a competition lol
din looks like an honest to god knight in shining armour except also sci-fi western and the armorer looks like a fucking war goddess from a time beyond memory; the clone wars mandos look like high end cosplayers (eh maybe it’s just my dislike for the boobplates that has me so 😒 lol. also a lot of dudes were very shitty about that whole thing and I don’t say anything but the ‘vaguely-concerned will remember this’ telltale message pops up in the corner every time)
moment of saltiness over: I do like the differentiation between their individual character designs
the differences in body type and helmet design is nice! they look like a unified team, but with individuality. I suspect the ladies have those belts and their armour plates on the hips instead of the front of the thighs to emphasize the ‘female’ silhouette, which. okay fine whatever
- bo katan looks very pointedly down at the baby after saying ‘a group of religious zealots who want to return to the ancient ways’ which makes me VERY nervous for reasons I can’t quite articulate
- the mournful guitar version of the mando theme as din watches the sunset...... hmmmmngh (this might be some Symbolism happening to us folks strap in for the identity crisis he still hasn’t processed)
- I Cannot get over din being so unimpressed by and uninterested in bo katan’s ‘retake mandalore’ sales pitch from literally the first moment dfhasdkjfhsad sorry lady kryze this man just does not do main quest shit, he’s all side quests all the time and that’s why I love him
- as someone who after chapter 8 wrote a whole-ass fic that was wholly & exclusively about din telling the baby he’ll always come back for him... some of the shit he’s been saying this season does feel like it’s been written to mercilessly victimize me, personally and specifically
- guessing this structure in the background is the traffic control tower! doesn’t really matter, I just thought it was neat
- this part of the soundtrack is called ‘ship o hoj, mandalorians!’, which I found incredibly charming haha (it’s ‘ship ahoy’ except how you write it in swedish, good one herr göranson)
- bo katan is vague about who exactly the new mand’alor would be if they took back mandalore to begin with, she doesn’t specify she is planning to be the ruler until she’s already got din on the ship and in no position to refuse to help. gotta respect the grift at least lol
I do love her voice, though, it reminds me a bit of jennifer hale as shepard
- “I need to get back to my ship, with the foundling” your honor I uh love him so fucking much
- frog lady stroking the baby’s back a bit as she holds her hand behind him to make sure he doesn’t fall backwards while playing with the tadpole ;___________;
and also frog husband and frog lady reaching out to hold hands and frog smooching as din and yodito leave ;____________________________________________;
- when din says the exasperated “mon calamari. unbelievable” line, the baby makes that little blowing a raspberry sound he does as if to agree ‘uh-huh unbelu -- unbelly -- unbelievable dad smh’ and it is very very adorable
- there’s quite a bit of Stuff in the concept art that didn’t make it in this time around; I wonder if maybe they cut some stuff for pacing or whatever and that’s why this episode is so short? water leaking into the cockpit of the razor crest, something that looked a bit like whaling going on on the docks and more spaceships taking off (maybe there were originally meant to be some smaller ships defending the big empire one?), there’s quite a bit here
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That post of yours, specially at the end, is all so terribly true. Who ever ends up at the democrat nominee, we just gotta vote for em. It sucks, but thanks to decades of collective effort of the GOP to drag the government deep into the swamp as possible, we're at a point were we have no luxury to be picky. Maybe someday our grand kids might, but at the moment, we have a long climb out of right wing hell before we can reach that. We must counter the lockstep mass of GOP voters with our own.
Aha. I presume that this is in reference to this post of mine from the other day, which got a bit of traction thanks to @seananmcguire reblogging it (she also reblogged my Late Stage Capitalism Sucks And Should Die A Painful Death rant a while back, and I have been meaning to read her books, so I ordered a couple of them today, ahem). And just basically…. yes. We’re in a place where this precious ideological purity business is crippling the full-scale mobilization of the left almost more effectively than anything the right wing could devise, and it’s not like it needs the help. Make no mistake, the GOP cheated in 2016, they got away with it, the Ukraine scandal is proof they were already trying again, and they will use everything in their arsenal to get Trump a second term. He’s openly talked about ruling for life and wanting to be a dictator, and the possibility has been floated that even if he lost the 2020 election, he could claim voter fraud and refuse to step aside. I cannot emphasize enough that every vote counts. If it’s not close, it’s a whole lot harder for Republicans to cheat, and they will be doing so. Remember Cambridge Analytica and Zuck the Schmuck getting raked over the coals in Congressional hearings since he won’t permit fact-checking on Facebook political ads (read: right-wing ads) and lists Breitbart in the news tab? The disinformation is VAST and will only be growing.
So…. yes. The current GOP platform benefits only a mathematically incalculable minority of the country (read: rich white men), but almost half the country is still willing to vote for Trump even after /waves hand/ all this, because racism, The Free Market, and American hyper-jingo-nationalism is a helluva drug. There might be some defectors, but counting on Republicans to desert their own party, when they’ve proven over and over that they will vote for the odious ideology even if they hate the candidate, is a great way to make Trump President for Life. I could go on, but I made most of my points in the earlier post, and… yeah.
That said, below is the pledge to which I, tumblr user qqueenofhades, adhere:
If Elizabeth Warren is the nominee, I will vote for her. GOD HELL FUCKING YES I WILL. I love her real hard and I have been in her camp since she announced she was running on December 31, 2018. There is something indescribably amazing about the thought of our first female president being the one to take down Agent Orange (every other Western country has had a female leader, as usual America is miserably behind, IT’S GODDAMN TIME). The thought of the words “President Elizabeth Warren,” the fuckboy TEARS and billionaire panic about paying taxes, the good things we could do with all that money, is unspeakably soul-healing. I have already given her money like 3 or 4 times and I’ve never donated to a candidate in the primary stages, only in the general. I literally fantasize about this. I want her to win so goddamn badly. I will vote for her every chance I get.
That also said:
If Bernie Sanders is the nominee, I will vote for him. Hell fuckin’ yeah! Destroy the capitalists, Grandpa Bernie! First Jewish president! Not my first choice, not always a fan of him, worried about his age, but not remotely a difficult decision in a hypothetical matchup with the Orange Fuhrer. By eight hundred million trillion miles. I agree with his policies overall and I’m here for the similar amount of billionaire Terror that will ensue. If Bernie is the nominee, I will vote for Bernie.
If Joe Biden is the nominee, I will vote for him. It’s plain that I think Uncle Joe is long past his sell-by date and is garnering most of his support because people think that a folksy old white male centrist is the only person who can take white working-class votes from Trump. None of Biden’s positions are my favorite, he’s had some pretty cringe-worthy moments in his record as a legislator and I think he was best served as VP. That said? Better than Trump? Goddamn right he is. If Biden is the nominee, I will vote for Biden.
If Pete Buttigieg is the nominee, I will vote for him. I think the odds of this are vanishingly small – he’s polling well in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states known for being white centrists, but his support tanks elsewhere in the country. Likewise not a fan of mealy-mouthed, feel-good centrism but: first gay president? Absolutely! Here for it! Better than Trump? By eight hundred miles. If Buttigieg is the nominee, I will vote for Buttigieg.
If [insert name here] is the nominee, I will vote for him/her/them/it. This is not a hard decision. I am absolutely diehard Warren, I will be heartbroken if she doesn’t get the nomination, and I will probably have some resentment. I will get the fuck over it in time for November 3, 2020, and this is here for you to hold me to my word. I will make hype posts for whoever the nominee is. I will give the nominee money. It. Does Not. Goddamn. Matter. Who. And if you care about having any kind of future at all, I suggest you join me.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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Post Mortem
I promised some thoughts on the nightmarish debacle that has happened. Here they are.
TL;DR I am scathing about everything. Everyone who should have helped us, failed.
It's the morning after. They've won. Continuity Remain is dead; there isn't going to be any second referendum and Article 50 won't be revoked. You cannot imagine how I feel right now, typing those words. However, I have never sought to deny reality (however lovely denial might be) and reality is what it is. We've lost a referendum and two general elections; we're finished. There is no come-back from this. The country has made a sick, twisted, greedy, myopic and stupid decision - but that's the decision it's made. I have nothing good to say for what happened, except that it did happen.
Well, let's look at the one tiny silver lining: since the ship has now sailed, I can indulge my deep, seething pool of vitriol for our collection of useless opposition parties. I'd held back previously because I didn't want to add to the circular firing squad. But they've all shot each other now and the corpses have largely stopped twitching. So off we go. (Before we start, I won't be writing about CUK/TiG/Change-UK, because they were just annoying, and I can't be arsed. I think we've all spent enough time on that shower of idiots.)
Here's the core reason for why I'm so angry: all this was completely avoidable.
The media will, of course, spin BoJo's victory as a paragonic triumph of political conservatism. Like that infamous Pravda article from the 30s, on the Soviet constitution, they'll fawn over BoJo and declare him a visionary and a victor, a veritable genius of the ages, dripping with lyricism and wit. He isn't. He's an over-promoted buffoon who lucked into the top office due to the self-destruction of his inept predecessor, aided and abetted by a lying and sycophantic media - and, by a collection of opposition parties whose sole interest was in fighting each other.
Here we have the real core problem. The people on our side only switch on for fighting each other. There's little sign that they actually really care about Brexit, or the wider state of the UK. But pursuing partisan vendettas against each other? Wheeeeeeeeeee!
Let's think back to the summer, when BoJo was faced with stalling polls and a hung parliament. He could have been ousted then - but, of course, the Lib Dems were adamant that they couldn't countenance the idea of Mr Corbyn as Prime Minister. They'd had this tendency for a while - it's not new - but it accelerated and was nurtured under Jo Swinson.
When she was elected as leader I was initially a bit sympathetic - it seemed reasonable to give her a chance. Unfortunately, it turned out that she might be the most rightwing leader they've ever had - I actually suspect now that she might be to the right of Clegg. And she went and turbocharged all of their most self-destructive tendencies. I think what she thought she was doing was clawing Tory Remainers off of the Tories. This ran into two problems; 1) there weren't that many Tory Remainers to begin with and b) most of them are more Tory than they are Remain. So they mostly stayed put, and they few who did leave (thank you, to those of you that did) just weren't enough. Meanwhile, the hard-right tilt scared off the Lib Dem's left-leaning supporters.
A while back I predicted they'd lose seats at this election; I'm sad to have been proved right. I am, however, grimly-amused that Swinson herself lost her seat.
The other problem with Swinson's rampany anti-Corbynism was that it partially demobilised continuity!Remain. A lot of people sensed that she was more anti-Corbyn than anti-Brexit; that also implied no plausible chance of an anti-Brexit coalition. Hoenstly, given how overt and personal the vitriol between her and Corbyn got, it's hard to see how it could ever have worked. And there's no point voting for something that you know is impossible. I do wonder if maybe this switched some left-leaning people off, or perhaps even sent a few ditherers back to the Tories (under the assumption that any sort of government is better than no government, I suppose).
As for the Lib Dem campaign, it was a mess. At one point their leader went on air to deny killing squirrels (yes, seriously, this actually happened). She got all excited about thermonuclear genocide at one point, because that's not at all weird and creepy, amirite?! Then there was the bizzarity that was "skills wallets" (don't ask - basically, the sort of policy abortion that happens when a collection of wonks are locked in a room with a boxed set of the West Wing and too much cocaine).
[OK, I'll expand this one. Briefly, skills wallets were a weird continuing-adult-education idea, where you'd have a pot of money that you could access at certain ages, apparently to take some kind of training or re-education or something. Why the ages in question, why that amount of money, and why not just make adult-ed free at the point of use, were never really explained. Then there was the can of worms that was additional voluntary contributions - what I took away from this was it was the adult-ed version of pensions auto-enrollment. I spent the last four years fighting a corrupt auto-enrollment fund, so I have strong feelings here!]
As for general themes, really, the LD campaign didn't have one. There was a lot of "Corbyn, THE MONSTER, the monster, Corbyn!". And, kind of oddly, there wasn't actually that much about Brexit. It actually didn't figure very strongly in their campaign. You came away from watching it all with a) a bad taste in your mouth and b) a nagging feeling that these people didn't know what they were doing.
To be fair to them, their vote share did go up, a bit - from 7.4% in 2017 to 11.4% yesterday. Which is, uh, not exactly dizzying. And it seems to have happened in all the wrong places, so they still managed to lose seats overall.
OK, we've gawped at the piss-stained ashes of the old Liberal Party, lying in state where some eggregious family-member has dumped them, on a roadside verge in the middle of nowhere. (Perhaps some enterprising squirrel has buried a nut amongst them.) Let's move onto the other vast, soul-sucking black hole of despair, also know as the Labour and Co-operative Party.
Oh dear god. The Labour Party.
The Labour Party is Britain's perennial second party, and nothing that happened last night challenged its second-place status. Their vote share dropped by 7.8 percentage points on 2017; this is what produced the Tory landslide, essentially. The Tory vote went up a little, by about 1 point, but otherwise stayed largely flat on 2017. This time, though, Labour collapsed. They lost a swathe of seats across the country, including places like Bolsover and Blyth Valley, which were previously rock-solid.
What went wrong? Everything. Basically, the stars aligned against us, in every single way.
First of all, Labour's campaign was dogged by the antisemitism scandal. And you know what? It was bloody well right that it did. The leadership dealt with antisemitism by ... doing nothing. Anyone who tried to raise the issue instead would get "Corbyn outriders" dumping on them on Twitter. Apparently we're suddenly not allowed to be concerned about racism on the Left anymore? Frankly, fuck that.
What they should have done was a quick-and-brutal party purge, perhaps early in 2018, when there was still time. Take some initiative, get control of the narrative again, and get rid of people who are only going to shit all over your campaign. But, uh, no. That didn't happen. I'll note that the Chris Williamson show in particular went on far, far longer than it should have.
Then we come to Brexit itself. Corbyn spent three years equivocating on the issue. OK, I'll allow that in hindsight, perhaps strategic ambiguity made some sense back in 2017 (though note that they still lost that election too). It didn't by 2019. But Corbyn was still trying to stand in the middle of the road as late as the summer - and by doing so inadvertently opened up political space for the (brief) Lib Dem revival, which in turn shunted Labour onto the defensive. And as I believe Paddy Ashdown once said, if you stand in the middle of the road, you get hit by traffic.
Eventually, the Labour leadership reluctantly adopted a second referendum position, but by then the damage was done. Basically, Corbyn had convinced Leavers that he was a Remainer, and Remainers that he was a Leaver. Labour appears to have lost votes about evenly across both Remain/Leave areas(!). In a way, he actually did unite the country - just against him. Ooops.
The rest of Labour's prospectus was a mess this year. Home Office reform was de-emphasized (arbitrary deportation by the Home Office is a huge concern amongst ethnic minorities). Drugs-law reform seems to have fallen off the agenda. There was no obvious theme to the campaign - surprising given that 2017's "For the Many" theme did cut across. Instead the "offer", such as it was, appeared to be a largely-incoherent grab-bag of spending promises, some of them with very large headline numbers. (The £58 billion for the WASPI pensions thing stands out there.) A lot of people simply didn't believe the country could afford it. You don't vote for things that you fear will bankrupt you.
Also, in a way, there's a parallel to the skills wallets thing here. Labour would have been better off, I think, just doing something straightforward like saying, "If elected we'll raise disability, sickness and unemployment benefits by £x per week, and we'll get rid of the ATOS fit-for-work assesments". It would have the advantages of simplicity, clarity and a clear political theme. Instead we got this weird fiscal machine that would produce some of those effects, except via a complicated multi-part kludge (which probably wouldn't even work properly anyway). I don't know how this came about; presumably it was an after-effect of one of the party's unending internal power-struggles.
Corbyn himself is a controversial figure, from his past associations with the IRA (more vague than the press would have you believe, but still a drag on the doorstep) to the perception of socialist extremism. Again, let me note that the "but he's a Communist, because that starts with 'C' too!" stuff is disingenuous, but this perception exists, and the Party have not found any apparent way to challenge it. Honestly? If your candidate is a ship that's holed below the waterline, yes it is horribly-unfair and all the rest of it, but you do need to run someone else. (I see no point softening that punch ; while Corbyn's been leader, the whole UK has voted 4 times, at 2 general elections, 1 referendum and 1 EU Parliament election. Every time, Labour has bombed. It's hard not to see a pattern here.)
Finally, the Labour Party itself has failed to ever re-unite. It's effectively two political parties in one - or possibly three, depending on how you want to look at Momentum. On a fair day with a strong wind, the Parliamentary portion sometimes manages to move just-about-consistently, but nothing else seems to have that behaviour. Honestly I suspect a lot of people's real fear about a Labour government is not that it would be a socialist tyranny, but rather that it would implode within about six months. Labour has lost its way amongst a storm of factional infighting. To be fair to Corbyn, this isn't new. Ed Milliband's desperate tenure was derailed by internal struggles. Even the 1997-2010 period had the ongoing squabbles between Brownites and Blairites (remember them?).
So yeah, Labour's campaign was an absolute shambles this year, and the whole country is suffering now for that.
Lastly, let's have a quick look at the Green Party. Where were they this year? With Extinction Rebellion making headlines, the Amazon burning, Australia on fire and weather records being smashed everywhere - remember that day when we had summer back in February? - it should have been the Greens' year. Environmental concerns are going up in salience - people are starting to get genuinely worried. And, uh, where were they? I can't recall hearing a single peep from the Green Party during the election. Whatever it was they were doing, it seems to have completely failed to capitalise on the moment. Perhaps they should have been a bit more visible.
The only people who come out of this with any credit are the SNP. I haven't heard anything teeth-grinding about them - though, that might just be because I live in southern England.
Oh, and let's take a final kick in the teeth, shall we? If you add up the shares of the votes received by pro-second-referendum parties ... guess what it comes to? Yup: 52%, versus 48% for the pro-Brexit parties. 52/48 - aaaaargh! Yet, the 48% had a narrative that kept their vote all in one place, so they won an absolute majority at Westminster. Ours got scattered to the four winds by several separate inept campaigns and several useless party leaders.
Had there been a second referendum, we could have won it. But we never got the chance, because everyone supposedly on our side were completely, perfectly, useless.
Sigh :(
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AJW SUPER HURRICANE Commercial Tape 4/9/94
Rie Tamada vs. Chaparrita ASARI
This is ostensibly a rookies match but Tamada had been at it since 91 and ASARI since 92 so really this is just a juniors match. Tamada ties ASARI up like a bow in an attempt to keep her off her feet. The crowd couldn’t care less, but despite the wealth of talent on this show, the crowd seemed to all have dosed with Niquil so don't worry about it. This is perfectly fine and easily the best singles match either of them produced in their early days. Don't let the perverts in the audience sway you.
Mr. Buddhaman vs. Tomezo Tsunokake
No firecrackers in this one! Lots of spots they worked around the circuit but also some pretty brutal spots. The crowd thinks this is comedy because the crowd is awful people. There are way worse ways to spend your time. These two could've lead a whole goddamn promotion.
Suzuka Minami & Tomoko Watanabe vs. Takako Inoue & Kaoru Ito
I think even at this point Suzuka was still under the shadow of her former tag partner Hokuto, so the crowd is expecting a less than fiery performances from her. But everybody here shows the fuck up. Another counterpoint for everybody who says these four never blossomed. Haters never die.
Zen Nihon Senshukenjiai: Mima Shimoda vs. Miki Handa
Miki Handa is sadly a footnote of the era. But in reality she was to LLPW what Plum was to JWP; she takes a colossal ass-kicking like an Absolute Girl and makes you love her and want her to win even though you know it ain't likely. In terms of the inevitability of CTE, that sucks a lot; but in terms of the wrestling narrative of the era (and still evident today, i.e. how Tam Nakano is booked in Stardom) it’s fun to have somebody who’s good at chasing and bad at catching. Stan Hansen? Great at chasing; didn't work as a champ. Ya feel me?
Handa catches Shimoda with a quick German at the bell. Shimoda responds by doing the rope spot the world was tired of years before it finally stopped happening. Test of strength into finger stomp. Shimoda was LCO from the jump! Suzuka Minami on commentary, per usual. Shimoda doing joint manipulation and folding Handa into an origami frog is PEAK Shimoda. If Shimoda is Hokuto Lite, Handa is Cuty Suzuki Lite. Neither of those things are bad. Most of us will never be anywhere near that good at anything.
Shimoda throws Handa into every metal surface in Tokyo. Handa sells it by being THOROUGHLY peeved, then vertical suplexes her like a frilly Jumbo Tsuruta. Makes no sense but such is televised wrestling. You watch for the glorious moments when things coalesce into something greater than their constituent parts. Shimoda proves she's the WCW Ric Flair of the era by refusing to sell for anyone and just going thru her standard shit. UNTIL Handa gets her in a surfboard and then Shimoda looks like she's recovering from a visit to the dentist's. Weird sell but ok. Handa is def selling her part of the story--that Shimoda sucks on the mat; which we all knew but weren't sure would be enough to put her away. Surprise! It isn't. Mostly cuz Shimoda doesn't really ever wanna do business.
Zenjo vs. LLPW: Etsuko Mita vs. Eagle Sawai
I can tell by the opening mat sequence that this is gonna be a 100hrs long. Eagle could go, she just always got mired in the mid-card sludge cuz no one in upper management thought she was photo book material. Mita Etsuko without a bright pink chair to hit folks with is rarely a Mita Etsuko you wanna watch.
Bull Nakano & Sakie Hasegawa vs. Manami Toyota & Kyoko Inoue
Holy shit! How is this buried in this largely-forgotten event? Peak era for pretty much everyone involved. Hasegawa in upstart heel mode is a mood for the ages. She jukes Inoue and Toyota, Bull takes one step into the ring, and the crowd goes pale. Bull and Hasegawa take turns turning Toyota into a balloon animal ripe for popping. Hasegawa Tiger Suplexes Inoue into a billion day-glo shards. Hasegawa sells a top-rope DDT like someone everyone knows survived a catastrophic neck injury just a few years before--which is to say, like, "...that's all you got?" Bull doing a vertical suplex with a bridge is the rarest Bull; the crowd is a fog of question marks. Toyota's mouth is dripping blood. Hasegawa's spinning heel kick would still pop a crowd into a froth today. Watching her toss Toyota off when she goes for the lucha roll is so cathartic; no one wants to see a funny move done without a shred of irony. It is to Toyota's career as male pattern baldness is to Shawn Michaels. Why not have fun with it? Toyota does the German Airshow Leap to the outside and eats shit. (She's still bloodied, btw.) Bull figures if they both switch off chipping away at Inoue and Toyota, their combined efforts will rule the day. But twas not to be. The Fringe-Lace alliance get that good good W. Toyota realigns her nose and is back to looking crisp for the post-match interview. Hasegawa let's her shiny rainbow singlet, emblazoned with puff-paint, speak for her.
Aja Kong vs. Reggie Bennett
This match wasn't even listed on the tape! I had no idea. This is their first encounter and will presumably last longer than their match from Arsion in 98--i.e., I am allowed to blink. No one will ever have better entrance music than AJW-era Aja Kong. It's inconceivable. Reggie has one giant French braid, cut-off overalls and a hardhat and she is your new fashion GOD. Aja does some Muta bits like spitting mist and doing a flying shoulder block. I'm glad the crowd enjoyed it cuz I think it sucked. Despite her present-day role (giving joshi aces a bog-standard 30min match on a monthly basis), Aja Kong transcends conventional gimmickry. She doesn't need that shit. Her reputation precedes her. It's at this point I notice Reggie Bennett is a beast who absolutely mauls Aja for the first 15min like no one I've ever seen. It's not just the booking; she legit tosses her around like my cat bats a balled-up tissue. Where is the Reggie Bennett shoot interview??? Aja shotays her way out of danger until they go into the crowd segment. Will Reggie blade?? Will she ever do a shoot interview? No and no. She does, however, power through two brutal lariats only to powerslam Aja! Has that ever happened? I cannot emphasize enough how intense Reggie's pace and strength are in this. Reggie takes a diving elbow to the clavicle and immediately dies. That made no sense. Aja spits yellow mist and now I hate her. Reggie Bennett forever. Post-match, Aja talks shit. Reggie commits herself to training harder. I say it again: Reggie Bennett forever.
Zenjo vs. LLPW: Yumiko Hotta & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito
I expect a Golden Corral buffet of kicks. A dumptruck full of kicks. A Nor'Easter of kicks descending upon me like I'm some quaint little hamlet. Kandori and Saito are basically the toughest LLPW had to offer. They're ready for Yamada and Hotta, though, and this is up and headed for the first overloaded plate of kicks before the bell has rung. Did Hotta vs Kandori ever happen? Shoulda. Kandori is horngry for AJW BLOOD. Saito is dressed like a tradtional Afghan dancer who has just discovered rave. Hard to say which I love more. Yamada kicks Kandori right in the jaw and...yeah no I've made my decision; I love that most of all. Hotta seems genuinely afraid of Saito. Kandori taunts Hotta, teasing the showdown, then decks Yamada with the QUICKNESS. This rules. Yamada has stepped up the stiffness for the occasion. You love to see it. Why didn't we get a year of these tag matches like All Japan in 91? Kandori dumps Yamada off her shoulders in one of the most wreckless things I've ever seen in a wrestling ring. Unfuckingreal. Hotta tries to smother Kandori but fears her Fujiwara armbar. As do I. They blunder into the finishing stretch with Saito as the speedbag. Saito never got her due. They seriously could've setup a whole year of main event booking around these four. Yamada finally nails her insanely complicated finisher and the streamers rain down. Structurally awkward but radiating more heat than most well-established feuds.
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Did you listen to the NY demo songs of the musical that were put online recently? Some of the songs that weren't officially released are now available. Was wondering if you have any thoughts about them... Adrienne Warren's Misa in I'm Ready sounds v different compared to Fūka Yuzuki!
I am so happy the NY Demo got leaked tbh, I’ve been listening to it nonstop for the last couple of days and lemme just say – even though I don’t fully agree with all the characterization choices, the demo is gorgeous ;~; THANK YOU for the excuse to ramble about this, haha.
I’ll outline my thoughts on the songs that weren’t released previously under the read more, but just keep in mind that these are just some quick opinions on the songs rather than my thoughts on the demo vs the final versions of the songs b/c then this would be writing for weeks and nobody wants that textwall, haha.
…I say this is going to be abbreviated and then it turned out long-ish anyway.
Where is the Justice?
Yes I know this was released previously, but the version that was officially released cut a minute out from the song, so I’m commenting, fight me.
While I think the song is overall too focused around the issues with the criminal justice in America for a story that is supposedly set in Japan, I think the verse that was removed was more reflective of the sorts of things Light in canon might think.
That said I don’t fully agree that Light would argue that “draining the color from within until we’re back to seeing black and white and wrong and right again” is actually a good thing, especially considering canon Light does evaluate mitigating circumstances in his evaluation of who is guilty.
Overall, I think the song does a good job of establishing Light’s character as a kid who, despite having some deeply flawed views about justice, does genuinely care about fairness and has his heart in the right place.
To this day though, I’m not convinced that manga! Light is the kind of kid who would spark this debate in his classroom. He very much seems to be the kind of person who keeps his cynicism about the world to himself. If you ask me, his “ic” response would be more along the lines of “sure, the justice system isn’t perfect, but it’s our job as the next generation to keep improving it, isn’t it?” But that doesn’t make a cool song, lmao.
Hurricane
Yes, this one was also leaked before, but you’re not stopping me from talking about Weather Metaphors The Song™ now that it’s out in HQ.
Why. WHY.
I think the problem I have with this song is that there’s really not much character development during this song. Light is just immediately sucked into a power fantasy and this is really… not reflective of Light’s character in the series.
I’m Ready
LOVE. FUCKING LOVE ADRIENNE WARREN’S VOICE.
But i really don’t agree that Adrienne is a good casting choice with Misa. I LOVE her voice and her singing, but she’s… too much of a power house and Misa is just not that at all. Misa needed to be bubbly and radiate cuteness rather than maturity.
Hearing this rendition of Misa really made me understand why the Korean production went the direction they did with Jung Sun Ah’s Misa though, and it comes as much less of a headscratcher now.
I think these lyrics are also not PG enough for Misa’s idol image which sounds ridiculous b/c it’s overall a pretty tame song, lmao
Specifically it’s lines like “let me kiss you and then let me kiss you again” that are maybe not… squeaky clean enough for the image that idols in Japan have to project.
We All Need A Hero
Perfection. Absolute perfection. I love that they threw in that dumb light pun lmao.
Honestly this almost made me cry and I wish I knew who sings this song as they were the perfect Sayu singing voice. Young, sweet, optimistic, sincere sounding? Nailed it. (Edit: I am told that the singer is Laura Osnes)
I am VERY much intrigued by the fact that this song was written as a solo in the NY Demo as opposed to the odd duet that it became in the final version. This makes much more sense to me and avoids weird/creepy parallels between Sayu and Misa that the final version forced by making it a duet.
The Game Begins
I am so distracted by the line “for even the perfect crime has the perfect flaws” because this is just not logically coherent.
ON LESS GRIPEY TERRITORY – having the whole demo did put into perspective for me why the Weather Metaphors had to be, and I think it’s because they may have been going for a nature vs machine type of theme… and while I can appreciate it poetically (?) I just don’t agree that it fit thematically with the character of L and Light.
Like why… does L keep making tech metaphors? Is this supposed to be a quirk of his the same way that the posture/diet is? I think in a way this was poorly executed and characterization was ultimately sacrificed in favor of poetic analogies.
The literal first line “empty your mind of any feelings” is very unlike L to do. L is a detective who works heavily based on his intuition and his gut instincts. He did not tackle the Kira case like a super computer interested in objectivity and eliminating bias. That’s just not what happened in canon.
I stand very much corrected on these lyrics as they are “empty your mind of any theories.” My bad, I don’t have the best ear for lyrics. But that said, doesn’t this contradict the fact that he already took an action based on a theory with the LLT plan?
Overall I think this song took too many poetic liberties with L, and tried too hard to make him sound intelligent by throwing in “smart sounding words” like ~calculus~ and ~evolution~ even though those words didn’t actually make that much sense in the context he was applying them in?
“A stronger mind and evolution determines who wins the game” – for example. Evolution and adaptation aren’t synonyms, but he uses them as such anyway and this kind of clumsiness, though very lyrically pretty, is a bit… idk, not quite what I associate with L myself.
In terms of the overall performance – lovely. My issues are 100% the lyrics on this one. Jarrod Specter performs fantastically.
There Are Lines
Fight me this song is best song and I honestly did not like this song much in the final version of it.
J’ADORE how salty Soichiro is about L’s method of offering up Lind L Tailor as a decoy. His anger seems so genuine and believable in this, and I love how it’s so obvious that he has no idea that this is applicable to Light too, since they don’t force that dumb “KAMI NI NARU!!!!” line to ram the subtext down your throat. (… I say as I claim that I wasn’t going to talk about comparisons to the final Japanese songs, ahem).
That said, was Soichiro actually that salty about L’s tactics there with LLT in the manga? No. At least not to the extreme that he lost a lot of respect for L for it. In fact, manga!Soichiro seemed impressed by the results L achieved and didn’t really seem to dwell on the moral implications of L’s actions.
tl;dr not the most ic or canonically based interpretation of Soichiro, but I am standing by this man.
Personally, I think this is an improvement on the character AND LET ME JUST SAY THIS SONG MADE ME REALLY WISH THEY’D ADAPTED THE YOTSUBA ARC IN THIS MUSICAL??? Can you imagine this song as a reprise as Soichiro shoots Light while they’re in the car?
You’re welcome
Secrets and Lies
I cannot emphasize how much I love when Soichiro calls out L for his awful morals in addition to calling out Kira’s. This is so nice -w-
I am also deeply enamored with the fact that L also outright says “I don’t care who gets hurt now, as long as I get one more shot” because fucking yes – L is so brazen about this in the manga, and most adaptations try to sweeten his attitude.
I enjoy that it is constantly reinforced that neither Light nor L are in the right because there are constant parallels between the two and the two are criticized by the narrative.
Mortals and Fools
“What I see in your eyes is a counterfeit emotion” – the truest thing ever said about the manga!Misa’s feelings about love.
Admittedly, Demo!Rem annoys me as a character though. It’s not a problem with casting – Carrie’s singing is lovely and I think they made a good choice there. This is a bit of an aside I guess, but I just don’t understand how it is believable that Rem actually romantically fell in love with Misa as the song “When Love Comes” implies after all this love is for mortals and fools lark and Misa… doesn’t really seem to do anything to win Rem’s love in a romantic sense of it. Platonic love I can squint and buy certainly, but not romantic based on the contents of “Mortals and Fools”, “Borrowed Time,” and “When Love Comes.” Maybe something in the actual script/dialogue justifies it? But with the material available so far, I’m not seeing it.
I think also Demo!Rem’s fixation on the notion of love is something that’s… overexaggerated from her more subtle curiosity over the issue in the manga. I just don’t think I’d agree that the melancholy tone demo!Rem has when she says she tries and fails to really understand love as an emotion is true to the manga. Manga!Rem seems to have a more “god Misa, I get this is important to you but could you maybe slow down” kind of vibe to her. Melancholy doesn’t really seem to be it, exactly.
For the sake of clarity – the issue I have is not that Rem’s character was changed from the manga to make her develop romantic interests in Misa. That is perfectly a-okay and it’s actually pretty cool that they went this route with demo!Rem.
My issue is that from a narrative perspective, Rem’s character development in the demo seems underdeveloped and not optimally executed given that she is a) literally not human and b) as she herself points out is a shinigami who fundamentally does not understand why humans idealize romantic love.
Shinigami themselves in the context of this musical are not shown to idealize love within their own culture. Ryuk and Rem both seem to find it funny or baffling/futile indicating that this is not a culture that parallels human culture in its zealous overvaluation of romantic love as a be all end all goal of life. Shinigami, according to the musical’s own internal logic, are not amatonormative..
My pet peeve exists specifically because it is somewhat frustrating to me, an aroace person, when even non-humans who were very firm on not relating to romantic love (and yes, “Mortals and Fools” makes Rem come down more strongly on that side compared to “Zankoku na Yume”) and have no reason to inherently want to experience or idealize romantic love the same way human society normalizes it for humans, starts extolling the virtues of romantic love as the pinnacle of interpersonal relationships.
I can fully respect that this is not a pet peeve that most other people will have, or even be inclined to view from this perspective and that to many, none of these things matter and that’s fine! Just keep in mind that I would find this just as pet peeve-y if Rem were a male shinigami and would have no problems whatsoever with any of this had Rem been a human girl or if shinigami culture as a whole been portrayed differently in the musical itself. Also please note, I am only speaking for myself. I’m sure other aroace folk will have different opinions as well. Ironically enough, Rem in the final live version, I can more readily see as developing romantic feelings for Misa precisely because “Inochi no Kachi” was written the way it was and it is a damn shame that that is not the direction that was eventually taken with the character in the live productions as they seem to view Rem as having more maternal instincts. (…which, I’d again disagree is an inference of the manga, as I do think Rem’s feelings about Misa were very platonic in a ‘friends’-ish way rather than a parental way.)
tl;dr All I’m saying is that I think demo!Rem should have gotten more charater development, and it is a shame that she did not.
On a performative note – it is really odd that Rem’s voice is higher than Misa’s. I don’t think I’d make this call.
Borrowed Time
Adrienne delivers yet another killer performance!!
I know I said I wasn’t gonna make comparisons but I have to say that between “Borrowed Time” and “Inochi no Kachi” Borrowed Time is just so much more IC for manga!Misa.
I’m glad they based this song around something Misa actually said in the manga since that line “Just kill me. I was supposed to die that day anyway” is actually something that stuck with me for a very long time since it says so much about where Misa was in her life.
In the end, I guess I find it more convincing that Misa would be singing a song more centered around herself than singing a less me me me focused song about the virtues of sacrificial love as she ultimately is a person (in the manga) who is pretty selfish and focuses mostly on her own perspective.
Which is not to say that demo!Misa is really reflective of manga!MIsa because I don’t think that’s the case at all.
The Way It Ends
Blurgh more machine/tech metaphors and analogies from L…..I still don’t like this, sorry. He does not view himself as a robot in the manga, so it just comes out of left field for me.
I think the part of this song that lets me down is Jeremy’s delivery. He’s not !!!!!!! enough for what is supposed to be a victorious moment for Light. He has so much less energy and power than he did when he was singing Weather Metaphors, and it really shouldn’t be that way in my opinion.
On that last “a minute more.” Jeremy sounds weirdly remorseful, though I guess it’s hard to interpret the exact emotion behind that without an accompanying facial expression.
But speaking of delivery holy shit, Jarrod’s delivery as L is spot on. I’m kinda stunned by the range of emotion in his voice for this one: confusion, defiance, anger and that hint of regret that his life is coming to an end as he goes into “like a closing door.” It’s so… good??????
Overall I think the NY Demo is lovely and it has made me really happy to be able to listen to it after years of wondering what on earth it was like, lmao.
I know it sounds like I have a ton of gripes, but just keep in mind that a) even I consider these gripes pretty minor and they didn’t really hurt my enjoyment of the demo as a whole, and b) I think that adaptations have every right to make changes and take creative liberties with their source material. It’s important to do that in order to keep material fresh and bring in new thoughts and perspectives to the original.
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12x16: Ladies Drink Free
I was braced for disappointment, and instead we got one of the better eps of the season! Meredith Glynn is stronger at drama with a touch of comedy than vice versa, it seems (makes me wish “Regarding Dean” had tilted more toward the serious end...)
Most crucially, this ep actually advanced the BMOL plot in a way that was interesting and, even more important, emotionally involved the boys. Finally the question of non-evil monsters is raised, first by Sam (and even mentioning Garth by name...though I was thinking that might not the greatest idea, giving that to the BMOL?) and then by Dean, and oh yeah I loved his “black & white” speech, and the acknowledgement that he has changed -- that some of the reason he gets so angry with them is because he sees too much of himself in the BMOL (even the torture is a tactic he’s far from unfamiliar with...)
It also clearly illustrated the problem with the BMOL’s strategy, that not only is it ethically questionable but they’re actually creating more problems; there is no reason to believe the werewolf dude was lying when he said his pack was peaceful. While SPN vampires have always been pretty darkside (there’s been multiple “good” vampires, but none that have survived), werewolves have been a morally questionable hunt since their introduction in “Heart.” It’s taken forever for this point to be raised but I’m glad it’s finally here (makes me hope it was intended all along and just had been handled clumsily, as opposed to just forgotten.)
Dean was also very quick to realize what Mick had done, showing the smarts that have been seriously lacking. And he was compassionate about the family the werewolf destroyed, feeling their loss -- so happy to see you again, Dean, I’ve missed you so!
And Sam likewise got to not only show off his researching chops but express real feeling. There was his excitement at the BMOL’s archives -- a much more convincing argument for him to join them than simply slaughtering vampires (“Hogwarts,” hee -- Sam is the perfect age to be a first-generation Harry Potter fan, while Dean is just old enough to have missed it, and I love how that plays out. And also Mick’s face because no, it’s not like he hasn’t heard that six thousand times since coming Stateside.) And then Sam’s furious “We’re done” -- because for all Dean’s temper can be scary, Sam is the one whose righteous wrath you should really fear. (Am curious when/how Dean told him about what Mick had done -- or maybe Sam guessed too before they split up and all Dean had to say was, ‘yeah, it was him’?)
Then there was Claire -- I love Claire, and while you could argue her char arc can get repetitive, I still love it because she is still a dumb kid now, and this is her origin story, and that takes time. I love that she is still learning and she fucks up badly, but she’s also strong and brave and determined, and lucky enough to not be dead yet. She is going to be an epic hunter one day but I love that she’s not there yet, that we get to see her painful learning process. (And I love that while we see the Winchesters helping her, her real mentor is Jody.)
I also love how brilliantly she serves as a foil to both the boys, reflecting different parts of them. In basic attitude she’s more like Dean, in that she can be belligerent and tough and wants to deal with most emotions by finding things to stab, and this has sucked her down the vortex of the hunting life, deep enough that she can’t get out. And yet like him she’s also self-aware enough to know this is screwed up -- talking about self-control, and she wants to fight to live but she’d rather die than hurt her loved ones.
But she’s got Sam’s conflict with her family, with the life she thinks she wants, versus the life she thinks they want for her. Sam’s conversation with her is beautiful because he is so painfully aware both of where she is coming from and where she is mistaken, but some things you can’t be told by anyone; you have to learn them yourself. However agonizing it can be for those who have been through it already to watch. And I love that Sam called Jody but didn’t tell her (though Jody must guess, she’s not an idiot -- but she wouldn’t ask Sam, wouldn’t put him on the spot between her and her daughter.) Also, Claire’s “if you weren’t my mother” awwwwww, Jody!
Meanwhile Mick was surprisingly tolerable (I kind of feel for the BMOL actors, both of them are putting a lot into their performances, it’s not their fault that they’re kind of annoying characters and also both white men when we could’ve at least had badass women?) (Though I did like that he’s a guy because it made it clear that Dean’s problem really is with amateur hunters. The question of sexism has come up before, even just with Mary earlier this season -- but Dean had zero problems accepting Eileen as a competent hunter he was happy to partner with; it’s amateurs out in the field he cannot stand.)
I’m still pretty neutral on the BMOL, but it is satisfying to see Mick getting won over -- they thought to bring in the Winchesters to pull American hunters over to their side, but instead Sam & Dean are pulling the BMOL over to their ways. Giving Mick a second chance also makes total sense, since he did help them with Claire, and the Winchesters give a pass (infinite passes, really, see Crowley) to anyone who helps family.
And Magda was mentioned again! And so pointedly by Dean that I almost wonder if maybe they know what happened to her and are guessing the BMOL are involved? ...or else I’m just hoping because I am still sulky that Dean didn’t recognize Ketch’s bike, or remember that obviously the BMOL know where they live since they kidnapped Sam from the bunker. (I found it interesting that the “Previouslies” emphasized Ketch’s ‘courting’ Dean, when that didn’t directly come up in the episode. Wonder what it means...?)
All this and some silliness too -- Sam’s faked boring podcast wasn’t fake, he really has been listening to it, OMG Sam. When I watched the preview clip before the ep I was a little perturbed that Dean was treating Sam so cavalierly, tossing him the keys, but after hours of Martin Luther no wonder he was cranky. Also Sam’s expression of shock hearing they had separate rooms, awww. While Dean is just tickled by the idea of little shampoo bottles (...and little vodka bottles in “Regarding Dean,” oh Dean, you love small cute things way too much...)
Overall, just a solidly satisfying, entertaining ep -- more like that, please!
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In regards to my long fucking essay on all things I could think of for everything I think people might wonder about Etheri, Etherivium, the Void, and just... so many goddamn things...
That’s the first draft, please keep in mind as you navigate it. And it’s all based on, in simplified words, how a perfect entity embodying all of existence works if it is influenced by a single exception to its rules (Infinity -1 Paradox, in which the Concept of Absence is removed from the would-be Infinite pool of Concepts available to Etheri without breaking its ability to function via its own Law, nor creating any Paradoxes involving Infinity’s status as being truly Infinite. Hence it being dubbed: the Infinity -1 Paradox.) as well as how it behaves in a way that defies all logic as we understand it, despite AND also because of the nature of Paradoxes and Concepts and Counterpart Concepts. I also tried to explain in a semi coherent way how the Void is both a concept of Absence and the Absence of a concept, which makes it a Paradox of sorts, but because it is the Void, and it already is the Absence of Concepts as a defining thing, it doesn’t collapse the Domain, but it does also have equilibrium with Etheri in terms of Purest of all Destruction (i was going to reiterate that it’s the goddamn Void, but I think y’all understand it well enough by now for me to skip further reminders that despite everything it could mean and should do, its definitive trait is that stuff cannot exist in it, ever, at all, without that golden combo of Concepts only Etheri has ever made, and imma cut it short this is getting rambly)
Anyway, the Void’s “Destruction” in the form of only being an infinite expanse of theoretically infinite outward expansion within the Domain’s theoretical limit to keep it from being a canon crossover eater of worlds (Domain being, as a reminder, the term I created to give a name and lore friendly reason for why an Author’s creations can be canonically contained, because I don’t really want a possible future in which a possible fandom meme of “canonically the Void could extend into X fandom’s world and delete everything!!” And then there’s a plague of Thanos Snap type memes about Winnie the Pooh getting eradicated by Void invasion— just. I needed a lore friendly reason to have an ultimate limit to an infinitely expanding Void apocalypse, which ended up being not just lore-friendly, but also potentially useful to prevent other creators from getting upset over it if it’s interpreted as like... rude or something? I don’t know, whatever.)
Aaand since Concepts typically form in Counterpart pairs, the Absence of All Things invokes the presence of the Existence of All Things, which in turn is why I have the Infinity -1 Paradox in place, which theeen connects to the equilibrium of Concepts, Counterpart Concepts (which are actually the Primitive, Specific pieces that individually actually have the opposite effect with the Concept they match, as all together would be the Absence Concept which makes the singular Void, but since they are the specific sub-definition Concept form, rather than overwhelm through a Structural Collapsing Paradox with the supermassive Existence Concept, they work like how pruning a bush’s dead leaves helps it, despite removing its one living limbs which out of context sounds bad. But in context, with each Concept forming a Counterconcept, they find equilibrium that forms the overall Concept of Destruction, which is in turn a part of the Core Concept of Chaos, which most significantly brings about change, as it and the Concept of Order are both Concepts representing within themselves an equivalent presence and absence of all that they mean. This is a definitive part of what identifies the Core Concepts, as they are very broad, layered Concepts that have counterparts, but share equal function in presenting their own set of concepts and applying an abstract concept of absence that, because they are always formed as once Concept that then split perfectly. They are more fundamental in the structure of most of Universes born within Etherivium, because they are stable bundles of everything that the Gods (upon their creation by Etherivium) need to build their Multiverses and then Universes, and then all that goes within them, to form the circumstances of everything Bounding Beyond the Stars will be about. Core Concepts, in short, are equal counterpart pairs of many bundled Concepts that balance each other out through shared roles of give and take occurring between both definitions of those Concepts, as opposed to the majority, singular Concept type which are more specific definitions, thus are many more times numerous than Broad Concepts, which all are different from Core Concepts also due to being pairs of the Presence of a Thing, and the Absence of a Thing, in pairs where that is the easiest path of balance, (I specifically emphasize this because Concepts go down to the smallest scale possible, but Core Concepts are always a culmination of many concepts forming a general definition, in addition to the other described distinctions. This is relevant in terms of them being tools noticed and utilized by Gods for their initial purpose of being sort of like Repair tools for Etherivium’s structural dilemma.)
The only Core Concept pair that lacks the equivalent push and pull split among both Concepts is the Light and Dark pair. Light is a representive, easy to say term for Energy (of all forms), and by extension its presence, whereas Dark is more accurately represented by the literal name, the Absence of Energy.
In their derivative forms, such as the Concept of Kinetic Energy, which invokes the presence of the Concept of Heat, the Concept of Absence of Heat is what specifically is present on the Universe’s most basic level (layers of reality start at conceptual basic level, then move upwards in layers in a sort of specification of complexity, sort of. The plane we live on is one of many forms of interpretable results of concepts all existing in a logical manner, notably in physical form. Interaction with different layers of reality means access to all sorts of manifestations of conceptual structure, at least in a vague sense. It depends on so many factors. Shit’s complicated, but compare it to an ascending structure of sieves that eventually divide into the finest of things at the top, with Core Concepts at the very bottom.) and whatever other factors are present result in the counterpart concepts finding balance, which we interpret as rules and laws we can make sense of. Skin your knee after sliding on the carpet, and you experience pain and heat and— well all those things, behind the scenes, are Concepts all working together to create that.
So... where was I going with all this.
Tldr; The Ashen Dominion and all the stuff I’ve made in it have a very particular system that I’ve spent many fucking hours that I don’t regret but do acknowledge— (deep inhale) I put time building this stuff. I want my High Fantasy world to mesh nicely with Science Fiction so that I can have intergalactic crimelord Goddesses with planet busting guns that exist because of, specifically, Concept based reality weaving, and all sorts of cool shit in which even mortals like Humans who suck at spellcasting magic, but have that power of teamwork and thinking hard, to be able to figure out how to munchkin their way into deciphering Reality themselves! Which, significantly, is something Humans are not meant to do. But I digress: All this long as fucking hell geek-babble (based on a 20 year old girl’s interpretation of frequent googling of universal theories, who I’ll mention, has no college experience or any formal education on the subject, so ya know, it isn’t meant to be anything relevant to the topic of actual irl creation theory, it’s just a grandiose fantasy setting with some broken logic and personal theory mixed in (and most importantly, the presence of magic as a force as omnipresent as gravity and is used as a vital building block in many many parts of the Ashen Domain. Magic is the big fucking thing that will eventually be the topic of many long essays worth of text) and all this is for the main purpose of setting particular rules and limits and explanations so that, when those rules and stuff are broken or altered, y’all who understand the context of their being the way they are will understand it to be the significant thing that it should be.
Gotta have rules before you break any. If Magic Character 1 stops Time with magic, then whatever right that’s cool, but if it is clarified that what happened was a Magic-based interference with the Core Concept of Time in that universe, then it’s a bit of a bigger deal. Context is important stuff, so I very much so want to put effort into providing it.
#world building#Bounding Beyond the Stars#laws of universe#creative writing#original content#BBtS#BBtS worldbuilding#theoretical science#high fantasy#fantasy worldbuilding#science fiction#science fantasy#work in progress#just a disclaimer that once again mutated into another TED Talk on nerd shit because I have ADD lmao#multiverse#abstract description of a system in which everything is on a scale in terms of infinity existing with paradoxes that defy logic
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