#therefore the plot of the anime overall made sense even if you has to fill in the blanks yourself sometimes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs | Tumgik (2025)

while there’s a lot of individual moments of good writing and i love that we get a focus on rika and satoko’s relationship, gou is really starting to feel like one of those stories that you can’t think too hard about if you want to enjoy it or you end up with too many plot holes, which is a shame when thinking too hard about higurashi is one of my favourite things to do

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CB Theory: Aku Aku’s Guardianship (and the Brothers’ Human Past)

Out of all the characters in the Crash Bandicoot series, I've always found myself drawn towards Aku Aku and Uka Uka respectively. Not only for their unique designs, characterization, and outright whimsical concept (the spirits of two recognized witch doctors immortalized through floating wooden masks? Sign me up!) - but also for the possibilities their characters open up within the franchise's lore.

Below would be one of those possibilities that I like to theorize about; the very reason why Aku Aku devotes himself to protecting our little orange marsupial alongside the archipelago they reside in.

As a disclaimer, I'd like to state that what I'm about to describe will all be grounded in fiction (we're talking about a denim pants-wearing bandicoot around here) and are purely on headcanon territory. I'll be tackling some massive "what if" scenarios that have little to no evidence canonically but are fun to think of personally.

With that out of the way, allow me to go on a full-on I'm-desperate-for-more-lore-and-overall-content-of-these-masks-and-therefore-I'm-making-this-up-as-I-go-to-satisfy-those-needs ramble.

Let's start with Aku Aku. He's a being of high intellect, for sure - usually filling in the role of an advisor to the rest of the characters when they find themselves faced with tricky situations. This aspect of his could only be rivaled by his power, as he not only grants protection to other beings when summoned but has also shown the capability of sealing other mystical entities (such as his brother) away when he sensed that the world would be in peril otherwise.

So with these in mind, why in the world would he go and devote his guardianship role to Crash? The dude's another failed animal experiment from none other than Dr. Cortex; someone who had been planning a worldwide takeover for god-knows how long. Surely with how ancient Aku Aku is portrayed to be, he would have some previous experience encountering Cortex's other specimens (Ripper Roo, Dingodile, Pinstripe- you name that boss battle) and know of how dangerous they are. Heck, Crash himself is unpredictable right from the get-go. His life cycle had only just started by the time he had washed up on the beach and his first-ever conscious decisions are to flail around, breaking boxes and any enemies that happen to cross his path. Sure, he has a good heart. That's something that we come to know throughout the game, as he actively goes out of his way to choose the greater good and stop Cortex from fulfilling his evil plots. But something like that requires the luxury of time that Aku Aku didn't have when Crash decided to spin right into one of his crates on that fateful day.

So what was Aku Aku's thought process upon meeting the bandicoot and deciding to be his protector?

I like to think that it was first out of obligation. Aku Aku's crates seemed to exist alongside the others found within the island, far before Crash had come into contact with any of them. Perhaps - when his spirit was first incarnated into the mask, he made it so that any living creature in dire need could summon him when needed (even if this proved to be a little impractical, given how rarely any of the other creatures break his boxes). So that takes care of their meeting encounter on the beachside in the first game and one could even argue that this logic stretches into the second game, given his absence from the bandicoot duo.

What I'm far more interested in would be the reason why he stays in the third game and beyond.

We're talking about an all-powerful being here who could travel anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye (and even across universes, taking Twinsanity into account), and for whatever reason, he decides to stay with the bandicoots in their own household, watching over them even as they do something as mundane as figuring out new yoyo tricks and watching Uncharted 4 on their laptops.

So why?

To answer that, I have to take a moment to talk about an aspect in Aku Aku's life that we all barely know about: his human incarnation. He couldn't have been a magical floating mask for the entirety of his life, after all. So let's say that centuries ago, he was the witch doctor of one of the tribes on the archipelago, appointed by the chief leader to be at his side and care for the rest of their people. A powerful yet humble witch doctor, at that, as he would never abuse his power for the sake of self-gain. Let's say that - aside from his position in the tribe, he lived a relatively normal life and even had a family to care for, including his twin brother, Uka Uka, who had also been a witch doctor in their village (but we'll get to his part later down the lane).

Let's say that - one day, Aku Aku's wife bears a child. Someone to help carry on their legacy of practicing medicinal magic, ideally. But the child themselves is born with mental disabilities, ones that have shown to only worsen as they grew up. The child found it difficult to communicate properly, to control their movements outside of impulse, and with the limited resources their world was faced with at that time, no one in the tribe seemed to understand what was wrong. Aku Aku would try his hardest; trying to use his magical abilities to help the child in any way he could in hopes of "fixing" him and finding himself at a loss whenever he was unable to.

Now here enters Uka Uka.

I imagine him to be the more practical of the two, wanting things done immediately even if it entails harsher, extreme means. He was matched with his twin brother in terms of their magical prowess, with the difference between them being his lack of empathy towards others. He seems like the type to charge the tribal folk with favors in exchange for his services, that coupled with his malicious demeanor being the reason why the chief hadn't appointed him as the witch doctor of the tribe despite being on par with his brother. This event struck jealousy within him, soon spiraling into an unquenchable need to knock his brother off his perch at every opportunity he got in order to show who the better between them truly was.

That child was his opportunity - because if there's one thing that Uka Uka was also good at, it's making people believe every word he said, as ill-intended as it were.

Uka Uka claimed that the child's behavior was the result of the ancients cursing their family bloodline, aligning his statements with spiritual beliefs that the people of the tribe shared. He linked the ancients' frustration to his brother, saying how they were being punished for how unworthy Aku Aku was to handle such a high-stakes position and even citing instances of the other's failures in saving lives (as he often spent too much time trying to work around the use of force and violence). He further claimed that the curse could be spread across the entire village unless the source itself was purged, that of, the child.

Aku Aku was outright against the notion, still holding onto the belief that he would one day be able to cure the young one of their problems. But it was already too late then; his brother's words had naturally stricken fear into the hearts of the rest of their people, and it was out of their own selfish greed that they pushed for the child to be executed in order to free their village from the wrath of the ancients. It came down to the point that Aku Aku found himself helpless as the chief took the matter into his own hands, having no other choice but to follow through with Uka Uka's theory in a means to appease the restless people.

This was the breaking point in the twin brothers' relationship. The grief of losing a loved one so unfairly made something snap in the witch doctor that day, the result of which being an all-out battle between the two. With how evenly-matched they were, however, the battle had only succeeded in slowing draining each other of their energy until they both reached their final breath. In was in that very breath that they had used the remainder of their powers to seal their souls away into the mask forms, allowing their spirits to live forever and their fight to continue on for the centuries to come. Aku Aku later found the redundancy in fighting and decided to lock his brother away in the temple, keeping his malice hidden away from the world (insert his speech at the beginning of Warped here. His fear of his brother's return stems from how he's well aware of the lengths Uka Uka would go to achieve ultimate power - meaning that countless of innocent lives could be lost in the process).

That brings us back to the main concern of why Aku Aku decides to stay with the bandicoots.

I'd like to imagine that, to some degree, Crash reflects some similar characteristics of that child Aku Aku lost all those years ago. From his inability to properly communicate (outside of actions and limited words and sounds) to even the childlike innocence of the mutant when looking past his chaotic exterior. He learned from his previous mistake of trying to fix the little one of his faults and found value in just being with him; accompanying him along his journey of righting Cortex's wrongs and slowly adapting to the unique way Crash acted (which could lead to why he's shown to understand Crash's gibberish throughout the years).

In doing so, Aku Aku was not only providing the world's only hero with the necessary means and power of stopping an evil scheme - but was also hoping to fulfill his role as a fatherly figure; something that he had once failed to do years ago.

TL;DR: Aku Aku decides to be Crash's guardian as the bandicoot reflects the behaviors of a son he had lost back in his human life due to Uka Uka's doings.

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CONGRATULATIONS, TARYN! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF CASSIEL.

Admin Jen: You entranced me with your vision of Cassiel from the first moment, Taryn. The way you introduced the themes of beauty and power, explored the entanglement of the two, and linked it all to Cassiel was so compelling, and I loved the way you expanded on it later on and tied it into your future plots. There is such tangible power to your portrayal, and every single portion of the app burns with it -- not just in a manifestation of Cassiel’s hunger, but in a captivating expression of its intensity and prowess, the way it bleeds into every aspect of who she is. I can’t wait to see her wreak absolute havoc on the dash!Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS

Taryn

AGE

21+

PERSONAL PRONOUNS

She/Her

TIMEZONE

PST

TRIGGERS

REMOVED

HOW DID YOU FIND THE GROUP?

Admin referral.

IN CHARACTER

CHARACTER

Cassiel

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

Beauty fascinates me, and it has in a various number of ways for several years. I’ve written about it in plenty of variations, but never seen a character that investigates so deeply the query of what happens when beauty is not only undeniable, but perfect and absolute to the point of literal personification. I see Cassiel and her beauty as the cup that fills to the point of surface tension: she exists in the incorporeal space above limit, law, natural reason, always on the edge of overflowing. When you talk about her beauty, it’s no longer about the simplicity of being beautiful, but of the concept itself, the embodiment. What I kept coming back to when thinking about Cass was the adage Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and stems that flowered from it: could one replace the word power with beauty in that statement and have it be wholly, undeniably true? Why or why not? Where do we rank beauty among the concepts that we agree, in society and heart and literature, reign above all others: power, love, hate, goodness, evil. What is its place, or does it have one at all? Which of the others are its twins, which are its enemies? Is it merely symptomatic of one of the others; if so, can it be corrupted? Literally, what is beauty?

Even moreso, what is it to exist in a state that embodies any of these notions so completely? How does it grow or gnarl the soul, what are the effects and blessings and curses of living in this strange way?

I know that’s a lot of questions rather than answers, but I think that’s almost my point: Cassiel is not just a character I already feel I know intimately and love for what I see, but a vessel through which I get to explore things I can’t (and don’t yet want to) answer. That’s super exciting to me — a character I not only adore now, but gives me the license to question.

WHAT FUTURE PLOTS DO YOU HAVE IN MIND FOR THIS CHARACTER?

It makes sense to me that on the whole, Cassiel’s plot points should be very interaction- or dynamic-driven. That certainly isn’t to say that Cassiel isn’t self-motivating or responsible for her own actions — because she certainly is — but that in the narrative defined of her character so far, the crux of what drives, propels, and motivates her always seems to be something external. Where she once craved adoration and veneration, now her appetites have swelled to power and worship — a goal that, while perhaps somewhat singular and inward, is still defined by its far outer reach.

So on that note! The plots I’ve expounded on below largely hinge on varying relationships and interactions with other characters because I’d love to explore that thematically: that as selfish as she is, Cassiel needs others.

HUNGER THAT DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE. I don’t particularly care for ascents that are made without meeting a loose-fitting rock, or grasping a serpent tail when you think you’ve reached a vine. Though I can imagine an end where Cassiel takes her seat upon the throne she now paws at, I’m almost more interested in the steps taken to reach that conclusion.

( A ) In the same way that Cassiel named the Cherubim without anticipating all outcomes and consequences, I feel that her current pursuit of power is half-abstract and in some way not fully formed. She eyes Caelum’s throne because it is the most readily available sight, but I don’t believe Cassiel has considered strategy for what might be done after ascending a throne (whether that be in the seat itself or directly at its side), nor even if Caelum’s rulership is the most viable for her position/wants/needs. She is clever, ambitious, ruthless in many regards; she has the hunger and shrewdness to potentially make her way to the highest seat, and has proven her resourcefulness via her renewed place among the Virtues. But what does she know of rulership? Of queendom, of subjects? Nothing. She knows undeserved and total veneration, which is another thing entirely. I want to see this reflected in her initial actions as the roleplay opens: half-blind movements and machinations, a kind of elegant stumbling towards an ill-defined end.

( B ) I think Viktoria is right in some way to await a misstep, to judge her as over-eager and insatiable. Much like my view of Cassiel’s beauty as the lifted bit of water that rests above the edge of a cup, I think that same surface tension is an apt way to describe her ambition currently: overfull and ready to spill over for the first tremor. An appetite so large and desperate will consume the other things around it, in this case Cassiel’s tact: she is going to pitch herself into the first opportunity that opens itself wide enough, potentially at detriment to her overall plan (or reputation), though not necessarily. The actual action of this plot is vague and undefined because it’s not really something I can craft (instead something that should come up naturally within the game/other characters), but I’m not so picky about what it is so long as it affords the space for Cass to leap without looking in her pilgrimage back to greatness.

ONE TASTE IS ENOUGH. Once you’ve fed a hungry woman, what does she grow into? Again to draw from my overfull cup metaphor, my thought is that once a measure of her starvation has been sated by the initial jump mentioned above (whether it has positive, negative, or neutral results), it is essentially poured from the chalice that is Cassiel’s soul. Having executed her first (in-game) move or scheme, there is now a space inside her no longer occupied by desperate, demanding hunger which once filled everything to the point of bursting — allowing a space that gives her the ability to think more clearly, with greater nuance. This is when her machinations begin to build in true.

( A ) She starts to examine what it is she is aiming for, both in what is required of Caelum’s rulership and if that specific seat is best suited for her and the final result she craves. Viktoria is a good candidate for this, should they be willing to mentor her further, but I think the better option is to have Cassiel observe others in positions of power — Zadkiel, Damien Ward, Michael. She excels at endearing herself to others, which would likely be the course she takes, though the roads with Zadkiel and Michael are perhaps more winding than Damien’s. Zadkiel is going to have his own plot/bullet point, so I’ll expand on that later. Michael is a convoluted and dangerous relationship, but one that I feel Cassiel will seek out when she comes into her violence: he, technically, is responsible for all that was taken from her. Though cozying up to the King may be arduous or out of the question to do perfectly, helping to fracture the trinity of Michael/Gabriel/Raphiel from the inside. If he will not love her, then no others shall love him.

( B ) Her action, even by way of inaction, becomes very purposeful: in essence, after a potential failure, Cass will begin to lay out the strings to the final nest she plans to take. I do want to see Cassiel forge her way onto a new pedestal, one raised even higher than the pillar she sat upon previously, and that is the overarching narrative I’d like to take her on as a character — but I can’t say I’m 100% sure that it will be Caelum’s throne or the right-hand of it. Though Cassiel is experienced in crafting and stoking veneration, and therefore the authority that comes with it, the ladder of power and the games one plays to climb it are new to her. As she makes this climb, I expect she’ll find rungs she did not anticipate before, possibilities and avenues she could not have realized previously. Perhaps her attention will shift to the Tridium, her envy taking her by the leash and leading her to overthrow Gabriel in order to debase Azazel and remove her as the Moon. Maybe she will band with Viktoria and the Horseman. Mayhap she’ll create a new allegiance and look to usher in an Age of the Lotus, where everything must be drowned in mud before it can emerge beautiful and petalled (and what is she, if not the pinnacle of these things?). In plain, my goal is to see her shoot for the stars — which burning sphere she lands upon is not the most important part.

A WINGED BEAST. I love, love, love her connection with Azazel, and I want to see it go absolutely nowhere good. Particularly, I want to use their dynamic to open up the dark spot her petals have closed over and kept concealed since she was created, the truth buried below all others: that she is an animal. That she could have only ever been an animal, nothing more or less graceful despite her wings, for the way she has lived as One Thing and One Thing alone, like mindless predatory beasts who know only bloodlust and the pursuit of satiating it. Cassiel has weaned on, lived, and hunted for that one thing — adoration above all else, above all others — and so Azazel stands as the highest adversary and natural enemy. Because of that, it is her alone that could drag out the latent and feral nature of Cassiel, and I want to see it arise in a way ugly, cruel, and wild. I see a kind of genuine savagery at her core, animalistic in the sense that it’s natural and arcane, esoteric and terrifying in the way we used to recall angels of the hundred-eyes and bright blaze. Let Azazel have another victory over her, be it immense or mild, and drag the carcass of Cassiel’s defeat in front of her to see how the frenzy starts. I want to see Cassiel lose all composure, both as a delightful creature and as an Angel of Virtue, and bare her teeth — perhaps even literally. She wields a sword well, but a weapon is too refined for the kind of rage — teeth and claws are better suited for something so furious. Aside from this manifesting in potentially a literal and physical attack on Azazel, I imagine this moment further alerts Cassiel into not what she is becoming, but what she has always been. Unlike Arianne, who I think shares a great deal thematically with Cassiel, I don’t believe Cass is quite as vindictively-natured as the human. If she is cruel, it is not usually for the direct purpose of watching another suffer; it is merely that the act of cruelty is natural to her in the same way that a predator sinks its teeth into a doe without remorse. To offer a quote to sum it up, Peter Beagle in The Last Unicorn: “‘Cruel?’ She asked. ‘How can I be cruel? That is for mortals.’ But then she did raise her eyes, and [...] with something very near to mockery [...] she said, ‘So is kindness.’ That is essentially what I mean when I say as an angel, Cassiel is animal and savage and cruel and immaculate all at once, but in a way entirely unlike the humans. I don’t even necessarily feel this contradicts or cannot cohabitate with her saccharine nature, that which remains iridescent and lovely. She exists in multitudes, some of them made of spun-sugar and full of wonder, others death-touched, and that is what I see Cassiel fully coming into as Azazel’s opposition drives her mad: I am wild, and wild things know no Kings. Let her eye turn to Michael with new understanding.

THE LITTLE DEATH, MANIFESTED. I see this as potentially contingent from the previous bullet, seeing as this kind of rage needs a catalyst, but as a fun little aside (maybe more of a headcanon??) I’d love to see Cassiel kill a mortal NPC in the middle of sex — unintentional, perhaps, though not necessarily. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen The Boys, and please do if you haven’t omg (and tiny spoiler ahead!), but there’s a scene where a superhero character has sex with a regular human while on a mind-altering substance. She ends up crushing his head in the middle of cunnilingus. That’s essentially the vibe here.

LAMB BLOOD ON THE ALTAR. Just like with Azazel, I adore Cassiel’s connection to Zadkiel.

RUN. Zadkiel exists, undeniably, as a keystone to Cassiel’s better nature. She has changed from who she was, certainly, and the shift has seized from her much of that which might be called goodness — still, ebbing portions or ghost-limbs of it remain. As does the loose thread of guilt, which Cass knows only Zadkiel’s hand can find and tug. To that end, and what I feel is most likely for the very start of game play, is Cass still trying to run from him and avoid any interaction.

TURN. The benefit of the sheep is that it can be sheared a hundred times, though slaughtered only once — so Cassiel must hope that this is one more coat she can shed before Justice, showing him a pink skin and claiming I am borne anew. I am remade. I have risen again, like God’s own son. Likely after realizing she is not yet ready to take on Michael’s throne and therefore needs aid, Cassiel may attempt to endear herself once more to Zadkiel, the angel once so dear to her.

HOLD. This is definitely equally up to how Zadkiel’s player feels and wants to portray their relationship, but I have a very strong feeling that Cass adores/adored Zadkiel to the point of — possession, maybe? Particularly if their relationship starts to repair in any shape (even through Cass’s falsehoods), I could see her teeth growing sharp over the relationship/bond he has with Isolde; a matter of jealousy, a repetition of what she is subjected to feel in Azazel’s presence: second place. Singular-minded as she can be, this could derail her overarching plans for the momentary sabotage of their relationship, or of the Priestess herself. Another aside: Cass shifting herself to match Isolde’s visage when speaking to Zad? Phew.

THE KNIFE YOU HAVE CHOSEN. It would be a mistake to assume that a thing you chase your whole life is not hunting you in turn — the man that goes into the jungle with a gun is not safe from the tiger it follows; the wielded blade does not blunt itself for the hand holding it. For all Cassiel devotes herself to the attainment of idolization — for all that cunning and guile — it has to be said that she, too, is in some capacity ruled by it. To that, I have a couple thoughts on how her obsession bites back:

Cassiel at the dais of another, sprawled at their knees, arms draped over their thighs, head in their lap. I love you as I never did God, she says. I worship you as I do myself and none other. Child, they purr. Angel, that’s blasphemy. Yes, she agrees. Give me my sin again. I’d like to see her have someone she wholly, thoroughly venerates in a way that surpasses her previous affections for God. They don’t, and perhaps could not, rival her love for herself — but it could be challenged. I love the idea of the duality within her: the capacity to put herself before all others, ever and always, and the flaw in her mechanism which sees Cassiel naturally inclined to offer herself as a devotee, made as she was as His creation, His pet. That isn’t to say such a thing comes about easily, that her soul yearns for someone to kneel before, nor even that God had her heart in such a manner — I lean to the idea that he never did, and her place as Cherubim was merely situational; that Cassiel would have had her seat aside any All-Knowing Being, no matter who it was. But to think that perhaps there is an individual who would ignite this impulse again after having laid dormant for so long, or perhaps never truly emerging, is delicious. I feel it would have to be a complicated, consuming relationship, something braided with romantic love and lust (or what angels can feel of these things). They would also have to be exceptionally wicked or brilliant, carrying attributes that Cassiel wishes for herself, and an individual who she wishes to make a proper mate and to rule beside or jointly. Then, ideally, I want to see them discard her. Perhaps they outgrow her, or never truly returned the affections she gives so endlessly, only using her for their own ascent — it doesn’t matter. But I think it would be a delicious parallel to have her worship at the altar of another, only to be ripped into nothingness the way she allowed the Cherubim to be.

(...) the mysterious thing you look for your whole life will eventually eat you alive. — Laurie Anderson explaining her attraction to Moby-Dick. Admittedly I’m running a little short on time now so please forgive the sloppy explanation, but essentially what I want to see here is another instance where her obsession with receiving ardour bites back. I don’t have a super specific instance for this to happen, though I’d think the best bet right now is through Cade — in the depths of despondency, how far would she go to feel idolized once more? What landmine would Cassiel, in her mania, step upon when running to a false dais? Let’s see, pretty please.

ARE YOU COMFORTABLE WITH KILLING OFF YOUR CHARACTER?

It depends on how I’ve managed to grow Cassiel, and what I see for their arc going forward. I find it a little hard to say from the far-off place at the starting line, but at the moment I would say if there’s a point where Cassiel dies, it would be far in the future -- and most likely, after she has attained a new title or power.

IN DEPTH

DRIVING CHARACTER MOTIVATION.

I feel like I ruminated on some of this in the Plots section (SORRY), but to say it plainly, there’s a marked severance to Cassiel’s motivations before Michael’s mutiny and after, one as clearly demonstrated as the differentiation she has in favour and position between then and now. Prior to Michael’s usurping and the culling of God and his Cherubim, in the early centuries of her existence, Cassiel was likely an angel most lacking in motivation, plan, or plot — and perhaps that’s why even the angels fell for her, even virtuous and zealous Zadkiel. She knew no want, and therefore could not ask for anything, even within herself: all that she might have required or lusted after was delivered to her, any ache balmed before it could bloom, every cut mended before it could be administered. But as it is with all creatures, even those beloved above all but Him, there is a thing in the center of a soul like a hard pit in a stone-fruit — and if borne empty, it will fill in time. One cannot exist without want. So, naturally, she grew to crave what she was being fed: veneration, adoration, love. But to say that that was all young Cassiel desired would not be true, because she had those things, and one does not covet the treasures already held safe in your chest. She was given mere reverence and devotion, so the want could only be something worse: to be the best of them all, second to only God himself in the reception of affection (and where God was cold, she was all sweet-passion warmth; there could be no comparison). She had to be the most revered, the pinnacle of adoration. And for a time, she was that too. So her motivation, than, was preservation: to retain what was had, to bask in glory. To only ever see beauty, and to live as the embodiment of it. Which is exactly what makes the fall so bone-deep in its lashing: her singular driving force was taken in hand and cracked over the knee.

After Michael and the Angels mutiny against God, preservation became synonymous with survival. Now, what motivates Cassiel is what drives any losing dog in a fight: fear, envy, spite, desperation. To hope to preserve what was once had is not only futile in her current state, but foolish; clever and terrifyingly lovely as she is, the Angels know what treason she committed against her own brethren. In the eyes of her winged brothers and sisters, she has lost that intangible loveliness which saw her reign above the rest: she, too, could commit sins. Cassiel, too, could be ugly as the rest of them. The mortals, though more easily swayed, can also be duly influenced by the masses around them: they have turned from her too. She cannot preserve what has been smashed: but the pieces of that driving force take a new shape, like a beautiful mirror shattered into a thousand sharp blades. And though her aim, like the red circle on a target or the heart of a stag, is power (currently and most specifically, Michael’s) that does not make it the force that sends the arrow. The lust for power, for those not settled with merely a beautiful existence, is for the desperate. It is for those who have known failure and will refuse to meet it again; it is for the ones you have glimpsed the way down, and fear the impact should they topple entirely. It is for the girls who know what it is to rule a heart, but are no longer satisfied with just one organ. In order to feel safe, they need it all. Cassiel can no longer be second to any: not God, not Michael. To be secondary is to be fallible. And beauty, she will prove, stands above all.

CHARACTER TRAITS.

( + ) ADAPTABLE, INTUITIVE, CHARMING ( - ) DELUSIVE, SELF-SERVING, COVETOUS

IN-CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE.

( A NOTE: I’m not entirely sure this is 100% how this scenario would go down — like maybe Zadkiel would have known about Cassiel’s involvement prior to this — but it was felt like a good way to get her voice across! )

When she stands in the banquet hall, it is with the silent quality that befits the scorned and the betrayers (how lucky, then, that she meets at the crux of both, like the brass hinge of a door). Heads do not turn as she takes leave from the great hall as they once did, keeping instead to their new King and celebratory revelry as once-loved Cassiel exits alone into the torch-lit hallways. For all the noises they once made in my honour, she thinks, now they will not even look up with enough haste to track my shadow. Cassiel passes slowly through the corridors of the Archangel Castle, stretches of cold, white marble bearing no life upon it: all that exists in Caelum tonight does so in Michael’s celebration. Even the former Cherubim — what remained after Michael’s tedious, torrid culling — sat in the great hall, miserable as they looked excepting Cassiel. Better to be witnessed in their anguish than found missing, assumed scheming in absence, it seemed. Yet for all their ugly despair, the grim-set mouths and brows so creased with concern they appeared grimy, the new King nor his audience had not once admired Cassiel for her smile, not for the delight she had sent out, like a winged messenger to the field of wounded soldiers: Do not worry, I am here. I am alright. I am still, despite it all, yours. Beautiful. Eternal. She, who had smiled and smiled like endless payment from a bottomless purse, having been charged for a crime that was not her own, and found herself offering restitution nonetheless. As charitable as she is lovely, they should have said. As virtuous as she is a delight.

But they say nothing. They do not even speak it with their eyes. So Cassiel wanders through the palace, disoriented by the lonesome way she must walk, without the arm of another to warm her or cling to. It is not with intent that she finds her way to the throne room; though intent means little in the world of the divine. And none knew this better than Cassiel: righteous acts, ritual acts, and acts of hostility all left the same signature. The fire lit in repeated offering will eventually devastate the brush around it in the same way a single act of malicious arson will. Intent pales in comparison to the impact, mortal or divine. And so all that matters is this: Cassiel arrives. She is there. And soon, she has a hand upon the gilt seat of a God, now a king. A gentle, single caress. It sighs with emptiness.

Down below, music begins. The sound, though muffled by stone, is light and deceptive with a beat kept by tambourine and wound through with panpipes. It crashes and crawls as a serpent through brush, dragging its body across the span of angelic shoulders and up the marble spires until it reaches the slender ankles of high Cassiel above. O, that that song had teeth. It would sink them pit-deep into that lovely ankle. She feels it wind around her as vine to hot rock, seeking, imploring. One palm flattens against the arm of Dead-God-Now-Michael’s golden throne, shivering at its smooth, near-wet chill. Her free hand raises slowly, slim fingers gliding over her collarbone until the full palm rests against the soft skin of her chest. They feel so alike, she and that lonesome, beautiful thing — slick, silken — chilled, lonely, without flaw. Cassiel tightens one hand to the cold edge of the arm, the other slipping deftly beneath the crease of her collar to the smoother skin of her breast. Was is the same there? Did they feel alike everywhere? How gorgeous, how frightening, to touch —

“Cassiel.”

She turns, straightens, sharp as a flower breaking its neck in a stern wind.

It is Zadkiel. Dark, tall, great-winged Zadkiel, usurping the whole of the entrance in his breadth. Her fear of being caught abates. In the glow of the great fires, they are bronze – no – gold. His skin alights in the way the great blessed tools do, a warning; she is radiance to the point of glow, shining that a beautiful thing might find her in the dark. Like calls to like.

Zadkiel, she thinks, has not forgotten me. He has followed.

“Zadkiel,” she says his name and is as raw as the meat newly cleaved from the animal, uncooked, bleeding on the plate. Cassiel makes her way to him, fists clamping as shells into his tunic, making the fabric into cotton pearls within her palm, held tightly and with a reverence that says I believe something good will come of this. He always wanted goodness. It was all he could stand.

Around her, her aura shifts; perhaps not the look of her, but what she knows Ever-wholesome Zadkiel requires. His emotions and entire self countenance was a barrage of full, pure colours: red as the poppy, blue as the sea, yellow as wheat. He moved from start to end with sureness, a bullheadedness and a potency that saw the earth moved on either side of him, as an ox yoked in the plowing fields — one could see the line he left in the dirt, straight and true. In what he felt he felt fully and tangibly, and to call that simplicity would have been a mistake. So she gave him, simply, what he requires: a reminder of the divinity they once served. Shine, goodness, a visage not innocent but one above reproach.

“Zadkiel, isn’t it awful — I couldn’t stand to be in the same room — we had to leave, you and I, didn’t we? For us,” She repeats it again, stuffing their existences into the same velvet satchel, her wings closing around them to craft one white-feather world of intimacy. The bottom petal of her lip juts, a flower blooming in the depths of winter. “Today is so hard for us.”

How sweet she could have seemed, stuck to him then as all beautiful things that last so little, like early mornings and mortal life. How dearly she wanted him to pull her head down upon his shoulder and vow to protect her here and evermore, to remind her she was no less dear to him now than before.

But Zadkiel, dark, tall, great-winged Zadkiel, who usurps the light with his breadth, has not moved. His arms do not move to hold her.

“I know of what you did.” He burns like the darkness, his eyes unblinking, and Cassiel feels the jaws of something open up wide within her, beastial teeth scraping against the lining of her stomach, dark feathers brushing her ribs. “I know you betrayed us.”

Run, the feathers say. Fight, the teeth implore.

Her pout recedes as she pulls away, the gleam around her dimming into something less blinding, more reminiscent of the light on the water than the ray directly from the sun. Her eyes narrow back from their peeled, opened stance, returning from the look stolen from does and maidens.

“Ah.” Her hands clasp at her stomach, wings receding from their huddle to position behind her, her eyes a torch in the dim — she looked as though she touted an oil lamp within her stomach, with the bowl kept still and fire burning above. “So you and I,” she says, shrewd and slender. “Will have the most difficult evening of all.”

EXTRAS

WRITTEN AESTHETIC: Swans locked at the neck in violence, the iridescent guts of an oyster shucked for its pearl, the fall of fabric to the floor; the nude body left standing, a gentle finger extending to break a shimmering bubble, the bleat of a lamb as it is laid down for sacrifice.

HEADCANONS:

She has a large collection of beauty products collected from across the lands, but has become particularly fond of the wares that prove deadly to mortals — polishes infused with venom, powders crafted from ground belladonna. While perhaps she does not need these goods, immortal and ever-capable as she is in becoming one’s ideal, she still enjoys the applications.

Though she is more satisfied wielding her looks before her sword, she is still prideful of her skill with the latter. Zadkiel himself instructed her in its use long ago, and she does not shirk her practice.

In days gone by, Cassiel had mortals engage in an unofficial competition to bring her the most startling, beautiful, or rare animal to be made her companion, always done shortly after the death of her last. I think it’s particularly fitting that the creatures she bonded with weren’t found through a natural interaction but rather through gifting, given that all things in her existence were handed to her without work. Since the revolt and her subsequent fall from the highest pedestal, these “competitions” have not happened in as organized a capacity, instead with her remaining devoted admirers seeking out gifts and Cassiel herself whenever.

Her current companion is a white lion named Oren. He, like others, was a gift from a devotee — and an exceptional one at that. When he was brought to her, the beast’s keeper tremors at the hands, distanced from the great leonine animal who sat with blood on his maw. A thousand apologies, mistress. The beast, he’s — he mauled a doe. The carcass is grotesque — it lays outside — shall I take him away? And Cassiel knows the insinuation, what the mortal means: He has killed. He has ruined himself. Surely, you cannot want him. But Cassiel merely crouches, pouting her lips as her hands slip below his pale chin, fisting into the thick mane. Her palms grow heavy, sticky with blood. He’s beautiful.

( As an aside, I love the juxtaposition that it creates when Cassiel meets with Azazel: the demoness’ sleek, dark gaggle of hellhounds, and the angel’s singular bright, mammoth lion. The image of the animals agitated in one another's presence, the hellhounds as mischievous smoke-hyenas that nip at Oren’s flanks while he swipes with one large paw. )

Her last companion was another male, this one a white and grey Arabian stallion specifically bred for and provided to her by an admirer.

I ran into this image and loved the idea that Cassiel has her own crest, designed some time ago by a particularly ardent worshipper (now long deceased) who worked in the arts. She still has every location where it has been inscribed or inlaid memorized.

If there’s a non-deified individual from history that was Cass hiding her wings (not possible? oh well), its Phryne: the Grecian prostitute and renowned beauty who, accused of a capital crime (blasphemy), stripped before the all-male judges to show her body -- the argument being that beauty was a sign of godly favour in Ancient Greece, and with it came a certain innate Goodness. Therefore, she couldn’t be blasphemous. Or, as a text post said: If the tits are legit, you must acquit.

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Book Review

A Touch of Stone and Snow. By Milla Vane. New York: Jove, 2020.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Genre: fantasy romance

Part of a Series? Yes, A Gathering of Dragons #2

Summary: Danger lurks in the western realms. The Destroyer’s imminent returnhas sent the realms into turmoil as desperate citizens seek refuge—but there’s no safety to be found when demons and wraiths crawl out from the shadows. Even Koth, a northern island kingdom left untouched by the Destroyer a generation past, is besieged by terrors spawned from corrupt magics.

When Lizzan leads the Kothan army against these terrors, only to see her soldiers massacred and to emerge as the only survivor, she is called a coward and a deserter. Shunned from her home, Lizzan now wanders in solitude as a mercenary for hire, until she encounters a group of warriors seeking new alliances with the northern kingdoms—a group that includes Aerax, the bastard prince of Koth, and the man who sent her into exile. Though they were childhood friends, Aerax cannot allow himself to be close to the only woman who might thwart his treacherous plan to save their island realm. But when a goddess's demand binds them together, Lizzan and Aerax must find a way to overcome their painful pasts. Or there will be no future for the western realms.

***Full review under the cut.***

Trigger Warnings: sexual content, violence, blood, references to rape

Overview: I learned of this book while I was browsing Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I’m usually hesitant to pick up dark fantasy novels, but the site gave this one a positive review, so I took a chance on it. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by some aspects of this book: the worldbuilding was way more involved than I thought it would be, and the author made her world dark and violent without relying on brutalizing women. However, I didn’t rate this book higher because I did feel overwhelmed by all the information I had to keep track of. Moreover, I felt that there was a lot of information, but very little actual plot, so I had a hard time being invested in the story. Maybe that’s because I started with the second book in this series, rather than the first (but then again, it’s romance, which usually doesn’t require you to read a series in order). I will be writing this review as someone who didn’t read book one, so perhaps my evaluations would have been different if I had started with A Heart of Blood and Ashes,but it is what it is.

Writing: Vane’s prose is somewhat odd. On the one hand, I thought it did a good job evoking the grim setting. On the other hand, Vane uses some archaic constructions, which tended to sound formal and frequently pulled me out of the story. Not only would characters generally avoid contractions, end their phrases with a verb (like Yoda’s speech), and use constructions like“I know not” or“I thank you,” but the narration/omniscient narrator would use the same linguistic patterns to describe events and character emotions. This got especially awkward during more intimate scenes, when the formal quality of the prose didn’t seem to jive with the passionate romance.

Vane also has the tendency to throw a lot of worldbuilding at the reader without much scaffolding. Names of characters and places are mentioned that don’t have much relevance to the events at hand, so I often felt like a lot of things were being dumped onto me in order to give the impression that Vane had put a lot of work into creating her world (which I don’t doubt she did - it just wasn’t communicated in a way I found helpful). There were also awkwardly placed chapters where characters would communicate lore or backstory through lengthy conversations, rather than through something more engaging, like a flashback. It made for a lot of infodumping, which I didn’t find to be a particularly enjoyable reading experience.

Plot: I don’t know how to describe the plot of this book other than too much and not enough happens at the same time. In terms of all the non-romantic threads, there is a lot at stake: the book begins with the need for a number of kingdoms needing to make alliances - a figure called the Destroyer is rumored to be returning to the area, which threatens the lives of everyone in these kingdoms. While negotiations take place, representatives from the kingdom of Koth plead for aid - a few years ago, their army battled some bandits led by a sorcerer called Goranik (who has significant history with the princess/heir apparent of one of the kingdoms negotiating the alliance). This battle resulted in the total slaughter of most of the Kothian troops, save for one survivor (Lizzan - our heroine). The Kothans point out that last time the Destroyer was in the area, he never conquered Koth, and it is suspected this is because Koth is protected by divine magic. So, it is argued that Koth could be a refuge for people fleeing the Destroyer, but they need aid to fend off the remaining bandits, who have stayed in the area surrounding the kingdom. Lizzan reveals that her troops were killed because the bandits were accompanied by wraiths, and she alone was spared because of a mysterious magical amulet, which could be the key to protecting everyone from the Destroyer. Aerax, our hero, supports an alliance, but also does not believe that Koth is protected by divine magic (to say the least). As a result, he is contemplating a full scale evacuation of Koth, and toys with the idea of letting the entire kingdom sink into the lake that surrounds it - for secret reasons (you’ll have to read to find out). Lizzan - who has been exiled because the Kothans don’t believe she encountered wraiths at all, but was a coward and hid in battle - takes a divine quest in order to restore honor to her family’s name, and this quest involves being close to Aerax, with whom she has a complicated history. They were once childhood friends, and later lovers, but haven’t seen each other since Lizzan was exiled. There are a lot of bitter feelings between them, as Aerax didn’t speak up for her at Lizzan’s trial, nor did he follow her into exile. Moreover, Aerax is now the heir apparent to Koth, and is duty-bound to return, but Lizzan can’t, because of her exile.

It’s a lot.

I’m not against a complex fantasy plot, but where this book went wrong for me was the lack of events that actually built on one another. Most of the book is spent travelling and talking - people talk at the alliance negotiation, they talk on the road and unload a bunch of lore and worldbuilding, they talk about their pasts and how they got where they are. In terms of things that actually happen, the plot is rather sparse. The only events that held my attention were when the party arrives at a monastery that’s filled with spooky things, and the ending. Other than that, there wasn’t really a sense of suspense. We also never really got scenes of characters investigating magical knowledge or engaging in political intrigue, things that show them piecing together the puzzle to defeat the big bad in a way that was compelling, so those storylines felt less like a part of a narrative and more like an infodump.

I personally would have liked to see the story be a bit more limited in scope. I think the Destroyer stuff detracted from the narrative; just focusing on the plot that concerns the wraiths and the gods would have been sufficient. Most of what happens in this book could have been the same - Aerax is named heir and goes in search of help because bandits are surrounding his kingdom. He finds Lizzan, and so on and so on.

Characters: Lizzan, our heroine, is an exiled mercenary with survivor’s guilt. I took an instant liking to her because she fits an archetype that we usually only see in male characters: she’s a gruff loner who drinks heavily, bouncing from job to job to make enough money to drink some more. Unlike some male counterparts, Lizzan isn’t a jerk - though she could be rough, Lizzan always seemed to care about the people around her, and part of what I liked most was that she decided to be a warrior in order to protect people, not because she wanted honor or rejected more“feminine” roles.

Aerax, our hero, likewise surprised me in that he’s got plenty of angst himself, but never takes it out on other people. He does that thing where he’ll only answer people with a grunt, but he never seemed prone to nonsensical violence and often acted selflessly. I appreciated that he never crossed any boundaries that Lizzan set, nor did he act possessive. The main thing I found strange about him, however, was the sense that he was holding something back. The story would constantly say things like how he was putting up a calm facade to hide how dangerous he really was, or that he had to restrain himself during intimate scenes. I was therefore constantly questioning whether Aerax possessed some kind of magical power that made him threatening, or if this was just a way to make him seem more masculine and thrilling.

Aerax has an animal companion named Caeb. Caeb is a saber-toothed snow lion, who mainly acts like a huge housecat who can understand human speech. Caeb was responsible for some of the sweeter moments in this book, as he would occasionally butt up against Lizzan and purr or push Lizzan and Aerax together.

Supporting characters were numerous, and in general, I think they were varied and interesting. My favorite was Sari, a young warrior who wants to prove herself. She’s pretty adorable in the process. However, I also think that because of the complex plot, there wasn’t room for them to shine.

Other:

Worldbuilding:Despite not having a pleasant experience with infodumping, I do think Vane’s worldbuilding is intriguing. I liked that the world was filled with jungles and animals that seemed to be out of the prehistoric period, rather than being set in the fake European Middle Ages. I also really liked the mythological stories that characters told about their gods, which reminded me of a lot of folklore, and that women were present in every sector of society (in other words, they weren’t confined to the household or the church/temple). Vane also didn’t rely on misogynistic violence to make her world seem“gritty,” so that was also a big plus.

I mostly wish that Vane had reigned in her worldbuilding a bit more. Despite being an interesting world, Vane had the tendency to overdo it by giving the reader info that wasn’t relevant. I also got the feeling that the rules of the world weren’t well-established. By that I mean that once I thought I’d gotten a handle on what the world was like, Vane would introduce another bit of lore that would throw me for a loop (for example: surprise! there are dragons!).

Romance: I’m usually all about a story about rekindling a relationship, but I don’t quite think this romance resonated with me. On the surface, I do think the stakes were sufficiently high: Aerax had to return to Koth, but Lizzan couldn’t accompany him due to their exile. I also thought the childhood friends to lovers background, as well as the sense of betrayal resulting from Aerax’s failure to speak up for Lizzan and follow her into exile, built some sufficient angst.

However, I also think that Aerax and Lizzan got intimate a little too quickly, and tended to participate in sexual activities at fairly inappropriate moments. Although they were lovers before Lizzan’s exile, Lizzan makes a good point that the two of them barely know each other anymore. I’m not shaming anyone for having sex with a stranger (that’s a personal decision, and I’m not here to judge), but I do think the process of re-falling in love before becoming intimate could have been a nice arc.

I did, however, like the angle that Vane took about the two of them challenging each other emotionally - as people. Lizzan insists that she doesn’t want other people to make decisions for her, yet Aerax points out that Lizzan has a tendency to make decisions for other people, even though it comes from the genuine desire to protect others. For example, Lizzan is angry that Aerax withheld information from her to protect her, yet Lizzan herself does the same thing to others. I liked that Vane handled this without suggesting that Lizzan was a hypocrite, and that her relationship with Aerax set her on a path to self-improvement.

Overall,my first foray into the fantasy romance genre was up and down. While I liked the ideas that Vane featured in her book, I wish the narrative had been tighter and the language more updated.

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Ideas for a Rewrite of Pixar’s Onward

So I finally watched Onward, unfortunately not in theatres because of [REDACTED] but what can you do? Gotta be honest, it didn’t wow me. :/ The world seemed flat and boring, and a lot of the tropes and story beats felt really played out and done before, even within other Pixar movies. That said, fantasy themed worlds and the potential creativity therein is a topic that is super close to my heart, and even when the trailer dropped for this movie I wasn’t super impressed with what it had to offer. From the setup of the plot itself, I’ll admit that I was skeptical of it from the outset, perhaps a bit more than usual.

I have my issues with the world building of this film from a visual design standpoint as well, but I’ll save that for another time. For now I want to discuss how I would approach rewriting this film to make it an overall stronger product in terms of story and character development. Obviously there will be spoilers for the actual plot of the movie in addition to my thoughts, so fair warning there.

Okay so when it comes to building a new world for your characters, regardless of its themes or genre, it is important to establish how much of that world pertains to the story you want to tell. As in, are you telling a story about the world itself via your characters, or are you telling a story about the characters with this world as a backdrop? It might seem like a small distinction, but a world’s rules (or lack thereof) can easily divert an audience’s focus within a story. I believe the current version of Onward is an example of the latter, but with a few complications of the former that muddles the direction of the plot a bit. The sense of scope for this film seems to go half-and-half instead, but we’ll get to that later. At the beginning of the movie, we are told about how the world of Onward followed more closely with what we would call a fantasy world; wizards, mythical creatures, knights, a magical staff, the works. But in a pretty rapid-fire scene, we are shown how modern technologies began to usurp the use of magic, thus leading to the modern day fantasy world that is the setting for the rest of the film. Despite how quickly this plays out as a sort of prologue for the movie, I do believe this is a fine set up for a movie like this...

If the movie was about the world.

But as we know, it’s about Ian and Barley’s quest to bring their father back, and almost exclusively focuses on their family. This too is a perfectly good setup, but the movie somehow ends up with both, and it leads to a lot more questions than answers as a result. The prologue setup generates a lot of questions about the world itself, such as the use and discovery of magic, that do have an effect later on in the story, but the implementation of magic itself does not have clearly defined rules about who can use it and why. Modern day law enforcement seems to govern this world, yet any use of magic does not seem to have any bearing on that. Magic clearly still exists in this world, but the audience does not know when or how it appears. Where does magic come from? What is the scarcity of it? Can you get arrested for using magic? Do people who use or own magical items get special treatment? Are magical items more valuable and therefore need to be regulated? How common are they? All creatures in this world appear to be inherently magical, or at least possess abilities from their magic-based ancestors, but seem to have “forgotten” those abilities over time. Both the pixies and the manticore have wings, but it seems that only the pixies need magic to use them. Why? Historical landmarks like the one Barley tries to protect in the film are viewed as passive history, no longer holding much significance. And even the manticore’s map is reduced to a placemat at a children’s restaurant, so the preservation of this history does not appear to be a priority for this society. Moreover, these questions also directly correlate to the main protagonists, namely, why can Ian wield magic and Barley cannot? If Wilden (the dad) could or used to wield magic, could Laurel (the mom) do it too?Are their different kinds of magic? Is there a hierarchy to how powerful one’s magic can be? Ian becomes better at using his father’s staff over time in the film, but how he is able to do so via the staff or Barley’s instruction is pretty unclear. Now, all of these are questions are actually ones that wouldn’t need to be answerednecessarily, but only if the film reeled itself in a bit and its scope was a lot clearer. Many other fantasy or alternate world stories have a much smaller scope that doesn’t need to ask these questions of the audience when it doesn’t pertain to the story they’re telling. An excess of world building does not matter if it has no bearing on the current story being told. A good example is in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, where the establishment of toons existing in the real world is the entire crux of the story, but how toons became a part of the real world is not explained, and doesn’t need to be for the direction of the plot and characters. You are introduced to the world with only the information you need, and you are taken through the story with that specific set of information. The progression of the plot does not rely on answering the question of why toons exist in this world, so it does not address it. Onward could have achieved this too,if the film didn’t explicitly ask these unanswered questions within its own plot. If the film focused solely on the Lightfoot family without the prologue, all of these questions about the world wouldn’t need to be answered. This is not a“magic was usurped by technology” story. This is a “how do I get my Dad back?” story. Which honestly begs the question:

Why does this have a fantasy setting?

With how much this film goes half-and-half on the relevance of the world to its characters, the more it seems like a coat of fantasy paint slapped on top of a story that could be told with real humans, or any other kind of creature for that matter. The fact that these characters are elves, pixies, trolls, etc. is inconsequential to the storytelling. Magic aside, if you replaced all of the fantasy races and locations with real-life equivalents, what would change about the story or its progression? In fact, if you removed the idea of magic entirely and replaced it with a series of non-magical challenges that Ian faces on his quest, you would have the same movie, just without the fantasy filter. All of the locations in the movie are not inherently fantastical, the school, the gas station, the tavern, even the vehicles and animals in the film, all have really obvious real-world equivalents, which diminishes the fantasy theme even further. Nothing separates them from these parallels. Even the main magic system is an equivalent to DnD and other tabletop roleplaying games in this world, and isn’t viewed as anything more despite becoming a prominent source of power for the protagonists. Again, having the world take a backseat to the characters is not inherently a bad thing, but if you’re going to take the time to establish how this world began and changed over time, then that has to be relevant to the story at hand in some way, otherwise you’re just establishing something that ultimately doesn’t go anywhere. So how would I fix this? Well, at this point I feel like you’d have to pick one of the two halves that this story tries to weave together: either open up the world and the relevance of magic within it, or focus exclusively on the Lightfoot family and their relationships. If it were me, I’d pick the latter, because to me the best parts of the film were the parts that focused on the family, especially the relationship between Ian and Barley. The world of Onward really isn’t that interesting as it stands, so putting more focus on that without a complete overhaul probably isn’t a good idea.

To start, I would keep the part about Ian wanting to learn more about his Dad, as well as Barley’s memories and misgivings about not saying goodbye to him. This, like most Pixar movies, is the strongest part and serves as the emotional core of the film. Both of them have their individual reasons for wanting to see their father again, and those motivations can move and change over the course of the narrative. But, have Ian tie his own identity to finding his father, as if his father is the one person who can tell him who he needs to be. A missing piece of him that only his father can fill, and this desire becomes more and more desperate as the film progresses and they run closer to that 24 hour time frame. Those earlier scenes about others who knew and admired his father could help corroborate these feelings, where Ian wishes to carry on the legacy of his father. Perhaps Barley could have similar feelings, as if being called a“screw up” throughout his life made him question the legacy of his father and his relationship with him. A “I don’t know who I am + believe in yourself” message has been done to death, but the execution could still make the ending of this film that much stronger. When the climax happens and Ian is unable to see his father before the sunset, THAT is when you want him to have the Act 3 Pixar realization about the overall message of the film, and how he had a father figure through Barley the whole time. Maybe there’s a point where Barley is hanging onto Ian in the rubble and time is running out, and he tells Barley to go see their father while he still has the chance. Have the internal realization be that Ian doesn’t need to see his father to know who he is anymore, as the journey he went on throughout the movie already gave him that answer, thus allowing him to let go and let Barley get his closure instead. Some of these points do exist in the current version of the film, but I feel that this slight reframe could strengthen it enough so that it is a common theme throughout the movie.

The subplot with the mother and Officer Colt is a strange one, further complicated by the inclusion of Corey the manticore as a secondary character, but I think it could have rounded out the story even more with a bit of work. If there really needed to be a stepparent role for this movie, I feel like Corey could have filled that role while also providing the map for Ian and Barley’s quest (I know getting a Disney Gay is like pulling teeth at this point but hear me out). There is a fairly decent amount of time spent in the movie regarding Laurel’s role in protecting her sons, especially when she recruits Corey into finding them. And with the scene at the tavern, Corey already has a decent idea of what the boys are like, which could make for good chances to bond with Laurel. There’s a good line in the movie that I feel really goes under-utilized, where Corey describes the boys’s assertiveness at the tavern. Laurel assumes she’s talking about Barley, but she’s really talking about Ian, and this surprises her. This is a really good way of showing that another’s perception of one’s character is not the whole picture. With the climax reframed to better focus on Ian’s sense of identity, this could have been an excellent line as a lead up to that climax, and for thematic coherence overall. Ian struggles with his identity while relying on others to make it for him, and that extends to his own mother’s perception of him, which changes as the story progresses. Despite that, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conflict between Laurel and her sons, even when discussing their late father. They’re sad, yes, but ultimately they’re dealing with it okay. They love each other, and despite their differences they have a good sense of solidarity. There doesn’t have to be conflict in that way in every story like this, but her quest to rescue them could have been a good way to bridge that, bringing in a one-two punch of parental resolution at the end.

With this you could cut Officer Colt’s character entirely, in fact I don’t know why both him and Corey are in the film when they seem to fight for the same purpose in the story. His inclusion doesn’t seem to create a rift in any of their relationships outside of mild disdain when he’s first introduced. I genuinely did not know that Colt was officially in the Lightfoot family until the word “stepdad” was used over halfway through the movie. Otherwise I just assumed he was someone who was involved with the family via arresting Barley and had at least a mild romantic interest in his mother. And given the relevance of Wilden and the strength of their prior relationship, that doesn’t paint him in a very positive light at the start. But if you really wanted to keep him, there needed to be a scene that truly solidified that he cared for Ian and Barley. There is very little to suggest what kind of relationship the brothers have with him, other than Colt’s disapproval of Barley’s delinquency, but by the end of the film they’re suddenly on good terms, as if some resolution was made. He doesn’t seem to do much more other than pursue them like a cop would a criminal, and even when Laurel is worried for them, his search still seems to be nothing more than a part of his job, like it was at the start.

Perhaps he could save them from something while they’re on the quest, like when Barley sacrifices his van to make the rocks fall. Maybe it goes wrong and the rocks falling still puts the brothers in danger, forcing Colt to abandon the other officers to save them. The brothers may be surprised at this, but it would have come from a genuine desire to protect them on Colt’s part. If you really wanted to establish even a bit of a connection with the brothers, he could’ve accompanied them on part of the quest, doing things that only he could do to help them, and perhaps having a chance to hash out their relationship with him along the way. I realize that Colt having difficulties connecting with the brothers is a common stepdad trope, but if he was to have any relevance at all, he needed a reason to be there. Ironically, Corey ends up having more interactions with the boys at the tavern than Colt does for the entire film. Overall I feel like there was a lot of missed potential with Onward, and while the emotional core was there like it always is in Pixar movies, I feel like it got skewed a bit along the way, thus diminishing the final emotional punch at the end. There are some genuinely great parts of this movie, especially Ian’s final character resolution with Barley, but the whole is not greater than the sum of those parts, and that saddens me greatly. I’m not sure how much of this was Disney mandated versus Pixar implemented, but I hope they can get their groove back eventually.

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This thing about Yuzuru Hanyu which I can’t believe I still need to point out

(Warning: long text)

(TL;DR version: Yuzuru Hanyu is the best skater of our time)

I know I said I’ll stop ranting about things for a while but bear with me on this one. I just went through my friend Chib’s Curious Cat feed and usually it’s a very entertaining and enlightening thing to do, but yesterday what I managed to see over there made my mind go into hyperalert mode, though certainly not Chib’s fault. As it happened, apparently the talking point of“Hanyu is not the best at anything” is, once again, making the rounds. Of course the point doesn’t stop there, it quickly evolves, or devolves, more like, into how he can’t deservedly be regarded as the best skater out there if he is not unsurpassed in any particular thing, and how he’s a “jack of all trades master of none”, culminating in this sentiment from one anon, which was the final straw that completely shattered my hitherto camel-back-like tolerance:

ngl that's kind of a boring goat isn't it? not having that one little thing that makes you extra special? all of the best skaters before him had something but he doesn't seem to (x)

Now, I have tried to debunk this theory before, but in hindsight, I realized that it was likely not the right approach. My, or any Yuzu fan’s, attempt at defending his technique and asserting his supremacy in any singular thing will never not meet with counterpoint from people who wish to deny the validity of his achievements. Let’s call them the deniers for now because “hater” is too polarizing a word and I’m not sure if those people are actually that emotionally invested in Yuzu to begin with. If we get bogged down in their subterfuge, what we’d end up doing is bickering all the livelong day with people who would gleefully claim that skater X jumps better than Yuzu, skater Y has nicer skating skills, skater Z spins prettier, skater A has a more pleasant hydroblade and skater B does that one superior layback Ina Bauer. Skating history is long and the field is deep, so provided that you are persistent enough with your digging, you will more likely than not be able to unearth moments of brilliance that arguably outshine Yuzu’s on any single thing. Those repeated attempts from our side of the table to argue with the deniers on these little things also serve to fuel the confusion, especially in a new fan’s eyes, because this back-and-forth creates the impression that Yuzu’s abilities and achievements are questionable, therefore, doubtful.

So today let me try a different tack in, not proving, but simply pointing out to you that Yuzuru Hanyu is the best skater of our time andno, his worth as a champion of this sport is not up for debate.

First of all, the notion that a skater has to be the absolute best at something in order to be the best overall is childish and unrealistic. There is only one place where a person, in order to triumph above all else, vitally needs to have some special technique they can claim to be their own: fiction, more specifically, fantasy fiction, including video games, comics, manga and anime. “Special techniques” have a prominent place in, say, a shounen manga, because the authorswill them to be: they are convenient plot devices to make a character memorable and to advance the story line (practice - enemy encounter - more practice - stronger enemy encounter). Real life, dare I say, is more nuanced than that.

Example 1: Jeff Bezos, of Amazon fame, is the richest man alive. Is he the best at any particular aspect of money-making? Probably not, he is not the best performing CEO in the world (Business Insider didn’t think so, neither did Harvard Business Review) nor the most well-liked boss (Mark Zuckerberg is, or used to be, the most likable, according to Forbes), didn’t even make it to Investopedia’s list of most successful entrepreneurs. As someone who currently works for Jeff (I say ��works for” in a loose sense, seeing that he’s 6 levels of management above me and obviously doesn’t know that I exist), I can attest to the fact that his employees generally do not regard him as an infallible, all-seeing, all-knowing decision maker either.

Example 2: If there is any canon that tennis fans from all walks of life can agree on, it is the fact that Rafael Nadal is the best ever on clay. However, if you ask 1000 people (fans and players alike) to name one aspect of the game which Rafa is the best at and that could explain his dominance on the red dirt, you will receive a dozen different responses which, if you publish, will be met with hundreds of different rebuttals. His forehand? Nay, we think del Potro’s might be more fearsome. His two-handed backhand? Um, there’s this dude named Djokovic? His topspin? Well, we’ve heard Jack Sock can spin the ball even faster now.

Remember, though, that none of these queries can hope to erase even the tiniest bit of Jeff’s enormous wealth or Rafa’s transcendental record on his favorite surface. The question is always“why is he so rich?” “why is he so good?”, never“is he rich?” “is he good?” - those would be absurd.

So, coming back to the topic of Yuzuru Hanyu, my friends and fellow Yuzu fans, the next time you are confronted with the claim that skater X/Y/Z/A/B/C is better than him at any one thing, may I suggest the universal response of: so what?

Secondly, let us engage in a thought experiment: imagine if you could build your ideal figure skater, tailor-made to winning competitions under the current ISU Code of Points, which abilities would you give him/her?

I assume you would want your prototype to have good techniques on all 6 jump types. So as to ensure their competitiveness in this day and age, you’d give them the ability to land multiple quads of multiple types in one program. Your skater should probably strike the right balance between strength and flexibility, so that they can both jump powerfully and spin beautifully. Add on to that speed, agility, edge depth, knee bend, the control necessary to accelerate/decelerate at will and switch directions at the snap of a finger. Just as a safeguard, you might think about programming your android with a self-improvement piece of code which gives them the capability to debug errors in the original configuration (such as a lack of comfort with the flip jump).

What else? Ah, you’d want to make sure they have a good musical sensibility and then give them a team of choreographers that could construct for them the most distinctive, memorable programs. Might as well find them a group of first-rate technical advisers to fill their skates with transitions so complex nobody else has ever attempted them before. Given that this is a sport where appearance plays a not insignificant role, you should consider also providing your machine with a comely face, decent height, long limbs, and a lithe body.

It’s a competitive android we’re talking about, so I’d further suggest instilling your prototype with an insatiable hunger for success and then expose them to the elite level of competition as early as possible, so that they can stay fit and relevant and capable of winning across more than one Olympic cycles (after all, this is a big investment, might as well try as hard as you can for maximum utilization). To top it all up, and this might be hard to synthesize artificially, but you will want to try, nonetheless, to give your skate-bot a charisma so genuine and so enduring that they would be able to attract and retain legions of loyal fans who follow them around the world and shower the ice with their favorite soft toys after every skate - a customer acquisition strategy is always a good thing for your financials, and the soft toy rains will give the media something silly to cover, if nothing else.

I’ve run out of features to request. As an afterthought, may I just ask you to consider leaving out the asthma and reducing his propensity for injuries / freakish accidents?

There you go, isn’t that nice? Your skate-bot looks perfect to me, highly capable of championing this sport. He’d better win at least a couple of World titles, a couple of Olympic golds, and garnishing them all with a dozen records. You might receive questions down the line about why you didn’t make sure that he is the absolute, incontestable best at any one thing. To which you can rightfully answer that balance, rather than extremes, is what you were aiming for with this skate-bot, and remind those inquisitors that your goal was to create one ideal skater rather than a squadron of one best jumper, one best spinner, one step sequence expert, one choreographic sequence specialist, one transition master, and one musical interpretation virtuoso, if only because the logistics of arranging for them to skate together would be an utter nightmare.

If the result of this perfect skater thought experiment sounds too similar to someone we know, then, well, I told you so.

You, sir, are a robot, I get you now.

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1204: The Day Time Ended

Remember Charles Band and David Allen, who respectively directed and did the stop motion for Laserblast!? Remember I mentioned they made more movies together? Here’s one. I actually had about a third of an Episode that Never Was written up for The Day Time Ended when the trailer came out, and I debated what to do with that. I could have used it on the 23rd, like I posted the review of Reptilicus just before Season 11 debuted, but I decided it was more in the spirit of Season 12 to do the episodes in order one after the other.

A family, consisting of Mom, Dad, daughter Jenny, teenage Uncle Steve, Grandma, and Grandpa, have just moved into their new solar-powered ultra-modern-for-the-70’s house in the middle of the desert. There’s nothing like living a hundred miles from anywhere, alone under the skies without road noise or partying neighbours… until, of course, you’re besieged by aliens in the middle of the night. I will bet you cash money there are people who claim this actually happened to them, except they would probably say they just got probed and dropped back into bed, instead of their whole house being transported to another planet. What are the family going to do? Is there anything they can do, or will they be killed by the monsters and aliens lurking outside, or even by the space/time warp itself?

There are quite a few honestly cool things in The Day Time Ended. The tiny aliens that run around the house are cute, although not as charming or communicative as the ones from Laserblast! The two monsters who fight outside the barn at one point are similarly well-animated and have a bit of personality of their own. They look like something you might see in the original Star Wars trilogy. Most of the UFOs are merely lights zipping around in the sky but the one that invades the house is fun, with several moving parts and an overall design that looks, as Jonah and the bots observed, something like a Betamax Roomba. The final matte painting of the alien city is nothing special but the one that represents a sort of interstellar junkyard is detailed and blends well with the action.

The acting isn’t great, but it’s not terrible – most of these people were in something approximating a real movie once, and they do their best with what they’re given. The innate hostility of the desert landscapes underscore the isolation and danger the family are in. Aesthetically, The Day Time Ended works well and a lot of very good decisions were made.

It’s still a terrible movie, though. I bet you’re wondering what MST3K cut from this film to make it fit the time slot. I bet you’re thinking there must have been a scene like the one in Lords of the Deep where Chadwick tells McDowell about the aliens, or like the one at the end of Time of the Apes where EUCOM explains everything. Something in which somebody speaks to Mom, Dad, and Jenny and tells them exactly what the fuck is going on and why they don’t need to be afraid of it. Well, in the long and by now firm tradition of stuff MST3K didn’t cut… there isn’t. Never once do we have even the slightest idea of why all this is happening.

Being as The Gauntlet is the first time I’ve watched an entire sequence of the movies in a row before I’d seen the episodes, I’m beginning to notice patterns, and one rather prominent one is how little I miss the stuff that didn’t make the cut. It never interrupts the flow of the story. It’s only afterwards that I find myself thinking “hey, wasn’t there a bit in the car where they talk about Eric’s teddy having new microchips or something?” And there was, but it didn’t matter and it certainly wouldn’t have added anything to the experience if they kept it. The only time MST3K ever seems to have cut a scene that would have been worth keeping was the bit where Vadinho tells Tony he’s the worst Pumaman ever.

Unfortunately, this leaves The Day Time Ended without anything that might remotely be considered a plot. This story has a beginning, in which strange events plague the ranch, and an end, in which they reach a place of safety, but there’s no middle to speak of. The weird stuff going on escalates from lights to monsters to finally the entire house drifting through time and space, but it never even comes close to making sense. Nobody in the family is ever able to come to any conclusions about these events or to really try to take any action, and none of the characters have an opportunity to grow. We don’t even know if the little aliens caused the warp (perhaps to rescue the family from something even worse) or if they’re merely reacting to it. I guess it’s supposed to have been triggered by the‘trinary supernova’ they mentioned on the radio, but by halfway through the movie I’d forgotten all about that.

It’s not entirelytrue that none of the characters know what’s going on. None of the characters we followdo. We stay at the house with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Steve while Mom, Dad, and Jenny are all consumed by the vortex, and later we meet up again with the Mom who tells everybody else that there was nothing to fear. Within the movie this is just frustrating, because she never actually explains, but it is a little interesting when we’ve watched it, as I did, immediately on the tail of Lords of the Deep. In that movie, we were following Claire McDowell as she learned the truth about the glitter goo. In The Day Time Ended, we are in the shoes of her colleagues, dealing with a nightmare and having only her gut feeling to tell them there’s no danger.

This could have been kind of a cool take on the ‘chosen messenger of the aliens’ trope, if only it had been used for that. Jenny does, a couple of times, talk about the little aliens being her friends and seems quite unworried by the goings-on, but she’s five, and the adults have no reason to actually engage her in conversation about this. The Mom could have filled this messenger role, but she communicates with the creatures too late to affect the story. She’s merely a sort of deus ex machina by proxy, swooping back in at the end to reassure us that everything’s okay.

Is this movie trying to tell us anything? Possibly… Laserblast was supposed to be about how you can only push somebody so far before they start pushing back. That was fairly obvious in the narrative, but I’m not as sure about The Day Time Ended. I think it might be about how nobody can truly be self-sufficient. The family in the movie believes they have everything they need to cut themselves off from the rest of humanity, but this only leaves them vulnerable when the universe throws them a curve.

The introduction makes a big deal out of the house’s self-sufficiency. They have their own water supply, and with solar power they have their own electricity. They are therefore able to live far away from the noise, crowding, and lights of a city with minimal inconvenience to themselves, and they rejoice in this isolation. Then the vortex, wherever it came from, moves in, and their isolation becomes their worst enemy – they are unable to call for help, and help, in the form of the Dad, is unable to get to them. It seems like all will be lost until their unseen benefactors bring them all back together and guide them to exactly what they sought to abandon: a city.

Lucky them. The rest of us are stuck here on Earth while the ants enter Phase IV.

The thing that really makes me want to see dependence on society as an intentional motif is the bit where the Dad needs gas for his car and the man at the gas station goes out of his way to make sure he obtains it, despite the considerable obstacles presented by the weather and the power outage. He gets no reward for this help, he does it simply because it’s the right thing to do, and without his assistance the Dad would probably have never seen his family again. Our fellow human beings are not enemies we need to escape from – they are allies who can save us when we are in need.

And yet I’m still not sure. The house’s self-sufficiency may just be an explanation for why they can still turn the lights on when they’re trapped in the vortex. The isolation may just be to avoid having to pay for a bigger cast or more sets. The issue of where they get their food from is never addressed, and remains as their most obvious connection to the outside world. The family doesn’t really seem to be rejecting society, they just want to live a little closer to nature – the Dad even still has a perfectly normal office job. When danger surrounds them, they don’t try hard enough to leave or to call for help, or even to think about how this situation would resolve differently in a city.

The total lack of plot and character development, with only the ghost of a possible theme, leaves us with a movie in which it feels like nothing happens even thought a lot of stuff actually does, because none of what happens is meaningful. The strange events at the ranch have nothing to tie them together into a proper story, and as a result I find I can’t really remember them or what order they happened in. The only part of the film in which it feels like something was accomplished was the father’s struggle to get home, which started with a goal and a reason for the character to pursue it, and ended in success. The rest is just a muddle. It’s a visually impressive muddle at times, but a muddle nonetheless.

In summary, I think Leonard Maltin would have to give this one only two stars.

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I have officially finished all of Gundam Wing for the first time in about 15 years, if my guess is correct. Man, I love Crunchyroll - only ever got my hand on 4 of the DVDs (1, 5, 6, and EW), so it was nice to be able to watch the whole thing legally online! Closing thoughts:

NOTE: Any comments about the fandom’s mindset is based on what I remember of it from back in the day mixed with a bit of current CR comments, and therefore I have no idea if any of it would apply to the GW fandom today.

Why do people hate Wufei and Dorothy so much?? No, seriously, help me out. I really don’t get it. Dorothy maybe a little as she seems a bit, er, confused, I suppose, but why Wufei? Honestly, he was like a breath of fresh air amongst the pilots for me. While everyone else was like, “I don’t know who to fight anymore because every side seems bad,” Wufei was like,“Yeah, every side DOES seem bad, so guess what? I’m not gonna just sit on my butt; I’m gonna go out there and take on everyone!” I mean, good on him, I say! LOL

Also finishing up the main series REALLY amps up just how badly he was portrayed in EW. Like... of all the pilots, he was the most proactive when it came to trying to bring about peace. It wasn’t about wanting to fight everyone - it was fighting everyone because he wanted peace and literally everyone was in the way of that. How the HECK did they think he would be the one to join up with the people ruining the peace he worked so hard to bring about??

Seriously, man, Wufei doesn’t get enough love. Second favorite GW pilot only to Duo for me.

And, also seriously, Dorothy is just kinda... fun? lol I mean, literally everyone in this show is over the top and crazy, so I don’t know why her kind of over the top and crazy is bad while, say, Heero’s isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, not saying people have to like her, I just don’t know why she’s always seemed pretty universally disliked, that’s all.

Speaking of dislike... holy heck could I have done with, like, 75% less Zechs, gosh dang. I wasn’t his fan in the beginning, and during the middle where he was all“I just want to fight Heero” I started finding him pretty annoying. And then at the end... oof. OOF, man. I don’t care what his end goal was, I don’t care if he was actually serious about following through with any of it or not or if he was just pulling off a big hoax with Treize the whole time. I don’t care. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING justifies putting LITERALLY THE ENTIRE PLANET at risk like that. That was some serious crap he pulled, and I was so confused and exasperated by everything he did and every word that came out of his mouth. My gosh.

Which brings me to the plot... let’s be real, it was kind of a mess. XD But most of the time I didn’t care. It’s one of those shows where I don’t always understand why the heck things are happening the way they are, but all the characters are just so amusingly passionate about it that it’s fun anyway. It had it’s moments where it dragged, and I wish we could have seen more of the Gundam pilots actually getting to work with each other (and not just Heero with a tagalong), but overall it kept me interested the majority of the time thanks to the vibrant cast of characters.

In that cast of characters there’s a surprising amount of fun and interesting females, for the record. I’ll be the first to admit I generally don’t much care about or notice this sort of thing, but for whatever reason it stood out to me.

Sally was a fast favorite. She’s got guts and isn’t afraid to fight for what she believes in. And in a series full of strong, military dudes, she stands out not only for her position but also the fact that she has no ties to any of said dudes, unlike most of the other females. Again, I’m not really one to care, but it did stand out.

Noin I was never super fond of, admittedly, but over the course of the show, I grew to like her more. Her friendship with Sally was nice, and I liked how at the end, even though she couldn’t bring herself to stop Zechs, she wasn’t about to help him either. She made sure to get in no one’s way and just lay witness to what was happening, wanting to be there in the end no matter the outcome.

Hilde, on the other hand, I loved instantly! She may only be in a handful of episodes, but she makes the most of all of them. She’s strong willed and stubborn, but also willing to hear what others have to say before passing judgement. And the episode where she risks her life just because she wants to help in the only way she can think to is honestly one of my favorites. If this show could have used more of something, it’s Hilde.

Lady Une is just... wow. What to say about her? Man, does she go through a transformation! I remember hating her back in the day, but now I find her quite amusing, actually. I’m not sure I can really explain why, but she has a very strong personality, and in a show like this filled with strong personalities, pointing her out specifically says something! lol

Ah, Relena. I really, really hated you the first time I saw this show. Like, a lot. I don’t anymore. You will never be my favorite, but my latest viewing has proved to me that your particular kind of crazy is vital to this show. Your unyielding view on peace and how to obtain it will always be a bit absurd to me, and I’ll always like you most when you’re trying to shoot Lady Une, but in a universe full of absurd people, it just works. Had this show tried to take itself more seriously, I probably still would have hated you, but it was all ridiculous enough that you and your ideas fit right in. So yeah, it would be awful nice if all it took was one person to stand up and say“We need to all drop our weapons and stop fighting” for it to actually happen - even if they had to say it a few different times before the message got across successfully. But in the end it’s kind of nice that it at least works out in a universe so driven by passionate if crazy people, lol.

I just found out that this series changed writers AND directors halfway through the show, and, honestly, that makes so, so much sense.

Was also seriously confused when I got to the end. I was SURE there was at least one scene missing! Wasn’t there a scene where the pilots all made it back to MO-II? Turns out, there was, but it wasn’t part of the series itself, only an old VHS OVA. Must have come across it back in the day, and was happy to see it at least kinda survived the years thanks to someone uploading it about a decade ago. Wonder if I still have my own copies of that somewhere...

Lastly, I just wanna say that I love Duo. He’s great. Probably one of - if not the - most sane character on the show. Which is funny as he likes to go around yelling about how he’s a shinigami all the time. XD He was my first cosplay, and this trip down memory lane reminded me of why I liked him enough to choose him first. It has also reminded me that at the time I also had a much bigger, more complicated dream cosplay... one that I could actually probably tackle now from time, money, and skill standpoints... who knows, maybe that Deathscythe Hell Custom cosplay I dreamed about back in the day could actually be a thing! lol

Well. That was fun. Just wanted to get some thoughts out. I enjoyed myself on this watch through of one of my earlier anime!

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Why Lunafreya Can’t Be Fixed (Or... it would be very difficult to actually develop her character properly)

(A/N: Thank you guys so much for liking and reblogging this essay! It took a lot of labor. Please note that I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, before the reveal of the new DLC episodes. Here is a link to a new post that I wrote, where I discuss what I think Episode Luna is going to be about and why this creates new problems in the storytelling sphere. Warning - there be serious retconning ahead!)

Gamers today expect a substantial storytelling experience when playing JRPGs. Aside from immersive world building, a moving soundtrack, and compelling game mechanics, players are expecting a diverse cast and meaningful character development. This is definitely not the case for Final Fantasy XV‘s Lunafreya Nox Fleuret.

Character development assumes that a lead character, supporting character, and at times, even minor characters will undergo a journey of self-discovery of some level, or of some type. This, normally, should especially be true of a major character. In Luna’s case, she is heavily involved in the game’s advertising campaigns, and is assumed to be in a major romantic role with the main character, who undergoes his own extensive character development. She is therefore a major character, who is designed to forcibly tell us that she is important. So, why does she have no substance to her backstory, her character growth, and to her actual relevance in the story? And can she be fixed? This essay is an analysis on character creation from a writer’s perspective, and why she as a whole was not built for the character development that fans are expecting out of her - it is a perspective I feel is lacking in the all of the debates and discussions that are happening about this character. (Warning: spoilers for the Final Fantasy series ahead.) (Also warning: long.)

The essential main theme of character development in Final Fantasy XV is ascension. That is, the characters are growing to be better than they started out with, or are growing up in a physical, emotional, and mental way. For the four main Chocobros, this means growing up to be men, or from childhood/adolescence into adulthood (and for Noctis, becoming King). This is true for three out of the four main characters. The only exception is Gladiolus, who has already achieved manhood at the beginning of the game, and stays the same throughout. However, it can be argued that the Brotherhood anime has introduced some level of character development for him, going from a young teen who at first was displeased with protecting Noctis, into a young man who not only accepts Noctis, but accepts his role as a Crownsguard.

However, the same cannot be said for Luna. In all major aspects of the Final Fantasy XV Universe, Luna has not actually developed, nor was she really fully realized as a human being. What I mean to say is that she is the same in Brotherhood, Kingsglaive, Final Fantasy XV, and Royal Edition. While fans may notice behavioral changes between Luna in the film and in the game (and while many may prefer her in the film), her essential character actually hasn’t changed. Her goals are the same. Her emotions (and subsequent feelings for Noctis) are the same. Her commitment to being formal even in the presence of more intimate interpersonal relationships is the same. Her sense of duty is the same. Her obsession with Noctis is the same. Her lack of personality is arguably the same. The behavioral changes in this sense are mainly surface-level. This kind of personality quagmire is the same despite age differences throughout the timeline, as well. In other words, Luna is the same at 12 years old, and at 24 years old. She still is only interested in discussing her religious indoctrination, her duty, and her need to guide Noctis. This essentially means that there is no actual character development for a character that the game tries so hard to convince you is important. She is already grown up at 12 years old, and there is nothing left for her to personally explore. In other words, ascending to her role as Oracle is not symbolic of any character development, like ascending to be King is for Noctis. In the case where people argue she needs more screen time, YouTuber StoryTime** has explained it best: when you see one scene of Luna, you have seen them all. It is not that she needed more screen time - more screen time would just mean reiterations of old material. Case in point: she was given more time and more lines in Royal Edition, only for it to be the same old thing we have heard from her before (and at the cost of breaking one of their established world building rules). Expanding her emotions on the 1.16 update didn’t do anything different for her. It just beat the dead horse on what we already know: that she loves Noctis. What the problem really is is that she should have been planned out differently from the start.

Essentially, the main argument I am trying to make here is that the writers have effectively trapped themselves when it comes to Luna’s development. Let’s discuss the cuts that have been made from her development, and how she is problematically portrayed. There was a leak from a developer of the game who discussed that her childhood abuse story was cut due to anxiety over public backlash to her character. This backlash was assumed to come from a feminist perspective, being that her character would have endured the abuse for the sake of Noctis. This perspective is legitimate, which is another reason why she is problematic: she can’t be human, and be a full character, because her sole reason is to exist for Noctis. This is not just on an emotional level (where this kind of obsession is honestly incredibly self-sabotaging and unhealthy), but also on a plot development level. She is literally a plot device existing for the sake of Noctis’ development, and because of this her own development doesn’t matter. Her death was also for Noctis’ sake. She did not die out of her own convictions, or because her actions were conflicting with Ardyn’s goals. She died because Ardyn wanted to provoke Noctis. Luna’s death therefore does not hold significance for her development, either. This is largely different from Final Fantasy VII’s Aerith, who was murdered by Sephiroth because she posed a direct threat to his plans. Aerith, by comparison, died because she decided to take the world’s fate, as a normal civilian who wasn’t groomed to carry this burden, taking fate into her own hands, and without any religious brainwashing or indoctrination to tell her that she has to.

We do not know if this leak is true. Let’s assume that it is, especially since this abuse was teased in one of the trailers. Adding her abuse story wouldn’t actually add to her character development in a meaningful way. Why? Because she was already devoted to Noctis and to her duty before the abuse. Enduring the abuse for the sake of Noctis’ safety doesn’t change or enhance this devotion. It wouldn’t really be effective in changing Child Luna into Adult Luna. Also keep in mind that if we are to assume the leaks are true, then her motivation to endure the abuse was also supposed to be completely based on her devotion to Noctis. It was said that it was cut because people were going to argue against the notion of a young girl surviving abuse for the sake of a boy she barely knows, instead of for her own sake, or for the sake of the family she has left, etc. Any development that is meant for her is implied to happen for the purpose of existing for Noctis, just like the rest of her character development.

What this means is that from a writers’ perspective, she was created solely for Noctis’ development. Such characters do exist. They are necessary to develop main characters and to act as catalysts for a more natural plot progression. The problem here is that she is one of these throwaway characters, but fans are expecting more out of her role, or out of her existence - and Square is doing them a huge disfavor by advertising her as more than what she actually is.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that she doesn’t really behave like a normal human being. If anything, she carries herself like Tolkien’s Galadriel, who is thousands of years old by the time the Lord of the Rings takes place. Her personality quirks are one of the reasons why people would argue against a romantic relationship between her and Noctis, and why she is unrelatable for many. Combining a human-not-human with the lack of character development, and exacerbated with a questionable role in the overall plot development creates a shell or a shadow of a human being that barely exists. I would argue here that if she was removed from the story, it would be incredibly easy to fill her void, being that Noctis can be easily rewritten to go after the Astrals and the Armiger weapons without her assistance. If we were to compare her to Final Fantasy IX’s Garnet, it is different. Removing Garnet would have a tremendous impact on the story, because suddenly there is no logical explanation for Zidane’s presence in Alexandria, and there would be no reason for him to go to Lindblum, and so forth. Removing her would garner serious rewriting of the entire game. Garnet’s contribution to the game is tied to the world building and politics that take center stage of the conflict, even though she is not the main protagonist. The same cannot be said for Luna. Her role as an Oracle is questionable: she is meant to be the voice between the people and the gods. But this is challenged repeatedly in the game. If she is needed to speak to the gods, then why can Noctis understand Leviathan during their battle? Why can Noctis exchange a conversation with Bahamut? If it is to be argued that he is also chosen by the Crystal, then what is the proper argument for Bahamut coming down and speaking directly to the Glaives in Comrades? Furthermore, as stated before, removing her would not constitute a huge rewrite. Since Noctis has shown to have no problem talking to gods, then it wouldn’t be a big task to write it so that he takes responsibility of waking them up, as well. It’s no wonder then that Luna has become such a contested character to debate over. If anything, it further deteriorates her character development.

I have to add here that proper analysis of literary characters need to use hard evidence from the primary source. Defense of her characterization from most of what I have seen rely on projection, which is not accurate of what is actually seen of her. This makes validation of her character in a meaningful discourse difficult (in other words, projecting ideals onto her character without seeing the forest for the trees will grant you the very least a “D” in your literature class). Furthermore, adding actual romantic messages on the notebook will not fix her either. The romance between her and Noctis, first of all, is flawed in and of itself, and is a different topic, although development here is necessary. Secondly, if you want to tie the romance to her character development, it cannot be argued that it does anything to *her* development. This is because the romance does not help her in any way, does not encourage her personal growth, and as it stands, does nothing to let us know anything different about her or see a another side of her either. Since she is already grown at 12 years old, the romance has nothing to do with her ascension, either. Giving her a scene with Noctis as adults is actually NOT ideal either, because Tabata’s entire goal for her was to achieve her as a trophy after hours of chasing her, only for her to be taken away. Her death is written to be devastating because of the amounts of effort that Noctis (and the player) have put into chasing her. Writing a scene for her and Noctis before her death would cheapen and backstab Tabata’s efforts - not that it would do anything for her anyway.

Considering that Tabata has expressed his commitment to making her “stronger,” his new track record in Royal Edition does not encourage any trust in his goals. Giving her speaking powers in ghost form (which conflicts with her previous appearances, where it seems like she cannot speak - this also conflicts with earlier design choices and artistic goals of creating a sense of permanence in death), and creating a non-problem that has no significance to the actual story which also contradicts Ardyn’s motivations (the wall over the Lucian citadel) for her to “fix” (when Noctis has no problem summoning Astrals), especially when there is no physical cost, danger, or threat to her well-being (since she is already dead), does not really do Tabata’s need to convince players that she is strong any justice.

So how can she be fixed? A realistic answer would be that she can’t. To elaborate on this, I will assume that the three episodic DLC’s were planned ahead, which is why there are major plot holes in the base game. This means that the free additions to the story, and including the Royal Edition, were not originally planned. This includes the 1.16 patch, where she was given a couple of more lines of crying, the Astral backstory (which has been argued to contradict what was previously known about the Astrals) and the Chapter 13, verse 2 patch update. These examples do not excel in the writing department (the latter was very verbose and awkward in dialogue that seemed unnatural to the base game, even for fancy standards - and it did not actually answer any questions about Ravus’ character development - this was clearly planned for Episode Ignis instead). Basically, from the new additions to the story, the designers did not do a stellar job in showing that they can handle the expectations that fans want, nor are the writers confident in bringing in new material, especially in a short amount of time.

A good example of this is her Royal Edition appearance. Many were disappointed that there wasn’t anything meaningful in her only adult interaction between herself and Noctis. Why is this? Why couldn’t they give us something? This is because the writers do not know what they are like as a couple. They never had to write or think realistically about what their dynamic would be like. The writers are also pressured by the severe time constraints that come with game development. It takes a lot of resources to create such a short scene between the two of them. Good writing isn’t just talent and effort - it is time consuming, which they do not have. Believing that they will create something substantial in such a short time period for previously unplanned story DLC is unrealistic of their abilities. Episode Prompto and Episode Ignis were satisfying because those stories were planned from the beginning, as shown from the deliberate plot holes that they have set up, knowing that they will fill them in. Or, think about it this way: they had an actual story to tell with Prompto and Ignis. This is something that we all knew, being that the base game has given us teases. (Episode Gladio couldn’t be as satisfying because, as stated before, Gladio didn’t have any development in the game.) What about Episode Ardyn? I do not believe that the designers were anticipating such passionate interest in Ardyn’s development, and have genuinely screwed up in his build-up, too (hence why different language dubs will have contradicting information during his reveal to Noctis). As a writer myself, I do not have the intuitive belief that the writers knew that Ardyn had a brother who betrayed him, or where the name Izunia came from. When developing characters, a rule of thumb that all writers must follow is to know their characters’ backstory. This is why when Ardyn’s new brother was introduced to be named Somnus Lucis Caelum, it comes off as retcon-y. No effort was put into studying more Latin terms, so they went with the first word that came to be associated with Versus XIII, as homage to the origins of this game (since he is Founder King). That may seem pleasant from a symbolical standpoint, although it is sloppy. Consider that all names in this games have symbolic meaning. Somnus (”sleep”) means nothing in the final game, so there is no symbolic significance in naming Ardyn’s brother this way (i.e., it wasn’t planned before).

Let’s take a quick look at Aranea, by comparison. She has far less screen time than Luna, yet 100 times more character development. In her first major appearance, she is an enemy, working for the empire. In her second, you find out she is just a mercenary, and that she questions her commitment to the empire. In her third, she has decided to dump the empire and provide help to the survivors in Tenebrae. Aranea has undergone three stages of character development in her only three scenes. This was planned well. They knew who Aranea was and what she will become.

What this means in the long run for a possible Episode Luna, which is previously unplanned, is that the writers will have A LOT to work with in such a short amount of time. We do not know yet how they will handle such a responsibility, since Episode Ardyn is not out yet. Now, Ardyn is a much easier character to flesh out by comparison. He would have to have been young once, idealistic and willing to help those in need. The descent into hatred and anger is, understandably and expectantly, tragic and dramatic. Writing these themes would be easy for the writers to adapt. In other words, his story is already written by assumption just because he is the antagonist of the story, and because he was previously anointed by the Crystal.

In Luna’s case, however, this is not true. As stated before, Luna is the same at 12 years old, before the Niflheim invasion, as she is as an adult. As stated before, adding her abuse story would not be effective character development because of this. If they add this abuse, they risk drawing the ire of peeved fans who do not want to see her as just a sex dumpster for Noctis. All additions added for her so far was meant to convince us that she loves Noctis, which is already obvious. So what is there to do? I do not have proper advice in this case. She should not have been published in this state. Getting her interested in things that have nothing to do with Noctis would be a decent start, so that she can seem human enough. But here is the new catch-22: changing her too much would then betray our existing knowledge of her.

What this means is that if we witness her acting like a normal human being, they risk undermining our understanding of her. Suddenly, it is not one Luna, but two (or, if you think she is that different in Kingsglaive, it will become three Luna’s). If she is not comfortable behaving less formal in front her brother, in front of Regis, and IN FRONT OF NOCTIS EVEN, then how are we going to accept her behaving differently in front strangers? New friends? Servants? And this is only if they decide to delve into her backstory. This is not guaranteed. The massive survey conducted by Square teased that Luna’s story would not really be childhood backstory. It was framed as seeing her actions during Noctis’ story (in other words, her duty to waking up the Astrals). What this means is that Episode Luna would, therefore, exist for Noctis’ sake, too.

And what kind of story, exactly, are they going to tell in Episode Luna when they have shown repeatedly that they do not have a story to tell? I mean, REALLY, IF THEY HAD MORE CONTENT FOR HER, THEY WOULD HAVE ALREADY SHOWN IT. The reason why we keep getting scenes that do nothing except repeat what we already know is because they don’t have more content. I am trying to express here that a natural character progression or outline for Luna doesn’t really exist. Let’s flesh this out. The only scene we see where she is directly at conflict with her inner goals is when she is at the brink of giving up, and asking Ravus to take the ring. However, we see this scene after her death, when her character progression has effectively ended which is a problem on its own. Furthermore, this scene serves her less than it does for Ravus. This scene was introduced specifically for Ravus’ development, not hers. It is the first time in the base game the audience was even remotely aware that Ravus has mixed goals. On her side, the effectiveness of this scene in making her seem human is questionable. Why?

It is because we know that she is not realistic in her behavioral patterns. She shows no realistic reaction to her duties, which would logically come out in two ways: one, she would be angry at the gods for demanding such sacrifice from her when the entire Starscourge was their fault to begin with; and two, she would (AND SHOULD) be upset that Noctis, someone she supposedly loves, is going to die, too. But, she’s willing to allow him to die. Compare this to Final Fantasy X’s Yuna, who over the course of her journey, goes from a summoner who is willing to die to save the people from Sin, continually struggling to accept her decision to sacrifice herself as she forms a relationship with Tidus, and then becoming a warrior who decides to stop the cycle of abuse that keeps harming her people, while still maintaining traits that keep her familiar to us. In other words, Yuna’s development is about her being involved with religious and political conspiracies which lead her to then question her faith, only for her to stay steadfast in her own self-confidence and then risk her life to find a different method to save the world. Her refusal to sacrifice her friends is proof of this. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end to her development. Luna, on the other hand, decides to behave in all the ways the gods demand her to, instead of choosing her own fate. This effectively means that all chances the writers take at directly telling us that she “has a mind of her own,” or that her decisions are “her choices” (which is not what she actually says in the Japanese version), are basically smoke and mirrors, completely at odds with normal human behavior and previous world building efforts. She does not have direct will of her actions. Her will to give up temporarily, then, is an inorganic attempt to bring some character development into her, which happens only once, and it happens too late. At best, it is a weak attempt. At worst, it is disingenuous. Either way, this questioning of herself is not a proper method for character development, because her story has no beginning, middle or end. It’s a broken record throughout.

The writers therefore are going to have a difficult time logically creating a character outline for her progression and ascension for a possible Episode Luna. What exactly are we going to get here? What would her journey mean? Are we going to get repeated scenes of her questioning her strength when she wakes up an Astral because she is getting sicker? Rinse and repeat for every Astral she wakes up? What is the point here, when she didn’t even die because of her own pursuits, or because of her own deteriorating health? I would think that her DLC might be useful in learning more about the Astrals, about Tenebrae, or about the Empire. If that is the case, then that has nothing to do with her development, either.

That is not effective character development. There isn’t enough evidence to show any strong sense of optimism in this case. Maybe the writers will have some creative ideas to add to her story that will genuinely be surprising, although having her be a magical badass would then contradict certain elements of the Universe (such as her lack of magic in Kingsglaive). If she is only a healer, then that means that she needs another character to fight for her in her DLC (gee, poor Luna truly can’t do anything for herself). If she fights, then it’s a WONDER WHY SHE NEVER FOUGHT BEFORE, ASIDE FROM HER CONFRONTATION WITH LEVIATHAN. All in all, she’s messed up in general. I suspect that the reason they have not officially announced an Episode Luna yet is because they are struggling to create a proper character outline for her, as well as discussing ways to flesh out game mechanics without making her seem useless or terribly contradictory. If anything, the writers need to know her well before they can add anything. If they don’t even know how to get her to communicate with Noctis, when they have spent so much effort in building believable and meaningful dialogue and connections between the Chocobros, then I have no confidence in them knowing who she is, and therefore, no confidence that they will provide anything of value to her character in the future. TL;DR: Luna sucks and may not be fixable. No, I mean, really. I do not know, as a writer, how to fix her while still staying canonical to the published story, maintaining her relevance to the plot, and proving with little challenge that her actions are vital to the story’s development. **Please check out StoryTime’s video comparing Luna to Princess Zelda from Breath of the Wild. I have also noticed these severe similarities between the two of them. I would add that Breath of the Wild did much better in establishing symbolism in the silent princesses (the flowers). The sylleblossoms by comparison don’t have any significant meaning.

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“Spider-Man: Homecoming is the best Spider-Man movie ever, and it isn't even close.”

No it isn’t.

It’s not even the best example of filmmaking about a character called Spider-Man.

Vital plot points don’t really make much sense, there is fatigue from the MCu overall and on top of that it aggressively lacks substance and weight to it the way Spider-Man 2002 and Spider-Man 2 had.

As a film it’s fun but the best ever and it not being close?

But I expet nothing less from the blog that straight up claimed Brand New Day was awesome, the Spider-Man story could have ended after the Death of Gwen Stacy (despite you know multiple dangling plot threads) and that One More Day was great because we got young and hip Spider-Man back and the whole story makes sense because by making the dealto never be married there could never have been a deal to get unmarried therefore Spider-Man never made a eal with mephisto so shuttup and stop complaining about it idiots, enjoy Carlie Cooper and creepy Black Cat mask sex instead!

“To be fair, I don't think Tom Holland was the best Spider-Man — that's Andrew Garfield, who is much closer to my preferred version of Spider-Man (the late, college-age Steve Ditko version) than anyone else (Holland wins the prize for being the closest version to Ultimate Spider-Man. That's the thing. Spider-Man is open to interpretation. They all got a piece of him right.).”

So the OP’s preferred version is a version which existed for literally 8 issues?

Okay.

Also Holland might be relatively closest to the Ultimate version of Spider-Man…but only the Ultimate Miles Morales version.

“Nor do I think that it's the most groundbreaking of the Spider-Man movies, since that still probably goes to the first one with Tobey Maguire, which was mind-blowing at the time of release, but is horribly dated now.”

No art should ever be legitimately judged outside the context in which it was created. A movie not dating is nothing more than a bonus. It doesn’t make or break the film’s value because the standards of today are simply arbitrarily different to the standards of yesterday and the standards of tomorrow will be much the same.

“With context as to what the superhero movie would later become, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst look positively amateurish and incredibly underwhelming. (And whiny. Let's never forget whiny.)”

Yeah…fuck this guy.

Every character who whined in the first 2 films had legitimate reasons to do so.

But oh noes, they aren’t deadpan snarker badasses like RDJ’s Iron man therefore they must suck because…they act like human beings I guess.

“Context matters, though. And in the larger scheme of things when the history books are written, Tobey Maguire's first foray as Spider-Man will be remembered as the character's coming out moment, for better or for worse. Similarly, context matters when looking at creative choices made in a movie like this. And while I can't quite put into words why the movie fell short for me despite the fact that all the elements to make it successful were there, I can talk about something else regarding the movie, and that's the fact that it's one of the most racially diverse blockbuster movies in recent memory.”

So it’s the best Spier-Man movie ever but fell short for you….okay…

“So let's look at...

Racial Diversity and Bending in Spider-Man: Homecoming

by Duy

SPOILERS FOLLOW Spider-Man: Homecoming has a pretty damn diverse cast. Let's take a look at his main classmates Breakfast Club style.

So you've got Tom Holland in the middle playing Peter Parker. He's white. Over to his left is Zendaya, playing Michelle, is half-black, half-white, while in front of Tom is Laura Harrier, playing Liz, also half-black, half-white. Tony Revolori, to the right, plays Flash, and is of Guatemalan descent, while Jacob Batalon, who plays Ned, was born in Hawaii to Filipino parents. It's diverse. It's a step forward in Hollywood. It's wonderful. It also bugs me. WAIT, NO, HEAR ME OUT BEFORE YOU FIRE UP THE COMMENTS. All of these characters are named after a longtime Spider-Man character. It could be argued that since their last names are never given (except for one), they could be anything from callbacks to tributes to trolling methods on the part of the filmmakers. And that's fair.”

No it isn’t.

In an adaptation they should actually adapt the characters whilst respecting the spirits of them. Spider-Man is one of the best franchises ever. It doesn’t need OCs and it doesn’t need OCs’ who’re ‘references’ to the established characters who are on the whole richer and more movieworthy than them.

“All the same, I think there are missed opportunities here. Let's look at them one by one, in the order of the level of opportunity wastage. Tony Revolori plays Flash, the school bully. This is named after Flash Thompson. Flash Thompson normally looks like this: So now we've got a Guatemalan playing him who also doesn't play him as a jock. Instead, he's also another science nerd, who just happens to be the least smart out of all of them, and instead of threatening to beat Peter up or calling him "Puny Parker," he calls him "Penis Parker" instead. I'm cool with that. Look, racebending a 1962 comic just makes sense. You know what schools in the US were like in 1962? Segregated. That means white people and non-white people couldn't really interact. You know what a New York high school is like in 2017? Not segregated. That means Peter Parker's gonna have classmates of all races and descents, and if you populate a cast with racially diverse characters, but the only ones he interacts with are all still white, that just calls attention to the whole issue to begin with. You can't diversify without empowering.”

As for Flash being a nerd rather than a jock, that's cool too.”

No it isn’t.

Flash’s character is very much wrapped up in the fact that he I a jock. He’s a dumb blockhead with a good heart at the end of the day who learns to be more than that whilst still being nostalgic for his high school glory days when he peaked due to his athleticism and when life was much simpler because of that.

“The past decade and a half has seen a rise in the nerd bully, the type that torments you verbally rather than threatens you physically.”

Er, yeah…Flash was mostly a verbal bully in those Ditko comics this guy has claimed to have read. He wasn’t doing a Biff Tannen impersonation at all. He was mostly verbally insulting and humiliating Peter.

“See, for example, Gamergate, Kylo Ren, the villain in the last Ghostbusters movie, and the entirety of the internet. Are jocks vs. nerds still a thing?”

Yes I suspect nerds vs. jocks is very much still a thing actually.

“ The nerds kinda crossed the line the moment Revenge of the Nerds happened, and that was in 1984”

I grew up in the 90s and the 2000s so…yeah this is bullshit nerds really didn’t cross the line in 1984.

“Are jocks still bullies? I dunno, I'm old. But from the looks of the internet, nerds certainly are.”

The internet isn’t the real world.

Nerds can be bullies and so can jocks.

Flash being the latter is important to his character.

“Laura Harrier plays Liz, the girl Peter has a crush on. In the comics, this girl is Liz Allan.

Here's the thing: they've racebent Liz before, in the excellent Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon, which I still think is the best Spider-Man outside of the comics medium. She's Hispanic in the cartoon, I believe, and half-black in the movie. And that's fine — the character of Liz Allan works regardless of race.

I think it's a powerful message when young kids watching Spider-Man see a white guy having a crush on a girl who isn't white — and an interracial one at that. Seeing examples this early on in life can only have a positive effect.”

Colour me crazy but…aren’t people just going to fancy whoever they are going to fancy?

Like…I don’t think any little white boys watching this movie are going to be influenced towards finding ladies of the same ethnicity as Laura Harrier more attractive one way or the other. “Zendaya plays Michelle. And at the end of the movie, Michelle says she prefers to be called MJ. I shouldn't have to remind readers, this is Mary Jane Watson: Now, she isn't "Mary Jane," she's Michelle. But the role is still there. She's going to be Peter's main love interest moving forward (unless we get someone showing up as Gwen).”

a) How do you know that?

b) Mary Jane’s role is more than just his love interest. By this definition Liz filled Mary Jane’s role.

“And if that's the case, it was pretty smart in this movie to establish her as someone with her own agency and her own personality rather than someone who gets in trouble and motivates Peter.”

Yes it was because that doesn’t pertain to the 616 comics version of Mary Jane nor the Dunst version as I’m sure you meant because you’re a narrowminded so and so who like the rest of the internet gets the knives out for Dunst’s version of the character regardless of how justified it might be.

“All the same, this bugs me, for two reasons. The first reason is this: Zendaya's Michelle is nothing like Mary Jane Watson, party animal with a troubled soul... but she could be. We know this from what Zendaya's done before. She plays a socially conscious, withdrawn, isolated person when Mary Jane is usually the exact opposite of all of those things. She's basically another character altogether. The "MJ" reveal just feels tacked on and unnecessary, and without value past the first time you hear it. And it closes the door on a future MJ that may actually be like the MJ from the comics. (Kirsten Dunst was not the MJ from the comics. Kirsten Dunst played Kirsten Dunst.)”

Do you know Kirsten Dunst personally in order to verify that?

“The second reason is that the character that Zendaya's "Michelle" is most like? A sarcastic woman who is both mean to Peter Parker and yet shows affection for him? That's actually a character named Michele. And she's awesome.”

Like I said…Brand New Day worshipper right here.

Michelle wasn’t awesome.

Michelle was a racist sterotype of Latinex women.

She was ‘the hot blooded latina’ sterotype taken to insane degrees because she

a) slept with Peter when he was intoxicated and didn’t know what he was doing (which you could at the very least argue is a form of rape)

b) vandalized his property when he claimed he’d been impersonated by the Chameleon which is an entirely reasomable thing for him to say given that they live in a world of superheroes.

c) Slightly tortured him with with food

d) Needlessly insulted him

e) Oh, and did I mention that in a scenario that wasn’t in the defence of herself, a third party and didn’t come from a place of justifed mental inhibition she punched him in the face!

Let me repeat that.

Michelle who is apparently ‘awesome’ assaulted someone.

Did I mention she was a lawyer too?

Fuck Michelle.

“I'm always of the stance that racebending is fine if there is no counterpart that already exists. In this case though, there is. (Side note: Zendaya playing Michelle is still a racebend, since Michele is a Latina.) And what bugs me about this is more from a marketing perspective: Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson became the big Spider-Man love interests by continued exposure.”

No.

Gwen became the big Spdier-Man love interest because she was positioned as that and was then immortalized when she died.

Mary Jane became that because she was a great character everyone loved and was then positioned as his love interest eventually marrying him.

“How can we possibly build more characters and the presence of those characters when we're still cycling back and forth between Gwen and Mary Jane?”

That argument is as fucking asinine as saying we can’t build in new Superman love intersts because we keep using Lois Lane.

Gwen and MJ aren’t just there via repetition.

They are massive important parts of the mythology.

“That's why fans get so resistant in the comics whenever Peter has a new love interest, the belief that it can only be one of those two.”

No fans get resistant because most of the new love interests suck shit and are never as good as Mary jane because they can’t be because she had 20 years of a developoing relationship with him preceded by 20 more years of development as his frined/confidant.

Again…it’s the same reason Superman is always with Lois Lane.

It’s not a legitimate basis for an argument to say Spider-Man should even have other love interests by this point. The ship sailed on that decades ago.

“But we don't give chances to other love interests, partly because Marvel doesn't give them those chances either.”

WTF did Carlie Cooper have if not a chance?

She existed for over 2 years as Spider-Man’s love interest.

Peter dated Felicia for over 2 years in the 1980s.

Fans gave characters chances half the time but those characters didn’t live up to those chances. The other half of the time they didn’t give the character a chance because in context the character didn’t deserve a chance.

Post-OMD every romantic relationship is 100% pointless UNLESS its with Mary jane putting things backt he way it was.

See Nu52 Superman/Wonder Woman another fine fucking mess people didn’t give a shit about because of how utterly asinine it was.

Spier-Man isn’t fucking James Bond and Mary Jane and Gwen aren’t optional interchanagable characters asshole.

“Jacob Batalon plays Ned. Ostensibly, this is after Ned Leeds. And this is Ned Leeds:

Ned's a reporter who didn't even go to high school with Peter. In the movie, Ned is his best friend, who knows who he is, helps him with Spider-Man stuff, and looks like Ganke.

Ganke is the best friend of Miles Morales, the second Spider-Man.

Seriously, why didn't they just name him Ganke? He's right there.”

Because they didn’t want to give Bendis royalties probably.

Also alongside Brand New Day worship this blogger seems to find zero problems with a Peter Parker story STEALING Ganke from Miles Morales.

Charming.

“Which brings us to Tom Holland, who plays Peter Parker. And he was great. He nailed high school/Ultimate Spider-Man, and got the right mix of humor and angst that that makes Spider-Man who he is. And that's fine. That's fair. “

No he didn’t and no it isn’t.

He could do that stuff if given the chance.

But he wasn’t.

Because the angst he had was over his Tony Stark worship and desire to be an Avenger rather than the horrible life mistakes he made and his desire to do right by his mother and the humour he was used in boiled down to slapstick bumbling.

That isn’t Spider-Man.

If you think that’s Spider-Man you need to re-read your shit because you are entirely wrong. Not even Ultimate comics Spider-Man was anything like that.

“But here's the thing. Peter Parker in high school classically is a loner, someone who makes sure no one knows he's Spider-Man, goes about things on a grassroots level, and doesn't let anyone — anyone — help him out. He's actually a bit of a jerk, honestly.”

Yes and no.

Yes he is a loner but no he wasn’t a jerk.

He was a typical teen but one who was understandably stressed out because on top of the typical trials of adolescence, he was trying to earn a scholarship, was getting bullied, was dodging bullets every night, trying to earn money to support his household oh and also dealing with HIS DAD DYING!

And the picture given to this part of the article doesn’t even SHOW him being a jerk!

“The thing is, there is a character named Spider-Man who grew up idolizing other superheroes, who has an overweight Asian best friend who helps him out as Spider-Man, and who is mentored by the Avengers, and that guy is Miles Morales. This should have been a Miles Morales movie. By concept, premise, and execution, everything about the movie screamed "Miles Morales" to me more than it did "Peter Parker," to the point where it felt like it was, in fact, a Miles Morales movie, except they wrote out Miles and dumped Peter in his place.”

That is true but this shouldn’t have been a Miles movie by design.

Nobody should have consciously tried to make this anything like a Miles Morales movie. “And that's the rub about this whole diversity thing right now. Whenever we applaud a movie for being diverse, we mean one of two things. We could mean it, as we did for Captain America: Winter Soldier or Spider-Man: Homecoming, as "a racially diverse cast with a white male lead." Or we could mean it, as is happening and will continue to happen with Black Panther, as "a cast that is dominated by one race." Both are well and good and unheard of even ten years ago on the level that it is now. But there's still something missing, and that's having a non-white character headline a blockbuster movie with a racially diverse cast. I will consider the battle for diversity won when we can see that type of movie in spades and not have to remark about how noteworthy it is. This would have been the perfect opportunity to do it. They could have written Peter as an older character to focus on later, one that's always been Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and just not heard of much, as he normally is in the comics where he isn't that well-known outside of New York City, while focusing on Miles.”

No they couldn’t.

The Netflix series all happen in New York city.

We the audience are supposed to know EVERYTHING about the MCU beyond the stuff that is behind the scenes or secret.

Saying

“Oh Spider-Man was there the whole time you just didn’t know about it” is a creative cheat of the highest order and makes no fucking sense because OF COURSE people in and out of New York were going to know about him. It’d be unrealistic for them NOT to.

Not to mention how actually Spider-Man IS known outside of New York.

As for making Peter older and focussing upon Miles this wouldn’t have worked for a million reasons.

But chief among them is that Miles doesn’t have the material necessary to eek out a film trilogy of his own. Most of his highly decompressed stories are rossovers and tie-ins that can’t work for film and the rest of them repeat beats from other Spider-Man and superhero movies.

You couldn’t even introduce Miles without telling his origin story which is exactly what helped kill the LAST film version of Spider-Man because Miles and Peter have incredibly similar origins.

Then you have the fact that it royally fucks the entire appeal of doing Spider-Man in the MCu.

The mass audiences DOESN’T WANT to just see any given kid in web spandex called Spider-man on screen with the Avengers they want it to be THAT SPECFIC kid from the previous five movies who’s worked his way into mass pop culture.

The audience impact and appeal is grossly diminished if you DON’T make it peter Parker.

Which doesn’t mean Peter himself must be white.

But it does HAVE to be Peter NOT Miles.

Peter who is, I’m sorry…like an egregiously better character than Miles in alsmost every way possible.

“And it could have been done, since we literally just saw it two years ago in Ant-Man, where the movie focused on Scott Lang instead of Hank Pym, the original, classic bearer of that mantle.”

Fuck me this stupid ass argument again.

NO you didn’t just see it get done in Ant Man.

In Ant Man Hank Pym was a SECRET super hero working behind the scenes.

That’s intrinsically different to the inherent nature of Spider-Man as a public crime fighter who is demonized by the media

And I’m sorry…switching out Hank for Soctt is also inherently different. Hank Pym’s deal is that he switched identities a lot and has a mental illness. The Ant Man mythology if you like isn’t as reliant upon HIM holding the mantle as it is for Spider-Man who’s whole history and mythology is built specifically around peter Parker and his personal life and relationships.

Because Peter IS Spider-Man.

And again, people didn’t get excited to see any given kid called Spider-Man onscreen with the Avengers. They got excited for it to be Peter specifically.

Let me repeat that again.

Introducing Miles into the MCU is NOT THE SAME THING AS HAVING TWO ANT MEN!

“And I get it, too. If this was the only time we're ever going to see Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I would want that Spider-Man to be Peter Parker. But if that's the case, I wish I could've seen a movie that felt more like Peter Parker than a Miles Morales movie where he's removed and replaced with Peter Parker.”

Finally something we agree on.

“That this didn't feel like a Peter Parker movie to me is a cranky old fanboy nitpick.”

That isn’t a nitpick that’s a legitimately massive problem with the film that fucks it over.

11 notes · View notes

Best Flea Collars for Dogs 2019 – Buyer’s Guide

​Summer is back and with it comes a problem all dog owners fear: fleas. When it comes to owning a dog, these little bugs represent one of the most significant challenges you’ll face. After all, nobody likes watching his or her dog itch and be uncomfortable.

Thankfully, some manufacturers have identified this problem and figured out ways to stop these little bugs from ruining your dog’s life. No longer do you have to watch in misery as your dog continually itches with the existence of products like flea collars.

However, they’re so many of these products on the market these days that it’s hard to tell which one is the best flea collar for dogs. Honestly, most of them look the same and offer the same features/promises.

Due to this, we felt it would be a good idea to provide you with a guide that discusses all you need to know about these products and goes over the best ones on the market.

In the section below, you’ll find a detailed discussion of the best flea collars that’ll help you pick the right one for your pup. The goal here is to find the perfect flea collar for your dog’s particular needs.

Comparison of Flea Collars for Dogs

Best Flea Collars for Dogs Reviews 2019

As you’d expect from a product review section, this part of the article will discuss some of the most popular flea collars on the market: outlining key features, pros, and my thoughts on the overall product quality.

1. Bayer Animal Health Seresto Flea and Tick Collar for Small Dogs

The first product on our list is the Bayer Animal Health Seresto Flea and Tick Collar, which is a treat & repel flea collar. Its ability to both treat and repel makes it an incredibly attractive option for me.

See, I have a big backyard with many shady places where these little nasty things can hide and plot their attacks on my dog. Due to this, I need a flea collar that can offer a preventive measure against this incoming attack.

But I’m sure some fleas have already made my dog’s fur their home; therefore, I need a flea collar that can also fight against already existing fleas. In this aspect, this flea collar fills both these necessary qualities to a tee.

Along with this sense of covering all the bases, this flea collar is water resistant: something I need in any dog product I buy. My dog tends to explore wet areas at every opportunity.

In a perfect world, his flea collar would be entirely waterproof, but given the materials, flea collars are made with, this isn’t realistic. Therefore, water-resistant will do just fine.

Plus, the eight months of protection is a beautiful thing to have, especially, with my remarkable ability to leave things until the last possible moment. With this collar, I wouldn’t have to worry about replacing it or my dog getting fleas for a solid eight months.

Honestly, the peace of mind this flea collar would give me might be worth the expensive price tag that comes with this product. But realistically, it’s a little too extravagant for my taste.

Also, if your dog does have an allergic reaction to the collar, the results are rather severe. Not life threatening but hair loss and hives were present in numerous customers’ experiences.

Eight-month flea protection

Odorless

Kills fleas through contact

Can be worn with leash collars

Two sizes

Water Resistant

Expensive

Allergic reactions seem severe

Although it’s the best rated flea collar on Amazon, this flea collar isn’t something I’d purchase for two reasons: the price and the severe allergic reactions. However, if you’re okay with the cost, consult a vet before deciding not to buy one of these collars.

After all, these allergic reactions might be isolated incidents or caused by the owners misusing the flea collar. And given the flood of positive experiences with this flea collar, I’d give this product an immense amount of consideration: if I didn't care about the price.

2. HARTZ Ultraguard Plus Flea & Tick Dog Collar

The first thing you’ll notice about the HARTZ Ultraguard Plus Flea & Tick Collar is the incredibly low price. I’m always on the lookout for a bargain, so, this product gained my attention from the very beginning.

Then, I was taken aback by the fact it was a treat & repel flea collar. As mentioned before, this type of flea collar is essential to my dog’s particular needs. And with further research into the product, I kept uncovering features that would be perfect for my dog.

For example, it has a promise of seven months of protection, water-resistance, fits neck sizes up to 22 inches, etc. However, all these positives were shut down by two elements that kept popping up in numerous customers’ experiences.

These two things were a common trend of complaints about the flea collar’s effectiveness and a lack of customer service. Now, this isn’t to say there weren’t many people expressing positive experiences using this collar: there was.

But the mixture of numerous negative experiences about the collar’s effectiveness with a reputation for having bad customer service isn’t something I find remotely appealing.

Due to this mixture, I’d find it hard to justify purchasing this flea collar even at its incredible price. In fact, I wonder whether or not they use the low cost to draw people in and take their money.

Excellent price

Seven-month flea protection

Water-resistant

Can use on any dog over six weeks old

Fits neck size up to 22 inches

Both kills and repels fleas

Effectiveness issues

Customer service

Overall, this collar has many features I’d consider necessary in any flea collar I purchase. But the flaws in this product make this an unsuitable item to enter my dog’s life.

Nonetheless, if you’re on a budget and need a flea collar, this one might be the perfect option for you. Again, there are plenty of people who swear by its effectiveness; maybe you’ll end up being one of them.

3. Arava Flea & Tick Prevention Collar

Our first repelling flea collar on the list is the Arava Flea & Tick Prevention Collar. This collar has a unique feature that stands out from the most of the others on this list: it’s use of 100% natural ingredients.

This determination to use completely natural ingredients is something I love about this flea collar. It ensures there will be no chemical allergic reaction to the toxic ingredients usually found in flea collars.

Additionally, the five months of protection gives me a nice feeling of comfort regarding the product’s overall effectiveness. It might not be as long as 7 or 8 months, but it’s still long enough where I don’t feel like I’m regularly spending money on ordering replacements.

Furthermore, the idea of the manufacturer offering a refund is another thing I like to see when buying a product. Even in the case of a 30-day refund, it conveys the company’s willingness to stand behind their product.

It makes me more willing to consider the fact these natural ingredients are as effective as the toxic ones found in other flea collars. After all, the would be a welcome change considering that nobody likes exposing their dog to these chemicals.

However, there are a couple of things about this product that I can’t accept. First, the cost. I assume this price comes from the use of natural ingredients being more expensive than using toxic ones. But even so, I can’t wrap my head around paying this much for a simple flea collar.

Secondly, there's no way I can choose a flea collar that isn’t a treat & repel one for my dog. Its become evident that he already has some fleas in his fur. He scratches and itches far too much for anything else to be considered.

100% natural

Five-month flea protection

Waterproof

Adjustable collar

30-day refund

Expensive

Doesn’t do anything against already existing flea infestations

Honestly, I’d love to purchase this flea collar for my dog. But it’s not a good fit for his particular needs. And no matter how much I loathe trusting these companies with these toxic ingredients, I can’t afford to shell out this amount of money for a repelling flea collar.

It’s a shame too because I admire what Arava’s trying to accomplish. And from the looks of it, they’re well onto their way to offering a high-quality, natural ingredient that rivals the toxic chemical ones.

4. Adams Plus Flea and Tick Collar

The Adams Plus Flea Tick Collar is a standard, run of the mill treat & repel collar with all the expected features. However, what makes this collar such a popular product is its bargain-level price.

At this price, you don’t expect a promise that ensures seven months of protection or the ability to both repel and kill fleas. With these two features, I was entirely on board with buying this product.

Plus, you throw in water-resistance, and I was sold. But then I found out why this product has such a low price. See, the collar gives off a very unpleasant and strong odor detectable to humans.

In uncovering this, I had to reexamine whether or not this smell was something I’d want inside my house. And given the low price, I think it’s something I could get used to, but it’s less than ideal.

Moreover, the flea collar’s flimsy design is another negative that comes with this product. It seems the collar has a tendency to end up broken or destroyed rather quickly.

But the poor design isn’t a vastly detrimental problem for this particular collar, as I could afford to buy multiple. Overall, the flaws don’t contradict the positives enough to make this product a non-buy for me.

Incredible price

Seven-month flea protection

Kills and repels fleas

Water-resistant

Three sizes

Strong odor

Flimsy design

While this product’s flaws aren’t ideal, they aren’t deal breakers. In other words, they’re something I could learn to live with and maneuver around. There’s nothing too detrimental for me to make this product unworthy of my consideration.

And given it checks off many of the necessary features I’m looking for in a flea collar, I’d strongly consider investing some money into buying a couple of these collars. They’re easily the best bargain on this list.

Due to this, if you’re looking for the highest quality for the lowest cost, this is the collar for you. But if you have a strong sense of smell or get incredibly bothered by things breaking, it’s a smart idea to look elsewhere.

5. Scalibor Protector Band for Dogs

As a treatment flea collar, the Scalibor Protector Band makes sure to eradicate any existing fleas from your dog’s fur. This demolition of fleas is something I love about this product.

Additionally, any long-term promise of flea protection is a nice bonus for a flea collar. In this case, six months offers me ample time to plan my next move regarding whether or not the products needs replacing.

Otherwise, this flea collar seems pretty standard in its features: one size fits all collar, water-resistant, can be worn by dogs over 12 weeks old, etc. Scalibor covers all the bases with this treatment collar.

But there lies my problem; a treatment collar won’t help my circumstances. Unless I want my dog to wear one all year round, I can’t see myself buying one of this type of flea collar.

Realistically, my dog doesn’t need one of these collars because the environment around him guarantees that without a repelling element he’s going to end up with fleas. It would end up being a waste of money.

Honestly, there are too many interactions with my other pets for a treatment collar to work effectively. Then, you add in all the other wildlife around him in the backyard, and there’s no way these collars could be the end-all solution.

Besides not fitting my dog’s needs, the outrageous pricing doesn’t help this flea collar’s case. You’d imagine with this high of a price that they would've added in a repelling element. But alas, they didn’t think it was necessary, I guess.

Six-month flea protection

One size fits all

Water-resistant

Suitable for any dog over 12 weeks

Kills fleas

Expensive

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

Quite simply, this Scalibor’s flea collar doesn’t fit the requirements I seek in a flea collar. Not saying this product doesn’t have its merit, but me, it leaves a lot to be desired.

However, if your dog does have an existing flea infestation, this product should be among the flea collars you consider. Its customer base has demonstrated their happiness with this flea collar’s effectiveness in getting rid of this issue quickly.

6. Ultraguard Flea and Tick Large Dog Collar

In terms of price per flea collar, the Ultraguard Flea and Tick Large Dog Collar is the cheapest product on this list. It accomplishes this through its two-pack deal for the price of what it would take to buy most of the other items in this article.

Putting aside my issues with treatment flea collars, this collar does have some benefits that it offers: water-resistant, multiple month flea protection, fits neck sizes up to 28 inches, etc.

In these aspects, this product has all the necessary qualities of being useful for someone seeking a treatment flea collar. You think it’s a bargain until you start hearing about its flaws.

For example, it’s not odorless, which is a bummer. Now, if this was a treat & repel collar, as I previously mentioned, I could see myself dealing with a flea collar with an odor. But this isn’t; therefore, there’s no shot I plan on buying this product.

Unfortunately, the flaws get frightening from here; some dogs have extreme reactions to the chemicals used in this collar. For instance, boils, hives, and blisters have been contracted because of this flea collars use.

In light of these reports, there’s no way I’m putting this collar around my dog’s neck. I don’t care about the price being this low; I value my dog’s health over everything else. These circumstances aren’t giving me confidence in this product keeping my dog safe.

Five-month flea protection

Comes in a two pack

Excellent price

Water-resistant

Kills fleas

Fits dogs with neck sizes up to 28 inches

Not odorless

Some dogs have extreme reactions to the chemicals

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

Even if this product were a treat & repel flea collar, the safety concerns would be enough to make sure I never bought it. At some point, you reach a limit on how much you’re willing to put up with for a bargain price.

In this case, a threat to my dog’s safety was the last straw. Typically, I try to think of a circumstance where the product I’m reviewing would be useful, but for this flea collar, there is none.

7. BioSpot Active Care Flea and Tick Collar

The BioSpot Active Care Flea and Tick Collar isn’t a unique treatment flea collar by any stretch of the imagination. But it has everything one could expect from a high-quality one.

As you would expect by now, flea protection, it being suitable for dogs over six weeks old, neck size up 25 inches, and water-resistance are just some of the things this collar provides.

Due to this, I would feel completely safe having my dog with this collar around his neck. It’s an unspectacular, effective option that people will overlook because it doesn’t offer any special or unique features.

In other words, it doesn’t try to do anything extra and sticks with the task at hand: killing those fleas as efficiently and quickly as possible.

But for me personally, it falls flat because it doesn’t fit the type of flea collar I need. It’s not something I would consider because it doesn’t offer a feature I desperately need in any flea collar I end up getting: a proven repellent against fleas.

Regardless of my personal preferences, this flea collar is on this list because it will get the job done without causing too much of a fuss or endangering your dog. Honestly, within the pet consumer market, that’s all you can ask for in a product.

Seven month flea protection

For dogs over six weeks old

Neck size up to 25 inches

Two sizes

Water-resistantWater-resistant

Incredible price

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

All in all, BioSpot did an excellent job of creating a flea collar that will do its job efficiently and without a tragic incident. Due to this, if you’re in the market for a treatment flea collar, this product should be at the top of your list.

Once you buy one of these collars, you won’t have to worry about your dog’s flea problem much longer. And isn’t that the whole point of buying ones of these things anyway?

What is a Flea Collar for Dogs?

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Fleas collars are specially designed to protect your dog from the horrors provide by fleas. Generally, you make a flea collar by mixing flea-killing chemicals with plastic and molding them into a thin strip.

The result is a product that intends to give dog owners a sense of comfort through protecting their dog from ailments caused by fleas like hot spots, scratching and other nuisances.

In an ideal scenario, a flea collar is a preventive measure rather than a treatment. See, it’s always better to stop something before it starts rather than fixing it later. You want to end the flood before the water even reaches the outer limits.

Therefore, the idea behind these collars is to provide a defense against the fleas before they start making your dog’s life a living hell. Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t types that are effective in killing the fleas after infestation.

Regardless of your dog’s flea scenario, flea collars are a worthwhile option to consider. They’re a practical, quick solution to a problem that has haunted dogs for ages. Don’t let your dog become miserable with the affliction of constant scratching.

Types of Flea Collars

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There are three types of flea collars: repelling, treatment, and treat & repel flea collars. Each type has a specific function regarding how they deal with the flea problem. Below, we’ll discuss the differences and their methods of getting rid of these awful bugs.

Repelling Flea Collars

These flea collars have one job: repelling the fleas before they even get into your dog’s fur. They have one goal and try to accomplish it by emitting a gas that fleas find revolting. As a result, the fleas will hopefully ignore your dog.

Therefore, these collars try to get rid of the fleas before they become a problem. But in the effort to this goal, these collars offer no sense of treatment against already existing flea problems.

In light of this, if your dog has already existing flea issues, these collars aren’t the right ones for you. The two options below are going to fall more in line with your dog’s particular needs.

Mainly, these collars are the nuclear option for dog owners who anticipate fleas will be a future problem for their dog. For example, a dog owner living in a woodsy environment should consider these collars as an option.

Treatment Flea Collars

Treatment flea collars are for the poor dogs that already have a flea infestation making their lives miserable. These collars “treat” the condition rather than preventing it from happening in the first place.

In doing so, they’re two ways these collars achieve this goal: medication that seeps into your dog’s skin or active ingredients that spread using your dog’s natural oils. Either way will work to remove the horrifying sense of constant itching from your dog’s life.

Unlike the repelling flea collars, these collars make sure to kill the fleas rather than making them ignore your dog. Due to this, these collars are often advertised with words like “treat” or “cure” somewhere on their box.

Overall, these collars are a way to get rid of an already existing problem through eliminating the threat. If your dog has fleas, these collars are an option you need to consider.

Treat & Repel Flea Collars

Treat & repel flea collars combine the desired effects from the two before mentioned types into one product. In doing so, you can expect them to have high prices but the most effective results among flea collars.

By combining the uses of both the other types, you can confidently use these collars in any situation with fleas. Whether fleas have already burrowed themselves into your dog’s fur or not, these collars will help alleviate the issue.

Due to the multifaceted use, these are the collars I’d recommend. But the high cost does put a burden on the wallet. So, if you aren’t looking to pay an arm and a leg for a flea collar, you might want to look into the two other types.

After all, a flea isn’t supposed to be a long-term replacement for a regular collar; therefore, the higher price of these collars can seem a little extravagant. But personally, these collars’ effectiveness make the price not a big deal for me.

How do Flea Collars Work?

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Since there are three different types of flea collars, this section is split into three parts. Each part will discuss how each particular type works to rid your dog of the nightmare effects caused by fleas.

Repelling Flea Collars

Repelling flea collars are relatively simple; they emit a gas that makes your dog unappealing to fleas. Due to this, fleas will avoid invading your dog’s fur. Ideally, these collars are a preventative measure to ensure your dog never has a flea problem.

But this action of only “repelling” fleas leaves a lot to be desired for most dog owners. Let’s be honest; I don’t expect most dog owners to be forward thinking about their dog having a potential flea problem.

In fact, I’d expect most dog owners don’t think about fleas until they start becoming a noticeable problem. After all, it’s human nature to wait until the last minute to address a potential issue.

So, if you’re like me and wait until the last minute, repelling flea collars are probably aren’t a smart idea because it will do nothing to cure a flea infestation. And as a procrastinator, I likely won’t do anything to prevent an issue before it becomes an issue.

Treatment Flea Collars

Treatment flea collars work quite a bit different than repelling flea collars. See, these collars are meant to combat an ongoing infestation of fleas. In doing so, they’re very aggressive in addressing the problem.

With this aggressive approach, these collars rely on medication that drips into your dog’s skin or chemicals that spread throughout your dog’s body in their natural oils. Both are extremely effective in eliminating those fleas from your dog’s fur.

But, as you would expect, this isn’t a collar you want to use in a preventative manner because you’re dealing with chemicals. For example, these collars are designed to kill the fleas either when they bite or on the first contact with your dog’s skin.

In other words, their use should be reserved for circumstances involving a very aggressive flea infestation. There’s no reason to use these collars in preparation for flea season because their aggressiveness is more likely to activate the flea collar’s side effects.

Treat & Repel Flea Collars

As the most effective type of flea collar, the treat & repel collars combine the beneficial aspects of the other two types into one product. How they mix the two varies from collar to collar.

Regardless of the method, each one of these collars has the goal of being able to handle any flea situation imaginable. However, it’s crucial you find the one you’re comfortable in using.

If you’re wondering how to tell the difference between the types of flea collars, an easy way to know is how they advertise the product. For example, the treat & repel flea collars will have words like “kill “or “eliminate” on the box. Phrases like “kill the fleas and their larvae” are commonly seen on these products.

In comparison, repelling collars will use lighter toned words like “repel” or “ignore.” And as previously stated, treatment collars will use words like “treat” or “cure.” In the end, it’s really about picking the right type for your dog’s situation.

Benefits of Flea Collars

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Given the widespread usage of flea collars among pet owners, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that they provide your pup/you with numerous benefits. In this section, we’ll go over some of those benefits and explain how they might help better your dog’s life.

Reduces the Risks of Various Skin Issues

With the use of a flea collar, you limit the risk of exposing your dog to flea saliva, which causes allergies, scratching, and itching. In doing so, you’re avoiding the ailments that come from excessive scratchings such as hot spots and skin infections.

Less Expensive Than Other Flea Related Products

In comparison to the other flea prevention products, flea collars are on the low side of the spectrum regarding their price. Therefore, if you get a high-quality one, they represent quite a bargain.

Long-Lasting

Along with being less expensive, flea collars offer the most extended sense of protection among flea killing products. In fact, some even offer up to 12 months of stability before they need replacing.

Prevents Tapeworms

Fleas have the nasty habit of sometimes carrying and transmitting tapeworms. If you don’t know, a tapeworm can cause your dog’s stomach to become upset. And in puppies can make them suffer from anemia, slow their growth, and cause intestinal blockage.

Stops Flea Infestations From Coming Inside Your Home

If your dog doesn't have fleas, there’s no risk of your home becoming flooded with them. And since it’s rather unhealthy living with fleas, this is a benefit that betters both your and your dog’s life.

How Effective are Flea Collars?

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As you might expect, a flea collar’s effectiveness will vary from product to product. But with a high-quality one, there’s no reason to suspect it won’t be completely effective in providing your dog with a flea-free life.

In fact, while other flea related products might be more convenient, these flea collar can offer longer lasting results with some even saying they can provide up to 12 months of flea protection.

Overall, it’s all about making sure you choose the right product for your dog’s circumstances. And ensuring the product you do want is a proven high-quality, flea-killing product.

Factors to Consider When Buying a Flea Collar for Dogs

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As a consumer, you need to know what you want in a product before deciding what to buy. Therefore, this section will discuss the things you need to consider before choosing the best flea collar for your dog.

Your Dog’s Flea Situation

When buying a flea collar, the first thing you need to understand is your dog’s flea situation. You need to know whether you want to prepare, treat, or both before deciding on the right flea collar.

After all, knowing this will make it much easier to navigate the flea collar market. It will give you an idea of the exact model you want to buy.

For example, if you have a backyard with a lot of shaded areas, places fleas love to hide, then preparing beforehand might be the option for you. In this case, a repelling or repel & treat flea collar would be the right type for your particular needs.

On the other hand, if your dog already has severe flea issues, a treatment or repel & treat flea collar would most likely be the most appropriate option. Honestly, understanding the type you want to buy makes the process much less time-consuming.

Water Resistant

Like any collar for your dog, you need a collar that is water resistant. It’s essential to obtaining the best possible experience with a flea collar. You don’t want to spend a lot of money on a flea collar and find out that it can’t handle a little rainstorm.

And honestly, most dogs love water. Why would you buy a product that prohibits them from exploring things they love? It doesn’t make sense logically or money wise. So, make sure the flea collar you buy is water resistant for both you and your dog’s benefit.

Toxic Ingredients

Since we’re dealing with products that use toxic chemicals, you need to thoroughly research the ingredients inside the flea collars you’re considering. It’s imperative you make sure the chemicals inside the collar are safe for both humans and dogs.

After all, some manufacturers don’t care about your pets and cut corners to make more money. And your research into the chemicals will help you avoid buying from these awful companies.

Smell

For some reason, flea collar manufactures thought it’d be a good idea to create them with a strong odor. But I can tell you this wasn’t a good idea because most of the time the smell is incredibly pungent.

With this in mind, please make sure to buy an odorless collar. Don’t be the owner who throws out a collar because of an entirely unneeded feature like having an odor. It will become a waste of your money and time.

Protection Length

How long a flea collar last varies: some last one-month, others can last up to eight months. Therefore, it’s essential you take the time to figure out the right length of time for your dog’s needs.

If you’re overly concerned and hate the idea of replacing the flea collar every month, instead buy a flea collar that works for eight months. In this case, it’s a more convenient option for this type of owner.

In comparison, if you need a flea collar for a short period, there’s no reason for you to spend more money on a flea collar that offers a more extended protection period. In the end, it’s about what is right for you and your dog’s circumstances.

Size

You’d be surprised how many dog flea collar reviews mention that the product didn’t fit their dog. And most of the time, there was a simple solution to this issue; reading the size chart and measuring your dog’s neck.

In light of this, make sure you adhere to the manufactures size chart and correctly measure your dog’s neck. Honestly, the size chart is there to make your life easier. So, please allow it to do its job.

Frequently Asked Questions

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In this section, we’ll answer some of the questions that will inevitably come up in your search to find the best flea collar for dogs. Hopefully, it will make your decision about which flea collar you want much easier.

Are flea collars safe?

In most circumstances, flea collars are a very safe product, as long as; you don’t allow your dog to chew on them. In other words, if you read the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems.

But if you have multiple dogs, it’s essential you make sure you don’t allow the other dogs to chew on the flea collar during play accidentally. It could cause them to get poisoned or have some serious neurological problems.

Additionally, some side effects come along with flea collar use. These side effects are considered minimal; however, they include hair loss, scratching, and redness.

Do flea collars make dogs sick?

If used correctly, there is no reason why a flea collar should make a dog sick. However, the chemicals in the collar are toxic and can cause severe issues when ingested such as poisoning and neurological deficits.

Therefore, make sure your dog doesn’t chew on any flea collar to avoid these harmful issues from hurting your dog. And if they do chew the flea collar, it’s essential you know the signs of flea collar poisoning.

Most likely, these chemicals are or similar to amitraz or propoxur. This site did an excellent job of outlining the signs of flea collar poisoning, so, you can prepare for this nightmarish scenario.

Can flea collars be worn by all dogs?

The majority of the time a flea collar will be entirely safe for your dog’s particular circumstances. However, there are some scenarios where flea collars aren’t suitable for use.

For instance, flea collars aren’t meant for pregnant, senior, or nursing dogs. In each of these cases, there are specific detrimental issues that make the use of a flea collar problematic.

Due to this, make sure you consult with a vet before purchasing a flea collar for your dog. By doing so, you’re making sure there isn’t a potential health issue that could arise from the flea collar’s use.

Can dogs swim (bath) while wearing the collar?

It depends on the collar. Some are entirely safe for dogs to wear in the water but others aren’t. Regardless, it’s a good idea to remove them before your dog goes in the water because flea collars are rarely completely waterproof.

See, many flea collars will start wearing down after constant exposure to water. Due to this, removing them before bathing or other water-based activities will reduce the risk of the collar wearing down.

However, the best flea and tick collars for dogs will be water resistant because it doesn’t limit what your dog can do. If your dog does accidentally enter the water with their flea collar, it won’t mean you have to buy a new one.

After all, dogs are very mischievous and often end up doing the very thing we tell them not to do. Therefore, it’s essential you seek out a water-resistant collar to protect not only your dog, but also your wallet.

- Other than Flea Collars, How can I Prevent/Get Rid of Fleas and Ticks on my Dogs?

Among dog owners, flea collars are a popular choice to fight against the plague that fleas represent. However, these collars aren’t the only product on the market that act as flea control for dogs.

Other products include spot-on treatments, oral medications, shampoos, tick dips, powders, tick sprays, etc. Each one of these items is explicitly made to fight these annoying little nuisances.

If you want to learn more about these options, PetMD does an excellent job going over each one of these options and more in this article.

Conclusion

As we all know, fleas are tricky little things. Hopefully, with all this new information, you’ll be able to fight back against their planned assault on your dog’s fur. In fact, you now have an avenue, flea collars, to gain the upper hand.

So, please use the information in this article to decide whether or not this avenue is worthwhile for your particular dog’s circumstances.

After all, if you do decide a flea collar fits your dog situation best, you can feel confident knowing that you have all information needed to successfully pick out the best flea collar for dogs your money could buy!

Read original at : Best Flea Collars for Dogs 2019 – Buyer’s Guide

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Sup ny’all. I’m back with you givin’ long-winded, probably boring, and (depending on who you ask) nitpicky observations I’ve had for a while lol

Spoiler: it’s about S/t*v*n U/n*v*rs*

It’s long, you’ve been warned.

(Note: This is excluding actual production time. As a person aspiring to be an animator themself, I understand all the workings of making a full-fledged television show take time, effort, and money. I am not taking issue with this matter at all [especially considering that anything on this particular topic is more nuanced and complex than most of those outside of animation would take it for]. Therefore, I wanted to clarify this particular thing to get any rebuttals regarding it out of the way)

I think the problem with S/U and how its plot progression feels less to be desired for some people is that it’s in a way kinda like how things go on in T/o/u/h/o/u: there are constant indefinite pauses between things, and characterization and lore get established little by little. Which, for the record, isn’t inherently bad overall and is excusable in its own context for the latter because it’s made by literally one guy (but for the sake of example, especially one that I know extensively enough to use as backup, I digress). The point is that S/*U’s equivalent is its constant hiatuses and sporadic airing schedules. Add in the show’s habit of elusiveness in its storytelling and overarching plots, and you get folks scrambling to make sense of it all through fan theories and headcanons. Come next installment of canon however, and more often than not, all that gets debunked. Conversely, sometimes plot points are theorized spot-on, which, while the pride of “being right” is often something one looks forward to, it also has the potential to host the belief that the plot is terribly predictable.

Don’t even get me started on its perpetual vulnerability of getting leaked. This factor utterly bewilders me, tbh. I just don’t understand how supposedly easy it is to make this happen. Does it tie in to its intermittent airings? Does C/N just not know how to manage the most opportune time slots to appeal to the most appropriate demographic? Is there a rat in their midst? Some people are eager for leaks but frankly I honestly think it damages the well-being of the show. Not to mention that people getting spoiled can exponentially damage their experience with it (i.e.: me >:^C ). I’m sure many of you recall that promo that got release long before it was intended to air. Either C/N is incompetent in its scheduling or, while a dramatic assumption, some form of intentional sabotage is at play. Those are essentially my only conclusions, tbh.

In the recent plot progression that had transpired since “L*g/s F/r*m H*r/e to H*m/ew*rl/d”, while yeah, it’s amazing and all, I BARELY felt anything personally, at least not as much as I hoped I would. And it’s weird, it’s a longtime coming but I just...didn't feel anything. It’s just another entry on the “great, mark that off the‘Loose Ends Met’ List.” And now we’ve got more things we don’t really understand that are heavily implied but just not confirmed yet, even though it seems plain as day, given context clues and a minimal amount of investigating. Now it’s literally nothing but a matter of waiting until we get actual confirmation. If that’s the case, then, well...what a bummer having to wait on being“right.”

A personal note: for the longest time, we didn’t have cable because it was too pricey to have that and internet, so we piked our possession of the former. I wasn’t able to watch S/U, or anything else really, for the longest time. Eventually we adjusted our plan with our service provider and now have both internet and cable for the time being. Taking advantage of an on-demand option available with it, I binge-watched all that was released at the time. I enjoyed it so much more than how things usually go, wherein there are numerous bouts of cliffhanger-filled episodes in short bursts and hiatuses in indefinite time frames respectively, all the while with the threat of leaks possibly in tow.

I know this mostly comes off as an S/U Critical™ but really, at its core, at least in my head, it’s more of a C/N Critical or I guess “The Handling of S*/U” Critical. Mostly because the network's scheduling of the show is pretty abysmal and horribly spotty, and it’s hard to tell if it’s intended or just an inevitability on their part.

It’s making me confused. It’s making me impatient. I just don’t want to know anymore. No headcanons, No fan theories, no leaks, no nothing until it airs at its intended time slots and the whole thing is over with so I can avoid getting spoiled just for the sake of NOT getting spoiled. I desperately want to love the show as much as I wish I could, I truly, truly, truly do. But between all these things, my passion for it has become blunted to where I don’t care what happens and I’m just waiting for it to be over. My only hope is that I, one day, can come back to the show within a few good years and be utterly enamored by it as much as I was when I first started watching it.

I don’t mean to be a downer (and as if I WANT to be) but there are so many things that are impeding on my personal enjoyment of the show at present that I feel only its end can remedy.... :^/

So anyway sorry for that mouthful of bitchy bellyaching crap but thanks for readin’ anyway lol I’m done now bye

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A couple things about reviewing books from someone getting a PhD in English...

I’m going to talk about 4 terms that I’ve seen people misusing, not because I want to instruct people in the“right way” to speak about books, but because using terms incorrectly = lack of clarity = readers might get the wrong impression of a book from your review. Of course, all of this is my opinion, and you don’t have to take this as your personal guideline for reviews. They’re just things I think people misuse, and speaking about them differently will make reviews more effective.

***Full exploration under the cut.***

1. Purple Prose

What it is: writing (prose) and sentences that are too ornate or too elaborate, overly poetic, often in a way that decreases clarity or messes up the book’s pacing. Purple prose often draws attention to itself rather than the plot.

What it is not: poetic/lyrical prose (per se), prose you don’t like, prose which tells you things you already know, prose which is longer than necessary (per se)

Example:

The mahogany-haired adolescent girl glanced fleetingly at her rugged paramour, a crystalline sparkle in her eyes as she gazed happily upon his countenance. It was filled with an expression as enigmatic as shadows in the night. She pondered thoughtfully whether it would behoove her to request that she continue to follow him on his noble mission…

How to Talk About It: “Purple prose” pertains to the prose of the novel, not the narrative (i.e. not things like what characters or events the writer chooses to include).If the writing is so ornate that you are confused or disengaged, mention that. If the descriptions make no sense because they’re trying too hard to be poetic, talk about why they don’t work for you.

Prose that is descriptive or uses metaphors isn’t inherently bad or“purple.” It all depends on your personal likes and dislikes. Similarly, prose that tells rather than shows (more below) isn’t“purple.” Prose that is longer than necessary isn’t“purple” either. For example, maybe the writer tells you something you already know, but without it, the book would be awkward. Maybe the book is about a knight entering a tournament, but the first few chapters are about why they enter the tournament. Even if you know from the book’s description what the book is about, the first few chapters aren’t purple prose, they’re establishing chapters. If the book jumped right into the tournament, it would be awkward storytelling.

You’re free to dislike an author’s writing style, but calling it“purple prose” just because you don’t like it doesn’t give an accurate description of your assessment (unless, of course, you don’t like it because it’s actually purple).

2. Tropes

What they are: common storytelling conventions (which individual readers can like or dislike) - these days, almost everything is a trope

What they are not: things in books that are inherently bad

How to Talk About Them: There are some tropes that are more harmful than others (ex: Bury Your Gays) and tropes that are overused (Chosen One). The quality of a book doesn’t depend on the absence of tropes so much as how they are used. For example, a book can have a Chosen One and be very good - or it can have a Chosen One and be average. Another example: maybe a book has a love triangle, but that love triangle doesn’t add anything to the story except manufactured tension between characters.

“This book uses tropes” is not a good way to say you dislike something because everything uses tropes in one way or another. Instead, talk about which tropes you dislike and why. And be careful to separate things you just personally don’t like from things that actually seem detrimental to the book. For example, maybe the book actually uses the Chosen One well, but you personally just don’t like Chosen Ones in your novels. That’s ok, but just because the author used the Chosen One doesn’t mean the book is inherently bad - it’s all about execution.

3. Telling vs Showing

What it is:“Telling” is prose that simply informs the reader of what’s going on, typically by cataloging actions and emotions.“Showing” is prose that creates images in the reader’s mind, allowing them to deduce emotions or other information (often by triggering the reader’s senses). Telling isn’t necessary bad 100% of the time - a good novel will typically have a combination of the two.

What it is Not: Prose you don’t like, stories without suspense, stories where you can guess what’s about to happen

Example:

Telling: The house was creepy.

Showing: Only a single dim candle lit the room. The house smelled like dust and rotting wood, and something faintly metallic that made John think of blood. Stuffed animals were mounted around the room: a wild-eyed buck, a grizzly frozen in fury, a screech owl with sharp yellow talons.

How to Talk about It: Telling vs showing usually applies to the prose of the novel, not the narrative structure or presence/lack of suspense. Telling is a lot easier than showing, so some authors rely on it exclusively. Infodumps or expositional dialogue with a lot on information usually indicates telling - sometimes they are necessary, but sometimes they are indicative of the writer not wanting to do a lot of work in their worldbuilding. If the whole book (or a significant portion of the book) is telling, point it out and discuss what effect it had on you as a reader. For example, I find books that tell too much uninteresting because it feels like I’m just being delivered facts, not being swept up in a narrative.

On the flip side, showing can venture into purple prose, but not all showing is purple prose. Figure out if the poetics or descriptions added to a scene or detracted from it. Showing can be good for creating a mood, like in descriptions of settings or character emotions in horror novels.

“Telling vs showing” is mostly used to describe the way something is written, not the plot structure. Just because you, as a reader, can see where a story is going does not mean the author is telling. That just means that you’re a smart reader. Therefore, if you’re talking about telling vs showing, talk about when you found the prose effective or when you found it disengaging. If the book didn’t provide any twists or surprises, that’s a narrative issue.

4. Plot Twist

What it Is: A radical change in the direction or outcome of the plot.

What It is Not: Something you didn’t see coming, something inherently mind-blowing

How to Talk About It: Plot twists can be used effectively or ineffectively, depending on the story. In my experience, ”radical” changes mean they are radical relative to the plot, not our own expectations of what constitutes a “plot twist.” Some people judge books by whether or not the plot twist blew their minds, which means that some authors compete to make bigger, shocking twists. There is a danger: sometimes, a plot twist is trying to be so impressive that it’s nonsensical (think Game of Thrones season 8) or just shock value (imagery that evokes negative emotions with no bearing on the plot). Some readers prefer books where they can’t guess the ending or foresee certain events, but not every book is a thriller. The presence of an unforeseeable plot twist does not automatically make a book good. Some authors don’t aim to mislead the reader or radically change the book out of nowhere; instead, they like to foreshadow their twist, allowing the reader the satisfaction of being right, or they make their story more about their character’s reactions to a plot twist rather than about the reader’s ability to see something coming.

When talking about plot twists, it’s helpful to think about whether or not they fit with the overall narrative. Did the twist feel like part of the story, or did it feel thrown in just for shock value? Did the twist challenge the characters morally/emotionally or was it there solely for the reader’s benefit? If you couldn’t see it coming, was it because the author was clever or because they wanted to mislead the reader and avoid criticisms of being boring? What the twist dependent on an overused trope?

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Sci-Fi Romance Thoughts: Arrival

Here we go again! Here’ are my VERY SPOILER FILLED thoughts on the movie Arrival! Like with my mystery movies, I watched 2“great” movies, two mediocre/bad movies, and one parody. This is my first great movie, I movie I forgot how much I loved until I watched it again. Seriously, compared to the rest of the movies I’m going to talk about, these are superbiased. I love this movie.

Who is in love? Louise and Ian

How much time was spent on the romance? I would say 20 minutes total not including the implications of the flashbacks.

Did they end up together?Yes and no. They get married but they also get divorce, but the movie ends with them getting together in the first place.

Did the plot depend on it?Sort of. Mainly through Hannah.

How much lead up?A pretty good amount. It’s a pretty subtle plot point, really, he looks at her really cute, touches her when he can, and talks about how great he is and how he appreciates her. He’s constantly impressed by her. It seems really natural, since them even getting together is just a long hug, really. The only reason you know it went further than that is the flash forwards, so it’s really a subtle romance but you know it’s going to get bigger.

Were you feeling it? HELLFUCKING YEAH-That end scene gives me warm fuzzies even though I know it doesn’t work out and when I first watched this movie I had ALL the hope that one day, outside of the film’s timeline, they’d get back together. I don’t know why, since you don’t actually see much of it, just the results, but I was really rooting for them.

How was it integrated?So this was actually really nicely integrated. Because for most of the movie, it’s a crush that Ian has on Louise, and it looks like she might be reciprocating but that she’s getting over her dead daughter. But when you find out that’s not it at all, and that she’s being tormented by visions she can’t understand, it becomes more of a focus only in the last 2 or so minutes when you see a montage of their marriage. The real integration here was the flash forwards, which he wasn’t even a part of, his main role the implication that he’s the girl’s father. So the romance wasn’t a part of the main plot, but it affects it severely.

How distracting was it? Not at all. I super love this one. It’s subtle enough but still cute.

Kiss?Not in movie...

Sex?No, but the implication is there cos there’s a kid and he asks her to“make a baby” in the montage...god this movie is weird.

Annoyance level: Big Fat Zero

Overall Movie Rating: Legit give this movie a 9.5 out of ten. the only thing is that paradox blurb near the end. But I super love it.

Thoughts! - I love this movie. I want to get the bias out of the way before I even get started. SPOILERS OH MY GOD SPOILERS but woah. knowing how this movie ended has literally changed the first minute for me. The way she looks at her daughter is actually super sad in hindsight. She’s looking at her like that because she knows exactly what’s going to happen! Okay so I don’t want to take up all of this section with comments about the ending and how great it is but this is romance related I promise. I love that jeremy renner’s not here right now. I super love that they focus on her and not them. I know that showing him would reveal the twist but he’s not even a shadow in the background here. This focus is on her, her character, her story, and the only real mention of him is the closeup shot on her wedding ring for a minute. But then he’s just gone and isn’t in the picture, so you know there was someone, but that doesn’t matter right now cos the story is hers. And I love that. It shows that this is not a romance, regardless of the fact that there is romance in here, but that the story is her journey and where it takes her. It’s my favourite. Oh my god that took up like all my notes. OH MY GOD LOL FOX NEWS DIG! Ok so I know that more cows thing has a context but I can’t remember what it is and not i’m just confused. Ok so they meet when they’re on a helicopter and he reads her book back to her with a stupid smile on his face. It’s very obvious from second one, at least to me, that they’re going to be a thing, but maybe it’s just me seeing this movie before? And then he immediately contradicts her book, like he’s kind of riling her up to introduce himself? Idk it’s a classic greeting. Half arguing, it’s not really banter, and it’s not exactly hostile but it’s…heated. Looking at each other all scared and impressed across the room before he’s sick. He’s the first person she looks to for validation when she “gets” it. Ooh. Yikes. I have a problem with hearing “a more advanced race”…that’s inherently anthropologically incorrect and coming from forrest whitaker it just seems even more problematic? I don’t know it might just be me. Is it me? Maybe it’s just me? (crazy ex reference) I also love how this movie isn’t america centric. Like yeah it’s focused in america but you hear other countries making their own strides, it’s not just one thing. I know my bias is showing but this movie is so great. It’s his name that they introduce, rather than anyone else’s. OH YES THIS IS MY FAVOURITE SCENE GUYS. He looks at her all cute. He always has but that’s kind of the main thing. Okay this exchange is very platonic, this exchange about their names, and their reactions to them. Before I felt this as something obviously romantic, but that one moment felt platonic. Shit, the rewatch bonus on this movie is good. So i’m trying to interpret here what his narration means. He’s speaking for her, here, but it’s still about her. He’s talking about her accomplishments, playing up her strengths. He’s impressed by her. But I’m not quite sure this is all of it. I feel like there was some deliberate choice in Ian narrating this bit rather than Louise, who’s done literally all the narration before this. Is it because she’s working and therefore can’t provide the narration? is it him being impressed with her? There’s a reason, I know it. I just…don’t know what it is yet. So he’s even narrating the linguistics now. What does this mean? I know it means something and I think it has to do with the eventual romance but I just can’t put my finger on why. Ok here we go. First real conversation. “I was thinking about you”—he’s really impressed by her work and who he is. “that’s probably why I’m single” classic line, bro. “you and I are a good thing, right?” ooh, nice save. jeremy renner’s left handed? huh. Here we go, first mention of “dad”. OH SHIT, TALK TO ANIMALS I GET THAT NOW! So they mention they’re divorced, so thats the first clue of what happened to him. He’s worried about her, cute. I love this. What looked like depression is now confusion and it’s fucking brilliant and this movie is so good. He’s the one who checks in on her. FORESHADOWING FOR THE FUCKING WIN. If they know the radiation levels are fine, why is everyone else still wearing hazmat suits? hes the only one that backs her up, oh wait those other scientists! they’re going to fucking bomb them and they’re cool with letting them die??? wtf? I forgot about that. Ok this is great. You only see the “flashbacks” when she’s working on the language!! He’s the first thing she asks about, though that makes sense here, but then she wants to know where he is and he wouldn’t leave without knowing if she’s ok. We have the first hint of who the father is! I wonder what I thought of this the first time? was it that she had a thing for scientists? or that she was pulling back from ian because of a previous failed marriage to a scientist? or that there was no connection? idk. I don’t remember. Oh and then she always wakes up like it’s a dream. This is so not romancy i’m going on about the foreshadowing but I love this movie, so…Oh shit the first clue that this is not a memory I love it! I should shut up about it but ooooh god. He’s the one that notices she’s gone, oh shit I just realised you saw her see the future! like that just happened! I didn’t even notice that! Oh he’s so happy that she figured it out. OH SHIT WHAM LINE that threw me so far off guard the first time I audibly gasped. He immediately comes to her with a coat and catches her when she falls, panicking and holds her until she’s ok, but he responds to her talking about why her husband left her with “you were married” and it’s both nonchalant and out of place and I don’t know what to make of it, really. He keeps his arm around her, his hand on her back. Now truthfully I actually hated this part the first time around. it felt like a copout. The whole stable time loop. I think i’d like it a lot more if present her didn’t count on future her to solve present problem, since her future self only knows it because her past self used the future self to figure it out and ugh. that’s a major paradox, and I don’t do well with paradoxes. Taking excuses to touch her however he can,..that sounds weird but yeah. Ok this part made me mad too, and it still kind of does, paradox aside. because past self needs shang to show future self his number so past self will know it, but wouldn’t past self remember the phone number since she would also remember past self calling it? she seems confused that she even called him but that’s just flat out in the past, why wouldn’t she remember that? “I called you didn’t I?” yes, he just said that you did…That’s why this part of the movie kind of made me mad. it’s the ONLY thing about it with jumps in logic and yes, it’s nitpicky but that’s just a testament to how good the rest of the movie is. This conversation in the future would have been perfect, actually, if future amy adams didn’t look so confused about it. that’s definitely something she would remember, if she literally caused world peace. Cos it makes sense for the conversation to happen if the stable time loop was where they were going with it,he’d have to say it otherwise there’d be no way to remember it. but even if she didn’t remember exactly what the dying words were, I feel like she at least had to have remembered the phone call. Is it just me??? His “buy me 20seconds” is literally throwing himself in front of a bullet for her, so…touching her shoulder, putting his arm around her, she knows that they’re going to get married but she’s choosing to go through with it. She has that “it was you all along” moment “you know what surprised me most? it wasn’t meeting them, it was meeting you”, nice sweet hug with flash forwards to their marriage, even though she knows he’s going to leave her. I also love that her whole life is HER choice. That’s really cool. FUCK that movie’s good. Really, if it weren’t for that one maybe 10 minute segment near the end with the paradox this movie would be pretty much perfect, honestly. Holy shit I took so many notes and they’re all about how great this movie is…

Those were my...holy shit LOTS of thoughts on arrival! You can find the video I took these notes for here! ...I kind of like this movie. A little.

0 notes

Best Flea Collars for Dogs 2018 – Buyer’s Guide

​Summer is back and with it comes a problem all dog owners fear: fleas. When it comes to owning a dog, these little bugs represent one of the most significant challenges you’ll face. After all, nobody likes watching his or her dog itch and be uncomfortable.

Thankfully, some manufacturers have identified this problem and figured out ways to stop these little bugs from ruining your dog’s life. No longer do you have to watch in misery as your dog continually itches with the existence of products like flea collars.

However, they’re so many of these products on the market these days that it’s hard to tell which one is the best flea collar for dogs. Honestly, most of them look the same and offer the same features/promises.

Due to this, we felt it would be a good idea to provide you with a guide that discusses all you need to know about these products and goes over the best ones on the market.

In the section below, you’ll find a detailed discussion of the best flea collars that’ll help you pick the right one for your pup. The goal here is to find the perfect flea collar for your dog’s particular needs.

Comparison of Flea Collars for Dogs

Best Flea Collars for Dogs Reviews 2018

As you’d expect from a product review section, this part of the article will discuss some of the most popular flea collars on the market: outlining key features, pros, and my thoughts on the overall product quality.

1. Bayer Animal Health Seresto Flea and Tick Collar for Small Dogs

The first product on our list is the Bayer Animal Health Seresto Flea and Tick Collar, which is a treat & repel flea collar. Its ability to both treat and repel makes it an incredibly attractive option for me.

See, I have a big backyard with many shady places where these little nasty things can hide and plot their attacks on my dog. Due to this, I need a flea collar that can offer a preventive measure against this incoming attack.

But I’m sure some fleas have already made my dog’s fur their home; therefore, I need a flea collar that can also fight against already existing fleas. In this aspect, this flea collar fills both these necessary qualities to a tee.

Along with this sense of covering all the bases, this flea collar is water resistant: something I need in any dog product I buy. My dog tends to explore wet areas at every opportunity.

In a perfect world, his flea collar would be entirely waterproof, but given the materials, flea collars are made with, this isn’t realistic. Therefore, water-resistant will do just fine.

Plus, the eight months of protection is a beautiful thing to have, especially, with my remarkable ability to leave things until the last possible moment. With this collar, I wouldn’t have to worry about replacing it or my dog getting fleas for a solid eight months.

Honestly, the peace of mind this flea collar would give me might be worth the expensive price tag that comes with this product. But realistically, it’s a little too extravagant for my taste.

Also, if your dog does have an allergic reaction to the collar, the results are rather severe. Not life threatening but hair loss and hives were present in numerous customers’ experiences.

Eight-month flea protection

Odorless

Kills fleas through contact

Can be worn with leash collars

Two sizes

Water Resistant

Expensive

Allergic reactions seem severe

Although it’s the best rated flea collar on Amazon, this flea collar isn’t something I’d purchase for two reasons: the price and the severe allergic reactions. However, if you’re okay with the cost, consult a vet before deciding not to buy one of these collars.

After all, these allergic reactions might be isolated incidents or caused by the owners misusing the flea collar. And given the flood of positive experiences with this flea collar, I’d give this product an immense amount of consideration: if I didn’t care about the price.

2. HARTZ Ultraguard Plus Flea & Tick Dog Collar

The first thing you’ll notice about the HARTZ Ultraguard Plus Flea & Tick Collar is the incredibly low price. I’m always on the lookout for a bargain, so, this product gained my attention from the very beginning.

Then, I was taken aback by the fact it was a treat & repel flea collar. As mentioned before, this type of flea collar is essential to my dog’s particular needs. And with further research into the product, I kept uncovering features that would be perfect for my dog.

For example, it has a promise of seven months of protection, water-resistance, fits neck sizes up to 22 inches, etc. However, all these positives were shut down by two elements that kept popping up in numerous customers’ experiences.

These two things were a common trend of complaints about the flea collar’s effectiveness and a lack of customer service. Now, this isn’t to say there weren’t many people expressing positive experiences using this collar: there was.

But the mixture of numerous negative experiences about the collar’s effectiveness with a reputation for having bad customer service isn’t something I find remotely appealing.

Due to this mixture, I’d find it hard to justify purchasing this flea collar even at its incredible price. In fact, I wonder whether or not they use the low cost to draw people in and take their money.

Excellent price

Seven-month flea protection

Water-resistant

Can use on any dog over six weeks old

Fits neck size up to 22 inches

Both kills and repels fleas

Effectiveness issues

Customer service

Overall, this collar has many features I’d consider necessary in any flea collar I purchase. But the flaws in this product make this an unsuitable item to enter my dog’s life.

Nonetheless, if you’re on a budget and need a flea collar, this one might be the perfect option for you. Again, there are plenty of people who swear by its effectiveness; maybe you’ll end up being one of them.

3. Arava Flea & Tick Prevention Collar

Our first repelling flea collar on the list is the Arava Flea & Tick Prevention Collar. This collar has a unique feature that stands out from the most of the others on this list: it’s use of 100% natural ingredients.

This determination to use completely natural ingredients is something I love about this flea collar. It ensures there will be no chemical allergic reaction to the toxic ingredients usually found in flea collars.

Additionally, the five months of protection gives me a nice feeling of comfort regarding the product’s overall effectiveness. It might not be as long as 7 or 8 months, but it’s still long enough where I don’t feel like I’m regularly spending money on ordering replacements.

Furthermore, the idea of the manufacturer offering a refund is another thing I like to see when buying a product. Even in the case of a 30-day refund, it conveys the company’s willingness to stand behind their product.

It makes me more willing to consider the fact these natural ingredients are as effective as the toxic ones found in other flea collars. After all, the would be a welcome change considering that nobody likes exposing their dog to these chemicals.

However, there are a couple of things about this product that I can’t accept. First, the cost. I assume this price comes from the use of natural ingredients being more expensive than using toxic ones. But even so, I can’t wrap my head around paying this much for a simple flea collar.

Secondly, there’s no way I can choose a flea collar that isn’t a treat & repel one for my dog. Its become evident that he already has some fleas in his fur. He scratches and itches far too much for anything else to be considered.

100% natural

Five-month flea protection

Waterproof

Adjustable collar

30-day refund

Expensive

Doesn’t do anything against already existing flea infestations

Honestly, I’d love to purchase this flea collar for my dog. But it’s not a good fit for his particular needs. And no matter how much I loathe trusting these companies with these toxic ingredients, I can’t afford to shell out this amount of money for a repelling flea collar.

It’s a shame too because I admire what Arava’s trying to accomplish. And from the looks of it, they’re well onto their way to offering a high-quality, natural ingredient that rivals the toxic chemical ones.

4. Adams Plus Flea and Tick Collar

The Adams Plus Flea Tick Collar is a standard, run of the mill treat & repel collar with all the expected features. However, what makes this collar such a popular product is its bargain-level price.

At this price, you don’t expect a promise that ensures seven months of protection or the ability to both repel and kill fleas. With these two features, I was entirely on board with buying this product.

Plus, you throw in water-resistance, and I was sold. But then I found out why this product has such a low price. See, the collar gives off a very unpleasant and strong odor detectable to humans.

In uncovering this, I had to reexamine whether or not this smell was something I’d want inside my house. And given the low price, I think it’s something I could get used to, but it’s less than ideal.

Moreover, the flea collar’s flimsy design is another negative that comes with this product. It seems the collar has a tendency to end up broken or destroyed rather quickly.

But the poor design isn’t a vastly detrimental problem for this particular collar, as I could afford to buy multiple. Overall, the flaws don’t contradict the positives enough to make this product a non-buy for me.

Incredible price

Seven-month flea protection

Kills and repels fleas

Water-resistant

Three sizes

Strong odor

Flimsy design

While this product’s flaws aren’t ideal, they aren’t deal breakers. In other words, they’re something I could learn to live with and maneuver around. There’s nothing too detrimental for me to make this product unworthy of my consideration.

And given it checks off many of the necessary features I’m looking for in a flea collar, I’d strongly consider investing some money into buying a couple of these collars. They’re easily the best bargain on this list.

Due to this, if you’re looking for the highest quality for the lowest cost, this is the collar for you. But if you have a strong sense of smell or get incredibly bothered by things breaking, it’s a smart idea to look elsewhere.

5. Scalibor Protector Band for Dogs

As a treatment flea collar, the Scalibor Protector Band makes sure to eradicate any existing fleas from your dog’s fur. This demolition of fleas is something I love about this product.

Additionally, any long-term promise of flea protection is a nice bonus for a flea collar. In this case, six months offers me ample time to plan my next move regarding whether or not the products needs replacing.

Otherwise, this flea collar seems pretty standard in its features: one size fits all collar, water-resistant, can be worn by dogs over 12 weeks old, etc. Scalibor covers all the bases with this treatment collar.

But there lies my problem; a treatment collar won’t help my circumstances. Unless I want my dog to wear one all year round, I can’t see myself buying one of this type of flea collar.

Realistically, my dog doesn’t need one of these collars because the environment around him guarantees that without a repelling element he’s going to end up with fleas. It would end up being a waste of money.

Honestly, there are too many interactions with my other pets for a treatment collar to work effectively. Then, you add in all the other wildlife around him in the backyard, and there’s no way these collars could be the end-all solution.

Besides not fitting my dog’s needs, the outrageous pricing doesn’t help this flea collar’s case. You’d imagine with this high of a price that they would’ve added in a repelling element. But alas, they didn’t think it was necessary, I guess.

Six-month flea protection

One size fits all

Water-resistant

Suitable for any dog over 12 weeks

Kills fleas

Expensive

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

Quite simply, this Scalibor’s flea collar doesn’t fit the requirements I seek in a flea collar. Not saying this product doesn’t have its merit, but me, it leaves a lot to be desired.

However, if your dog does have an existing flea infestation, this product should be among the flea collars you consider. Its customer base has demonstrated their happiness with this flea collar’s effectiveness in getting rid of this issue quickly.

6. Ultraguard Flea and Tick Large Dog Collar

In terms of price per flea collar, the Ultraguard Flea and Tick Large Dog Collar is the cheapest product on this list. It accomplishes this through its two-pack deal for the price of what it would take to buy most of the other items in this article.

Putting aside my issues with treatment flea collars, this collar does have some benefits that it offers: water-resistant, multiple month flea protection, fits neck sizes up to 28 inches, etc.

In these aspects, this product has all the necessary qualities of being useful for someone seeking a treatment flea collar. You think it’s a bargain until you start hearing about its flaws.

For example, it’s not odorless, which is a bummer. Now, if this was a treat & repel collar, as I previously mentioned, I could see myself dealing with a flea collar with an odor. But this isn’t; therefore, there’s no shot I plan on buying this product.

Unfortunately, the flaws get frightening from here; some dogs have extreme reactions to the chemicals used in this collar. For instance, boils, hives, and blisters have been contracted because of this flea collars use.

In light of these reports, there’s no way I’m putting this collar around my dog’s neck. I don’t care about the price being this low; I value my dog’s health over everything else. These circumstances aren’t giving me confidence in this product keeping my dog safe.

Five-month flea protection

Comes in a two pack

Excellent price

Water-resistant

Kills fleas

Fits dogs with neck sizes up to 28 inches

Not odorless

Some dogs have extreme reactions to the chemicals

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

Even if this product were a treat & repel flea collar, the safety concerns would be enough to make sure I never bought it. At some point, you reach a limit on how much you’re willing to put up with for a bargain price.

In this case, a threat to my dog’s safety was the last straw. Typically, I try to think of a circumstance where the product I’m reviewing would be useful, but for this flea collar, there is none.

7. REGIROCK Flea and Tick Collar for Dogs

Just like with the Arava flea collar, the REGIROCK Flea and Tick Collar for Dogs has the unique feature of using 100% natural ingredients. Therefore, you can feel confident nothing terrible will happen to your pup when wearing this collar.

Plus, this company solved both issues I had with the Arava model; they made this flea collar have the ability to both kill/repeal and the cost is within the price range I’d consider affordable.

And add in its eight-month flea protection, it’s a safe bet that I’d heavily consider buying this particular flea collar. Both my dog and me would rest easy knowing that no flea would have the chance to make his life miserable for a significant amount of time.

Honestly, it’s liberating knowing that you don’t have to worry about these little almost invisible bugs ruining each part of your best friend’s day. With products like this, no longer will you have to watch them be uncomfortable all day long.

But as with any product, there are some drawbacks to this flea collar. It use of natural ingredients makes the collar emit a terrible odor. It’s been described as almost a citronella like smell, which sounds awful.

Additionally, this flea collar is known to have a less of an effect on longhaired dogs meaning this product becomes a non-buy for me: my dog wasn’t blessed with the fortune of short fur.

Eight month flea protection

Uses natural ingredients

Water-resistant

Affordable price

Kills and repel fleas

Fits any dog up to a neck size of 25 inches

Terrible odor

Tends to work less effectively on longhaired dogs

Although I do love a lot of things about this flea collar: the eight-month flea protection, use of natural ingredients, water-resistant, kills and repels, etc., I can’t overlook its failure to work effectively on longhaired dogs.

But if you own a shorthaired dog and don’t mind the smell of citronella, this flea collar is an excellent option for you. Honestly, it might be the best product in this entire article: just not for me.

8. BioSpot Active Care Flea and Tick Collar

The BioSpot Active Care Flea and Tick Collar isn’t a unique treatment flea collar by any stretch of the imagination. But it has everything one could expect from a high-quality one.

As you would expect by now, flea protection, it being suitable for dogs over six weeks old, neck size up 25 inches, and water-resistance are just some of the things this collar provides.

Due to this, I would feel completely safe having my dog with this collar around his neck. It’s an unspectacular, effective option that people will overlook because it doesn’t offer any special or unique features.

In other words, it doesn’t try to do anything extra and sticks with the task at hand: killing those fleas as efficiently and quickly as possible.

But for me personally, it falls flat because it doesn’t fit the type of flea collar I need. It’s not something I would consider because it doesn’t offer a feature I desperately need in any flea collar I end up getting: a proven repellent against fleas.

Regardless of my personal preferences, this flea collar is on this list because it will get the job done without causing too much of a fuss or endangering your dog. Honestly, within the pet consumer market, that’s all you can ask for in a product.

Seven month flea protection

For dogs over six weeks old

Neck size up to 25 inches

Two sizes

Water-resistantWater-resistant

Incredible price

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

All in all, BioSpot did an excellent job of creating a flea collar that will do its job efficiently and without a tragic incident. Due to this, if you’re in the market for a treatment flea collar, this product should be at the top of your list.

Once you buy one of these collars, you won’t have to worry about your dog’s flea problem much longer. And isn’t that the whole point of buying ones of these things anyway?

What is a Flea Collar for Dogs?

Fleas collars are specially designed to protect your dog from the horrors provide by fleas. Generally, you make a flea collar by mixing flea-killing chemicals with plastic and molding them into a thin strip.

The result is a product that intends to give dog owners a sense of comfort through protecting their dog from ailments caused by fleas like hot spots, scratching and other nuisances.

In an ideal scenario, a flea collar is a preventive measure rather than a treatment. See, it’s always better to stop something before it starts rather than fixing it later. You want to end the flood before the water even reaches the outer limits.

Therefore, the idea behind these collars is to provide a defense against the fleas before they start making your dog’s life a living hell. Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t types that are effective in killing the fleas after infestation.

Regardless of your dog’s flea scenario, flea collars are a worthwhile option to consider. They’re a practical, quick solution to a problem that has haunted dogs for ages. Don’t let your dog become miserable with the affliction of constant scratching.

Types of Flea Collars

There are three types of flea collars: repelling, treatment, and treat & repel flea collars. Each type has a specific function regarding how they deal with the flea problem. Below, we’ll discuss the differences and their methods of getting rid of these awful bugs.

Repelling Flea Collars

These flea collars have one job: repelling the fleas before they even get into your dog’s fur. They have one goal and try to accomplish it by emitting a gas that fleas find revolting. As a result, the fleas will hopefully ignore your dog.

Therefore, these collars try to get rid of the fleas before they become a problem. But in the effort to this goal, these collars offer no sense of treatment against already existing flea problems.

In light of this, if your dog has already existing flea issues, these collars aren’t the right ones for you. The two options below are going to fall more in line with your dog’s particular needs.

Mainly, these collars are the nuclear option for dog owners who anticipate fleas will be a future problem for their dog. For example, a dog owner living in a woodsy environment should consider these collars as an option.

Treatment Flea Collars

Treatment flea collars are for the poor dogs that already have a flea infestation making their lives miserable. These collars “treat” the condition rather than preventing it from happening in the first place.

In doing so, they’re two ways these collars achieve this goal: medication that seeps into your dog’s skin or active ingredients that spread using your dog’s natural oils. Either way will work to remove the horrifying sense of constant itching from your dog’s life.

Unlike the repelling flea collars, these collars make sure to kill the fleas rather than making them ignore your dog. Due to this, these collars are often advertised with words like “treat” or “cure” somewhere on their box.

Overall, these collars are a way to get rid of an already existing problem through eliminating the threat. If your dog has fleas, these collars are an option you need to consider.

Treat & Repel Flea Collars

Treat & repel flea collars combine the desired effects from the two before mentioned types into one product. In doing so, you can expect them to have high prices but the most effective results among flea collars.

By combining the uses of both the other types, you can confidently use these collars in any situation with fleas. Whether fleas have already burrowed themselves into your dog’s fur or not, these collars will help alleviate the issue.

Due to the multifaceted use, these are the collars I’d recommend. But the high cost does put a burden on the wallet. So, if you aren’t looking to pay an arm and a leg for a flea collar, you might want to look into the two other types.

After all, a flea isn’t supposed to be a long-term replacement for a regular collar; therefore, the higher price of these collars can seem a little extravagant. But personally, these collars’ effectiveness make the price not a big deal for me.

How do Flea Collars Work?

Since there are three different types of flea collars, this section is split into three parts. Each part will discuss how each particular type works to rid your dog of the nightmare effects caused by fleas.

Repelling Flea Collars

Repelling flea collars are relatively simple; they emit a gas that makes your dog unappealing to fleas. Due to this, fleas will avoid invading your dog’s fur. Ideally, these collars are a preventative measure to ensure your dog never has a flea problem.

But this action of only “repelling” fleas leaves a lot to be desired for most dog owners. Let’s be honest; I don’t expect most dog owners to be forward thinking about their dog having a potential flea problem.

In fact, I’d expect most dog owners don’t think about fleas until they start becoming a noticeable problem. After all, it’s human nature to wait until the last minute to address a potential issue.

So, if you’re like me and wait until the last minute, repelling flea collars are probably aren’t a smart idea because it will do nothing to cure a flea infestation. And as a procrastinator, I likely won’t do anything to prevent an issue before it becomes an issue.

Treatment Flea Collars

Treatment flea collars work quite a bit different than repelling flea collars. See, these collars are meant to combat an ongoing infestation of fleas. In doing so, they’re very aggressive in addressing the problem.

With this aggressive approach, these collars rely on medication that drips into your dog’s skin or chemicals that spread throughout your dog’s body in their natural oils. Both are extremely effective in eliminating those fleas from your dog’s fur.

But, as you would expect, this isn’t a collar you want to use in a preventative manner because you’re dealing with chemicals. For example, these collars are designed to kill the fleas either when they bite or on the first contact with your dog’s skin.

In other words, their use should be reserved for circumstances involving a very aggressive flea infestation. There’s no reason to use these collars in preparation for flea season because their aggressiveness is more likely to activate the flea collar’s side effects.

Treat & Repel Flea Collars

As the most effective type of flea collar, the treat & repel collars combine the beneficial aspects of the other two types into one product. How they mix the two varies from collar to collar.

Regardless of the method, each one of these collars has the goal of being able to handle any flea situation imaginable. However, it’s crucial you find the one you’re comfortable in using.

If you’re wondering how to tell the difference between the types of flea collars, an easy way to know is how they advertise the product. For example, the treat & repel flea collars will have words like “kill “or “eliminate” on the box. Phrases like “kill the fleas and their larvae” are commonly seen on these products.

In comparison, repelling collars will use lighter toned words like “repel” or “ignore.” And as previously stated, treatment collars will use words like “treat” or “cure.” In the end, it’s really about picking the right type for your dog’s situation.

Benefits of Flea Collars

Given the widespread usage of flea collars among pet owners, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that they provide your pup/you with numerous benefits. In this section, we’ll go over some of those benefits and explain how they might help better your dog’s life.

Reduces the Risks of Various Skin Issues

With the use of a flea collar, you limit the risk of exposing your dog to flea saliva, which causes allergies, scratching, and itching. In doing so, you’re avoiding the ailments that come from excessive scratchings such as hot spots and skin infections.

Less Expensive Than Other Flea Related Products

In comparison to the other flea prevention products, flea collars are on the low side of the spectrum regarding their price. Therefore, if you get a high-quality one, they represent quite a bargain.

Long-Lasting

Along with being less expensive, flea collars offer the most extended sense of protection among flea killing products. In fact, some even offer up to 12 months of stability before they need replacing.

Prevents Tapeworms

Fleas have the nasty habit of sometimes carrying and transmitting tapeworms. If you don’t know, a tapeworm can cause your dog’s stomach to become upset. And in puppies can make them suffer from anemia, slow their growth, and cause intestinal blockage.

Stops Flea Infestations From Coming Inside Your Home

If your dog doesn’t have fleas, there’s no risk of your home becoming flooded with them. And since it’s rather unhealthy living with fleas, this is a benefit that betters both your and your dog’s life.

How Effective are Flea Collars?

As you might expect, a flea collar’s effectiveness will vary from product to product. But with a high-quality one, there’s no reason to suspect it won’t be completely effective in providing your dog with a flea-free life.

In fact, while other flea related products might be more convenient, these flea collar can offer longer lasting results with some even saying they can provide up to 12 months of flea protection.

Overall, it’s all about making sure you choose the right product for your dog’s circumstances. And ensuring the product you do want is a proven high-quality, flea-killing product.

Factors to Consider When Buying a Flea Collar for Dogs

As a consumer, you need to know what you want in a product before deciding what to buy. Therefore, this section will discuss the things you need to consider before choosing the best flea collar for your dog.

Your Dog’s Flea Situation

When buying a flea collar, the first thing you need to understand is your dog’s flea situation. You need to know whether you want to prepare, treat, or both before deciding on the right flea collar.

After all, knowing this will make it much easier to navigate the flea collar market. It will give you an idea of the exact model you want to buy.

For example, if you have a backyard with a lot of shaded areas, places fleas love to hide, then preparing beforehand might be the option for you. In this case, a repelling or repel & treat flea collar would be the right type for your particular needs.

On the other hand, if your dog already has severe flea issues, a treatment or repel & treat flea collar would most likely be the most appropriate option. Honestly, understanding the type you want to buy makes the process much less time-consuming.

Water Resistant

Like any collar for your dog, you need a collar that is water resistant. It’s essential to obtaining the best possible experience with a flea collar. You don’t want to spend a lot of money on a flea collar and find out that it can’t handle a little rainstorm.

And honestly, most dogs love water. Why would you buy a product that prohibits them from exploring things they love? It doesn’t make sense logically or money wise. So, make sure the flea collar you buy is water resistant for both you and your dog’s benefit.

Toxic Ingredients

Since we’re dealing with products that use toxic chemicals, you need to thoroughly research the ingredients inside the flea collars you’re considering. It’s imperative you make sure the chemicals inside the collar are safe for both humans and dogs.

After all, some manufacturers don’t care about your pets and cut corners to make more money. And your research into the chemicals will help you avoid buying from these awful companies.

Smell

For some reason, flea collar manufactures thought it’d be a good idea to create them with a strong odor. But I can tell you this wasn’t a good idea because most of the time the smell is incredibly pungent.

With this in mind, please make sure to buy an odorless collar. Don’t be the owner who throws out a collar because of an entirely unneeded feature like having an odor. It will become a waste of your money and time.

Protection Length

How long a flea collar last varies: some last one-month, others can last up to eight months. Therefore, it’s essential you take the time to figure out the right length of time for your dog’s needs.

If you’re overly concerned and hate the idea of replacing the flea collar every month, instead buy a flea collar that works for eight months. In this case, it’s a more convenient option for this type of owner.

In comparison, if you need a flea collar for a short period, there’s no reason for you to spend more money on a flea collar that offers a more extended protection period. In the end, it’s about what is right for you and your dog’s circumstances.

Size

You’d be surprised how many dog flea collar reviews mention that the product didn’t fit their dog. And most of the time, there was a simple solution to this issue; reading the size chart and measuring your dog’s neck.

In light of this, make sure you adhere to the manufactures size chart and correctly measure your dog’s neck. Honestly, the size chart is there to make your life easier. So, please allow it to do its job.

Frequently Asked Questions

In this section, we’ll answer some of the questions that will inevitably come up in your search to find the best flea collar for dogs. Hopefully, it will make your decision about which flea collar you want much easier.

Are flea collars safe?

In most circumstances, flea collars are a very safe product, as long as; you don’t allow your dog to chew on them. In other words, if you read the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems.

But if you have multiple dogs, it’s essential you make sure you don’t allow the other dogs to chew on the flea collar during play accidentally. It could cause them to get poisoned or have some serious neurological problems.

Additionally, some side effects come along with flea collar use. These side effects are considered minimal; however, they include hair loss, scratching, and redness.

Do flea collars make dogs sick?

If used correctly, there is no reason why a flea collar should make a dog sick. However, the chemicals in the collar are toxic and can cause severe issues when ingested such as poisoning and neurological deficits.

Therefore, make sure your dog doesn’t chew on any flea collar to avoid these harmful issues from hurting your dog. And if they do chew the flea collar, it’s essential you know the signs of flea collar poisoning.

Most likely, these chemicals are or similar to amitraz or propoxur. This site did an excellent job of outlining the signs of flea collar poisoning, so, you can prepare for this nightmarish scenario.

Can flea collars be worn by all dogs?

The majority of the time a flea collar will be entirely safe for your dog’s particular circumstances. However, there are some scenarios where flea collars aren’t suitable for use.

For instance, flea collars aren’t meant for pregnant, senior, or nursing dogs. In each of these cases, there are specific detrimental issues that make the use of a flea collar problematic.

Due to this, make sure you consult with a vet before purchasing a flea collar for your dog. By doing so, you’re making sure there isn’t a potential health issue that could arise from the flea collar’s use.

Can dogs swim (bath) while wearing the collar?

It depends on the collar. Some are entirely safe for dogs to wear in the water but others aren’t. Regardless, it’s a good idea to remove them before your dog goes in the water because flea collars are rarely completely waterproof.

See, many flea collars will start wearing down after constant exposure to water. Due to this, removing them before bathing or other water-based activities will reduce the risk of the collar wearing down.

However, the best flea collar for dogs will be water resistant because it doesn’t limit what your dog can do. If your dog does accidentally enter the water with their flea collar, it won’t mean you have to buy a new one.

After all, dogs are very mischievous and often end up doing the very thing we tell them not to do. Therefore, it’s essential you seek out a water-resistant collar to protect not only your dog, but also your wallet.

– Other than Flea Collars, How can I Prevent/Get Rid of Fleas and Ticks on my Dogs?

Among dog owners, flea collars are a popular choice to fight against the plague that fleas represent. However, these collars aren’t the only product on the market that act as flea control for dogs.

Other products include spot-on treatments, oral medications, shampoos, tick dips, powders, tick sprays, etc. Each one of these items is explicitly made to fight these annoying little nuisances.

If you want to learn more about these options, PetMD does an excellent job going over each one of these options and more in this article.

Conclusion

As we all know, fleas are tricky little things. Hopefully, with all this new information, you’ll be able to fight back against their planned assault on your dog’s fur. In fact, you now have an avenue, flea collars, to gain the upper hand.

So, please use the information in this article to decide whether or not this avenue is worthwhile for your particular dog’s circumstances.

After all, if you do decide a flea collar fits your dog situation best, you can feel confident knowing that you have all information needed to successfully pick out the best flea collar for dogs your money could buy!

View more at : Best Flea Collars for Dogs 2018 – Buyer’s Guide

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Best Flea Collars for Dogs 2018 – Buyer’s Guide

​Summer is back and with it comes a problem all dog owners fear: fleas. When it comes to owning a dog, these little bugs represent one of the most significant challenges you’ll face. After all, nobody likes watching his or her dog itch and be uncomfortable.

Thankfully, some manufacturers have identified this problem and figured out ways to stop these little bugs from ruining your dog’s life. No longer do you have to watch in misery as your dog continually itches with the existence of products like flea collars.

However, they’re so many of these products on the market these days that it’s hard to tell which one is the best flea collar for dogs. Honestly, most of them look the same and offer the same features/promises.

Due to this, we felt it would be a good idea to provide you with a guide that discusses all you need to know about these products and goes over the best ones on the market.

In the section below, you’ll find a detailed discussion of the best flea collars that’ll help you pick the right one for your pup. The goal here is to find the perfect flea collar for your dog’s particular needs.

Comparison of Flea Collars for Dogs

Best Flea Collars for Dogs Reviews 2018

As you’d expect from a product review section, this part of the article will discuss some of the most popular flea collars on the market: outlining key features, pros, and my thoughts on the overall product quality.

1. Bayer Animal Health Seresto Flea and Tick Collar for Small Dogs

The first product on our list is the Bayer Animal Health Seresto Flea and Tick Collar, which is a treat & repel flea collar. Its ability to both treat and repel makes it an incredibly attractive option for me.

See, I have a big backyard with many shady places where these little nasty things can hide and plot their attacks on my dog. Due to this, I need a flea collar that can offer a preventive measure against this incoming attack.

But I’m sure some fleas have already made my dog’s fur their home; therefore, I need a flea collar that can also fight against already existing fleas. In this aspect, this flea collar fills both these necessary qualities to a tee.

Along with this sense of covering all the bases, this flea collar is water resistant: something I need in any dog product I buy. My dog tends to explore wet areas at every opportunity.

In a perfect world, his flea collar would be entirely waterproof, but given the materials, flea collars are made with, this isn’t realistic. Therefore, water-resistant will do just fine.

Plus, the eight months of protection is a beautiful thing to have, especially, with my remarkable ability to leave things until the last possible moment. With this collar, I wouldn’t have to worry about replacing it or my dog getting fleas for a solid eight months.

Honestly, the peace of mind this flea collar would give me might be worth the expensive price tag that comes with this product. But realistically, it’s a little too extravagant for my taste.

Also, if your dog does have an allergic reaction to the collar, the results are rather severe. Not life threatening but hair loss and hives were present in numerous customers’ experiences.

Eight-month flea protection

Odorless

Kills fleas through contact

Can be worn with leash collars

Two sizes

Water Resistant

Expensive

Allergic reactions seem severe

Although it’s the best rated flea collar on Amazon, this flea collar isn’t something I’d purchase for two reasons: the price and the severe allergic reactions. However, if you’re okay with the cost, consult a vet before deciding not to buy one of these collars.

After all, these allergic reactions might be isolated incidents or caused by the owners misusing the flea collar. And given the flood of positive experiences with this flea collar, I’d give this product an immense amount of consideration: if I didn’t care about the price.

2. HARTZ Ultraguard Plus Flea & Tick Dog Collar

The first thing you’ll notice about the HARTZ Ultraguard Plus Flea & Tick Collar is the incredibly low price. I’m always on the lookout for a bargain, so, this product gained my attention from the very beginning.

Then, I was taken aback by the fact it was a treat & repel flea collar. As mentioned before, this type of flea collar is essential to my dog’s particular needs. And with further research into the product, I kept uncovering features that would be perfect for my dog.

For example, it has a promise of seven months of protection, water-resistance, fits neck sizes up to 22 inches, etc. However, all these positives were shut down by two elements that kept popping up in numerous customers’ experiences.

These two things were a common trend of complaints about the flea collar’s effectiveness and a lack of customer service. Now, this isn’t to say there weren’t many people expressing positive experiences using this collar: there was.

But the mixture of numerous negative experiences about the collar’s effectiveness with a reputation for having bad customer service isn’t something I find remotely appealing.

Due to this mixture, I’d find it hard to justify purchasing this flea collar even at its incredible price. In fact, I wonder whether or not they use the low cost to draw people in and take their money.

Excellent price

Seven-month flea protection

Water-resistant

Can use on any dog over six weeks old

Fits neck size up to 22 inches

Both kills and repels fleas

Effectiveness issues

Customer service

Overall, this collar has many features I’d consider necessary in any flea collar I purchase. But the flaws in this product make this an unsuitable item to enter my dog’s life.

Nonetheless, if you’re on a budget and need a flea collar, this one might be the perfect option for you. Again, there are plenty of people who swear by its effectiveness; maybe you’ll end up being one of them.

3. Arava Flea & Tick Prevention Collar

Our first repelling flea collar on the list is the Arava Flea & Tick Prevention Collar. This collar has a unique feature that stands out from the most of the others on this list: it’s use of 100% natural ingredients.

This determination to use completely natural ingredients is something I love about this flea collar. It ensures there will be no chemical allergic reaction to the toxic ingredients usually found in flea collars.

Additionally, the five months of protection gives me a nice feeling of comfort regarding the product’s overall effectiveness. It might not be as long as 7 or 8 months, but it’s still long enough where I don’t feel like I’m regularly spending money on ordering replacements.

Furthermore, the idea of the manufacturer offering a refund is another thing I like to see when buying a product. Even in the case of a 30-day refund, it conveys the company’s willingness to stand behind their product.

It makes me more willing to consider the fact these natural ingredients are as effective as the toxic ones found in other flea collars. After all, the would be a welcome change considering that nobody likes exposing their dog to these chemicals.

However, there are a couple of things about this product that I can’t accept. First, the cost. I assume this price comes from the use of natural ingredients being more expensive than using toxic ones. But even so, I can’t wrap my head around paying this much for a simple flea collar.

Secondly, there’s no way I can choose a flea collar that isn’t a treat & repel one for my dog. Its become evident that he already has some fleas in his fur. He scratches and itches far too much for anything else to be considered.

100% natural

Five-month flea protection

Waterproof

Adjustable collar

30-day refund

Expensive

Doesn’t do anything against already existing flea infestations

Honestly, I’d love to purchase this flea collar for my dog. But it’s not a good fit for his particular needs. And no matter how much I loathe trusting these companies with these toxic ingredients, I can’t afford to shell out this amount of money for a repelling flea collar.

It’s a shame too because I admire what Arava’s trying to accomplish. And from the looks of it, they’re well onto their way to offering a high-quality, natural ingredient that rivals the toxic chemical ones.

4. Adams Plus Flea and Tick Collar

The Adams Plus Flea Tick Collar is a standard, run of the mill treat & repel collar with all the expected features. However, what makes this collar such a popular product is its bargain-level price.

At this price, you don’t expect a promise that ensures seven months of protection or the ability to both repel and kill fleas. With these two features, I was entirely on board with buying this product.

Plus, you throw in water-resistance, and I was sold. But then I found out why this product has such a low price. See, the collar gives off a very unpleasant and strong odor detectable to humans.

In uncovering this, I had to reexamine whether or not this smell was something I’d want inside my house. And given the low price, I think it’s something I could get used to, but it’s less than ideal.

Moreover, the flea collar’s flimsy design is another negative that comes with this product. It seems the collar has a tendency to end up broken or destroyed rather quickly.

But the poor design isn’t a vastly detrimental problem for this particular collar, as I could afford to buy multiple. Overall, the flaws don’t contradict the positives enough to make this product a non-buy for me.

Incredible price

Seven-month flea protection

Kills and repels fleas

Water-resistant

Three sizes

Strong odor

Flimsy design

While this product’s flaws aren’t ideal, they aren’t deal breakers. In other words, they’re something I could learn to live with and maneuver around. There’s nothing too detrimental for me to make this product unworthy of my consideration.

And given it checks off many of the necessary features I’m looking for in a flea collar, I’d strongly consider investing some money into buying a couple of these collars. They’re easily the best bargain on this list.

Due to this, if you’re looking for the highest quality for the lowest cost, this is the collar for you. But if you have a strong sense of smell or get incredibly bothered by things breaking, it’s a smart idea to look elsewhere.

5. Scalibor Protector Band for Dogs

As a treatment flea collar, the Scalibor Protector Band makes sure to eradicate any existing fleas from your dog’s fur. This demolition of fleas is something I love about this product.

Additionally, any long-term promise of flea protection is a nice bonus for a flea collar. In this case, six months offers me ample time to plan my next move regarding whether or not the products needs replacing.

Otherwise, this flea collar seems pretty standard in its features: one size fits all collar, water-resistant, can be worn by dogs over 12 weeks old, etc. Scalibor covers all the bases with this treatment collar.

But there lies my problem; a treatment collar won’t help my circumstances. Unless I want my dog to wear one all year round, I can’t see myself buying one of this type of flea collar.

Realistically, my dog doesn’t need one of these collars because the environment around him guarantees that without a repelling element he’s going to end up with fleas. It would end up being a waste of money.

Honestly, there are too many interactions with my other pets for a treatment collar to work effectively. Then, you add in all the other wildlife around him in the backyard, and there’s no way these collars could be the end-all solution.

Besides not fitting my dog’s needs, the outrageous pricing doesn’t help this flea collar’s case. You’d imagine with this high of a price that they would’ve added in a repelling element. But alas, they didn’t think it was necessary, I guess.

Six-month flea protection

One size fits all

Water-resistant

Suitable for any dog over 12 weeks

Kills fleas

Expensive

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

Quite simply, this Scalibor’s flea collar doesn’t fit the requirements I seek in a flea collar. Not saying this product doesn’t have its merit, but me, it leaves a lot to be desired.

However, if your dog does have an existing flea infestation, this product should be among the flea collars you consider. Its customer base has demonstrated their happiness with this flea collar’s effectiveness in getting rid of this issue quickly.

6. Ultraguard Flea and Tick Large Dog Collar

In terms of price per flea collar, the Ultraguard Flea and Tick Large Dog Collar is the cheapest product on this list. It accomplishes this through its two-pack deal for the price of what it would take to buy most of the other items in this article.

Putting aside my issues with treatment flea collars, this collar does have some benefits that it offers: water-resistant, multiple month flea protection, fits neck sizes up to 28 inches, etc.

In these aspects, this product has all the necessary qualities of being useful for someone seeking a treatment flea collar. You think it’s a bargain until you start hearing about its flaws.

For example, it’s not odorless, which is a bummer. Now, if this was a treat & repel collar, as I previously mentioned, I could see myself dealing with a flea collar with an odor. But this isn’t; therefore, there’s no shot I plan on buying this product.

Unfortunately, the flaws get frightening from here; some dogs have extreme reactions to the chemicals used in this collar. For instance, boils, hives, and blisters have been contracted because of this flea collars use.

In light of these reports, there’s no way I’m putting this collar around my dog’s neck. I don’t care about the price being this low; I value my dog’s health over everything else. These circumstances aren’t giving me confidence in this product keeping my dog safe.

Five-month flea protection

Comes in a two pack

Excellent price

Water-resistant

Kills fleas

Fits dogs with neck sizes up to 28 inches

Not odorless

Some dogs have extreme reactions to the chemicals

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

Even if this product were a treat & repel flea collar, the safety concerns would be enough to make sure I never bought it. At some point, you reach a limit on how much you’re willing to put up with for a bargain price.

In this case, a threat to my dog’s safety was the last straw. Typically, I try to think of a circumstance where the product I’m reviewing would be useful, but for this flea collar, there is none.

7. REGIROCK Flea and Tick Collar for Dogs

Just like with the Arava flea collar, the REGIROCK Flea and Tick Collar for Dogs has the unique feature of using 100% natural ingredients. Therefore, you can feel confident nothing terrible will happen to your pup when wearing this collar.

Plus, this company solved both issues I had with the Arava model; they made this flea collar have the ability to both kill/repeal and the cost is within the price range I’d consider affordable.

And add in its eight-month flea protection, it’s a safe bet that I’d heavily consider buying this particular flea collar. Both my dog and me would rest easy knowing that no flea would have the chance to make his life miserable for a significant amount of time.

Honestly, it’s liberating knowing that you don’t have to worry about these little almost invisible bugs ruining each part of your best friend’s day. With products like this, no longer will you have to watch them be uncomfortable all day long.

But as with any product, there are some drawbacks to this flea collar. It use of natural ingredients makes the collar emit a terrible odor. It’s been described as almost a citronella like smell, which sounds awful.

Additionally, this flea collar is known to have a less of an effect on longhaired dogs meaning this product becomes a non-buy for me: my dog wasn’t blessed with the fortune of short fur.

Eight month flea protection

Uses natural ingredients

Water-resistant

Affordable price

Kills and repel fleas

Fits any dog up to a neck size of 25 inches

Terrible odor

Tends to work less effectively on longhaired dogs

Although I do love a lot of things about this flea collar: the eight-month flea protection, use of natural ingredients, water-resistant, kills and repels, etc., I can’t overlook its failure to work effectively on longhaired dogs.

But if you own a shorthaired dog and don’t mind the smell of citronella, this flea collar is an excellent option for you. Honestly, it might be the best product in this entire article: just not for me.

8. BioSpot Active Care Flea and Tick Collar

The BioSpot Active Care Flea and Tick Collar isn’t a unique treatment flea collar by any stretch of the imagination. But it has everything one could expect from a high-quality one.

As you would expect by now, flea protection, it being suitable for dogs over six weeks old, neck size up 25 inches, and water-resistance are just some of the things this collar provides.

Due to this, I would feel completely safe having my dog with this collar around his neck. It’s an unspectacular, effective option that people will overlook because it doesn’t offer any special or unique features.

In other words, it doesn’t try to do anything extra and sticks with the task at hand: killing those fleas as efficiently and quickly as possible.

But for me personally, it falls flat because it doesn’t fit the type of flea collar I need. It’s not something I would consider because it doesn’t offer a feature I desperately need in any flea collar I end up getting: a proven repellent against fleas.

Regardless of my personal preferences, this flea collar is on this list because it will get the job done without causing too much of a fuss or endangering your dog. Honestly, within the pet consumer market, that’s all you can ask for in a product.

Seven month flea protection

For dogs over six weeks old

Neck size up to 25 inches

Two sizes

Water-resistantWater-resistant

Incredible price

Doesn’t offer any sort of repellent

All in all, BioSpot did an excellent job of creating a flea collar that will do its job efficiently and without a tragic incident. Due to this, if you’re in the market for a treatment flea collar, this product should be at the top of your list.

Once you buy one of these collars, you won’t have to worry about your dog’s flea problem much longer. And isn’t that the whole point of buying ones of these things anyway?

What is a Flea Collar for Dogs?

Fleas collars are specially designed to protect your dog from the horrors provide by fleas. Generally, you make a flea collar by mixing flea-killing chemicals with plastic and molding them into a thin strip.

The result is a product that intends to give dog owners a sense of comfort through protecting their dog from ailments caused by fleas like hot spots, scratching and other nuisances.

In an ideal scenario, a flea collar is a preventive measure rather than a treatment. See, it’s always better to stop something before it starts rather than fixing it later. You want to end the flood before the water even reaches the outer limits.

Therefore, the idea behind these collars is to provide a defense against the fleas before they start making your dog’s life a living hell. Of course, this doesn’t mean there aren’t types that are effective in killing the fleas after infestation.

Regardless of your dog’s flea scenario, flea collars are a worthwhile option to consider. They’re a practical, quick solution to a problem that has haunted dogs for ages. Don’t let your dog become miserable with the affliction of constant scratching.

Types of Flea Collars

There are three types of flea collars: repelling, treatment, and treat & repel flea collars. Each type has a specific function regarding how they deal with the flea problem. Below, we’ll discuss the differences and their methods of getting rid of these awful bugs.

Repelling Flea Collars

These flea collars have one job: repelling the fleas before they even get into your dog’s fur. They have one goal and try to accomplish it by emitting a gas that fleas find revolting. As a result, the fleas will hopefully ignore your dog.

Therefore, these collars try to get rid of the fleas before they become a problem. But in the effort to this goal, these collars offer no sense of treatment against already existing flea problems.

In light of this, if your dog has already existing flea issues, these collars aren’t the right ones for you. The two options below are going to fall more in line with your dog’s particular needs.

Mainly, these collars are the nuclear option for dog owners who anticipate fleas will be a future problem for their dog. For example, a dog owner living in a woodsy environment should consider these collars as an option.

Treatment Flea Collars

Treatment flea collars are for the poor dogs that already have a flea infestation making their lives miserable. These collars “treat” the condition rather than preventing it from happening in the first place.

In doing so, they’re two ways these collars achieve this goal: medication that seeps into your dog’s skin or active ingredients that spread using your dog’s natural oils. Either way will work to remove the horrifying sense of constant itching from your dog’s life.

Unlike the repelling flea collars, these collars make sure to kill the fleas rather than making them ignore your dog. Due to this, these collars are often advertised with words like “treat” or “cure” somewhere on their box.

Overall, these collars are a way to get rid of an already existing problem through eliminating the threat. If your dog has fleas, these collars are an option you need to consider.

Treat & Repel Flea Collars

Treat & repel flea collars combine the desired effects from the two before mentioned types into one product. In doing so, you can expect them to have high prices but the most effective results among flea collars.

By combining the uses of both the other types, you can confidently use these collars in any situation with fleas. Whether fleas have already burrowed themselves into your dog’s fur or not, these collars will help alleviate the issue.

Due to the multifaceted use, these are the collars I’d recommend. But the high cost does put a burden on the wallet. So, if you aren’t looking to pay an arm and a leg for a flea collar, you might want to look into the two other types.

After all, a flea isn’t supposed to be a long-term replacement for a regular collar; therefore, the higher price of these collars can seem a little extravagant. But personally, these collars’ effectiveness make the price not a big deal for me.

How do Flea Collars Work?

Since there are three different types of flea collars, this section is split into three parts. Each part will discuss how each particular type works to rid your dog of the nightmare effects caused by fleas.

Repelling Flea Collars

Repelling flea collars are relatively simple; they emit a gas that makes your dog unappealing to fleas. Due to this, fleas will avoid invading your dog’s fur. Ideally, these collars are a preventative measure to ensure your dog never has a flea problem.

But this action of only “repelling” fleas leaves a lot to be desired for most dog owners. Let’s be honest; I don’t expect most dog owners to be forward thinking about their dog having a potential flea problem.

In fact, I’d expect most dog owners don’t think about fleas until they start becoming a noticeable problem. After all, it’s human nature to wait until the last minute to address a potential issue.

So, if you’re like me and wait until the last minute, repelling flea collars are probably aren’t a smart idea because it will do nothing to cure a flea infestation. And as a procrastinator, I likely won’t do anything to prevent an issue before it becomes an issue.

Treatment Flea Collars

Treatment flea collars work quite a bit different than repelling flea collars. See, these collars are meant to combat an ongoing infestation of fleas. In doing so, they’re very aggressive in addressing the problem.

With this aggressive approach, these collars rely on medication that drips into your dog’s skin or chemicals that spread throughout your dog’s body in their natural oils. Both are extremely effective in eliminating those fleas from your dog’s fur.

But, as you would expect, this isn’t a collar you want to use in a preventative manner because you’re dealing with chemicals. For example, these collars are designed to kill the fleas either when they bite or on the first contact with your dog’s skin.

In other words, their use should be reserved for circumstances involving a very aggressive flea infestation. There’s no reason to use these collars in preparation for flea season because their aggressiveness is more likely to activate the flea collar’s side effects.

Treat & Repel Flea Collars

As the most effective type of flea collar, the treat & repel collars combine the beneficial aspects of the other two types into one product. How they mix the two varies from collar to collar.

Regardless of the method, each one of these collars has the goal of being able to handle any flea situation imaginable. However, it’s crucial you find the one you’re comfortable in using.

If you’re wondering how to tell the difference between the types of flea collars, an easy way to know is how they advertise the product. For example, the treat & repel flea collars will have words like “kill “or “eliminate” on the box. Phrases like “kill the fleas and their larvae” are commonly seen on these products.

In comparison, repelling collars will use lighter toned words like “repel” or “ignore.” And as previously stated, treatment collars will use words like “treat” or “cure.” In the end, it’s really about picking the right type for your dog’s situation.

Benefits of Flea Collars

Given the widespread usage of flea collars among pet owners, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that they provide your pup/you with numerous benefits. In this section, we’ll go over some of those benefits and explain how they might help better your dog’s life.

Reduces the Risks of Various Skin Issues

With the use of a flea collar, you limit the risk of exposing your dog to flea saliva, which causes allergies, scratching, and itching. In doing so, you’re avoiding the ailments that come from excessive scratchings such as hot spots and skin infections.

Less Expensive Than Other Flea Related Products

In comparison to the other flea prevention products, flea collars are on the low side of the spectrum regarding their price. Therefore, if you get a high-quality one, they represent quite a bargain.

Long-Lasting

Along with being less expensive, flea collars offer the most extended sense of protection among flea killing products. In fact, some even offer up to 12 months of stability before they need replacing.

Prevents Tapeworms

Fleas have the nasty habit of sometimes carrying and transmitting tapeworms. If you don’t know, a tapeworm can cause your dog’s stomach to become upset. And in puppies can make them suffer from anemia, slow their growth, and cause intestinal blockage.

Stops Flea Infestations From Coming Inside Your Home

If your dog doesn’t have fleas, there’s no risk of your home becoming flooded with them. And since it’s rather unhealthy living with fleas, this is a benefit that betters both your and your dog’s life.

How Effective are Flea Collars?

As you might expect, a flea collar’s effectiveness will vary from product to product. But with a high-quality one, there’s no reason to suspect it won’t be completely effective in providing your dog with a flea-free life.

In fact, while other flea related products might be more convenient, these flea collar can offer longer lasting results with some even saying they can provide up to 12 months of flea protection.

Overall, it’s all about making sure you choose the right product for your dog’s circumstances. And ensuring the product you do want is a proven high-quality, flea-killing product.

Factors to Consider When Buying a Flea Collar for Dogs

As a consumer, you need to know what you want in a product before deciding what to buy. Therefore, this section will discuss the things you need to consider before choosing the best flea collar for your dog.

Your Dog’s Flea Situation

When buying a flea collar, the first thing you need to understand is your dog’s flea situation. You need to know whether you want to prepare, treat, or both before deciding on the right flea collar.

After all, knowing this will make it much easier to navigate the flea collar market. It will give you an idea of the exact model you want to buy.

For example, if you have a backyard with a lot of shaded areas, places fleas love to hide, then preparing beforehand might be the option for you. In this case, a repelling or repel & treat flea collar would be the right type for your particular needs.

On the other hand, if your dog already has severe flea issues, a treatment or repel & treat flea collar would most likely be the most appropriate option. Honestly, understanding the type you want to buy makes the process much less time-consuming.

Water Resistant

Like any collar for your dog, you need a collar that is water resistant. It’s essential to obtaining the best possible experience with a flea collar. You don’t want to spend a lot of money on a flea collar and find out that it can’t handle a little rainstorm.

And honestly, most dogs love water. Why would you buy a product that prohibits them from exploring things they love? It doesn’t make sense logically or money wise. So, make sure the flea collar you buy is water resistant for both you and your dog’s benefit.

Toxic Ingredients

Since we’re dealing with products that use toxic chemicals, you need to thoroughly research the ingredients inside the flea collars you’re considering. It’s imperative you make sure the chemicals inside the collar are safe for both humans and dogs.

After all, some manufacturers don’t care about your pets and cut corners to make more money. And your research into the chemicals will help you avoid buying from these awful companies.

Smell

For some reason, flea collar manufactures thought it’d be a good idea to create them with a strong odor. But I can tell you this wasn’t a good idea because most of the time the smell is incredibly pungent.

With this in mind, please make sure to buy an odorless collar. Don’t be the owner who throws out a collar because of an entirely unneeded feature like having an odor. It will become a waste of your money and time.

Protection Length

How long a flea collar last varies: some last one-month, others can last up to eight months. Therefore, it’s essential you take the time to figure out the right length of time for your dog’s needs.

If you’re overly concerned and hate the idea of replacing the flea collar every month, instead buy a flea collar that works for eight months. In this case, it’s a more convenient option for this type of owner.

In comparison, if you need a flea collar for a short period, there’s no reason for you to spend more money on a flea collar that offers a more extended protection period. In the end, it’s about what is right for you and your dog’s circumstances.

Size

You’d be surprised how many dog flea collar reviews mention that the product didn’t fit their dog. And most of the time, there was a simple solution to this issue; reading the size chart and measuring your dog’s neck.

In light of this, make sure you adhere to the manufactures size chart and correctly measure your dog’s neck. Honestly, the size chart is there to make your life easier. So, please allow it to do its job.

Frequently Asked Questions

In this section, we’ll answer some of the questions that will inevitably come up in your search to find the best flea collar for dogs. Hopefully, it will make your decision about which flea collar you want much easier.

Are flea collars safe?

In most circumstances, flea collars are a very safe product, as long as; you don’t allow your dog to chew on them. In other words, if you read the instructions, you shouldn’t have any problems.

But if you have multiple dogs, it’s essential you make sure you don’t allow the other dogs to chew on the flea collar during play accidentally. It could cause them to get poisoned or have some serious neurological problems.

Additionally, some side effects come along with flea collar use. These side effects are considered minimal; however, they include hair loss, scratching, and redness.

Do flea collars make dogs sick?

If used correctly, there is no reason why a flea collar should make a dog sick. However, the chemicals in the collar are toxic and can cause severe issues when ingested such as poisoning and neurological deficits.

Therefore, make sure your dog doesn’t chew on any flea collar to avoid these harmful issues from hurting your dog. And if they do chew the flea collar, it’s essential you know the signs of flea collar poisoning.

Most likely, these chemicals are or similar to amitraz or propoxur. This site did an excellent job of outlining the signs of flea collar poisoning, so, you can prepare for this nightmarish scenario.

Can flea collars be worn by all dogs?

The majority of the time a flea collar will be entirely safe for your dog’s particular circumstances. However, there are some scenarios where flea collars aren’t suitable for use.

For instance, flea collars aren’t meant for pregnant, senior, or nursing dogs. In each of these cases, there are specific detrimental issues that make the use of a flea collar problematic.

Due to this, make sure you consult with a vet before purchasing a flea collar for your dog. By doing so, you’re making sure there isn’t a potential health issue that could arise from the flea collar’s use.

Can dogs swim (bath) while wearing the collar?

It depends on the collar. Some are entirely safe for dogs to wear in the water but others aren’t. Regardless, it’s a good idea to remove them before your dog goes in the water because flea collars are rarely completely waterproof.

See, many flea collars will start wearing down after constant exposure to water. Due to this, removing them before bathing or other water-based activities will reduce the risk of the collar wearing down.

However, the best flea collar for dogs will be water resistant because it doesn’t limit what your dog can do. If your dog does accidentally enter the water with their flea collar, it won’t mean you have to buy a new one.

After all, dogs are very mischievous and often end up doing the very thing we tell them not to do. Therefore, it’s essential you seek out a water-resistant collar to protect not only your dog, but also your wallet.

– Other than Flea Collars, How can I Prevent/Get Rid of Fleas and Ticks on my Dogs?

Among dog owners, flea collars are a popular choice to fight against the plague that fleas represent. However, these collars aren’t the only product on the market that act as flea control for dogs.

Other products include spot-on treatments, oral medications, shampoos, tick dips, powders, tick sprays, etc. Each one of these items is explicitly made to fight these annoying little nuisances.

If you want to learn more about these options, PetMD does an excellent job going over each one of these options and more in this article.

Conclusion

As we all know, fleas are tricky little things. Hopefully, with all this new information, you’ll be able to fight back against their planned assault on your dog’s fur. In fact, you now have an avenue, flea collars, to gain the upper hand.

So, please use the information in this article to decide whether or not this avenue is worthwhile for your particular dog’s circumstances.

After all, if you do decide a flea collar fits your dog situation best, you can feel confident knowing that you have all information needed to successfully pick out the best flea collar for dogs your money could buy!

View more at : Best Flea Collars for Dogs 2018 – Buyer’s Guide

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