#such a good fucking concept. squandered.
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what if. Amy “fix-it” because hallucifer makes sam so paranoid about dean leaving for no reason that sam gives in and follows him and is witness to the whole thing
#hallucifer: wow. big brother really trusts us. (beat) so something’s up right? we know it’s never this easy.#sam: (visibly restraining himself from saying shut up. about to grab his scar.)#hallucifer: (aware he’s about to be banished) don’t listen to me if you want but. I’m just trying to help.#don’t blame me if you look in the papers tomorrow and find a obit for your brain-eating girlfriend. and… what was her kid’s name again?#sam: (touching the scar. not pressing down. face all screwed up.) || hallucifer: :3 it’s not like it’ll hurt anyone#if he really does trust you he doesn’t even have to know we’re following him. *and* you’ll know your brother still trusts you.#even when I’m here. maybe he won’t even punch you again. that still hurting?#sam: (grimace. because yeah. it does.) || hallucifer: door number two - he thinks you’ve lost it and he’s going to stab that woman to death.#so what’s it gonna be Sam? ready to gamble your friend’s life on if Dean gives a shit about your opinion?#[and that’s the point where sam goes to follow dean. still doesn’t talk to Lucifer. not there yet. but oh hallucifer is sooo pleased with#himself about this. because he’s Sam. and he picks up on what Sam doesn’t. and he could see all of Dean’s little giveaways that Sam was#turning a blind eye to. and now here’s the perfect opportunity to put a wedge between them and get sam to trust him more <3)#GOD. FUCK. IM UPSET NOW. WHY WASNT HALLUCIFER IN THAT EPISODE. MOST OF THE EPISODES?#such a good fucking concept. squandered.#anyway. idk if sam saves Amy but he DEFINITELY here’s Dean’s little speech to her about how she can’t change.#hallucifer with faux sympathy like (sigh) damn. well. i always told you what he was like. Michael. Michael-sword. no difference.#both of them want us dead the moment we step out of line.#and Sam just frozen there in horror with Lucifer’s voice sinking in. and he believes him. how can he not. with dean proving him right#hallucifer#spn#sam winchester#amy pond
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BAM here’s some old train!palace stuff! It’s just thumbnails for a comic i never got around to finalizing,, but yeah i guess its bonus content now lol. now you can see how most of my nonsense starts xD
#i love taking lines from cannon and twisting them to fit my own purposes :)#i also love goro unapologetically getting to say that no! he WONT settle for just changing shido's heart! he still wants to kill this mf!!!#ooOooOOoh but the moral high ground- FUCK THE MORAL HIGH GROUND LET GORO KEEP HIS MURDEROUS TENDENCIES#goro hasn't and won't ever share the pt's morals and he's made it this far. like hell is he gonna squander his kill shot if he gets one#.....anyway i was originally going to end this with a 'just let me do this for you!!' line from goro to akira#like. it went from solely vengance for goro's mother in his head to vengeance for the lives shido made him take (& akira's) as well#so now destroying shido and destroying himself is like pennance almost. which i know isn't a new concept in goro redemption arcs#but like. selfish self destruction just gets me so good sometimes ok????#anyway yeah uh enough rambling lol. is half of that even connected to this comic? not really but i was thinking about it so there it is lmao#cowardlybean this is mainly for you since you like the au so much ^^;;;; hope it lives up to the rest of it lol#maybe delete later? we'll see
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okay im not even going to bother watching the last few eps of bly manor like fucking come on now
#sorry to the lovers of this but its so :| EMPTY nothing is fucking happening#its missing so much like MEAT wheres the fucking meat#WHY was the only good ep the hannah one like really#also the ghosts suck ass at least hill house had a decent ghosts like really#speaking of shill house#that was mean im sorry#anyway its all a few good concepts stuffed into a pot with some broth and nothing else its missing so much#idk its just theres real potential there and its just like squandered with very few redeeming episodes between#i wish i could explain this with words besides saying its missing something but it is if you want to make a show that long you need more#more ghosts more plot really fucking more anything at this point#if you wanna know it was the nanny ghost and the peter ghost working to knock dani out that made me turn it off im not dealing with that#wish you the best <3 in going to watch something else instead now
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today's post is me rambling negatively- and probably upsetting some people in the process too, but i wanna get this out there before my brain inverts thinking about it.
honestly i don't like how the game treated Kaito's pushing Shuichi to keep being a detective as a good thing.
like- in the games Kaito keeps pushing Shuichi to be the ultimate detective, while Shuichi actively doesn't want to be a detective. i genuinely dislike this aspect of Kaito, he has alot of potential and individual traits that i love- but the game squanders it so much his canon depiction annoys me
with the Shuichi situation, detective work was obviously something Shuichi wasn't actually passionate about- as we learn he only started doing it to feel useful to his uncle- and he's proven time and time again that he isn't the kind of person who can handle the emotional strain the line of work puts on a person. but no matter what they kept making Kaito push him to be a detective anyways and framed it as a good thing despite everything pointing to the contrary .
Ryoma already fills the niche of "character who gave up on their passion due to trauma and needs to be encouraged to get back into what they love again"- we do not need to shoehorn Shuichi into it, especially when literally everything about him makes it noticeably unhealthy for him. i wouldn't have an issue with it if the game treated it like the negative it is, but it doesn't, the game thinks Kaito's pushing shuichi is actually a good thing and positive character growth. and that's my main issue with Kaito, really-
Kaito is a great character concept but the more i think about it the more the way he was used was so fucking shitty. i greatly dislike how they had the potential to show him as a super flawed wannabe hero doing the dumbest unhealthy shit cause he has a heart of gold, but they instead tried to play him as a tragic hero
he should have been called out for his shit more. he should have had a character arc where he learned how superficial his aid tactics actual are, and works up to do really heroic things. which- if you left ch5 as is- would make it a really cool instance of relapse into old bad habits under pressure, he would foil Kokichi 100x better like this too. while Kokichi descends into a paranoid mess, Kaito becomes a genuinely better hero- and Kokichi causes Kaito to relapse while he himself shows his true and more caring nature to Kaito in his final moments
but they didn't fucking do that.
Kaito was the tragic hero who was always right even when he was objectively wrong (read: Shuichi situation), a total hypocrite with zero repercussions for his hypocrisy (read: hates Kokichi lying despite lying more than Kokichi), and every character loved him no matter how shitty he was being.
i know he was intended to be a foil to Kokichi, but when Kokichi's relationships with other characters are more nuanced compared to his, it falls flat. Kokichi had people who liked and hated him to varying degrees, everyone had a solid opinion on him- but Kaito? i don't recall anyone outside of Kokichi, Maki, and Shuichi having any strong opinions on him (unless you count Tenko, but i don't cause her hatred was cause he's a man and not because of him as a person), which makes him feel way more flat compared to the variety of people's opinions on Kokichi and makes their foil connection way weaker
i just think Kaito could have been handled alot better- and i often tend to brush lightly on his problems in my posts that use him as a minor antagonist for saiouma
#danganronpa#ndrv3#danganronpa v3#kaito momota#shuichi saihara#kokichi ouma#kai time#ramble rant#Kaito deserved better writing#this post doesn't even touch on his issues in the Japanese version#but i don't know enough Japanese to touch that with a ten foot pole- so i won't try
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It is quite licherally impossible for to get over the Lunter = Caleb/Evelyn themes bc the narrative potential is, so fucking good.
I'm sorry but how am I supposed to be mentally well after seeing the Grimwalker that looks the most like Caleb have his entire life changed by a witch from another world.
How am I supposed to sleep soundly at night after witnessing the cycle of death and horror Caleb and Evelyn have been going through for centuries be broken by the physical representation of their love...
How do you expect me to go back to go back to a normal human life after you present me the most interesting concept this show had - The villain traps his brother in a cycle of strife and horror because he "betrays" him by finding his Evelyn - [the villain even goes so far as to name the clones of the man who fell in love with a witch "Hunter" as a shorthand for witch-hunter] and then squander it...
And THEN you imply the Clawthorns are descendants of Caleb and Evelyn... so now we have a story about two warring families -Clawthorns and Wittebanes - on top of the romance...
You might as well just throw my bisexual ass into the psyche ward bc I'm never going to recover LOL
#this type of stuff is also what I look for in romance stories... its actually crazy how I was able to find something that#covers nearly all of the things I look for in romance stories or stories where romance is the subplot
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So I was the anon who sent the ask about modern sensibilities and refusal to engage in the time frame and thanks so much for answering. You hit the nail on the head with this social justice warrior who refuses to engage with historicity typology, which seems to make up a majority of the fandom. This trend, and HOTD is a perfect example of this, of historical media nowadays throwing all historicity out the window to Girl Bossify and attempt to appeal to modern sensibilities is deeply annoying.
First, they take the deep religiosity including concepts of sacred oaths, duty, sacrifice, etc. of the medieval period and completely strip it away because writers are deeply cynical when it comes to religion and need to attract the Champagne Agnostics/Atheists who have a deep contempt for anything religious as being Boring and Uncool (and I say this as someone who has never been particularly religious lol, but as a student of history understands how important the concepts of religion, God, faith, oaths, duty, sacrifice, etc. were during the medieval ages). Arguably, the most important aspects of both nobles and peasants' lives during these times were their deep faith in God and devotion to their faith. Not including this religiosity in medieval dramas completely negates a lot of plot and character motivations.
Second, you have deeply ahistorical plot points that are used in a very manipulative way. I feel like now in every period drama I see you have a willful princess aka a Rhae/nyra type that gets placed in an arranged betrothal or marriage and we inevitably get a scene where she's shocked and outraged over marrying a man she doesn't know/love and being used as a BroODmArE (writers loveee this word lol) and I'm just always like ???? Are you knew? These girls have been surrounded by nothing but arranged matches from their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. for their entire lives? They 100 percent expected to be marrying a man for the realm not out of love? They also saw bearing children to further their line and unite the two families as a sacred duty and a good thing? Like?? it's just so eye rollingly ahistorical I can't. I'm not saying that there have never been cases where women were violently against their arranged marriage for whatever reason. But, by and large, they did their duty and gladly, at least in public no matter their personal opinions. Yet, because of how this is framed in story the social justice media illiterate type act like these literal one percent privileged noble princesses are the most Oppressed People Ever? These literal royals have one fucking duty and that is to make a marriage that stabilizes the realm so smallfolk don't have to go fight and die in unnecessary succession wars while getting waited on hand and foot as peasants are working the field for 15 hours per day, and I'm supposed to feel bad because the Precious Princess didn't get her First Choice husband?? Are these writer's serious? It's so deeply unserious and and the history illiterate fandom eats it up.
Thanks for coming back, anon. 💖 I think there is space to critique aspects of medieval society, even if we're talking about elements chosen particularly because they are egregious to the modern eye, like arranged marriage and blind devotion to God that leads to intolerance and Church abuses etc. But most of it is done in a trite, superficial, redundant way and the critiques are in the same registry.
I agree about the topic of arranged marriage being discussed in the context of a pampered princess that is always so shocked that she has to marry for political reasons and throws a tantrum worded in a way that sounds vaguely human-rights-ish or feminist to our ears. In the case of Rhaenyra, she actually IS offered the chance to marry for love, but even that she considers a chore and squanders it. On the opposite end, I really enjoyed the movie Catherine Called Birdy because it took this trope and did something different with it, both highlighting the inherent unfairness of this practice and being refreshingly honest and human.
Ultimately, I feel like the framing is stale in many medieval or fantasy productions, with talking points that we've already seen a hundred times before. Film-makers feel the need to over-correct for the sins of the past when female characters were often sidelined, but they understand strength and character development in having them trample over everyone else instead. Rhaenyra repeatedly breaks the law, makes destabilizing political decisions and shows little interest for learning how to actually do her job, i.e. governing, but we're supposed to cheer for her because she is living her best life and is a bad bitch, so anyone who opposes her must be a shill for the patriarchy. Similarly, the framing of religious people is nuts and I say this as a staunch atheist.
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For the WIP game, do you have plans to add add any more to Outside the Lines from the Outside Chance universe? You single-handedly got me shipping Prim & Rye(n) hard b/c of this fic 😂 And from in progress, You + Me and/or The Cold Side of the Bed?
Alright, we'll cover all three. <3 Below the cut because it's a lot of text.
Friend. I am totally going to throw my beta under the bus on this one. PRIM AND RYEN WERE NEVER PLANNED. I was not gonna go there. Buttercupbadass, however, had other ideas. "Wouldn't it be funny if Prim's 'spa day' was her sneaking away to be with Ryen???" she asked. "Oh it's so cute she had a crush on him!" she says. "Screw it. I want them [Prim & Ryen] to get married," she puts in her edits/comments on ch 17 of Outside Chance, and not on a Prim and Ryen interaction even. That's what bba commented when Prim is saying goodbye to Eirik when she and Katniss are leaving Skaid after their summer visit!
Thus began an entire barrage of her reasoning, possible scenes and dialog, and then... THEN bba mentioned how funny it would be if Katniss accidentally saw a naked Ryen in the background of a Skype call one day and I lost it. So much of that story has roots in my personal life and well... so does that, unfortunately. But after that, the whole concept became too delicious for me to resist. And also, bba was right. They belong together.
I absolutely plan on adding more to Outside the Lines. At the moment, I feel the need to finish writing the next chapter of Outside Chance because that's the root story. I build Outside the Lines and Outside Expectations around what's in Outside Chance, and in a lot of ways, Otl and OC are kind of written simultaneously. So here's a snippet from the next chapter of Outside the Lines and lord help me if bba sees this, I won't hear the end of her prodding to get it done lol ;)
--
“So you’re the flavor of the week. Is there anything you can tell me about Ryen’s mental state going into this competition?”
“If I were really just the flavor of the week, why would you think I’d have any insight into his mental state?” I retort. There’s not much I remember about Agnes Mellark, other than a vague impression of cold aloofness. But how much of my idea of her has been stained by what Katniss and Ryen have told me about her? I don’t know.
I can’t even tell if she recognizes me right now. Maybe it’s too soon to play this hand, but I can’t resist. Maybe because it’s proof that I know Ryen far better than any of his previous flings. Maybe even better than the woman confronting me right now.
“Aren’t you his mother? You should have a better idea of his mental state than me,” I say with a smile. Really, I’d like to stab her in the jugular, but with what? Couldn’t smuggle in a knife, and am unfortunately not wearing my favorite four inch heels, which would be a perfect weapon.
Agnes purses her lips and her eyes wrinkle at the corners. Oh shit, I think and prepare to run, but she shakes her head and chuckles slightly.
“I wish I could say that my son were smart, but he usually thinks more with his dick than his brain,” she says and eyes me. “You’re every bit as beautiful as the others, but smarter, aren’t you?”
“I’d like to think I am,” I say.
“Good. Maybe you actually have a shot at getting him to commit, but don’t hold your breath for it. He won't admit it, but he needs someone with a brain to keep him in line, to challenge him and keep him from squandering his talent.”
“Multiple Olympic medals and world cup titles count as squandering his talents?” I ask. She takes a step back from me and I hold in my triumph that I got a response.
“Maybe not, but his personal life is a mess. I just want to make sure you deserve him and treat him the way you should. Don’t be like that trash his younger brother keeps falling for.”
Oh no. She did not. Fuck this bitch. I don’t need a knife to destroy her.
"Oh you mean my sister?" I say with a wide smile and hold out my hand to her. "I guess you don't remember me. Primrose Everdeen."
**
You + Me is another one of my outstanding Everlark Fic Exchange prompts. This one is from 2019 (I think? *cringes in shame*), and was for either K or P as a romance novelist who secretly uses the other for inspiration in their writing. What happens when they find out?
This one has been super fun to write, if a little slow going, mainly because there are multiple moving pieces to it. Now for a snippet!
--
Katniss… we live together when we travel. I think I’m aware of all your annoying habits by now. ;)
And here I thought I was something of an enigma.
Nope. Open book to me.
Shit.
Does he mean…?
My brain is scrambling, but I take a deep breath and manage to reign it in. He knows I’m a published writer. His words could merely be a reference to that. This can’t be good. Has he already figured it out?
Before I start plotting a heist to break into his house for a book burning party, I manage a decent, mostly innocuous text.
Hey what’s the title of the book you’re reading? Maybe I know it and can spoil the ending for you. ;)
Not on your life, Everdeen.
Just reached a plot twist in between your texting barrage.
A delicious plot twist. ;)
Oh?
The hero is not who I was expecting. Dun duh dun!
The wheels squeal and I rush off the train as fear rises up in my throat. Oh god, he’s figured it out. What gave me away? The food porn passages, probably. He’s got to be reading The Thrill of the Hunt. That’s the only one I can think of where I pulled a bait and switch with the hero.
The street is crowded and I have to tuck my phone in my pocket to navigate the crowds. When I get there, I’m still unable to answer him because even though I’m early to meet my editor, she’s ready for me.
“Katniss, darling! Welcome, welcome! Have a seat please. The cappuccino is fresh,” Effie trills as I’m ushered into her office and offered coffee.
Oh this cannot be good. Whenever Effie has liked my pages, she forgets her manners. Excitement precludes etiquette. But when a writer needs a kick to the creative pants… that’s when she’s the picture of perfect manners.
“That bad?” I ask when her assistant is finally gone, the door shut and a hot cappuccino gripped in my hands.
“They were...how to say this…?”
“Shit,” I supply and she scowls at my language.
**
And finally, since you asked about it, The Cold Side of the Bed was something I started for one of the "This Would Have Happened Anyway" challenges. I don't remember which one, only that the prompt was for Everlark in District 13. I never managed to finish it, in fact I've barely started it beyond a vague outline and the opening scenes, mainly because I was still finishing my degree at the time and pretty much would crash after finals then not be able to muster up the energy to write fanfic. But also because it kind of turned into an epic story. Short synopsis: Non-reaped Everlark winds up married to different people after their last reaping. The rebellion still happens and 12 is still bombed. Some of the story would be about them getting to 13, but the juicy stuff happens while they are in 13.
--
When I wake, the other side of the bed is cold. I reach out through the rough material, seeking a shred of the warmth that would exist if Primrose didn’t still climb into our mother’s bed after a nightmare. Not that I am surprised she had a nightmare last night. This is the day of the reaping, after all. I slowly lift my head to peer across the room at them. The three of them curled together for comfort. My mother, my sister who grows more achingly beautiful every day, and the ugliest yellow cat in the world. He sees me watching and hisses at me.
“Yeah, I know you’d be happy if they called my name today. Lucky for you, they just might.”
After all, my name is in the bowl 28 times today. I dress and join Gale in the woods, relaxing as I make my way through the thick summer foliage to our meeting place.
“How’re you planning on celebrating your freedom?” he asks as we make our way back towards the fence when we’re done hunting. It’s been a glorious day and we’ve got quite the haul. I’ll need the woods to keep providing like this in a few weeks. When the Games end this year, I start working in the mines.
I shudder slightly and give Gale a look. He just shakes his head and laughs. I don’t need to say it. It’s not exactly freedom, aging out of the reaping and into working down in those mines.
“You thought about what I said?”
“Gale,” I say and stop walking right before we reach the fence. He stops too and sighs, looks up at the sky. “I told you I can’t think about that right now. Not when Prim will still be—.”
“And I’ve got Rory still eligible and Posy about to start in a few years, but I’m still thinking about it. How’d you explain that? How about Nathan Dawson and Lilah Bronski? They’ve already decided they’re getting married some time after the reaping if they both make it through. Lots of people think about it, Catnip, and lots of people do it.”
“Well lots of people are stupid then,” I snap and Gale sighs.
“Alright look, just forget I said anything. Let’s go make our trades before we make you late.”
#wip file game#outside the lines#outside chance universe#you + me#the cold side of the bed#distractionsfromthefood#look at that ask
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HAHA, THANK YOU KINDLY-
Also, Ok, so the boob window!
It’s a common misconception (not really, because nobody fucking knows or cares about Tasky. But it is for the 5 of us knee deep into this fandom, because it does get brought up somewhat frequently. So let me ramble LOL)
It’s not a boob window (I know: :(((( ), it’s just the pattern on his suit. Tho given he has somewhat tan skin and the pattern is sometimes a more muted orange, I can see why there is so much confusion about it again and again.
So much so that in some designs the concept artists straight up said ‘Nah, the orange part is skin’ - Only on his arms tho, because they are cowards.
(yes, this is from the porn and even there they didn't DARE TO GO ALL THE WAY)
..like seriously guys, go all the way!
(yes, these are photoshops bc that is how I have decided to squander away my artistic skill and precious time on this earth)
The only franchise to properly acknowledge his general thottyness somewhat was Avengers Academy, so they did give him a deep cut out at least.
But yeah, whenever the orange is more bright and neon, you can see it’s a pattern quite well. Fortnite is a good example of that.
That being said, for the longest time Tasky did not show ANY skin in comics. Suit up to his chin and dark makeup around the eyes always. Even going as far as to wear other human masks in addition to his skull (last time he did that was in KiB’s Thunderbolts, when he was suddenly looking like Homelander, so we (the secret council of tasky stans) were like ‘that’s GOTTA be a mask bc he hates showing his face’ and we were right.)
And even tho that has become a more common occurrence in the comics now, I think it might still be a while before we get a deep cut out on his regular costume.
Anyways, not a boob window. Tho it would 100% fit his character. I mean even the dudebroiest of comic dudebros agree he's a thot, so it's just who he is. Maybe that’s why the pattern looks like that still.
Now that I think of it, it’s canon his ‘day job’ is competitive ballroom dancer and they have a lot of full body suits that just LOOK like they’re exposing skin in places. Maybe got inspo from there. Yes, that is me retrofitting canon and adding more thought into it than it's worth, but dude it fits too well. 💀
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what motivates you artistically? :3
well right now blelaf mainly. no ok hang on. alright. so.
when i was really young i had this feeling like if we could all just understand one another, if there was a perfect way to beam your thoughts and feelings into someone's head, it would fix almost everything re conflicts and human suffering. (naive obviously but this was what i thought lol.) when i started to be aware of what it was to read good books and look at good art it felt like in some ways the closest we could come to fully articulating an idea, a moment, a feeling, and placing it in its entirety into someone's mind. relatedly, uh, bad stories/art that didn't seem to respect their audience pissed me off at the squandered opportunity (sorry the snobbery came out sorry) and made me think, dammit, the audience and types of people evoked within this deserve better and i'm gonna try. with the combo of these two things it was like ..okay i'm going to start writing and drawing. it was all about stories ideas concepts. oh and also i really liked rodents and wanted to draw them as often as possible lol. i drew so fucking many rodents. gah. these concepts were no joke deeply linked for me because as a child i genuinely felt like the bad rap rodents get from people unthinkingly condemning them via stereotypes was a symptom of a societal lack of empathy and consideration. (possibly terry pratchett's fault)
(could not locate early rat art at this moment but here's relevant scribbling. i was nine i think.)
tl;dr plunging themes and concepts i find interesting; communicating them to other people. (sometimes the concept is admittedly not highbrow. sometimes it is very silly. sometimes it is 'hey ! it would be hot if this happened to b*laf'.) it can be hard to reconcile the desire to 'communicate' via art/writing with some of my work just not having much of an audience or even feeling like i don't want to share it for various reasons lol, but in those cases i frame it to myself as, the effort of presenting the idea was enjoyable in and of itself, an act of personal communication between me and the subject or content of the work even if the thing itself will never be shown to another soul : v anyway fanwork can be a neat way to do that because it's like shared muses or canvases where what you see in them or love about them is already partially pre-communicated to people and you can hit the ground running on evoking emotions, concepts and narratives using the shared frame of reference, as well as skewing and transforming said frame as needed. btw i found another drawing of me and the sages that i didnt use in the other post so here it is
there have been many periods of my life when i was making more original work, though. (i'm sure i've said this many times now but before the sages i had a very comparable attachment to a couple of my OCs.) i also had a pretty terrible experience with fandom around middle school that sort of drove me away from heavily engaging for a long time; i was still in fandoms but basically never shared my writing outside of like PMs and servers. that's part of why my current abyss bullshit is so precious to me and also why i can get protective over it; it pretty much singlehandedly brought me back to the Blessings and Curses of being directly engaged in sharing a lot of fan content publicly. (man for a person who doesnt like bondrewd i do quote him a lot unfortunately.)
so anyway. yes. uhh sorry that was really long. i sort of just like blogging haha thank you very much for the ask! < 3
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Short Reflection: Vinland Saga Season 2
A sequel can do a lot of interesting things to the story it’s a part of. A great sequel can catapult an already good story into greatness. A bad sequel can squander whatever potential the first part was building up, or be so inconsequential that you can just pretend it doesn’t exist. But the hardest sequels to talk about are the ones that do an excellent job following up on what’s come before... yet still feel like a downgrade in ways so subtle you’re not quite sure if nostalgia is playing tricks on you or not. Did this series always have these flaws, you wonder, and you were just blind to them before? Or is something genuinely missing from this otherwise fantastic continuation that makes it feel less special than that initial entry? It’s a question I asked myself last year with the final season of Mob Psycho 100, a show that by any other metric would be a knockout success but couldn’t help but feel overshadowed by the seasons that came before. And now that same quandary presents itself to me with Vinland Saga, back after four years for another round of bloody historical viking combat and deep ruminations on the dangers of violence and hatred.
To make my position clear from the outset: I fucking love the first season of VInland Saga. It’s one of the best written, most achingly mature works of storytelling in anime, a beautiful exploration of the humanity behind violence, the people who perpetuate it and suffer it alike, and the complexities of people in a world far too willing to sort everyone into ally or enemy. It was potent, it was sincere, and it was achingly beautiful (at least when the production wasn’t driving itself into a ditch). It also had Askellad, one of my single favorite anime characters of all time for how beautifully he blurs the line between monster and hero. So perhaps that’s the reason why I don’t like season 2 as much; Askellad dies at the end of season 1 and only shows up here for a couple brief visions. My sweet baby gone too soon from this sinful world, we shall never see his like again.
I kid, I kid. Obviously, Askellad’s story ended exactly where it needed to, and any continuation to Vinland Saga- much like Thorfinn- would have to find a way forward without him. And that listless limbo of living between worlds is where we first meet Thorfinn as season 2 kicks off. Far from the ravenous warrior he was in season 1, Askellad’s death and the thwarting of his revenge has left him a shell of a man, barely able to function day by day. He’s ended up a slave on the farm of a seemingly kindly slavemaster named Ketil, his life reduced to following orders like an automaton as he wonders what the point of living even is now that his purpose has been taken away, leaving nothing but the memories of the countless lives he ripped apart in pursuit of it. But that begins to chance with the arrival of a new slave named Einar, a man who lost his home and family to Vikings much like the ones Thorfinn used to serve. As the two strike up an unlikely friendship, the shattered boy slowly begins to piece himself back together from nothing, facing the trauma he inflicted on others and himself and searching for new purpose unshackled from the bloodshed than once ruled his life. But it’s only a matter of time before bloodshed once again comes knocking at Thorfinn’s door, forcing him to come to terms with what kind of person he wants to be... and whether or not it’s possible to truly escape a world that seems to worship violence as the only true way.
It’s a radically different direction for the story to take, but it’s really the only way it could have gone. From the first episode, Vinland Saga has always been an interrogation of violence and its effect on people, a cry for peace in a world where that might as well be a foreign concept. And is season 1 was a full dive into the heart of that violence itself, season 2 is all about the escape from it, what it takes for a person who’s lived their whole life bathed in blood to seek a better way forward. Appropriately, most of what’s been dubbed “Farmland Saga” is spent on conversations and quiet moments, characters working out their issues and finding peace beyond the reach of a sword or ax. And whenever violence does show up, it’s always in short, brutal spurts of death where no one comes out happy, a far cry from the bombastic battles we used to have. And while that change no doubt rubs some fans the wrong way, it’s the only honest way Vinland Saga could continue to explore its themes. You can’t exactly tell a story of a man leaving violence behind and embracing peace if you’ve got limbs and heads flying at the same rate as season 1. Thorfinn’s growth from an emotionally stunted boy into a fully realized man, and the ways the rest of the inhabitants of Ketil’s farm react to the role of violence in their world, is Vinland Saga, and it’s still the same damn powerful story it was telling back when blood ran thicker and death same swifter.
So no, the relative absence of violence is not the reason that season 2 feels somewhat lacking in comparison to season 1. But then... what is the reason?
The obvious culprit to point at would be the change in studio. And yes, I’m as sick to death of the endless Wit vs Mappa debates as you are. So many stupid takes on every side, all ignoring the fundamental issue that both of these studios are infamous for treating their workers like shit and sacrificing healthy production times for the sake of pumping out more content for their shareholders to make money off of. Seriously, all your animation issues with shows from both of these studios come from the same source of corporate greed favorite quick profits over artistry, bond over that and fight your mutual enemy instead of turning it into a fandom dick measuring contest. That said, it’s not every day that you get to see two different studios put their own touches on multiple different anime in such clear terms. And between Attack on Titan and Vinland Saga, I definitely think there’s a conversation to be had on how Wit and Mappa’s approaches to anime differ... and what effect that has on the finished product.
To vastly, vastly oversimplify what I’ve observed, I’d say that Mappa tends to focus more on detailed animation, while Wit prioritizes cinematic direction. Whenever Mappa flexes its “budget” (yes I know that’s not really what it is I’m oversimplifying for time bear with me), it tends to be with intricate shots of richly detailed characters, every crease and line in their skin shaded and expressive. A single image or quick action cut, when given the time it needs, can feel so weighty and expressive, like you can actually reach out and touch it. Wit, meanwhile, tends to put its best foot forward with the way its camera brings its stories to life, sweeping CG-assisted tracking shots or gorgeous tableaus spilling out across the screen. They may sacrifice the finer details sometimes (and let’s be clear, there are moments where Vinland’s first season looks like aaaaaaass), but the visual imagination behind how they frame and present their anime captures that elusive feeling of cinema that few TV anime manage to achieve. Wit embraces anime not just as an animated medium, but a truly visual medium, one where every choice is make to sweep you up in the beauty this art form is capable of. And that’s a level of imagination, sadly, that Mappa doesn’t always measure up to.
In regards to Vinland specifically, the part of season 1 I always come back to is episode 14, which is framed almost entirely in claustrophobic, horrifying close-ups as we witness the slow-burn destruction our protagonists bring upon an innocent family. Everything is so close to your face, almost blotting out the frame, shoving your face in the horrors the story’s main characters are capable of committing and refusing to let you turn your gaze away. It’s one of the most gut-wrenching episodes of anime I’ve ever experienced, and it’s all thanks to how thoroughly Wit embraced the tools of this medium to drive home that horror. Moments like that are what made Vinland’s first season such a cinematic marvel, even when the production was clearly suffering from poor time management. By contrast, most of the big experimental moments from season 2- dreams, nightmares, near-death experiences, visions- are shot and framed rather conventionally. In fact, pretty much every scene in season 2 has the most basic “camerawork” imaginable. Mid shots and long shots and close-ups and detailed action cuts, all in their proper places, yes, but there are no moments like episode 14, no moments where the visual language rises to that same level of brilliance. It’s all individual moments of beautiful animation (and some rough patches as well because again, Mappa and Wit have the same problems with overwork affecting the final product) with nothing that truly takes flight and shows off the true power of the medium as an artistic form. Still achingly effective thanks to the strength of the writing, performances and soundtrack, but if anyone at Mappa has the same sense of cinematic joy and creativity as the folks at Wit, well, they were probably working on Chainsaw Man while Vinland season 2 was in production.
But technical differences can only explain so much. Attack on Titan also had a rough start switching to Mappa, and it still managed to be pretty much as electrifying and incredible as always. Which means we need to dig a little deeper in the writing of season 2 and figure out what isn’t clicking quite as well this time around. And thankfully, the answer is actually pretty obvious, so I’m gonna come right out with it: the dialogue in season 2 kinda sucks.
See, telling a slow-burn story that’s mostly conversation is a totally fine way to explore your themes, even if the actual plot remains fairly still for the sake of intricate character work. But there is an art to writing a slow burn without making audiences long for something faster-paced, and it is not an art that season 2 pulls off well. Almost every conversation boils down to characters talking explicitly about the show’s themes for minutes on end, repeated and re-repeating themselves as they endlessly ruminate on violence, peace, the nature of war, the nature of hatred, trauma, forgiveness, moving forward and choosing the hard way over the easy way until they all start bleeding together into the same indistinguishable soup. These conversations don’t feel like people engaging with heady ideas, they feel like the author was terrified of even a single audience member not getting the point. There are some really powerful themes season 2 is working with, but they start to feel less special when every episode is full to bursting with characters doing nothing but talking about those themes for the hundredth time.
And just to make sure, I re-watched an episode of season 1, and it didn’t have this problem! The dialogue in season 1 flows so much more naturally, characters seamlessly weaving between plot-relevant exposition and interpersonal relationship-building and interesting, quirky asides and heavy, climactic confrontations. Perhaps it helps that season 1 also has a lot more moving pieces, so it has countless ideas it can juggle throughout a single episode without getting bogged down in a single mode for too long. The occasional thematically explicit speech or monologue becomes a lot more powerful when used sparingly, interspersed with other story beats that advance the story and its themes through less direct methods. “Show, don’t tell” is a common piece of writing advice for a reason; most of us find stories’ ideas far more engaging when they’re revealed through characters actions rather than (or at least in addition to) their words. But with so few actions to “show” throughout season 2, pretty much all of its thematic weight relies on characters “telling” us what we should think about the experiences they’re going through. Thorfinn tells Einar about his trauma, Einar tells Thorfinn about his perspective on life, Canute tells his weird ghost dad head (which, I’m sorry, this thing just looks goofy) about his increasing moral rot and the weight of the king’s crown, and all of it really starts to drag when there’s nothing else to change things up. No wonder some fans grew tired and started to beg for a return to the bloody action.
Which I seriously want to drive home: Vinland Saga season 2 not being violent is not its problem. This show has always been a plea for peace, so exploring the aftereffects of escaping a violent life in a mostly peaceful environment for Thorfinn to find himself again is exactly the direction it should have gone in. And in the moments where stuff actually happens in season 2? Where the endless slow-burning conversations give way to action, violent or otherwise, on part of its characters? It’s just as heartbreaking and awe-inspiring as anything in season 1. The only reason I’ve gone so hard on critiquing this season is because I know just how fucking fantastic this show can be at its best, and when season 2 is at its best, it absolutely lives up to that high bar and more. Going peaceful isn’t the problem; the problem is that it just isn’t as good at being a peaceful story as it is a violent war story. Not bad at it, just not as good. Vinland Saga’s first season explored its themes so well by balancing so many different factors and making them all sing in harmony, delivering a propulsive tale of blood and swords that drove its ideas into you like knives while still being an entertaining story capable of effectively delivering those themes in the first place. Season 2, meanwhile, puts almost all of its eggs in a single basket, and suddenly it finds itself running into problems it can’t fix without betraying the core of its narrative. It’s like trying to build the same house twice but the second time you only have 10% of your toolbelt available; the fact it even ended up as great as it did is something of a minor miracle.
And make no mistake: Vinland Saga season 2 is still great. For as much as I’ve complained about it, it’s every bit the change in direction this story needed to carry forward. And while the execution wasn’t perfect, it was still able to lay me out on the floor like few shows even come close to. Vinland Saga is a colossus. Vinland Saga matters. It’s so rare we get stories this mature, this thoughtful, and this widely beloved in this crazy medium we call home. And if Mappa’s planning to stick with this one until the end like Attack on Titan, I hope, much like that show, future installments are able to find their footing and push it back to the top of the heap where it belongs. Until then, I give season a score of:
8/10
And so begins the Spring 2023 round-up. Look forward for more seasonal reflections to come!
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i know a lot of ppl ship show eddie & camila (including myself) but lowkey when the show first came out, i thought eddie and warren would’ve made a cute pairing. like i know they’re prob very straight but in another queer world they would be best friends/band mates to lovers… do u think u could write a little ficlet about them? thanks <3
Reconciliation
pairing: warren rhodes/rojas x eddie roundtree
a/n: so... my first time writing a character x character fic and it will probably be my last cause I kind of hate how this turned out but hopefully u still like it anon cause i love this pairing. anyways i kind of went with the concept of warren and eddie getting reunited after the whole argument during the finale. enjoy + let me know ur thoughts :)
tw: coffee spilling, mentions of weed, cursing, mentions of drinking
description: old friends reconcile but will they become something more?
Warren: So it was actually a few years ago when I finally saw Eddie again. We didn’t leave our, I guess, you could call it friendship at the best of terms.
Eddie: I was an asshole, plain and simple. I regretted that conversation with Warren for my entire life. I kind of still do. I always felt a deeper connection with him and then I just went and squandered it over a stupid little rivalry I had with Billy.
Warren: I divorced Lisa back in ‘84. We didn’t fit well together… I mean we did at the beginning. But she wasn’t what I wanted and she made it abundantly clear I wasn’t what she needed. We’re still friends though. That never changed.
Eddie: So did Warren tell you how we reconnected?
Warren: Oh you want the full story well it all started on the day I was helping a band record some tracks at this fancy new record label…
When the producer finally gave him the greenlight to get out of the recording booth, Warren was beyond exhausted. It had been a rather grueling session, it was a quite literal miracle that he had lasted this long.
Before leaving he gave his customary goodbyes and grabbed a coffee from the break room, but just as he was about to leave the room to head home he ran smack dab into someone.
Coffee went everywhere. The scalding hot liquid burned through the flesh of his open shirt. Expletives flew every which way and those were quickly replaced by apologies from both parties.
“Fuck I’m so sorry man, that’s totally my fault.” Then Warren realized he recognized that voice. The deep baritone of the man he totally didn’t have a crush on for basically his entire life.
“Eddie Roundtree?!” Eddie’s eyes met his and the familiar sparks flew again. They might look over a decade older but those same butterflies still settled in his stomach at the blonde’s handsome face.
“No fucking way Warren. It’s good to see you man.” Eddie went to hug him but then they both realized that they were still covered in coffee. Rapidly cooling coffee that was sticking everywhere due to the insane amount of sugar he still demanded to put in it.
“Uh I’ve got some extra shirts and towels in my office. If you need any-”
“Yeah that’d be great.”
The walk over to his office was awkward but it was starting to fall into the realm of awkwardly comfortable. When Eddie finished unlocking the door and shepherding him into the space (which had abnormally large floor length mirrors), Warren finally realized that the glinting off the walls was due to all the producing awards.
Warren hadn’t realized how incredibly famous Eddie had gotten in the music industry. Of course, he had looked him up a few years ago but he seemed to have just been playing at random bars. It was insane how quickly he turned that around and he hadn’t heard or read about it.
“Hey, here's the only thing I had sorry. It might be a bit small on you… and not exactly your style.” Eddie’s face hid a slightly sheepish smile as he tossed me an ugly Christmas sweater that exactly matched the one he had on. Warren let out a loud laugh before stripping out the soaked button down shirt and tossing the replacement on.
“Okay from a scale from 1-10 how ridiculous do I look?” He asked as he did a small twirl.
“Definitely not as ridiculous as I do.” Eddie said as he let out a strained laugh.
“Okay spit it out, cupcake. You look constipated.” Warren said as he finally took a seat on the couch and patted the spot next to him. Eddie reluctantly followed him and twisted his hands together.
“Fuck I guess I just wanted to apologize for all the shit I said all those years ago. I really am sorry, Warren.” Eddie looked up at him and Warren gave him a reassuring smile.
“Hey it’s fine, already forgotten about. I’m just glad to see you again Eddie. Would you believe it if I said I missed you?”
“I probably would say you are severely sleep deprived.” They let out a laugh at that one.
“It’s only 3 a.m. Remember when we used to party until sunrise?”
“Oh god those were the days… but just so you know I’ve missed you too.”
“Well good. I’m sure you did cause I’m Warren fucking Rojas.”
“That you certainly are.”
Eddie: That night I got to reconnect with the one person who was always with me through thick and thin. And… the one who always chose me first.
The camera comes out for a wider shot as Warren walks in trying to balance 3 glasses of whisky.
Warren: I obviously made the first move, let’s keep the record clear with that one. It was about a year after that fateful night.
Warren was feeling those sparks again… it was probably from the weed that they were smoking but it was mainly because of those stupidly beautiful brown eyes. The eyes that belonged to the man he somehow became friends with again. The man who he had a crush on since middle school.
“Hey Eddie?”
“Yeah?”
“What would you do if I kissed you right now?” A brief expression of shock flew over Eddie’s face and Warren suddenly worried that he completely misjudged the situation.
“Probably kiss you back.”
Eddie: Okay fine yeah Warren made the first move, happy sweetheart?
Warren: Definitely.
They both shared a kiss as the video slowly faded out.
requests and asks are open as always <3
taglist: @yesshewrites1
(lmk if you want to be added to any specific taglists)
#warren x eddie#warren rhodes#warren rojas#warren rojas imagine#eddie roundtree#eddie roundtree imagine#djats#djats fanfic#warren x eddie fanfic#daisy jones and the six#daisy jones and the six fanfic#taylor jenkins reid#amazon prime
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4, 11, and 17?
4. What themes/concepts in the canon do you most enjoy exploring in your fan works?
Friendships for sure, especially if a show/film ends up squandering it for Drama™ so I'm always going to go explore that. In the same vein I also like to explore side-characters and plotlines that were either squandered or just ignored outright (or forgotten about) - untapped potential is always an excellent gold-mine.
11. What attracted you to the fandom(s)/media you write in?
Basically a show/film/video game has to have a good mix of fluff, humour, angst and found family for me to be interested in it - obviously it doesn't always have to be equal - cos some tend more towards humour while others lean more towards angst - but it absolutely can't go too far. For example, shows that become extremely angsty when they were previously more balanced *cough* Arrow and Cobra Kai *cough* tend to be dropped - not that that stops me from writing for them (mostly) but there's definitely something of a 'fuck you, I'll do it better' element in the fics that there might not have been previously.
17. What’s the best writing advice anyone ever gave you? Why was this good advice?
I've had some good advice over the years, but one of the best has to be 'just write' which I've seen stated several times by different people - one thing I struggled with majorly when I started writing fic was the fact I would self-edit as I went along, which created delays and sometimes I'd end up rewriting chapters I'd already uploaded which created even more delays, and honestly it's why there isn't more on my FFN (which is something I regret, as the drive for some of my ideas have faded since). It's not always easy these days, but I'm a lot better at getting a first draft down and then going back later.
Fic writer ask game
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Let’s talk about Remarriage and Desires, a drama that had potential but was squandered
The concept was pretty interesting, a woman (Hye Seung) looking for revenge against a woman (Yoo Hui) who seduced her husband and then framed him for embezzlement and corruption. The synopsis talks about how Hye Seung gets involved with an upper class arranged marriage agency for the uber rich to get revenge against Yoo Hui, who’s also trying to find a match.
Now, my expectations going in were based on some webtoons I’ve read that had a similar revenge story line. I expected Hye Seung to be a woman who was forced to be a schemer and scammer due to her husband’s betrayal and Yoo Hui’s existence. Instead, she’s a caring mom who’s trying to live her life to the best of her abilities and I respected that honestly. Even her joining the agency is just an accident, not a calculated move, until the last minute where she goes to ask for a refund and decides not to when she sees Yoo Hui.
The drama was pretty good at keeping the characterizations consistent, which also ended up being kind of a pitfall, especially when it came to Hye Seung imo. It started off pretty slow but still was entertaining (TO ME), the catharsis of seeing Yoo Hui getting smacked by that one guy and fully dragged through the mud in public.... what a high. Yoo Hui was a really good villain imo, like she said fuck it... I’ll kill a teenager idgaf, she’s not even in my way I just want to!
My Issues
- Hye Seung doesn’t even seem that suave moving through the different events, the whole time she’s blundering about just announcing her moves to her enemies... and at the start I’d understand given she’s never been in this situation before but by episode 8 I was like girl you teach mythology, maybe learn something from it
- Honestly couldn't tell if her motivation was because Yoo Hui ruined her life or because Yoo Hui inadvertently killed her husband... because like honestly if my husband asked me for a divorce because he was having an affair with another woman, and that woman ended up fucking him over I’d be like good riddance, like yea sucks that he killed himself but like I wouldn’t try to get revenge on his behalf.. I’d do it for myself!!
- The ‘romance’ felt like the writers didn’t know how to go about it, like I thought we had something when they introduced her ex from college, Seok Jin, and like that dude was putting his whole bussy into being the pining ex... but they were like “acshually no... that ceo of this gaming company, Hyung Ju, is going to fall in love with her instead” and kinda wild because from how they wrote the story and filmed it, the only reason he seems to ‘fall’ for her is because he sees her as a mother figure for his son and because she’s not after his money.. The bar is not that low bro... Like I’d like to talk to both of them and ask “So what do you like about the other” and see them flounder
- Also, the ceo of arranged marriages elite, Yoo Sun,... like... I know we know her motivation is just money and power, but like it’d be interesting to see how she came across Seok Jin’s dad and how they ended up forming their ‘relationship’,,, like I personally want her to get the inheritance too but also Seok Jin <3
- the ending was dogshit, a lot of people just abandon their goals (like what happened to that one girl who desperately wanted to marry a rich dude to take back some company... we never got that backstory)... Hye Seung still goes on to marry Seok Jin, but sike nvm Hyung Ju is here!! I thought his mom said “I dont want to see that child-having broke bitch in my house again”???
I know they had a lot to cover in eight episodes but like c’mon guys, if you’re going to introduce all these players you should ATTEMPT to do them all justice. Crazy how we got more Seok Jin and Hye Seung screentime but you want me to believe she was in love with Hyung Ju... you want us to believe that it was just that easy for Hye Seung to convince this politician lady to blow up her whole thing with the possible future president... IDK it was very wishy washy to me
ANYWAYS, if EYE was writing this drama I’d mostly workshop Hye Seung’s character and her relationship with Yoo Sun. Give Yoo Sun a backstory similar to Hye Seung’s that makes her kinda sympathetic to her, like ofc she would still be antagonistic but there’d still be some respect between the two. The romance, Hyung Ju and Hye Seung needed better writing like desperately... overall there needed to be more scheming and scamming done by Hye Seung imo
Not to be girlboss, but like I’d like it more if Yoo Hui ruined Hye Seung’s life in another way... which could’ve led to her divorce (not necessarily an affair)/losing her kid (bc obvi someone has to die for the hatred to be that strong)... and we can throw in divorcees reconciling trope into there, get rid of the extra fat (the gotdamn politics part bc that hardly led anywhere)
#literally the only reason i wrote this much is bc my expectations were too high#also i wrote a lot of words that ultimately amount to nothing but anyways#remarriage and desires#long post
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thinking abt how the shadow self/true self concept was so good and interesting but it got squandered on fucking. persona 4
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ridi i'm LOVING all these unpopular opinions!! music haterism is always justified imo and soo entertaining also love that i agree with you 100% on basically everything 😌 some of these things just had to be said…
i thought i didn’t have anything to add because ts, hs etc have all been spoken about and i don’t listen to modern music enough to have strong opinions on any others but then i remembered my BIGGEST parasocial enemy (who i never talk about bc i don’t really have that good a reason to find her annoying i just do) is beabadoobea…
apologies in advance but she sort of represents everything wrong with the music industry rn to me so maybe a rant is justified here? anyway taking this opportunity to say i think she’s so overrated and not in a unique way, like it isn’t new for people to get careers from how they look but in her case specifically it annoys me sm because of what her fans are like and also it’s close to home…as in my cousin is one of her best friends from school so i knew of her when she started releasing music on band camp and had to watch her make a music career off being pretty on instagram with the four chords my cousin taught her on guitar and a voice that’s just…fine, and whatever everyone has to start somewhere except she got a record deal when her sound was completely underdeveloped before she’d had time to learn anything about music or her own artistry and like fuck around experimenting for a while.
which is so common these days i think w people blowing up on social media and getting handed careers i.e riding on the people who can actually play their instruments and getting loads of money thrown at them to make really bland four chord nothing songs... like in the first few years of her career she made so much music and it was all so boring and sounded exactly the same, even now it might be unfair but i do just assume any vaguely interesting part of her output is someone else’s work like sorry she’s never had to come up with her own fully fledged ideas or concepts and she’s been working with the pressure of commercial viability the whole time, any potential she might have had i just think was squandered by having everything come too fast and too easily or maybe i'm being generous and her authentic sound is just boring idk because it still doesn't seem like she has anything to say…all this wouldn’t be as bad if her fans weren’t sooo insanely annoying about her + as a person i have no real reason to but i just do not like her :| my cousin is still good friends with her as well so i have to pretend i know nothing but the picture of her i’ve built from things my cousin’s said…just aggravating, alsoo she’d played at my work once when my friend was on shift and her ex bf that looks a tiny bit like george harrison was sitting at the bar the whole time drinking water and not talking to anyone while she was doing coke in the bathroom and he looked so pathetic my friend started talking to him to cheer him up in between serving him his next cup of tap water…
HELLO MY DARLING!! oh my god i didnt realise she needed to come up until you said it...bebadoobedobee...beadbeadooebadoo..clapping n cheering for your rant because youre fucking RIGHT i have a few friends who like her and have tried to get me to listen to her and she was just. appalling truly and as you say not even just in a ah shes trying shes young she'll get better kind of way but in a this is genuinely unbelievably soulless and bland and boring and says so little that even she seems disinterested with it. the inside scoop on her from your cousin is delicious also gbfskjfskd her poor sad george harrison boyfriend..
i think youre so right and i dont mean that new artists shouldnt be given a break or an opportunity or anything but like you say, when theyre being harvested on social media, where a lot of the time look is everything (as i believe it is for bebadoobebdoo, her look her 'aesthetic' pinterest-board fashion sense does play a part i really think it does because there is no way her music is strong enough on its own to be successful) and where they may not necessarily be super experienced or practiced yet (which again, i appreciate, theyre new), a lot of money goes into getting songs out of them which are inevitably boring unimaginative four-chord songs that do not have enough substance to make anyone feel anything. including the people singing them. i cant imagine that beabadoobee demonstrated enough genuine musical promise to be given a record deal so i have to believe its either her image or the idea that well if we give her tons of expensive resources maybe then she'll end up putting out something good.
there have to be new artists out there who are more talented and interesting and would do more with the sort of record deal thrown at beabadoobebee than beabadoobdbbee did...surely...i really did try to like her because my friends raved about her so much so i listened to a fair bit from her and her music was just so staggeringly nothing. i think you make a good point about how the fact that she got a record deal so early on probably has sort of stifled the music she makes/her ability to experiment with it but im not sure im as kind as you because i do fear she is just not very talented perhaps. sorry giggling at her sad george harrison tapwater drinking boyfriend again poor lad..
#wasnt she responsible for that terrible coffee song...dont stay away for too long dont blah blah ill make a cup of coffe for your head?#apologies to bebabdoabdoo if that wasnt her but god that song is so fucking annoying it makes me genuinely seethe to hear it#simmy tag#unpopular music opinions
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under the cut is what i nicknamed my ninjago oni arc retrospective. which is an obscene amount of rambling, ALMOST ENTIRELY CRITICISM ABOUT NINJAGOS WRITING, spurred on by the said trilogy. i had so many thoughts about the oni arc i literally could not tweet it. its literally so much. and by so much i mean about 5000 words of complaining, yelling, a lot of thoughts. coming from a place of genuine care for the characters that are in this godforsaken show. this is the first time im talking about ninjago on tumblr. and considering how twitter is going down im might just like. start liveblogging the rest of ninjago on tumblr lol...... its been years since ive liveblogged on tumblr, man. i wont be fucklong posts like this tho probably
anyways when i say 5k words. i am not exaggerating. this is That Long. youve been warned. i never shut the fuck up. yeehaw lets go
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garmadon. this is all about garmadon. i realized something while watching s10. like clearly ive been discontent with his narrative or more accurately the way the narrative has been using him (note the word using. its a talking point that i will return to later.). but what ive realized is interesting. garmadon in s10 is actually the garmadon i wish i got in s1/s2. but im discontent with this garmadon anyways why?
its because. it was given to me. in such a. dissatisfying. way.. and its dissatisfying because..... the best opportunity to make him like this has been squandered in the first place. and theres not enough justification/proper justification to make garmadon the way he was in s10. THE FUCKING...... SEQUENCING OF HIS CHARACTER ARC... CAN IT REALLY BE CALLED A CHARACTER ARC WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE SERIES OVERALL.......
its like... garmadon is a different character every season. in the pilots he was introduced as a sincerely menacing and evil threat and the only reason hes not is because he was trapped in the underworld or whatever but even then he was a threat threatening to be unleashed. someone dangerous. but then when you see him again in s1 hes like..... not.. that. the second impression of him that you get is that oh. hes not that evil actually. hes not so evil that he still loves his son. guess hes not that bad. and its like. okay so my personal opinion is that 1) a truly evil dad wouldnt even give a shit about his son and 2) okay so a villain being a caring parent CAN be an interesting and nuanced concept with depth (thinks about that one prozd vine) BUT the writers didnt actually make it that way and in fact they did it in a way that undermines the effectiveness of garmadons characters. the way they did it... just makes it feel..... inconsistent.
and on top of that, the writers loved making incompetent villains for comedic purposes and so like. they also decided to make garmadon that incompetent type in s1+2. THE VIBES GARMADON HAS IN THE PILOTS VS THE FIRST SEASONS ARE SO DIFFERENT..... and so... on seeing the type of character garmadon is in s9/s10... this guy who lost his love for his son... it just reminds me of the kind of guy i wish i gotten in s1 and 2. in s10 garmadon is an ally but its like. weird. because they turned him into a character whos entirely rational and practical because hes apathetic towards everyone. and thats not what s1/2 used to be. s1 garmadon was a fucking cartoony asshole lol..... so like... even if garmadon was stripped of all this goodness i cant see him being the guy he was in s10? like personality changes/amnesia doesnt work like that i feel. theres that. and then there the transition from s9->s10. s9 garmadon is like. oddly blank. suggestible. hes cold and cruel. hes a tower. hes menacing. i get how a freshly resurrected garmadon whos entirely evil maybe could result in this a little bit. but i cant see how garmadon in s9 suddenly changed to be the guy in s10. he straight up became a different villain. he became calculative and cunning. competent. also like. rational. like he understands that theres greater priorities to protect ninjago from a greater force. LIKE. DID S9 GARMADON EVEN HAVE A HIGHER LEVEL OF THOUGHT THAN "hm....... son....... brother........ take over ninjago....... true potential.... power..... destroy..... be evil........" LIKE. HES PRETTY GODDAMN SIMPLE AINT HE. IN S9. AND THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO TRANSITION TO MAKE HIM LIKE THE WAY HE IS IN S10 OTHER THAN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. AND THAT WOULDNT PRODUCE A CHANGE IN CHARACTER LIKE THAT. GARMADONS CHARACTER IS ALL OVER THE PLACE OVER THE COURSE OF NINJAGO and this doesnt even address sensei garmadon. miss that dilf. anyways.
they brought garmadon back but its in such a way thats not compelling at all...... because they decide to forget about past established relationship dynamics. (ninjago can and will throw out past established narrative arcs bc they are inconvenient to them. because to the writers, past seasons have very little value in moving the present plot forward because they are completed. BECAUSE THE WRITERS ARENT CLEVER ENOUGH TO FIGURE OUT WAY TO HAVE CONSISTENCY AND CONTINUITY IN THEIR NARRATIVE AND ALSO INVENT NEW PLOT.)
like entirely its like lloyd past relationship dynamic with his dad never happened bc lloyd never feels in a way that would make sense for a guy who had a positive and yet EXTREMELY COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP with his father. like come on s4 finale???? the last time lloyd talked to his dad (when he fucking sacrificed himself LIKE HE GOT YEETED THROUGH A PORTAL AND “DIED”)...... they dont bring any of that back. none of the anticipated feelings. theres no emotional logic to the way lloyd feels about his dad coming back. either that or they dont show it nearly enough. like clearly lloyd eventually feels some sorta way about his dad being pure evil and an amnesiac. but I WANT EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE MAN. THEY DONT EVER SHOW IT IN A WAY THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE..... LIKE. SHOULDNT LLOYD WANT.... TO FIX HIS DAD? WHY DOESNT HE TRY. WHY DOESNT HE MISS THE GOOD FATHER-SON MENTOR-MENTEE RELATIONSHIP HE LAST HAD WITH HIS DAD? ALSO MAYBE A LITTLE BIT OF GUILT???? BC HE HAD HELPED SACRIFICE HIS DAD AND HE DAD WAS CANONICALLY DEAD? OR MISPLACED SELFBLAME FOR FAILING TO PREVENT THIS FROM HAPPENING TO BOTH HIS DAD AND FREAKING NINJAGO. FOR ANGST REASONS. IDK MAYBE THAT BIT IS A BIT CONTRIVED BUT IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY THAT WAS THERE. I WANTED TO SEE LLOYD ACTUALLY TRY TO LIKE..... REACH OUT TO THE OLD GARMADON IN THIS HUSK OF HIS OLD MAN. I WANTED TO SEE AN ATTEMPT, A FRUITLESS ATTEMPT OF LLOYD TRYING TO GET HIS FATHER BACK. AND THEN DEVASTATION WHEN HE REALIZES HE FUCKING CANT!!!!!!!! THEY COULDVE MADE THIS SO MUCH MORE EMOTIONALLY COMPELLING. BY MAKING LLOYD THE ONE WHO NARRATIVELY CONNECTS THE OLD AND NEW GARMADON. LLOYD COULDVE BEEN A POINT OF COMPARISON TO GREATER EMPHASIZE HOW THE REVIVED GARMADON IS A DIFFERENT MAN. ill stop yelling now.
sighs. s9/10 is like...... considerably less compelling than s8 for this issue..... like not only are they bringing back lloyd+dad drama but also they dont put the right emotions in place for it to Be compelling. its missing so much for it to be... emotionally engaging..... it doesnt help that lloyd isnt my blorbo like they lose me so fucking hard after s8. s8 smacked. s8 smacked so hard and the follow up is disappointing. i was invested in lloyds character arc for once. harumis effect. im biased but im also right.
anyways this whole thing has been about garmadon but....... also i gotta say. its not a garmadon exclusive problem. this is def a clear symptom of a larger problem of ninjago. how ninjago approaches characters. which is that there is no show/character bible. not a single character has a character bible for the writers to follow. at most they have a single line. a single consistent characteristic. oh god are ninjas inconsistent.
you see its because the writers use characters as they see fit. theres so many times when they definitely decided on traits the characters should have that would be most convenient them to have in the moment. they see characters as tools to drive the plot forward, rather than having characters drive the narratives on their own. and thats BAD. because this way, characters dont have rules in how they behave. they dont have patterns. resulting in conflicting moments! have you ever heard of the phrase "characters write themselves?" well that happens when you have a solidly rounded character. you dont make the characters do what you want them to do. you write characters how you THINK they would behave. you write the situation. and they react accordingly to their characterization. its like a roleplay almost
anyways ninjago doesnt do that. ninjago is not character driven. so you end up with so much character inconsistency.
well im not saying the ninjas are like entirely inconsistent. theres is a general pattern they return to. the few basic traits the writers remember they have
like here. heres what *I* think are the only things that the **WRITERS** have truly set in stone for all the characters. this is not my personal observations and understanding of the characters but the way i think the writers see each character. im a guy who thinks characters are deeper than they are for the record.
jay: talks a lot/the jokester->annoying
nya: competent girl.
kai: arrogant/hot head (the latter is however inconsistent)
lloyd: leader (-_-💢)
zane: robot with that very specific speech style that indicates hes very smart and/or not human (robot.)
cole: CAKE.
and its evident that these characters are unequally fleshed out compared to one another. and im sorry this might be my bias goggles i have on which makes me automatically analyze the character im most invested in the sort out what their characteristics are but i think jay is arguable one of the most consistent characters. WELL. AT LEAST UP UNTIL I HAVE WATCHED. ive heard things about the studio change.... nya is also def arguably the most consistent. kai is a blorbo too but i know hes one of the less consistent ones and i have proof for this. lemme share a post by a showrunner. makes me so fucking mad.
FLUCTUATES?!?!? SURE PPL BEHAVIORS DEPEND ON THE SITUATION BUT LIKE COME ON. THERES SOME CONSISTENCY BENEATH IT SOMEWHERE ALWAYS. okay here. people arent Always consistent. but like. these are characters you know. there should be a reasoning why they behave differently from one situation to another you know? this answer is way too flippant of an answer, it infuriates me. LIKE. UGH IF THIS KINDA OF FLEXIBILITY WAS WRITTEN WITH INTENT AND PURPOSE THEN ITS GREAT!!! IT MEANS KAI IS A COMPLEX CHARACTER!!!! BUT YOU KNOW!!!!! IT ISNT LIKE THAT. KAI IS A FLEXIBLE CHARACTER BECAUSE THAT IS CONVENIENT FOR THE WRITERS BECAUSE IT MEANS THEYLL WRITE HIM IN ANY MEANS THE SITUATION CALLS FOR. THEY NEED HIM TO BE VOICE OF REASON THEYLL MAKE HIM THE VOICE OF REASON. THEY NEED HIM TO BE THE PARANOID GUY THEYLL MAKE HIM THE PARANOID GUY. THEY NEED HIM TO BE AN IDIOT THEYLL MAKE HIM AN IDIOT. they do the latter a lot and i really do enjoy it to be honest its like an incredible charm point to me how fucking stupid he is, i aDore him. ANYWAYS MY POINT IS KAI DOESNT HAVE CONSISTENCY...... if i rewatch ninjago i could fucking cite them better i like Remember the examples that have happened but not accurately when they happened. but i know im right about this.
also with the power of fan interpretation i can take his actions that he has done and rework them in a way that makes an actually cohesively rounded character. WORKING WITH WHAT I GOT. PUTTING THOUGHT INTO HIM MORE THAN THE WRITERS EVER HAVE. AND ILL DO THIS WITH ALL OF THEM. OR AT LEAST THE ONES I CARE ABOUT.
kai is rational and sometimes hes so fucking stupid and sometimes hes like both so like he burns rubber while staying in one place. that part of my interpretation of him thats important to me. s7 kai you think so damn much and yet you make absolutely no fucking progress in your thoughts its so fucking funny and iconic i LOVE YOU YOU FUCKING DUMBASS. i love your fucking arrogance and ego and how thats youre downfall most of the time i love this as youre character flaw. its good. and yet you can be sensible sometimes which makes me think there could be a leader in you if it wasnt for your massive shortcomings. and also i love when you go older brother mode....... if anyone in the team is an elder sibling its definitely kai. literally and also in terms of vibes. its comes with being an older brother.
anyways i dunno how that spiel happened kais isnt even my most favorite character, jay is. but he is second fav tho and also one of the guys who has a lot of inconsistencies. its late when im writing this section its truly a RAMBLE here
oh speaking of jay heres another evidence of ninjago writing for convenience and honestly its real character writing sin. the fact that they completely removed an entire character trait from him. they wrote out how hes an inventor. its literally confirmed by the showrunner THAT IT WAS A DECISION THAT THEY MADE. TO GET RID OF AN ENTIRE ESTABLISHED CHARACTER TRAIT. YOU CANT JUST DO THAT. THATS LITERALLY BAD WRITING. YOU CANT JUST DO THAT ITS BAD WRITING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT SHOWS A BLATANT DISREGARD FOR HIS CHARACTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ITS NOT LIKE HE WAS BEING DEVELOPED PRE SHOW AND BEING WORKED OUT. NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE WAS A MECHANIC FOR LITERALLY SEASONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND JUST BECAUSE THERES WERE “TOO MANY TECH PEOPLE” THEY WERE LIKE OH THATS TOO MANY WE DONT NEED THAT MANY WE GOTTA GET RID OR SOME WE HAVE TOO MANY! WHAT KIND OF?!?!?!? WHAT KIND OF FUCKING REASON IS THAT!??!?!????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ITS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK ARE THE SCIFI GENRES GONNA DO THEN. GOD. YOU CANT JUST DELETE TRAITS. ITS LITERALLY CARELESS WRITING. I HATE IT. AND ALSO TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.
theres a lot of things i could probably reference as evidence of how incredibly irresponsibly ninjago writes characters. they do it a lot. as a guy who love characters, this is hell. and yet i am still here. invested. because putting work into characters is a different kind of joy i guess. LOVE ANALYZING AND INTERPRETING CHARACTERS WHO ARENT THAT DEEP BUT THEY COULD BE. THEY COULD BE. man.
this was mostly a talk about garmadon and character writing huh. oni arc spurred all theses thoughts but it wasnt all necessarily about that hbdgsdk. hm.... i do have more thoughts though..... ive stated before s8 slapped and both s9 and 10 are weaker right? increasingly so like 10 is much weaker than 9. they drop the ball. its one part because of everything i stated above regarding garmadon and characters. its another part because s8 wasnt about dad drama for the fourth time. sure garmadon was part of the plot indirectly. but the conflict wasnt Between them. the plot in s8 was honestly partly a mystery due to the investigative nature for a part of it. and the whole not knowing who the leader was thing. the conflict was against the sons of garmadon. and then when the reveal happened it was between harumi and lloyd built on the lies harumi made. the conflict lloyd had was one that was a personal betrayal. lloyd had to confront that harumi wasnt the girl he liked. that everything he knew and experienced with harumi was a part of a facade. i love this conflict lloyd has because it turned internal AND IT WASNT ABOUT HIS DAD. S8 WAS REFRESHING FOR THIS REASON. LLOYDS CONFLICT DIDNT ENTIRELY HINGE ON HIS DAD OR BEING THE CHOSEN ONE. CONFLICT THAT WAS NEW INTERPERSONAL DRAMA WOW!!!! I LOVE IT. well of course its more complicated than that his dad is definitely a factor in that he is harumis motive.... but heres a thing.... garmadon wasnt involved to make this happen. hes dead. he didnt spur harumi to become a fucked up little girl herself. its all on her. her problem turned into lloyds problem. harumi being cause of conflict is a different kind of conflict that lloyd hasnt experienced before you know? well i guess its sorta similar to morros deal in the sense that lloyds identity made him a target for pain BUT WHATS DIFFERENT IS THAT HE LIKE HAS AGENCY THIS TIME. AM I MAKING SENSE? DO YOU GET ME? DESPITE GARMADON IS A PASSIVE PART OF THE CONFLICT ITS NOT ABOUT HIM. ITS DIFFERENT FROM S9 AND S10 YOU KNOW?
i feel like the last paragraph was really circuitous. like i think i made it 4 times longer than it needed to be. anyways thats that. but also i think s9 and 10 is weaker than s8 is because.... the villains are boring. the sons of garmadon was a fun antagonistic force. it was basically a motorcycle gang and cult. it was a pretty colorful gang! i love ultra violet especially!!! shes fucking unhinged. harumi is fucking nuts too. these villain had a fun thing going for them. now...... i get really weird... vibes from the dragon hunters..... like its kinda 😬 the way another worlds culture is presented? because the villains of this season is like..... basically an entire population of people. its not a minor group of humans. its basically all the humanoid residents of the realm. and theyre presented as vicious savages. am i alone in thinking this is bit kinda.... hm.... like eventually the show redeems itself and the group by having faith be the one wiser to what is going on (to show that Not Everyone Is Like This) and also eventually making the hunters realize they were living under a fascist regime (its highkey fascism right??). am i taking this too seriously for getting vague xenophobic vibes from this. im not saying that another worlds people all have to be pleasant and nice thats kinda unrealistic and also i do think that the first realm group needed to have an antagonistic force to light a fire under their ass. with the seasons theme i do think both groups of ninjas being “hunted” is fun concept and offers opportunity for parallels between them? its just. the presentation of the hostile group. leaves much to be desired. IVE SAID IT BEFORE A FEW WEEKS AGO AND I AM RIGHT ABOUT THAT ACTUALLY. THE DRAGON HUNTERS SHOULDVE BEEN COWBOY BOUNTY HUNTERS....... MAN. A WESTERN THEME COULDVE REALLY WORKED IN DUSTY ASS SETTING OF THE FIRST REALM. THE HARSHNESS OF THE DESOLATE LANDSCAPE. like instead of the villains being presented as savages i think it wouldve been better if they were more lawless and cutthroat. but like a different vibe of it. the western vibes. in my vision of it the reason why the boy would be hunted is because they did something stupid to get a hit on them lol. either that or a series misfortunate events and misunderstandings. tbh finding a way to make the conflict involve the golden dragon armor is hard so i havent thought about it. it doesnt help that it super doesnt fit into the setting/theme. highkey would be easier and like...... makes wus whole thing about something else. but idk what. fixing ninjago is hard work.
anyways desperado faith would be so sexy. cowboy versions of the dragon hunters would fucking smack. theres that
now the oni tho......... i sincerely think. the oni are the MOST BORING VILLAINOUS FACTION NINJAGO HAS EVER HAD. THEY ARE SO BORING THEYRE SO BORING!! NOT THAT MOST OF THE NINJAGO VILLAINS HAVE EVER BEEN VERY COMPLEX BUT GOD. THEY ARE. THE MOST SIMPLEST FORCE OF EVIL. EVER. THATS LITERALLY ALL THAT THEY ARE! THEYRE JUST LITERALLY A REPRESENTATION OF THE DARK EVIL~EVIL~ THATLL BRING ABOUT THE END OF THE WORLD. AND THATS IT. THATS IT! WHY DO THEY WANT TO EVEN. THEY ARE JUST DOING IT BC THEY WANNA. NO DEEPER EXPLANATION FOR WHAT THEY ARE AND WHAT THEY DO. WHERE THE HELL WERE THEY BEFORE THEY SUDDENLY APPEARED. WHY DID THEY DISAPPEAR FROM THE FIRST REALM AND WHY WERE THEY ABLE TO COME BACK WHEN THEY DID THROUGH THE CRYSTAL? theres almost no point in them being sentient even. they could literally be just monstrous beasts and That would be more interesting that what they are. bc at least if they are just monsters then their behaviors can be just easily handwaved. bc they would be animals. NOT SO FOR THE ONI AS ARE THO. NOT WHEN YOU HAVE?? MYSTAKE???? WHO IS AN ONI AND IS A CLEAR EXAMPLE THAT ONIS ARE A COMPLEX BEING. ninjago has Always been very reductive for their villains in that the ninja are Good and villains are Evil but GOD. THIS IS THE MOST REDUCTIVE THEYVE EVER BEEN. NO DEPTH! ABSOLUTELY NONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INFURIATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! even the skeleton in the pilots had more depth bc they had character traits at least. the trait was that they were stupid BUT IT WAS SOMETHING AT LEAST. also theyre allowed to be simple for comedy reasons. s10 was all serious plot. they dont have that excuse. they are so mind numbing dull i hate the fucking oni. i know ninjago has always seen good and evil as things that can be clearly cut which has always been like. *sighs*. BUT THIS TIME IT REALLY MAKES ME. WANNA. *CHOKES NINJAGO SHOW WRITERS* DO MORE THINKING, FUCKOS.
this is largely my skybound bias talking but the sky pirates was one of the most interesting villains to me. like nadakhan is a good villain. he sucks but also hes like. developed. hes also very threatening. hes an effectively written villain in regards to his villainy. he has all the motives and the personality and like the *gestures* the way he acts. im lacking the words for it. i bet if skybound wasnt written so abjectly misogynistic i would probably call him the best ninjago villain. unfortunately i have to take points off of him for that. i think undeliberate sexism is cheating for villains. the sexism in skybound is definitely 90% because its baked into the writers biases rather than the writers going “hey you know whats really evil? misogyny.” no they def didnt think that. also more than nadakhan i do think flintlocke is the more interesting guy tho. AT LEAST HE IS IN MY HEAD. WHERE ALL THE SKYBOUND THOUGHTS ARE BOUNCING AROUND.
beyond skybound i think pythor is ABSOLUTELY impeccable as a villain. I LOVE THAT GUY. HES GREAT. AND OF COURSE HARUMI. now i think truly harumi deserves the crown for this. morro is. wait. hang on i think im thinking about the potential morro had as a character rather than the character morro actually is. morro is woefully underdeveloped in reality but! HES STILL SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING THAN THE FUCKING ONI!!!!!! tho gotta be honest. i remember jack shit about the s2 villains. they were extremely unimpressionable. i still do think the oni are the most boring tho. also. what the fuck is that one dudes deal. the... overlord? *checks the wiki* (SPOILERS) WHAT THE FUCK HE COMES BACK IN CRYSTALIZED? also i entirely forgot he was in s3. all my homies hate s3 you cannot fault me for this. bitch got put into a box. he means nothing to me but the oni are still less interesting. nothing can change my mind about this. ALSO THE ONI NEVER EVEN SHAPESHIFTED. THAT MAKES ME SO MAD. AN ABILITY ALL THE ONIS HAVE BUT LICHERALLY ONLY MYSTAKE DOES IT. NINJAGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
is there anything else i want to complain about. probably but also i think that about covers it. s8>s9>>>>>s10. however s10>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>s3 still. like dont get me wrong. despite all my bashing s3 is still that bad. its just that as i wrote this i actually started feeling stronger about the way i did for the oni arc dfskhflsdhgiuth. its just like. its undeniable that the quality of the trilogy goes down each season no...? it started out So strong..... but it just gets weaker. its more apparent bc s8 was just that good. bring that quality baaaaaaack
WAIT. NO I DO STILL HAVE ANOTHER THING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT. I HATE THE WAY NINJAGO TREATS DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! like along with characters the writers absolutely use death as a tool. they use is as either plot convenience or for cheap drama. like remember dr julian? they fucking killed him BETWEEN SEASONS BC THEY FELT LIKE DIDNT NEED HIM ANYMORE. JUST LIKE THAT! and i bet thats why they killed mystake off screen too. they looooove making shit happen off screen. i cant believe thats how they decided to write off mystake. the writers dont treat death with any respect. its such a disservice to mystakes character to just get rid of her character like that. like she did a lot. and i feel like. she couldve easily not died if the writers wanted her to. like. she was a fucking oni. they couldve writing her escaping. or at least shown us a nobler death rather than the implied shit that they did. god i was so confused whether or not they killed mystake in that first scene “confirmation” scene with skylor BECAUSE IT WAS SO VAGUE. bc honestly it could be easily interpreted that she was just subdued or captured. but no, turns out shes dead :/ damn ://// hate fucking writing like this
theres that. then theres the fake out deaths. that they did twice in s10. and like. it was so clearly a fake out............ bc you know ninjago is a that wont kill their main characters for good. they simply cant! but they try this shit anyways bc maybe theyll upset some naive kid thatll believe it!! that want their audience to FEEL THINGS so they gonna make it SEEM like they killed cole/lloyd. but the attempt is transparent as fuck. sure didnt get me thats for sure. you see death is indeed a thing that happens in ninjago. but its been shown multiple times that it doesnt stick. thats its either fake or the character will simply be brought back with a handwave (if they are important enough). exhibit: garmadon himself, zane, nya, cole (the fucking ghost thing like. hes a ghost but clearly hes not a true ghost. im not going deeper into this like the ghost thing IS A WHOLE NOTHER THING AND THIS RAMBLE IS OVER 4K WORDS LONG). ninjago is a show that has stripped death of all its meaningfulness. theres that one scene where they killed mr e onscreen too and literally they only did because mr e is a robot so they could get extra violent with him in order to show off this current garmadons brutality ://////. also its so fucking wack that they for reals sent lloyd to fucking ninjago heaven for a hot second. like lloyd was def going to survive that and they made him die for drama but its still wild to me you know? anyways death has no emotional impact value in this show. makes me wish that they just wont use it. not unless if its a death that actually matters and is a genuine threat that can happen to the characters that matter. man.
oh another thing i just remembered. you know how garmadon was on their ship in s10. i wish the writers had remember that literally happened before. or maybe they did but like the way the ninjas talk about it its like never happened and im like. aw man i wish we had a funny call back to that. too bad this show forgets to have continuity sometimes.
and SPEAKING OF WHICH, okay one last thing that been on my mind for fucking weeks, THE MURAL IN S10 SHOWING EVERY CONFLICT INCLUDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SKYBOUND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BIG FUCKING GLARING CONTIUITY ERROR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS SHOW HAS PLENTY OF THOSE BUT MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS THE MOST FLAGRANT ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JAY AND NYA DIDNT PAINT THAT. AND THOSE TWO ARE LITERALLY THE ONLY ONES WHO KNOW ABOUT NADAKHAN. NADAKHAN WAS NEVER RELEASED FROM THE TEAPOT SO NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT HIM!!!!! EVENTS OF SKYBOUND DIDNT FUCKING HAPPEN IN THIS TIMELINE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. anyways in GOES into the fanfic wishlist, a scene in which they didnt! paint skybound on that fucking wall and jay has some fucking Thoughts! and a !feeling! or two about that~!!!!!!! FIX IT FIC EXCEPT ITS FIXING A PLOTHOLE AND IS NOT THE TRADITIONAL FIXIT FIC IN WHICH EVENTS A WRITTEN TO BE BETTER :) but rather its a character study about jay. with optional trauma. maybe emotional turmoil may be not, the way the fic would depend entirely if theres a plot or not. at minimum jay needs to Feel A Way about it...... how nobody remembers the worst days of his life..... you know? i may brainstorm about this fanfic. i really want it. i may never get it. but i want it so bad. if anything should be written it should be this scene..................... SIGHS........
okay i think im finally out of thoughts for this oni arc retrospective that def extends beyond the oni arc. this ramble hit over 4.8k words by the point of this sentence. this took me literally over a month to write bc im busy with school work sdkjfhieurtghkdhflk. WHICH IM FUCKING MYSELF OVER WITH RIGHT NOW BC INSTEAD OF WORKING I DID THIS. but like. i need to accomplish something. even if the thing is entirely useless I NEED IT OUT OF MYSELF AND OFF! MY! PLATE!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!!! HUZZAH TO AIRING OUT ALL MY GRIEVANCES WOO!!!!!! a total of two ppl will read this. and thats great. literally if theres more than two pp who make it to the end of this ill be fucking shocked because this is lterally almost 5000 words of complaining. lightly put it. criticism. anyways i have so much to say about ninjago, its fucking obscene. i feel like i wrote an essay even though it is very much not that, but the feeling make me feel like i need to write a conclusion for this all. conclusion? wish ninjago was a more tightly written show. and final final note? please fucking excuse any typing errors that have been made theres a very high chance i forgot words or wrote the wrong words and i am incapable of catching all of them i certain of this. i tried to read thru but this is like 5k now man. typing more increases the wordcount isnt that fucking crazy. anyways, thank you understanding,
and youre so epic for reading this beast of a review. i am very right and i will not hear otherwise thanks ;p
#the first paragraph use to be literally just over 1000 words long but i broke it up for dan#tho tbh. shit might have to be broken up more..... lol................#but i cant look at this anymore. ive been at it for too long. i need it OUT#maybe ill read for typos like a few days later#jem's miscellany#itll be really funny if i put this into the tag#and i kinda do wanna tag it for my blog organization sake.....#ill compromise with this#ninjago talk#idk if ill make a different tag later but for now. augh. hitting post. if theres errors then theres errors.#anyways im insane
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