Magnificent Bastard Cleanup

Corrupt Corporate Executive works for House. Cut the Lord of Darkness.

Cut the Lord of Darkness.

Edited by Bullman on Apr 27th 2024 at 12:45:58 PM

Small tweaking some things from Kill Bill and adding potholes

• Magnificent Bastard: The Bride fights many devious opponents, and is a devious opponent herself, but the following stand out with charm matching their skill:
  • The Bride, aka "Black Mamba" and real name Beatrix Kiddo, was once the deadliest and most favored assassin of Bill, as well as his lover, and she became pregnant with his child. Not wanting the baby raised in Bill's murderous world, she fled to live a quiet life until Bill led a massacre of her wedding reception. Waking up from a coma four years later, she begins a revenge-fueled rampage against Bill and the Vipers, using extensive information gathering, brutal pragmatism in combat, and her skills with a katana to kill them all one by one. Even when caught in a trap by Budd, Bill's brother, the Bride claws her way out of a buried coffin and walks barefoot through the desert back to his trailer to pluck the remaining eye from her hated rival Elle Driver. In the emotional climax, she discovers Bill had been raising her child these four years, and regretfully kills him to attain her vengeance and raise their daughter in peace.
  • Bill himself, AKA "Snakecharmer", is the retired leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. After his lover leaves him and becomes engaged to another man while pregnant with his child, Bill massacres the wedding party and leaves the Bride in a coma. Deciding to leave her alive in the hospital, he took their child, who she gave birth to while unconscious, and raised her for four years as a loving father. When she finally comes to confront him, the three share a family night together of a life that could have been, while Bill also leads the Bride into a false sense of security, shooting her with truth serum to have her admit to him and herself why she left him. Accepting defeat with grace, Bill reassures her that she's his favourite person, never stopping loving her and regretting what he did, telling her "I... overreacted."
  • Vol. 1: O-Ren Ishii, AKA "Cottonmouth" of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, is the most ambitious of Bill's former underlings. Starting her career at age eleven by avenging her parents' death at the hands of yakuza, O-Ren went on to be one of the world's most dangerous women. After leaving Bill's employ following the wedding massacre, O-Ren travelled to Japan, conquering the criminal underworld and rising to the top of the yakuza, feared and respected by the bosses of the families. Confronted by the Bride, O-Ren sends her underlings to fight her before engaging her in single combat, admitting respect for her opponent as the fight closes. The most successful of Bill's former associates, O-Ren is one of the Bride's toughest fights.
  • Vol. 2: Karen Kim is an intimidating assassin who tries to kill the Bride just after she discovered she was pregnant. Karen disguises herself as a hospitality manager at the Bride's hotel to get her guard down, and nearly kills her with a surprise blast of her shotgun. Blocking a thrown dagger with the butt of her weapon, Karen reaches a standoff with her target, and learns that she is pregnant. Proving to have some humanity, Karen calls off the hit and leaves with a final congratulations.

What was tweaked?

Okay in that case .

Edited by Bullman on Apr 27th 2024 at 3:18:30 AM

Just some minor sentence structures, nothing too much

Cut Lord of Darkness

Just to report I noticed that Louis is still up at both Sherlock Holmes MB page and at series’s YMMV page despite being voted a cut month ago.

Went ahead and snipped him from both.

I'd like to ask if anyone has any thoughts on my Dogen rewrite or my addition to Shelly de Killer's entry.

If you’re going to do tweaks to sentence structure can you please post the before and after or indicate what you altered Mermaid?

to rewrites

Keep Mr.House for the time being, and cut the lord of darkness.

YMMV.Moriarty The Patriot.

So...about Moran.

I think we should cut him.

It is true he's brilliant, and a bastard, but I'd really strongly argue he's not magnificent, or very independent.

For one thing, he's basically William's dog. While he's capable of operating independently from specific orders William gives him, not once does he ever do anything without William at least giving the mission order. He doesn't do anything without William telling him to do it somehow.

When William "dies"—Moran helps him, despite then going into a long spiral for three years afterward where he does nothing but what he thinks is what William would want—only for William to have not wanted him to do any of that at all at any point, so he was basically a drunk alcoholic in hiding killing some people for actually no reason for three years off screen.

Okay, but does he recover from that? Firstly, I don't think he should have counted before he went off on his Long Dark Night of the Soul, but after all we see him do is:

• Try mock Albert for being in prison for three years, only for Albert to verbally slap him down because Moran just returned to the team the night before
• Get extremely weepy over a playing card William sent him
• Fail to shoot his friend
• Get tackled by Sherlock
• Have Louis tell him he's never allowed to have a day off again for the rest of his life
• Get extremely weepy over the death of someone he never even met
• Get extremely weepy and whine that William didn't find him in the last three years
• And oh, also go into a long dream about being on a beach resort from Albert's absolutely delicious dessert after being insistent Albert couldn't cook for like 10 chapters.

The last we saw of him was him losing to William in chess. Again.

He's also a recurring butt of jokes. We see him frequently try to weasel out of chores and get shut down, we see him try to argue things absolutely no one agrees with even when he tries to get people on his side. We see him get slapped down by the all three of the Moriarty brothers and even Fred when he complains about anything, so we can laugh at him losing, again. The joke with him is always that he's wrong and ridiculous and let's laugh at him.

He's just not magnificent. He has no dignity afforded to him in the work. He's a devoted lapdog.

ETA: I am also deeply baffled by Robespierre’s entry. He is not even a character. He is mentioned in one chapter as a backstory thing. This is a YMMV trope, but I have never in nearly four years of being in this fandom even discuss him as a character. And yet that counts as doing enough to qualify and Moran having one arc to himself acting on William’s orders gets him in, but Louis got cut despite planning and executing two separate elaborate, nearly flawless plans in “The Adventure of the Empty Hearts” entirely on his own? What?

Edited by Eiryu on Apr 28th 2024 at 5:19:31 AM

On the entries for Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger listed on Super Sentai, shouldn't Kaguragi/Haichi Ohger go above Rcules as the former character is more prominent as one of the main members of the titual team?

Edit: With mir's input I'm a keep on Moran

Edited by jlvs200s on Apr 28th 2024 at 3:19:32 PM

I really disagree with Moran's goofy moments being mitigating.

Their not really any worse than say some of Sherlock's jokes. Or a bunch of listed characters. And their noticeably not connected to any of the actual genius stuff he like does.

Also major disagree. Alot of Moriarty's plans wouldn't happen at all without him. And he's able to be brilliant on his own as shown by golden apple /or golden Gun I guess.

Hard keep to Moran.

So as May 4th aproaches, I decided do small rewrite to my very first MB candidate.

• "The Engineer": Nenavakasa "Nena" Nalor is a charming saboteur hired by the First Order to track down and infiltrate the Colossus. Tracking the Colossus for days before sending a fake distress signal to be brought on board, Nena quickly sabotages the station's systems under the guise of fixing them while genuinely befriending Neeku. She frames pirates for stealing energy from the station to buy herself time before being found out and offering Neeku a partnership. Rejected she, with some remorse, escapes with her payment from the First Order, all while making it clear it was nothing personal.

Everything in the writeup is correct, however I originaly missed that her hope that “Neeku will understand” was actually directed at her almost confession about key part of her sabotage, with Neeku only being able to save Colossus because he figured it out.

How does this look.

• Star Wars Resistance "The Engineer": Nenavakasa "Nena" Nalor is a charming saboteur hired by the First Order to track down and infiltrate the Colossus. Tracking the Colossus for days before sending a fake distress signal to be brought on board, Nena quickly sabotages the station's systems under the guise of fixing them so the would be defenseless when the First Order attacks, while genuinely befriending Neeku, almost confessing truth to him. She frames pirates for stealing energy from the station to buy herself time before being found out and offering Neeku a partnership. Rejected, she remorsefully escapes with her payment, hoping that Neeku will figure how to save the station from what she told him.

Edited by EmperorGeode on Apr 28th 2024 at 11:08:23 AM

Kill Bill and Nalor rewrites

I’ve got a minor rewrite of my own.

• Before: "The Legend of Anne Bonny": Anne Bonny goes from humble beginnings to infamous Pirate Queen of the Caribbean Sea. After joining Calico Jack’s crew, Anne would disguise herself as a man even secretly giving birth while disguised. Terrorizing the Caribbean Sea, Anne would become so infamous that when she revealed herself to be a woman all the male crewmen would accept her as a pirate. Ambushed by the British navy when the men got drunk, Anne and Mary Read are the only ones who try to fight back. Arrested and thrown in jail, Anne would escape after giving birth and retire from piracy but still reminisce about her career. Always having "a pistol-a-ready and a cutlass keen" Anne Bonny earns her status as a legendary pirate queen.

• After: "The Legend of Anne Bonny": Anne Bonny goes from humble beginnings to infamous Pirate Queen of the Caribbean Sea. After joining Calico Jack’s crew, Anne would disguise herself as a man even secretly giving birth while disguised. Terrorizing the Caribbean Sea, Anne would become so infamous that when she revealed herself to be a woman all the male crewmen would accept her as a pirate. Ambushed by the British navy when the men got drunk, Anne and Mary Read are the only ones who try to fight back. Arrested and thrown in jail, Anne would escape after giving birth and retire from piracy but still reminisce about her career. Always having "a pistol-a-ready and a cutlass keen" Anne Bonny earns her status as a legendary pirate queen.

Does anyone mind if I pothole Living Legend where it says “legendary pirate queen” because I think it fits with the title and theme of the album.

Fine, fixed

Edited by LarryT on Apr 28th 2024 at 11:38:39 AM

Geode's got the right idea... let's do before and after's of the entries if rewrites are going to be suggested (and I approve of the changes there Geode), keep Moran as well.

Seems it was just a pothole change and I'm fine with that... for the record it's only when there's an actual text change I think we need to give a before and after, if it's changing a tag just noting is fine.

Edited by PassingThrough on Apr 28th 2024 at 3:11:03 PM

Actually, they’re wildly different than jokes about Sherlock: Moran’s “goofy” moments are the other characters insulting him and him coming up the loser in fights he’s usually provoking.

And he never once actually does anything of his own initiative except “go on a drunken spiral because he killed his boss”. Golden Army was an assignment Albert and William sent him in that he didn’t even want to go on.

And I am sorry, but drunkenly crying and whining that “but I’m your right hand, William, why didn’t you come fiiiind me?” while William pats him on the back is just embarrassing on a level the other candidates are not guilty of ever.

Would also really love some kind of explanation or clarity on the last section in “what on Earth counts as doing enough?”

Edited by Eiryu on Apr 28th 2024 at 2:15:59 PM

I would argue that Moran’s comedy is pretty simmiliar to Sherlock’s. When off duty they can be something of comic relief, but when actually on duty so to speak, they are efficent and cunning. He may be mostly following orders but he is one of key players in plans who frequently improvises and puts his spins on tasks he is given, esspecaly during Golden Army arc where his missions is bassicaly infiltrate and stop the war and he has his ideas and contingency plans how to carry it out.

His stint during when he belived Moriarty is dead still has him as ruthless assasin despite his sadness.

Edited by EmperorGeode on Apr 28th 2024 at 12:23:44 PM

I don't have firsthand knowledge of the work but in the interest of keeping this debate productive I will state there need to be more substantive counters rather than just calling Moran a drunken mess. Without more specific instances it sounds like the argument is coming from a place of personal dislike and the responses to folks replying saying they feel the character does act with enough personal agency to keep come across as rather dismissive, even if that's not the intention.

Jokes about Sherlock are mostly about him being a slob or rude. Moran’s “goofy” jokes are him trying to manipulate people and getting shut down or argue something and failing because no one respects his point. Moran’s are directly in contrast to the point of this trope and Sherlock’s are unrelated.

I actually adore Moran as a character. But I adore him for what he is, in that even when he was going on a drunken spiral (shown by the amount of empty bottles near him during that part of the story), he was doing it explicitly to follow William’s orders even after his death.

I guess he’s very good at taking initiative to follow orders and do something William doesn’t actually want him to do.

As for the goofy jokes: they also include him trying to slack off on a mission because he doesn’t feel needed until Louis grabs him and puts him in his place (one student).

The point on this trope is not just to be a competent bastard. The point is to be magnificent and succeed with style. I don’t think he has style.

I'm not quite sensing a reason to cut him from all of this. Getting told to get serious on a mission could easily be a Bunny-Ears Lawyer moment and that's not a bar; how bad and frequently does him getting "shut down" happen? Is it like Nagare comically having his evil plan ignored because his friends/henchmen are too busy squabbling at dinner to listen because he still easily counts, with his comrades being like a family to him that share ups and downs?

Moran gets shut down large or small in pretty much every arc he's in. Sometimes it's a joke; sometimes it's not.

The very first chapter he shows up in, he's trying to weasel out of chores, Louis tells him people who don't do chores "aren't treated as people," he pleads to William, and William is just, "Well, what chores would you like to do, Moran?" (this is a recurrent theme—he pleads up to William to agree with him, and William shoots him down). This, I agree, is far from a shot down. This is mentioned to illustrate how far back this pattern of behavior goes.

In the next chapter, he's complaining that Albert stole his kill on a mission.

(He's fine in Noahtic and Baskervilles)

Then we're into the crux of the argument for him: The Man with the Golden Army: He's back to complaining that he doesn't want to do a mission, but William ok'd it so he's going anyway, then says he could totally do a mission by himself and doesn't need help, which Albert forces on him anyway because Moran isn't in charge. Herder gives him lectures about the weapons he's getting and he tries to take things he's not authorized to, and Moneypenny shoots that down.

He goes and does the mission with Moneypenny, where he offs the villain of the week with Moneypenny's help, kills a guy from his past, and then William gloats about how Moran has tossed off any anyone but him thanks to his plan to send Moran straight into this case he knew was going to involve Moran's past (without him having told Moran any of this) and he wants Moran to go even further into the black with him because Moran is "All mine."

Moran is pretty good in this arc, although the bookends are harsh on his agency, and lead him back to arguing for things and getting shot down.

In Adventure of the Four Servants, he gets shut down because he objects to Bond sharing a changing room with him and tries to get Louis, Fred, and William to agree that Bond isn't actually a man and shouldn't be in the men's changing room, all of whom flatly disagree with him and welcome Bond in. Then William sends him off on a mission with everyone else, where he tries to play hooky until Louis shuts him down and grabs him. Then he tells Bond that Actually, Men Don't Just Follow Orders, they have to come up with their own plans, that's how working for William works.

This is basically Moran saying that how they fulfill what William tells them to do doesn't matter so long as they do it. The entire plot of this arc is that the details aren't handed to them, but it's very clear the overall goal and mission come straight from William as "Do this thing; I don't necessarily care how it gets done."

In the next chapter, Jack is smacking him around and telling him to behave himself. And shortly after that, even Herder, the comic relief of the series, is telling Moran not to keep breaking all of their equipment. The gatling gun plan is Bond's, not Moran's; all Moran does is shoot. The chapter ends with Jack Joining The Party and Moran immediately going, "Cool, I don't have to do chores," and everyone else chastising him because how dare he hold such a hierarchy of seniority in his heart when that's so opposed to their goals.

We'll skip the Tea Party, because everyone was acting silly in that.

The arc after that is almost entirely a flashback, and yet he manages to try to provoke Albert into admitting something, gets rebuffed, and we (much later) learn that Moran was wrong about it anyway.

And then we're basically into the Final Problem, where he even argues with Louis about questioning William's plan, because they're not supposed to be questioning, just following what William says to do, and how dare Louis question it. When Louis suggests a way to get William out of the plan alive, Moran refuses to help but tells them that as long as William's plan is intact, they can do whatever they want.

Meaning that even if William's goal is successfully fulfilled another way and Moran gets to keep his boss, Moran refuses to break away from what William wants. Then enter Moran trying to ease William's burden and kill people for him, and getting shut down and just hangs around watching the person he basically worships get more and more angsty. Angsty is not a disqualifier, obviously, but the fact that this angst is coming because he's not taking any initiative and just watching things happen around him that he doesn't even want to contradict his boss to take over is...less than compelling.

And then he's so devoted to what William wants he's willing to ensure William dies, and next we see him, he's saying he's going to follow William's "one order" to him and keep moving forward and killing people. And he goes on a drunken spiral killing people for a few years, and then gets into a fight with his friends—which he loses, after nearly shooting Fred—and breaks down into tears because William sent him a playing card to say he's alive and all of the fight completely drains out of Moran and he's back to accepting things like "No vacation days ever again" and picking fights with Albert that he's losing.

Heck, in The Remains, we even see him trying to lie to William, get caught out immediately, and only get out of the mess of the situation because...William was bored (and by the way, you have to do lots of extra chores now because I agreed to help you).

He gets to be a competent badass. I've never argued against that. But Moran has some serious concerns with the fact that no one else takes any of his opinions seriously, he consistently loses arguments large and small about the details of their plans, and even his at his most independent, he's acting on a very tight internal emotional, self-imposed leash straight to William.

As you can see from this summary, he's hardly a jokey character. He's not really comic relief. He's just consistently disrespected.

Keep Moran

Keep Moran.