#HIS VILLAIN ARC IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING COOL.
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Theoretically if I were to host an event in which the Scum Villain Fandom tried to write PIDW would people be interested?
I discussed this with my good friend @spaced-out-scribbles a while back but here few details that I have in my head, please stop me if someone has already done something like this before
As we all know PIDW, written by Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, was the source material that Shen Yuan transmigrates into
So wouldn't it be funny to have a "canon" source material for people to reference?
Step 1 would be to compile every reference to PIDW in SVSSS to figure out how long Binghe's white lotus arc lasted and how long actual plot occured before it devolved into shitty smut
Step 2 would be to compile a list of fic writers and maybe artists perhaps that would be interested in recreating PIDW based off of the information occuring in Step 1
A discord server is put together with everyone interested in this project
There could maybe be a list of people assigned to each referenced arc that would maybe hold applications the way that a zine would perhaps? With people applying to write specific portions of PIDW if they wanted to write the marriage of a specific wife or a portion of a specific arc
And anyone else that wanted to participate is assigned a random wife number and told to go wild with the longest, shittiest description of how Luo Bingge was a total stallion lead, and married his new wife of the week
All of these fics and/or accompanying art are submitted to a GIANT ao3 collection (bonus points if everyone involved creates a pseud that's named as Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky for this project) and with everyone's contributions all put together you get a semblance of what PIDW would have looked like
Bonus points if no one else has any idea what happened in a previous wife plot, so the story is not at all coherent towards the later chapters, because I fully believe Airplane had no idea what the fuck he's written before as he got to the end of PIDW
Someone is assigned to write the final shitty ending that made Shen Yuan so mad he died and transmigrated
If anyone wants to contribute to PIDW after the project, the collection could remain open but moderated to make sure chapter numbers/wife numbers stay consistent and that's about it
Obviously this would be a huge project to wrangle and would need a lot of people involved to actually make it work and take a lot of time, so if this is something people are actually interested in, it would more than likely not be able to come to fruition until the start of 2025 at the absolute earliest with all the prep work it would take to get a project like this accomplished but I thought I'd throw it out there to see if people would be interested, so reblog to spread the word if this is something you'd like to see!
Once again, if someone has already done something like this please let me know, I've only been in this fandom for like a year and a half so I'm aware that a lot of fandom events have occured before my time in the fandom
#svsss#luo binghe#sammi speaks#airplane shooting towards the sky#pidw#proud immortal demon way#poll#tumblr polls#fandom event#fandom#fan event#if this gets enough yes votes ill make a separate blog or hell even a Twitter account and send out a formal interest check/timeline
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✩ ‧₊˚ ⌞ CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER! ⌝
sampo analysis m.list
— a silly little overview of different "sampos" i find interesting
— not meant to be taken super seriously or canonically, but can tie in to some of the theories i have
— in the true spirit of elation, these aren't hills i'm willing to die on, just ones that are fun to play around with :3
— feel free to use for writing/art inspiration!
— i add to this periodically as new sampos catch my eye!
— word count: 3k (good lord)
— 🎭s indicate aha!sampo
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🎭 sampo "midlife crisis" koski
— at risk of losing his aeon/emanatorhood
— doesn’t find anything funny anymore
— tired of being behind the scenes
— becoming a buzzkill (having “lines” he won’t cross)
— taking drastic measures to improve his quality of life (fucking off to a random ass snow planet to scam people)
note: may lead to a villain arc — sampo "renewed vigor" koski — in which he remembers why he used to love tormenting people, conquers his midlife crisis, and returns to pure elated insanity. this is bad for everyone involved for obvious reasons
🎭 sampo "how're you gonna win if you never take any risks?" koski
— aha took drastic measures to secure their success, either through memory erasure, mortal transformation, giving up power, or all three
— under the radar, civilian aha
— trying to circumvent “destiny” through delusional self-confidence
— enter sampo i mean aha i mean sampo i mean aha i mean s
sampo "ceaseless watcher's special little boy" koski
— not aha but aha definitely likes him
— perhaps an avatar or emanator of some sort
— whether he likes aha or not is up for debate
— can easily turn into sampo "ceaseless watcher get their ass" koski, in which sampo becomes a little too fond of invoking his status as aha's favorite to accomplish his own goals
alternate possibility: he’s aha’s favorite due to his pathetic nature and slutty hip windows, he just doesn’t know it. he thinks his luck is due to his own talent & skill (it is literally outside eldritch forces beyond his control)
sampo "close enough" koski
— not an actual aeon, but rather a vessel for aha’s power or consciousness on varying levels
— perhaps akin to caelus/stelle being a stellaron receptacle
sampo "let's get you back to bed grandpa" koski
— the wear and tear of a long life has taken its toll on him
— despite the infinity of time, he has become out-of-sync with newer masked fools members, who regard him as an “old timer”
— isn’t shown much respect, and is frequently asked why he isn’t as cool as he used to be
— also know as sampo "L + ratio + fell off" koski
— “peaked in high school” energy
— can be either aha, emanator, or similar high status
🎭 sampo "in rehab" koski
— aeonic existence isn’t easy and can, in fact, take a toll on those that ascend from human forms
— he finally decided that maybe he should make a change
— and has thus embarked on a healing journey
— therapeutic exercises include: scamming people, starting pyramid schemes, selling artifacts on the black market, and more!
sampo "ultimate dealmaker" koski
— in a contract or some sort of deal with aha in exchange for power, money, or a combination or the two
— possession? who knows
🎭 sampo "i'm not mad i'm just disappointed" koski
— doesn’t understand why his children have strayed so far
— “where did i go wrong? why do they think this is funny? do they even care about the worm?”
— has the energy of an exasperated parent watching his kids flush car keys down the toilet again
🎭 sampo "horrified creator" koski
— aha & the masks have outgrown their creator (sampo) and have gone off to do their own aeonic thing, leaving him behind
— he thinks it’s all insane, actually, and he’s very disappointed and very tired
— trying to pick up the pieces of whatever mayhem the aha!masks cause
— aha!masks keep him around for fun
— “i should never have laughed at that goddamn baby”
sampo "me and aha kiss on the weekends" koski
— just a silly little guy who has somehow wormed his way into the heart of an eldritch being
— in it for the mind-bending sex
sampo "blasphemy" koski
— technically affiliated with the masked fools but doesn’t subscribe to their beliefs
— thinks aha is a load of horseshit but needs to keep up with what they’re doing to circumvent it
— may have been formerly in a high-ranking position, or just another guy with a mask
— aha probably wronged him or did some fucked up shit in the past and now he has a vendetta
🎭 sampo "stole my fucking thunder" koski
— someone stole aha’s power. that’s it
— sampo is salty
— 10/10 betrayal plot
potential inverse: he’s the one stealing aha’s power
sampo "my boss sucks and i want to quit" koski
— tired, overworked employee of the masked fools
— views aha as a sort of fucked up insane ceo that he wants nothing to do with but is unfortunately contractually obligated to work for
— wants to start a union
🎭 sampo "next in line" koski
— can also branch into sampo "formerly in line" koski or sampo "abdication" koski
— wherein aha’s power or masks are akin to titles or positions that are passed down between different people, somewhat akin to how “crowns” and “kings” work
— in this case, sampo would either be currently in line for this power, formerly in line for this power, or has actually been in power but abdicated or otherwise lost/gave up/moved on from his position
— this could be natural or otherwise
note: this does not have to be solely for aha, this kind of power transfer could work for other high-ranking positions like emanator or organization leader
🎭 sampo "this price was too steep..." koski
— got a bit cocky and wagered his aeonhood
— is now in a Not Great position
sampo "i hate owing people things" koski
— owes aha one
— does not like owing people things
— doing whatever he needs to cancel out the debt
🎭 sampo "i was crazy back then lol" koski
— the universe’s idea of aha writ large is based on an outdated version of their personality
— this always annoys sampo because he has to be constantly reminded of his insane college days before he mellowed out
— the type to reminisce over wine and say “yeah that worm thing was wild. i was crazy back then huh”
🎭 sampo "committed to the bit" koski
— one of my personal favorites
— became mortal as a joke
— ended up liking it a little too much
— doesn’t really want to go back
sampo "worm on a string" koski
— what is a man if not just another omniscient worm destined for tragedy?
— he’s a puppet, basically
— & he just gets wormed around like he’s on a string
— hence the name
— another one of aha’s classic cosmic jokes
🎭 sampo "one of many" koski
— ties into my split consciousness theory
— aha split their personality into multiple people (either as a joke or for a bigger reason) and sampo is one of those pieces
🎭 sampo "yeah i heard aha was super cool and hot and sexy and smart and did i mention sexy" koski
— big fan of the rumor mill
— can’t help but try to win people over to the elation even when he’s supposed to be laying low
— he’s not fooling anyone. just yesterday serval watched him laugh until he cried because a kid dropped their ice cream. he is not slick
🎭 sampo "reverted to babey" koski
— someway, somehow, aha got reverted back to who they were before they ascended to aeonhood
— now sampo is just really fucking confused (and annoyed because mortal life is pretty annoying)
sampo "character creation screen" koski
— aha just had a silly goofy lil day & wanted to create a guy
— so they did
— sampo acts as a kind of controlled character who’s self-aware about his position as a playable character
— or alternatively he was turned loose with no purpose scaramouche-style and is now just fucking around doing whatever
sampo "failed clone" koski
— obligatory clone theory
— aha tried to clone themself. it wasn’t as funny as they wanted
— sampo is the result
— aha realizing sampo was a bit of a buzzkill: “i don’t want to play with you anymore”
🎭 sampo "vicarious existence" koski
— part of the split consciousness theory
— aha sectioned off or created a part of themself that can live in a way they can’t (i.e. have free will beyond the elation)
— similar to the focalors/furina situation in genshin
sampo "trojan horse" koski
— is his own person, under the impression he has free will, but is being used as an unknowing vehicle for eventual Big Aha Moment
🎭 sampo "can't remember shit" koski
— he forgor :((
— used to be aha but doesn’t know that
— most likely erased his own memory in order to accomplish a planned endgame
🎭 sampo "you don't wanna see me when i transform" koski
— dual consciousness theory
— sampo koski as a human is much more rational and reasonable than eldritch-form aha
— sampo likes to stay as sampo as much as possible because he doesn’t like what he becomes when he changes forms
— may lead to a tragic arc where, in order to defend belobog, he reverts to his aeonic form knowing he won’t be able to transform back
sampo "lmao got you" koski
— all signs pointing towards aeon or emanator status are red herrings
— he’s just really good at gaslighting to get what he wants
sampo "whoops i got attached" koski
— fucked off to belobog for whatever reason
— got surprisingly attached
— belobog now has an extremely powerful entity/protector without even knowing it
— “it’s just a weird insane little place. very charming” — sampo, probably
🎭 sampo "elias bouchard" koski
— just a shell for aha, jonah magnus style
— used to be his own person, but got yoinked along the way
🎭 sampo "5d mind chess" koski
— knows exactly what he’s been doing from the beginning
— strategic placement on belobog to meet the trailblazer
— has done a damn good job of coming off as “normal pathetic scammer mcgee” to distract from larger plans
🎭 sampo "just like everyone else" koski
— for whatever reason, aha is insistent that they be treated just like any other member of the masked fools; same rules, same hierarchy, everything
— this results in everyone looking at him weirdly but not saying anything and trying to strike up casual conversation with their literal aeon
sampo "gimme your eldritch money" koski
— the final form of scammers everywhere
— he’s scammed everyone he possibly can, and now there’s only one thing left: to scam an aeon
— chooses aha + the masked fools because there’s a good chance he’ll get stuff just because aha is amused with him
— tries to link aha up with a pyramid scheme
sampo "you should see me in a crown" koski
— either on a delusional self-confident power trip or gunning for aha’s power
— can be aha, emanator, or other high-ranking position, but aha works the best if sampo wants to go all the way up the ladder
— thinks he’s the best ever and can never fail, pairs well with “5d mind chess” sampo like fine wine
— drunk on power/worship
🎭 sampo "wine aunt" koski
— also known as sampo "washed up aeon" koski
— he’s out of the limelight, whether that means he passed on his power, had it taken from him in a free for all, or just wants to retire, and now he’s kicking back with a margarita and enthralling the belobog locals with “hypothetical” scenarios that are actually crazy mind-bending stories from his glory days
— he’s not as great as he used to be, nor does he have the power of a full-fledged aeon anymore, but belobog appreciates him all the same (goes hand in hand with sampo "just like everyone else" koski)
— “geez yeah, ix is so annoying. such a buzzkill, really, that guy even hates knock-knock jokes. i mean, who hates knock-knock jokes? … hypothetically, of course.” — sampo, probably
🎭 sampo "zhongli the funeral consultant" koski
— aha is secretly “dead” but no one knows
— perhaps the masked fools know, but either way sampo has either already faked his death, is currently doing it, or is planning to in the future
— he just wants to retire man, and if that means he has to “fall” then so be it
sampo "just a silly guy" koski
— there is actually nothing special to this man at all
— he’s just a guy. just a silly little guy
— aha is laughing at all of us for even making theories about him
sampo "aha jr." koski
— sampo is a doll created by aha like in the simulated universe occurrence, having the same appearance as aha’s human form and sharing personality & path attributes
— most likely wants to break away from the elation’s influence but doesn’t know how
— views aha as a really fucked up dad
sampo "oh my god i'm in a cult" koski
— raised in the masked fools, didn’t realize how batshit insane they were until a Formative Traumatic Event occurred and he went “oh.. oh no…..”
— estranged from most of the members but still deals with them in the way you do when you hate your family but have to put up with them at holiday dinners
— maybe got to a high position of power before, but left when he realized it wasn’t good for him
sampo "partners in crime" koski
— him & aha are friends, besties even
— knows the risks of working with an aeon but can’t say no when that much money is involved
🎭 sampo "for funsies" koski
— if aha can give the entire universe’s knowledge to a worm for fun, then by god they can give all of their power and aeonhood to a silly little guy randomly for no reason whatsoever (especially if he doesn’t want it)
— constantly fighting against increasingly powerful eldritch control
— “young god”
— canon in my heart
sampo "reality tv" koski
— part of the vicarious emanator theory
— aha gave him all their power and basically watches him like a reality show
— *pokes sampo with a stick* “hey why aren’t you doing anything” — aha, probably
— constant voyeurism
sampo "communism" koski
— part of the dual consciousness and vicarious emanator theories
— one of aha’s emanators that they share their entire path with
— “our” power
— perhaps some sort of memory or consciousness sharing
sampo "horse girl" koski
— “but your dream is to be an emanator”
— “no that’s your dream dad, not mine”
🎭 sampo "aeons anonymous" koski
— aeon in rehabilitation
— wants to start a former aeon support group
🎭 sampo "power receptacle" koski
— in which the masks function as the true “aha” and sampo has given them up or put them away for safekeeping
— “sparkle please please i’m so serious just let me put it back on once. no seriously only once i promise i won’t go insane like last time i’ll be so normal it’ll only be for five minutes please” — sampo, probably
sampo "one-sided hate boner" koski
— man absolutely hates aha (probably for backstory reasons)
— aha doesn’t care at best and at worst thinks it’s really really funny
— “you burned my house to the ground!”
— “🤷”
— “my family is dead!”
— “🤷”
— bonus points if aha makes him an emanator or something
sampo "significant annoyance" koski
— dedicated to being as annoying as possible to aha, whether out of spite, a vendetta, or sheer interest
— aha finds this funny so they let him stick around
— “he graffitied my mask with a bunch of dicks and it took me years to get it off. isn’t he just the greatest little guy?” — aha, probably
sampo "god's silliest soldier" koski
— aha gives their hardest battles to their silliest soldiers
— and that is sampo
sampo "true wild card" koski
— he’s not aha, an emanator, or any higher status
— he is quite literally just That Good as a regular human being
🎭 sampo "cosmic irony" koski
— “man, it sure would suck to be aha the aeon of elation. glad i don’t have to deal with that. i love being mortal”
— “🎭🎉👀”
— “HOW DID YOU GET IN MY HOUSE”
sampo "cult leader" koski
— humility is a facade
— “lines” he won’t cross are a facade
— everything is for the purpose of appearing like the perfect leader (or candidate for leader)
— secretly the most insane out of anyone
sampo "secret agent man" koski
— doing aha’s bidding willingly
— a goon. a henchman even
sampo "tainted love" koski
— aha isn’t the most healthy person to be around, on account of the ten billion cosmic torments jokes they throw around on a daily basis
— guinea pig sampo is TIRED
sampo "sacrificial lamb" koski
— may or may not be aware of his sacrificial status
— created or being manipulated into a position where he becomes collateral for aha doing whatever the fuck they wanna do
sampo "impromptu therapist" koski
— the receiver of many rants and complaints unrelated to him within the masked fools
— becomes the “advice friend” even though this man should never be trusted for reliable advice
— but surprisingly he is the most reliable within the masked fools
sampo "sanest masked fool" koski
— just a long-suffering member of an organization whose followers are some of the most insane people you’ll ever meet
— permanent eye bags for having to put up with them
🎭 sampo "michael distortion" koski
— he was a regular guy once, but ended up absorbing aha’s eldritch power one way or another
— potential assimilation into one form
— aha didn’t expect the joke to joke back
sampo "court jester" koski
— similar to "ceaseless watcher's special little boy"
— the king’s (aha’s) favorite little jester
— and also they make out sometimes
— has a semblance of protection afforded to him by being the favorite (he uses this to his advantage)
— “jester’s privilege”
sampo "try me" koski
— aha is physically keeping tabs on the trailblazer
— sampo is too, but only to swat aha’s hand away like a kid reaching into a cookie jar
— usually a mad dash to see who gets there first
— leads to many situations where they make tense eye contact across the street or smth
— subsists off of pure spite & annoyance
🎭 sampo "favored of humanity" koski
— aha is one of the aeons closest with humanity, and has such developed a more “mortal” frame of mind over time
— eventually if you spend enough time around mortals you might just turn back into one
🎭 sampo "hedonist" koski
— why is he doing any of this? who knows
— who can possibly understand the machinations of what an aeon finds funny
— eldritch humor beyond our comprehension
🎭 sampo "cosplayer extraordinaire" koski
— “so this is my humansona his name is sampo koski he likes scamming people and has slutty slutty hip windows”
— likes to stay in character as much as possible
— kinda like playing a dnd character 24/7
sampo "long-suffering host" koski
— somewhat dual consciousness theory
— aha is just up there, and sampo has to listen to their annoying ass constantly
— can be a joke, chill possession scenario, or necessity for aha due to external circumstances
— may be a side effect of emanator status, or may just be another Classic Cosmic Joke™
sampo "unwilling hierophant" koski
— informercial: how would YOU like to receive PERSONAL and INCESSANT psychic messages from eldritch forces beyond your comprehension?
— “geez ew no”
— infomercial: is that a YES?
— “no”
— infomercial: thank you for signing up for our FREE TRIAL service!
— “wait no”
— infomercial: text "NO PLEASE STOP NO" to 69420 to UNSUBSCRIBE from the Laughter’s FREE psychic telepathy service
— “NO PLEASE STOP NO”
— phone: thank you for subscribing to our LIFETIME PLAN of FREE, UNCEASING, TORMENTING visions from AHA THE ELATION. please enjoy your COMPLIMENTARY descent into insanity!
— “god fucking damnit”
sampo "vacant apartment" koski
— possession receptacle that’s no longer in use and is left up to his own devices
sampo "moved to iceland and became a sheep herder" koski
— living off the grid
— only came back because something bad is gonna happen to belobog
— can be aha, emanator, or other high-ranking position
🎭 sampo "undercover boss" koski
— keeping tabs on the masked fools because they’re fanatical
— “what the hell guys this is not what i want” — sampo, probably
— they say or do something and he’s just like “not funny. didn’t laugh”
— y’know when people say “if jesus came down to earth, he’d be disappointed at what people are doing in his name” — yea that’s sampo but like for real
— damage control
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© written by sunderingstars. do not copy, repost, translate, modify, or claim my work as your own.
#⌞ ✎ sunder.writes ⌝#⌞ ✧ super.nova ⌝#⌞ 🎭 ⌝#sampo#sampo koski#aha!sampo#emanator!sampo#hsr#honkai star rail#honkai: star rail#sampo hsr#sampo honkai#hsr sampo#honkai star rail sampo
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HOLY SHIT
#its so funny bc normally i do not for action cartoons and any shows i watch on netflix i just learn about in the moment#BUT THIS.#I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS SERIES#captain laserhawk#captain laserhawk: a blood dragon remix#LOOK AT RAYMAN#HIS VILLAIN ARC IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING COOL.#rayman#assassin's creed#far cry 3#beyond good and evil
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and the worst thing is that vergil DOES sucks. genuinely
#BUT its in the same that dante sucks. that nero sucks. that dmc as a whole is kinda cringe#but it is also extremely genuine. which cancels the cringe factor entirely.#as STUPID as the characters are theyre ALWAYS treated with respect in the story's theyre in. or if they arent its not at their expense#its cool. its just cool. as its core dmc is cool even if its inherently so fucking stupid#anyway this has been my ''you have to ENGAGE with the story. YES the character's actions are stupid NO theyre NOT a loser.''#as for vergil: hes never been a master planner nor a mastermind. hes just reserved in his words and (shut up) self-motivated#vergil doesnt want to change the world or society. he *doesnt fucking care*. he just wants power for deeply personal reasons#HES ALSO BEEN SHOWN TO BE WRONG IN THE TWO (2) GAMES HES BEEN IN. BC DANTE WON. AND LATER NERO#also hes wrong but NOT a villain. hes legit just dante under different circumstances and with different tastes. THEY ADRESSED THIS IN DMC5#''but dam he needs to atone for the two cities'' nobody cares about the humans in dmc. theyre plot points#theyre not cool enough to be focused on on their own. if they do they need to be as off the balls bonker as the half demons#as far as dmc is concerned. vergil's only crime is being wrong.#and hes so fucking strong. hes sooo strong. hes good looking. he has a well written story and character arc imo. hes extremely iconic#and I love him very much. anyway this has been dam ''vergil is my favorite character of all time'' scalproie thank you all#im gonna go listen to bury the light#tagging later
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book recs: feb 2024
(disclaimer: I have spent nearly three months languishing and sullen with post-COVID symptoms and have read, over dec-feb, eighty-one books. this is a ruthlessly streamlined list of recs that does not include, uh, all the rereading of sarah maclean and charlie adhara and georgette heyer books.)
AT FIRST SPITE by olivia dade - what if I moved in next to the man who ruined my engagement to his younger brother, and tried to ruin his life by playing monsterfucking audiobooks really loudly?? a heartfelt and lovely romance that also expertly sets up a great small-town setting for an ongoing series.
THE REFORMATORY by tananarive due - historical horror based on the existence of a real school for boys, clear-eyed and brutal in showing the the effect of racist systems in the 1950s american south. compelling as hell. even if you're not usually into horror, I'd recommend this: the ghost aspect is light-handed and really not as important as the horror of what humans do to other humans.
SOMETHING WILD & WONDERFUL by anita kelly - this is a m/m romance about walking the pacific crest trail which made me see the appeal of very long walks. a miracle! it's gentle and emotional and well put together; the characters really grabbed me.
THE BELL IN THE FOG by lev a.c. rosen - the followup to 'lavender house', and somehow even better?? a historical mystery series featuring a queer private eye in 1950s san francisco who looks into crimes against other queer people. amazing queer history! ACAB! I hope there are fifty more books in this series.
FEAST WHILE YOU CAN* by mikaella clements & onjuli datta - beautiful, greedy, terrifying small-town horror that is also a fucking fantastic, gorgeously written sapphic love story. this one IS for the horror fans. it gave me the absolute creeps but I couldn't put it down.
LADY EVE'S LAST CON* by rebecca fraimow - I described this on bsky as 'if you like Leverage, space opera, old screwball comedies, and dashing sapphics who are at all times spiritually wearing a leather jacket: this one is for you' and I stand by that. huge amounts of fun.
LONG LIVE EVIL* by sarah rees brennan - I will be screaming from here until forever about SRB's first adult fantasy book. if you like the isekai'd-into-a-villain-character setup and want it to be hilarious, genre-savvy and wildly angry and clever, you will roll around in this like a blood-stained mud puddle and then beg for more.
THE LAST HOUR BETWEEN WORLDS* by melissa caruso - really clever and original fantasy about a woman on maternity leave who gets dragged into saving a cocktail party which is falling through increasingly murderous and bizarre dimensions. LISTEN, JUST GO WITH IT. it's a seriously cool adventure.
YOU SHOULD BE SO LUCKY* by cat sebastian - yes, it's another m/m romance about queer history in the mid 20th century, this one between a baseball player and the journalist assigned to write a story about his slump. made me care about baseball. cat is a genius.
*I read these as ARCs, they're not available yet but consider preordering or keep your eye out for them!
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Okay, cool. I can finally talk about the absolute catharsis I felt after fifteen years hoping - dreaming - of this moment because holy SHIT, they did it. They goddamn DID IT.
VLAD GOT HIS REDEMPTION ARC.
Let's talk about it...
By the end of the third season, Vlad Masters had ostracized the entire planet by exposing his true self (why), demanding money and total command of Earth, and completely wailing on Jack Fenton, driving away the only member of that family who unequivocally adored the man where every other Fenton knew him for who he truly was: utterly despicable and incapable of seeing the bigger picture.
Because, after all, he is a villain and that's just what villains do. Villains want power. Villains want to rule the world. There need not be more than that, and in another show, there wouldn't have to be. As far as Hartman was concerned, there is only a binary Good vs. Evil.
You would be hard-pressed to view the Vlad in "Phantom Planet" as the same man who anguished in desperate madness when his perfect clone son died in his arms. That was a Vlad who, by that point, had taken his biggest gamble and lost. I guess one could see his reasoning in season three as a "fuck it all, what even is the point" mode. But while "Eye For an Eye" (tellingly, the last major script helm by former main story writer Steve Marmel... just saying) promised a personal conflict, by the end of the show, he's made it much more external, far greater than what he and Danny's interwoven plot originally started off as.
Vlad is pathetic. Vlad is narcissistic. He is egotistical, entitled; a bitter, arrogant man who lives in his dream castle with all the money and privilege in the world that would leave him content a hundred times over, and it's still not enough.
Money is not Maddie Fenton, the woman he loves. Money is not Jazz, a child that should have been his. Money is not Jack's friendship whom he denies severely, the only part of his life who willingly embraces him. And money is not Danny, who is a half-ghost like him, and by all rights, should have been his son.
No one else could ever understand to the fullest extent of their uniqueness than Vlad and Danny would to each other, and the latter, for the longest time, hated that. Hated the way Vlad talked down to him and manipulated him, hated the whispers into his ears with promises of grand power if he just joined the billionaire's side and become his ward, hated when he caved in just once in front of Vlad's eyes who responded with a smug "See, I know you" reaction. Danny was fortunate to have good moral compasses from his family and friends, but the thing is, though, it's not about the healthy support structure he had, because Vlad had the chance to get some, too. Jack and Maddie loved Danny no matter what he was, and dollars to donuts, they would have for Vlad if the latter had approached them with his problems.
But he chose instead to be bitter and miserable, taking it out on everyone and expecting them to fall into his train of thought. The show knew what he did was wrong, but until season three, never stopped repeating his truest desire: to find love and squash his crushing loneliness.
Hartman couldn't provide a damn on what exactly was Vlad's "destiny" in "Infinite Realm"; it was vague gesturing to excuse his villainy. He was more than happy to abandon the life he's made for himself and the woman he loved in spite of two decades of planning, all on a whim for whatever time period the Infi-map was willing to take him, hoping maybe this one will give him the unconditional worship that he thinks he's deserved (by force, of course.)
Because he's the villain.
And for the longest time, the show ended with the idea that Vlad deserved to be stranded, away from people, because he simply could not help himself. To be fair, there is a lesson in that - some people genuinely DO go so far that there really is nothing more we can do other than stop the problem before they cause any further harm. I'm not denouncing that.
What I AM denouncing is the the narrative plant that's dug its way into the greater plot where an older Vlad in "The Ultimate Enemy", realized what a fool he had been. What he wouldn't give to start all over and be a better person. You don't just give someone a sympathetic goal like "looking for love", constantly provide the necessary stepping stones, and not have it set up for something far more substantial than what we got.
And even then, even if it still ended with Vlad being too far gone, I wonder, should the supposedly original plot arc for season three had been made, would Vlad's fate there been far more appropriate than whatever cartoonish supervillainy he ended up as by the time "Phantom Planet" ended?
I cannot speak for Gabriela Epstein. I cannot say how much Nickelodeon allowed her to tinker with the DP world. All of this is presumptuous speculation on my part, but this entire comic feels like they looked at season three, particularly "Phantom Planet", realized what a travesty that was, had their work cut out for it, and went about to make a post-series finale story that still paid tribute to its ending while wiping it off the map.
Vlad's redemption is the crux.
Within just a few panels, Gabriela Epstein provided an explanation on the why of Vlad's actions circa-season three. The Infi-Map was aimless because Vlad's purpose was aimless. And Vlad's purpose was aimless because his need to be in control was a manifestation of his greatest fear: being alone.
"A Glitch in Time" recontexualizes why Vlad traveled across time in "Infinite Realm." It wasn't a generic bad-guy-wants-to-rule-the-world-through-latest-plot-claptrap, but an act of utter desperation from a man who had since lost the biggest connection to his very being: Danny.
It started with Maddie (someone whom Vlad only interacts once in the comic, but is an acknowledgement of his villainous origin, nonetheless), and it may still end with Danny.
Never, in a million, billion years, have I even thought about another redemption arc... for Dark Danny.
And I am kicking myself for not even considering such an option. I had pegged him so far gone, so far past the breaking point to think otherwise. Dark Danny was suppose to be the outcome of a Danny at his literal worst: a too-late, too-little scenario. Back then, it was a symbol of Danny's rejection of what Vlad expected and desired of him.
But the comic made me sit down and think about the implication of Dark Danny's very existence, that of a man who lost his family and friends ten years ago as a child. Like Vlad, he, too was alone, and had carried a tremendous amount of pain and anguish that his human half just could not bear.
Yeah, they died because of a time loop HE created, but that doesn't erase that he was born from a horrible trauma that he could not properly cope with. And Vlad, try as he might, did not fix it. All he ended up doing was separate a ghost - infamous for their obsessions, and now, as the comic established, a carrier of human emotions - to exist. And Dark Danny carried so much raw emotion that he retaliated very, very violently.
Everyone's respond at that time was to fight him and stuff him in a Fenton Thermos for eternity. I am not saying Danny wasn't justified in fighting his darker self because the dude legitimately caused massive damage and likely murdered a hell of a lot of people, I am just saying Dark Danny is the byproduct of a scared, lonely, traumatized child.
And what does he do? He tries to take what he thinks is his by any means necessary. Vlad got his wish, he got the son he wanted.
And he's facing him now.
And he gets it.
He finally fucking GETS IT.
Which shouldn't have been a surprise because his "The Ultimate Enemy" counterpart got it. He looked at the devil that he created and lingered as a hermit in regret. And now Vlad - Vlad Prime - reacted the same.
Only this time, he can fix it.
I did not anticipate that Vlad's redemption would happen at the same time as Dark Danny's. I didn't expect the two of them to link other than the latter being another number in Vlad's bullshit entitlement count.
I love that it isn't Danny who heals him, but Vlad. It had to be Vlad. In order to own up to his actions, Vlad had to look at the eyes of the boy he was entrusted and corrupted beforehand and apologize for what he put him through. And I don't mean just "The Ultimate Enemy", Vlad is apologizing for everything he's done up to this point.
He (temporarily) sacrifices his body to stabilize Dark Danny who has fucked up the time stream so much that he wouldn't be able to exist otherwise. And only then do the two of them get what they've longed for.
Vlad gets a son.
Dark Danny gets a family.
Holy forking shirt balls.
I have a lot of problems with alternate counterparts sticking around longer than they should in the "main" setting of a show. Usually I'm fine when it's an alternate counterpart demonstrated as someone the hero is trying so hard not to be, because it's compelling to see what could have been under different circumstances. It's another thing when you have another version of the main character running around doing their own thing. Multiverse characters are inherently messy just by existing, but it gets worse when they take away from the uniqueness of the central protagonist.
There's something awkward about two Danny Phantoms living in the same world, and in any other scenario, I would have hated it. But Dark Danny is of a vastly different background brought forth from a long, nuanced, engaging history between him and Vlad.
Danny's central journey - the cusp of the show - has always been the Spider-Man mantra, "great powers = great responsibilities." You are in charge of how you carry the burden of your powers. Vlad has been the one constant always challenging and belittling his selflessness. "A Glitch in Time" had Danny asking himself, what is his purpose? Who is he now that everything has been neatly wrapped up?
Writing anything about who Danny is means Vlad is presented in some way, shape, or form. They are so thoroughly linked to each other, and it's that link that simultaneously serve to push their own individual character arc, and their relationship with each other.
So, Vlad gets a son. Dark Danny gets a family. They get a second chance, and it is up to them to work it out. I have no idea if Vlad got his wealth back. Everything is restored as is, except Danny's secret identity is secured again (which I am 100% fine with except for one notable exception, but that's another topic for another day) and implication that Vlad was just a crummy mayor with no indication the greater public is also aware of his Plasimus mode (which I am also fine with.)
There's a part of me who thinks he should have lost the money and power he's accumulated because he gained them through his vice, but if he's back in his Wisconsin cheese castle, then he can damn well use the money he has to not only benefit the world (charities, improving human lives, funding Fenton Works ;D...), but to raise his son.
Dark Danny is going to have to adjust to the idea that his father is Vlad, something he was already expected to do so when he orphaned himself and moved in with him. But it's Vlad who has to work the most out of the two: as a parental figure - as an adult - he's always had a power over Danny regardless of what timeline they're in. Most of the time, he's abused it heavily.
The second chance Vlad has been given here means he has the ability to provide a safe, healthy environment. It's more than he deserves. He failed with Danny and he absolutely failed with Dani (another can of worms in itself; she's not mentioned in the comic, and I imagine it's because her story would need a comic of her own), he cannot fail with this Danny.
Vlad shouldn't have been given a child at all until there was a guarantee that he could work through his bullshit, but Dark Danny is a special case. He is a kid who needs a home and someone to love him unconditionally, and Vlad needs to learn boundaries while giving selfless love in order to be loved himself.
Clockwork gave Vlad a test, so get studying, dude.
This does not erase how Danny Prime feels about him. He may never want to forgive Vlad, and that's his right. He can acknowledge however, that, in order to help those in need of healing, a door can be opened, even if slightly ajar.
For Vlad, that may just take a bit longer and that's completely understandable.
Vlad can't have the kind of relationship he wants with this Danny, but maybe one day, they can be equals - friends.
Like christ, I think this is the first time Vlad has actually, genuinely asked if Danny was alright.
The comic was already good prior to this, but just knowing - understanding that Vlad was more than "a villain" - meant after fifteen looooong years, we finally see the promises of a brighter future for a man with shitty priorities, but a sympathetic goal.
"It's over, isn't it?
It's over, isn't it?
It's over, isn't it..."
#danny phantom#vlad masters#neoyi talks#comics#a glitch in time#a glitch in time spoilers#yeah this one im tagging#this essay is over a 1000 words it's pathetic
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Swordswoman Showdown Round 4/Quarterfinal
Kikunojo (One Piece) vs Brienne of Tarth (A Song Of Ice and Fire)
(Better here in a "preferred character" sense, not "who would win in a fight")
Propaganda below cut
Kikunojo
She is a samurai and a retainer for the Kozuki Family, serving as one of the Nine Red Scabbards, a group of samurai that protect the Kozuki family and their country. She's a very skillful samurai, and she and her group managed to delay and hold off the main villain of the arc, (which was an almost insurmountable task for even the main character) and survived the experience despite her horrible injuries; She's canonically and openly trans! And she's gorgeous. And huge... She's 287 cm tall, which for the USAmericans in the audience is 9' 5". She's simply the coolest.
She’s a samurai and fights with a sword; tall trans woman <3
Legendary devoted samurai!; She's 2.87m tall, a time traveler, and not even losing an arm in the middle of the fight stopped her- she had it imediately cauterized and went back to the fight.
She's a lady samurai! Pretty and very skillful with her katana!
She is a samurai who was sent 20 years into the future to avenge the death of her lord; She’s so tall and canonically trans and I love her
She’s a badass samurai who fights for what she believes in and to help people. She is known as Kiku of lingering snow. She’s also canonically trans
She's a time traveling trans samurai, the only woman in a group of 9 legendary samurais; Her arm was chopped off by the biggest baddie so far and she continued fighting, isn't that badass?
One of the strongest samurai in her country; She's a trans icon
#kiku the greatest of all time#🐐#tall and gorgeous samurai lady#who is a trans icon#love that she is so tall that she doesn't fit in the image display#gets recognized as strong by the main character multiple times and proves it by being the most resilient badass of the entire arc#stands up to tyrants and abusers of class privilege#also helps break said main character out of the enemies prison and takes part in a rebellion against the corrupt prison staff#one piece#okiku#kiku
#kiku is canonically trans
Brienne
gets gifted a sword made with the rarest metal ever because she’s THAT good; she’s simply the best
Brienne is one of the top sword users alive in her day. She's descended from a man who's catchphrase was "I'm better with a sword." Better than what? You. Jaime Lannister. Loras Tyrell. Any five given guys at once. She has a fantastic sword that might be magic or cursed and is named Oathkeeper because that's what she does; I love her
Beat like 20 guys in a tournament when she was 19. Was given a magic sword. Won a sword fight against the premier swordsman in the realm. Very swordly; Very tall and strong. Holds her sword in high esteem. Accomplished with other weapons as well!
She's defeated multiple of the top knights in the series in duels. One such knight gifts her the fabergé egg of swords and she uses it to defend orphans and stuff. Got out of a bad betrothal by dueling him and beating his ass so bad she broke multiple bones. Honestly there's so much more she is the swordswoman of all time. to me; She's buff and ugly and 6' 5" and so honorable and kind that she inspires the guy who fucks his sister to yknow. stop doing that. literally gets mauled for the sake of protecting a bunch of orphans (with her sword). also she's 20 she should be at the club ‼️
One of the best sword wielders in Westeros, the author says he would pick her to defend him. Has a cool sword called Oathkeeper. Manages to go up against 7 fighters and take out most of them,. The only true knight; First off, talking about book brienne, they massacred show brienne, the show runners simply didn’t understand what she’s about.“ She had no chance against seven, she knew. No chance, and no choice” brienne had plenty of choice but she couldn’t leave people to die. The chivalric paradigm is rotten and corrupted, but here is Brienne, the one true knight, who isn’t even a actual knight! “knights are for killing”, but here is a knight who risks her life again and again to protect innocents! Bri IS hope, she is the light in the dark that shows that things can be better, things must be better. Fundamentally an idealist: “Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it's always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining”
#kikunojo#one piece#brienne of tarth#a song of ice and fire#game of thrones#poll#official#swordswoman showdown#round 4#quarterfinals
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I think one of the things that gets lost in the big, endless internet conversation about whether or not heroes should kill their villains is the fact that killing villains off robs you of a lot of story-telling potential. The Joker died at the end of his debut story in Batman - imagine what Batman would be if he stayed dead. No Joker in Batman 66, no The Killing Joke which means no Barbara Gordon as Oracle and no The Dark Knight, no Mark Hamill Joker episodes of BTAS (so many of them were based on his comic appearances, after all - the laughing fish is a direct adaptation of a comic), which means no Harley Quinn and no Return of the Joker, on and on it goes.
Like, you can argue the morality of heroes sparing their villains till you turn blue - god knows this site does it at least a thousand times a day - but on a purely pragmatic story-telling level, the minute you kill ANY character, you kill all the story potential they had. And yeah, it's fiction, you can bring them back from the dead if you really need them, but that's a pretty hard story beat to pull off without hurting your story. You don't want to fill your tale with "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" moments.
And you can just make new villains, sure, but again you have a problem with that - a new villain has to establish themselves and has to stand out from who came before, which means you can't go directly to the storylines you could have had with a villain who stuck around AFTER their introduction. A recurring villain is capable of doing things that one-off villains can't.
youtube
I'm going to illustrate this with a character from a fandom I'm not even a part of - I never played the Ratchet and Clank series and am only vaguely aware of it, but one day I saw a supercut of scenes starring one of its recurring villains, Dr. Nefarious, on twitter, and I was like "Oh shit, that's the guy who plays Quark on Deep Space Nine, isn't? This guys a hoot, let's see if we can find more clips on youtube." Which brought me to this hefty video here from one of the more recent games in the series.
And, like, as a person who "doesn't even go here," it's obvious this goofy little fucker has a history. His opening scenes have him ranting about how much it sucks to lose repeatedly - a lampshade on the "flaw" of a recurring villain, i.e. that their threat diminishes the more they come back because, by the nature of their role in the story, it means they've suffered a lot of losses. So how cool is it that as this supercut chugs along you can clearly see this is a theme of the game - that this is a story about the virtue of losing, a story that is enriched by having an antagonist who fans of the series know has lost a LOT?
The true antagonist is an alternate version of Dr. Nefarious who's won every fight in his life so far, apparently with little effort, and I love how they differ on a design aspect. They're both technically mad scientists, but notably, Emperor Nefarious, the winner, has a more imposing and "heroic" build, but a smaller brain-dome for his robot brains. Because winning may make him look strong, but if a mad scientist's real power is their mind, well, which Nefarious is really the strong one here then?
Dr. Nefarious gets this juicy arc about realizing the virtue in his repeated failures that corresponds with the heroic characters struggling to find a way to win against a seemingly invincible opponent, as well as contrasts the true villain, Dr. Nefarious's explicit counterpart and foil Emperor Nefarious, who has never once lost and is a total piece of shit for it. Again, not my fandom, I don't go here, not an expert on Ratchet and Clank, but even as a relative stranger to it who's just watching a big supercut, I fucking love this. This is an excellent story.
And it's one you can only tell with a recurring villain. Without Dr. Nefarious, this story works significantly less. You need a villain with a history the audience has seen to really sell this.
Anyway, I made this post because, ironically enough, I saw another tweet talking about how some fans think Dr. Nefarious should have been killed off in his first appearance, and, like... that's just fucking baffling to me, as a person outside this fandom looking in. Recurring villains deserve more love, man, they give us so much.
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Okay, Time for that belated Shrinking Rae post-
In the comics, Shrinking Ray's "arc" (bearing in mind an extremely liberal definition of that term, they had exactly one scene showcasing this) was that he was implied to be developing an inferiority complex; he's not necessarily incompetent, but he's out of his niche, his clever shrinking-based plans kept getting upstaged by brute-force solutions from the more conventionally powerful heroes like Invincible. He's the scrawny, nerdy little guy with the joke powers, he never gets a win, and in most fights he literally isn't visible. In the fight with the Lizard League his death is framed as pathetic and ineffectual- there's one or two panels between "I'll make you pay!" and getting eaten alive by Komodo. All of this is doing a couple of things- it's emphasizing that again, this is in fact a story and setting where superheroes sometimes just die really badly with limited fanfare- a thing that IIRC hadn't happened since the original Guardians team wipe in issue 7. Second, it's an indicator that the new Guardians are structurally kind of on the ropes. They're heavily staffed by second stringers, they exact second they have to split their forces they suffer a 66 percent casualty rate, and that's with backing from two capes who aren't actually part of the team. Grim!
Anyway, when they do the adaptation Shrinking Ray becomes Shrinking Rae, because they want to tweak the gender balance of the cast and the pun is too good to pass up. But I think that there was a reasonable reluctance to transfer the "arc" from the comics one-to-one, because to be blunt, "Ineffectual Nebbish Glasses-wearer who whines a lot and dies pathetically," paired with absolutely nothing else, is gonna read as misogynistic if the character is a woman now. So in the adaptation Rae is markedly more competent. We're introduced to her taking down a much larger opponent by fucking around inside his ear canal, which becomes a favored trick of hers. There are traces of the self-esteem thing- the visual gag where she physically shrinks about a foot when getting chewed out in the briefing- but the overall throughline isn't "look at this loser who somehow ended up on the guardians." In the Lizard League fight, she doesn't get eaten- she's deliberately trying to execute a Thanus maneuver and just fucks it up, seconds after successfully killing a different villain the same way. And there's a second where it looks like it might work, too, before hope is cruelly yanked away. Which makes for a markedly cooler death scene- but who died? What was actually going on with her? Anything? In some sense she's cooler, but it's kind of an undifferentiated cool. She had what, Six lines? Seven?
On balance I think Rae is still doing her fundamental job in the story, which is to pad the Guardians roster for a while and have someone who actually dies and stays dead as a result of the Lizard League fight- but I think they definitely missed an opportunity to give her some more texture than her comic counterpart had. Part of me thinks that the show would have been a good place to go even harder on Shrinking Rae being in over her head, but in a considered way, to emphasize that the Guardians aren't well managed- maybe tie it into the tensions between Robot and Immortal regarding sustainable team management practices. Part of me thinks you should go the other way, that if you're gonna do away with the idea she's underwhelming you should blow up her role, have her actually say and do some things that affect the story or the team dynamic in any noticeable way, because as it stands she's kind of visibly siloed as the designated mauve shirt. I'm definitely of one mind that this showcases something I suspected was gonna bite the show in the ass, which is that they're (laudably) diversifying a secondary and tertiary cast whose main role in the source material is often to die badly or fade out of focus.
#invincible#shrinking rae#invincible spoilers#thoughts#meta#invincible comic#invincible season 2 episode 5#800 words of meta on a character with six lines and a brooklyn accent jumpscare
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Honestly I personally believe Sasha Waybright character arc was better written and engaging than Hunter and Amity’s arcs combined mostly because there was more agency in her arc and while the other two characters who go from enemies to allies to friends just didn’t engage me as much as Sasha’s.
I’m especially dissatisfied with Hunter and how his story while interesting wasn’t as cool as it could’ve been
So I've talked a lot about this in the past but the angle I'll take this time is simple: Sasha is more compelling as a villain to ally arc because the show let her be a villain.
That might sound simple but it's clearly something TOH itself struggled with. One could argue that ALL of the redemptions in TOH follow a pattern of one bad action followed by them being tenuously on the same side and then on the same side. Amity is out of character for her first episode and then Luz is actually at fault for Covention, even if Amity takes it too far. Then Amity is weirdly antagonistic during Hooty's Moving Hassle and then NEVER AGAIN. Three episodes into knowing her and she is now the person we are supposed to sympathize and want around and her biggest crime feels entirely out of character for the rest of her portrayal.
Hunter is similar. His first appearance is not Hunter. It's the Golden Guard who is WAY more fun a character than Hunter ever was and kind of a bastard. Then the mask is removed in his second real appearance (not counting the stinger in Escaping Expulsion) and he is someone to start sympathizing and working with. He is the sad but mad boy by his third major appearance and his second appearance makes him somewhat sympathetic, just like Covention did for Amity... Or For the Future does for The Collector despite lines like "I can't wait to play amongst the bones!" in Hollow Mind that feel, drumroll please, OUT OF CHARACTER TO THE REST OF HIS WRITING!
Lilith is the only to subvert this... Kind of. No, they actually go out of order but still the same essentially with her. Her first appearance makes her sympathetic and not properly a threat because she's still willing to play ball with Eda for a one on one competition, then she spends the second half of S1 just palling around in shenanigans she should not be allowing but is because... Fuck you. Then we get her one truly evil action in kidnapping Luz, coupled also with having been the one to curse Eda but that's also used to show she's a good person now so the kidnapping is the bigger deal here. Then... She's just a good guy afterwards.
This all makes for the most shallow, bullshit uses of this trope I think you can do while being allowed to claim you did it. After all, a key point to all of these redemptions aren't "Then they sided with the good guys," it's just "Then they're a good person." They don't bring who they were as a villain with them. The strengths that led to their villainy are just gone and they're hard to say what they were in the first place, what they add to the narrative in their redemption and joining of the main party because who were they before they joined. What are they actually fighting against as a person instead of just deciding not to be evil anymore or wanting the cookies that the light side offers?
It'd be like if after Sasha was redeemed, she was as bad as Anne at being able to lead and use people. If the show went "To better erase all the crimes she's done, not only will we say Sasha only is a bad person because her father is Ultra Satan but also she now is entirely incompetent in what she was good at before." Amity loses her intelligence. Her plans are always the most straightforward after she starts getting a crush on Luz and she canonically started having her grades slip. Hunter is the most pathetic character in the main cast with I think zero wins in his belt besides his first appearance despite being the only one with combat training. Lilith is just... Sad in how much they reduce all she was for over forty years of her life to go "Now she's a silly nerd girl. Fuck ambition."
And, of course, their bad sides being blamed on mother, uncle, mother kind of for Lilith actually, just that the exposition for that comes after her redemption, and the Archivists and Belos for the Collector. They aren't bad people, they just were forced to spend time with the wrong people. Now that they're nerds and led by nerd Jesus, everything is okay.
There is a VEEERY real problem in TOH of Us vs. Them mentality that comes from these arcs that's really gross. Swap Luz to a white, male jock and suddenly the show becomes WAY MORE UNCOMFORTABLE!
Sasha dodges all of this because no one tries to excuse Sasha. Sasha never tries to pretend she's anyone other than who she is except for when she's explicitly putting on an act. This means everything compelling and good about her as a villain can cleanly transition to when she is a hero, even if it's hard to believe that which the show even calls out.
There is no Sasha's Angels in TOH. That might be a weird one to reference to you because it doesn't include much Sasha but it nails on the head what makes this trope so exciting. To Anne, Sasha letting others do the work while she gets to theoretically kick back looks like the same old Sasha that she now is suspicious of. Someone who is self serving and so Anne lashes out. However, it's not the case. Sasha's ability to manipulate always came from being able to read a person's weaknesses and strengths. She's a MUCH better manipulator than Belos in this way because she doesn't leverage on you or for you to already be siding with her. She can read you like a book and tear apart your pages until she plays with your spine. And as a hero, that's going to mean she's a great delegator. She's the sort who would go "Nah, we don't need to save them from what you see as certain doom. I know he can deal with it." And she's right. Not because of blind faith but because of the same skills that made her villainous.
Something that wouldn't hit nearly as hard, or feel reasonable on Anne's part, if we didn't get so many examples of this being who Sasha is. Of the fact that Sasha uses other people for her own means. And even now, you can claim the same... Except it's not for her means. It's for their needs.
It actually is part of what makes her becoming a therapist so pitch perfect. A good therapist can call you out when you're trying to hide behind something to not get to the core of your problems. They can catch what is at the root of your issues even as you don't see it yourself. They also can see your value and use your strengths to help combat those problems after helping you identify them. It's actually pretty close to how she tried to get out of Toad Tower in her first appearance. Bring in someone, earn their trust, use their passions against their weaknesses and make them better. The only difference is that now she cares about making them better.
Amity, Hunter and Lilith could never have such a satisfying future because again: What are their strengths? Hell, post redemption, that statement stands true. You can call Amity good at magic I guess but Hunter and Lilith are pathetic people who kind of luck out in being useful at times and that's really it. These aren't people who have anything going for them. They're as good as goons with one of them being an elite in a one off episode as far as villain forces go and that's not very compelling for a redemption of this sort. Not unless you're really going to get into that and A: Lilith was one of the strongest mages on the Isles and studied her ass off so you'd think she'd mocked less for sucking at her job and being a fucking moron and B: they didn't even try for half a second with Hunter who I don't really know if they intended to make look as pathetic as he did skill wise.
So their futures are just random factoids introduced during the story. Does Amity being an inventor say anything about her redemption? No. In fact, it really sucks because Odalia would have LOVED her daughter to follow in her father's footsteps because that's the most profitable option for their company. Good job show. Hunter just takes up the job that connects him with the only thing we know is explicitly Caleb related, no conjecture needed, which sucks for a character who was supposed to be his own person. Then Lilith is... A historian. Because she likes that I guess. Does that have anything to do with her time as the coven head? No. Her ambitions? GOD NO. It's just a random choice that puts her in line with the inoffensively nerdy cast.
And before ANYONE says anything about the shortening, I want to say I've done a blog comparing the fact that Amity, in S2A (so before the shortening) has as many appearances as Sasha does in Sasha's entire redemption arc. You didn't need more time to do this better, the show needed to actually commit to its concepts. Actually needed to be willing to do its tropes rather than slapping it on for marketability and to make lazy analysts happy.
Because enemies to allies is not one of those tropes you can half ass. Not unless you want none of its power and boy, these are some weak character arcs. At least we've got Sasha.
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Amy Kiriwo redemption is real and here's why (an analysis/speculation)
Ok. I don't normally make posts like these but since I've posted Iruma-kun art on this blog a few times some of you may be aware that I really really REALLY like Amy Kiriwo. I really adore Mairuma in general but Amy specifically makes me go fucking coconuts as a fan of that type of character (obsessive, desire-driven, yandere, whatever)—and also because Amy has a certain unique charm about him, whether that be the gap between his twisted personality and his ditzy demeanor or the unique setting, so on and so forth. But I also tend to like villainous characters in general, because they're so unhinged and fun and interesting to think about!
Usually I hate when characters like these get redeemed because the whole appeal of them is how unpredictable and outrageous they are in their villainy, and more often than not, a redemption gets rid of (or at least severely dampens) these characteristics!
HOWEVER. I just caught up with the manga for the first time more or less since Deviculum last year and I just cannot help but feel absolutely insane about how much a "redemption" (heavy quotes here) for Amy is being built towards, and yet I rarely see much discussion about this in fan buzz. This is both in terms of general narrative structure as well as a certain scene in the recent Battler Party arc.
Disclaimer: I have terminal brainrot and some of this might be confirmation bias. But maybe it will still give you some food for thought. It's cool if you hate Amy and don't agree with my interpretation just be nice ok guys?
Part1: Iruma's Belief
I think a good jumping off point for this argument would be addressing a point of contention I've seen floating around in this fandom sometimes: Why does Iruma still believe in Amy?
I actually understand why some people might be confused about this. After all, Amy has done nothing but hurt Iruma and the people he cares about, and he has every right to feel upset, angry, and betrayed after he found out the senpai who he'd related to and looked up to so much was nothing but a facade.
Putting his reasons aside for a second, this scene in Deviculum isn't actually the first time Iruma has acted like this toward Amy. It's easy to miss or forget about, but even after everything that happened at the Battler Party, Iruma never shows any hostility, even retroactively, toward Amy.
He kept what happened with Amy a secret from even Asmodeus and Clara—but he doesn't fret over it like he does hiding the fact that he's human. Iruma just doesn't think it was pressing enough that Asmodeus and Clara needed to know about it. Of course, keep in mind that Iruma doesn't interact with Amy at all from the Battler Party all the way until Deviculum, so he doesn't know the extent of the danger he's actually in.
I think Iruma believes in that weak but ambitious demon he met during the Rookie Hunt. Even if Amy revealed himself to have that perverted obsession with despair, even if he tried to kill his classmates and cause chaos, I think to Iruma it doesn't change the fact that Amy is still weak, just like him.
I think a lot of people forget just how much impact Amy had on Iruma when he was first adjusting to the demon world: he didn't have much of a real ambition until he saw that there were demons like Amy who (seemingly) wanted to make the world a more equal place for those without magic—those like Iruma. (A side note, but I imagine this made the part of Amy's speech during Deviculum saying there would be no place for him particularly hard for Iruma to hear from him specifically).
The thing is though—Iruma isn't being entirely naive here. It's true that no matter what Amy does, evil or otherwise, he cannot change the fact that he was born with weak magic.
It's constantly pointed out that Amy relies on magic that's not his own.
It's pointed out so consistently every time he makes an appearance that for a while I thought there was gonna be some weird twist where it wasn't actually Amy? I'm still not confident in how to pin this obvious foreshadowing but for now I firmly believe it's meant to remind the reader that Amy is dependent on his borrowed magic, most likely from Baal—physically, and maybe even emotionally? (It seems possible from the way Asmodeus's narration in this panel is framed that there could be something more insidious at play like experimentation or something, but that's just speculation)
Amy is dependent on most likely Baal's magic just like Iruma is with Sullivan's magic. They may be gaining more and more power to the naked eye, but the moment the "tool" to express that power is stripped of them, they're helpless again. There's a reason Nishi highlighted the direct parallel of both of their magic devices being ring-shaped.
Iruma believes (or wants to believe) that the facade Amy showed him had a glimmer of truth to it because of how strongly it affected him. Of course, it's also because Iruma is an inherently kind and also selfish person. In my opinion, he wants to have the Amy who he looked up to so much, even if he barely ever actually existed. This is why what he declares to Amy at Deviculum is framed as a desire. This is a strong theme of the series and it's something I'll touch on again in another section.
I feel like I should mention after all of that talk that I don't think Amy is actually secretly tortured about his weakness/abandonment or some sadboy schtick like that. We'll get into this more in the next section, but any self-pity or anger he once harbored was something that was flushed out of him quite thoroughly. Right now, he is very much narrow-mindedly concerned with his obsession with eating Iruma, his goals are aligned with Baal and the 6 Fingers, and his lack of magic is solved by his collar, so it's natural he doesn't really care.
I feel like any discussion of Amy's motivations or themes gets shut down a lot with accusations of "making a villain character sympathetic for no reason" when really I only care about villains being interesting. Like I said at the start, the last thing I wanna do is take Amy's unhingedness or autonomy away, because it makes for a really enjoyable villain. I just genuinely believe that Amy is being framed this way deliberately, and I think it opens some fascinating avenues for his character development other than just "Iruma realizes Amy is actually evil after all because unconditional belief is for naive WEENIES and they defeat him".
Anyway, that leads me to the next section, which I admit, is a bit heavier on the interpretative side, hence my disclaimer.
Part 2: Baal
Listen, I know it's a shounen manga and all, but keep in mind Amy is still a 17-18 year old teen. He doesn't have much life experience. He had a hell of a shit childhood even if he did have a weird sadism thing going on. All of these things don't excuse his evil deeds—obviously. But I do think taking these factors into account is absolutely necessary if we're going to try and understand why he is the way he is.
I'm not gonna recount it beat by beat, but as a kid Amy was not only shunned by his family and peers for his lack of magic, but also by his only friend for something that
"Grooming" is a term with very heavy connotations that I'd like to avoid, but at the very least the way Baal takes Amy "under his wing" is very reminiscent of cult conditioning. Members of cults are often recruited in strained or distorted emotional states in which they have a greater desire for acceptance. This tactic is successful in maintaining loyalty in cults because the members are convinced that no one else will accept them besides the cult figurehead or leader—the result is usually a hostility for the world outside of the cult, paranoia about leaving the cult, or both.
Amy, a young child at this point, says outright that he's being ostracized for his behavior, but Baal validates it, and thereby earns his loyalty. Amy is a child at this point; even if Baal claims he's more "twisted" inherently, I think it's unreasonable to characterize them as equals in this relationship, especially when Amy depends on his magic. I think the Amy we know could be very different if he joined Baal when he was older and less impressionable.
You could say Baal didn't validate Amy with the active intent of emotionally manipulating him, it was just a declaration of his honest beliefs—and I honestly half agree with you. Functionally, however, I do still believe that a conditioning process is what happened. In this same scene Amy seemed to still be at least a little bit troubled about how gifting his horn to his friend troubled her and reflected on his abnormalcy, but by the time he reveals all to Iruma, he shows no reservations at all. He doesn't really reflect on the hierarchy which caused him so much suffering outside of how it contributes to more chaos, more despair.
This interpretation (which I've held for quite a while) brings me to a certain scene in the recent Battler Party arc that was eerily reminiscent of this dynamic. It was what spurred me to type all of this out at 5am on a Monday night.
Humor me for a minute, because I realize the comparisons between Palome/Galna and Amy/Baal are not 1:1, but I feel like there are enough similarities that it's worth talking about.
The idea of a demon with twisted perversions which were encouraged by a sibling figure with an ulterior motive is already a pretty compelling parallel to me, but the fact that it was specifically the story behind the Magitool's Battler Party exhibition makes me think that, just maybe, the parallel might have actually been an intentional allusion.
In particular, the line about Palome "facing her desires earnestly" caught my attention. Quite honestly it seems like Amy's fixation on Iruma has become his #1 priority—and although he certainly has returned to origins (strongly associated with base desires) in my opinion his obsession with Iruma, as twisted as it is, is probably the strongest desire he's felt that exists somewhat removed from Baal's direct encouragement. It's personal. It doesn't serve a greater purpose in Baal's plan. Remember the cult analogy I loosely used for comparison earlier? Cult mentality punishes individuality. Food for thought.
There's this great comic by gigausagi on Twitter (it's 🤏shippy so only click if you're cool with that) that explores the idea of Amy's obsession with Iruma conflicting with the will of Baal/the 6 Fingers—I think this is one perfectly natural way his character could develop. I'll get into more detailed hopes/hunches about this later, though.
If the Palome/Galna parallel is an intentional parallel, I think it's really interesting how much it emphasizes the lack of empathy Galna has for her sister because of how it would in turn highlight that feature in Baal, something that I previously had to desperately piece together from subtext. On the other hand, for all the familial fondness Amy seems to have for Baal, at least on some level however shallow, it's already pretty obvious Baal does not care much about Amy outside of how useful he is to his cause.
It might seem silly of me to clarify this considering he's, y'know... the villain, and their thing isn't exactly friendship and rainbows especially considering their beliefs. None of the 6 Fingers display any real fondness for each other—Amy is just the exception here, albeit small.
And Baal does actually have belief in Amy—he believes in Amy's "messed up head". He believes that Amy will prove useful; he believes in Amy's potential for evil. It's a transactional belief, benefitting the cause that they both align themselves with—and which, notably, ends with him in power. Iruma's belief in Amy is largely the opposite. He believes that Amy is capable of good, and his belief in him is founded in the bond they formed.
I also wanna make it clear again that this isn't me scapegoating Baal for everything Amy does because that's lazy and boring and they make it pretty damn clear Amy is all-in on their plans together. However... I don't think it's unreasonable to think this contrast could be a set-up for something in the future.
How could this manifest? Who knows. Right now Baal is more of a passive villain, so it's hard to predict the kind of drastic actions he could take before he does them. Maybe Amy will outlive his usefulness, or maybe there'll be some internal conflict within the group that will strain their allyship. Or maybe Amy's personal desires will conflict with the goals of the 6 Fingers like I mentioned earlier.
Ultimately I'm more concerned with the thematic implications of a conflict like this, which brings us to...
Part 3: Desire
(Spoilers for 2nd Year Battler Party Arc)
I find it veeery interesting the way the protagonists keep aligning themselves with demons like Beem.
They are extremely desire and thrill-driven, I would argue more than any other non-returned to origins demon we've met so far—their parents even suspected they could be returning to origins as a child.
Mairuma has such an overwhelming theme of desire. Mairuma wants you to chase your most private, most shameful, most visceral and selfish desires. Sylvia even went through her evil cycle she was so desperate to fulfill her desire to paint Galna. Mairuma again and again seeks to tell us that there is nothing wrong with being selfish and reaching for what we want.
So far I've talked about two desires that are relevant to the future of Amy's character.
And yeah... it's pretty much spelled out for us here. So, if Amy is still latched onto the idea of eating Iruma, and Iruma is still latched onto the idea of his relatable senpai, how would that conflict be resolved? Well... We've basically been talking about it this entire time. Indulge me for a bit and let me spin the scenario that plagues my mind for you.
I briefly alluded to the possibility of Amy being subjected to some kind of experimentation, presumably to enhance his magical ability. It doesn't have to be this exactly, but nevertheless Amy ends up doing something drastic in order to fulfill his desire of eating Iruma—and in the process either gets used by Baal and the 6 Fingers and thrown away, or intervenes, inadvertently throwing off their plan enough to have him meet a similar fate. It's important here that his magic is taken away somehow—maybe the ring in his collar gets crushed or something. I think it could also be interesting if during this conflict Iruma also lost his ring, or even took it off willingly, to level their footing.
The point is that Amy follows his desire to the point of veering off the path of outright villainy, and onto that personal desire I spoke of earlier.
However, one thing I'm absolutely sure of is that Iruma's desire will be granted. I don't have as much of a concrete picture of this, but I would be extremely shocked if Suzuki "I want to pick everything up" Iruma ever goes back on his desire—especially when it was that first confrontation with Amy that he realized that was his desire in the first place. This, combined with the ominous ass dialogue "It's too late for me, Iruma-kun..." from the panel at the start make me absolutely certain that some sort of Amy redemption is coming—I only wanted to lay out some of my thoughts about it.
I don't think any redemption he gets will cause him to be watered down—Nishi writes way too many unnecessarily insane scenes with Amy for her to just stop cold turkey in my opinion. And even if it ends up incorporating none of the talking points I delved into in this post, I'm still sure that she could do an outstanding job with the task.
And lest we forget how Amy saved him from falling to his death. I think this desire to keep Iruma from dying meaninglessly (or being harvested for his magic or whatever crazy shit 6 Fingers are doing) is also quite a likely point of conflict that could come into play.
What do you all think? Have I gone coconuts? Is anyone else overthinking this the way I am? Is it not that deep? To tell you the truth I probably could have written even more but it's now 8am and I need a power nap. Might edit it up some more when I wake up. Let me know...
#on the art blog like damn sorry i got a lot to say someones gotta hear it#*not art#mairimashita iruma kun#mairimashita! iruma kun#mairuma#m!ik#welcome to demon school iruma kun#ami kirio#amy kiriwo#suzuki iruma#baal
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What roles are Willow Tail, Quick Water, and Fern Leaf going to be like in your rewrite? I hate most of DOTC but I do enjoy a lot of the side characters, especially them
Willow Tail I know what I'm doing with, Quick Water and Fern Leaf I'm less sure of.
BB!Willow Tail -> Willow Flayed Bare
Willow is a young molly from the Wind Coalition who fought at the First Battle. Her first name was Tabby, and she earned her title for presenting a large, weaved willowbark basket to the Wind Runner. She's an artisan with a useful talent.
Since I completely overhauled Moth Flight's Vision into Moth Flight's Vow, which has a NEW origin for how the Cleric's Vow occured, I'm still reworking the Bunny Bones plot that I'm fond of.
I'm unsure if it's going to be a novella or a catalyst for the conflict of another book. It might be a good way to create an opportunity for Quick Water to run her rebellion
Willow has a petty dispute with one of Clear Sky's kittens; Tiger Sky. It's a TINY bananas squabble. She doesn't like seeing her rude ass sunbathing on the moor, so she starts leaving bunny bones on the border and accusing her of stealing to get her banned from the area.
Skystar, being the man that he is, takes the accusation that one of HIS warriors, his oldest (remaining) DAUGHTER no less, VERY personally. What started as a mean girl moment quickly exploded into total war.
I LIKE the way that the original plot was so unjustified and avoidable it's painful. I just wish it was framed as the miserable, violent moment it should have been. I'm planning on keeping Willow's blinding, but it's the final straw for Tiger who can't stomach this any longer.
Willow is likely going to end up in the River Kingdom, exiled for starting the conflict. She might still get retooled; in a later draft she may become a ShadowClan Mountain Cat.
Quick Water
Aside from a brief moment in Sun Trail where they give her the trait of being 'vain' and being woman 34 that Clear Sky smacks around to relieve stress in Forest Divided, she's suuuuper neglected in the main arc imo.
I haven't read past the part where they unceremoniously kill Sun Shadow in Shadowstar's Life, so I hope to revisit it before retooling Quick Water more. I hate how DOTC takes every opportunity to shit on Tall Shadow when she doesn't fucking do anything.
(Side note: it's kinda why i cant see Shadowstar as the girlboss ppl want her to be. Wind Runner is the girlboss. Canon!Tall Shadow is absolute girlfail. In BB, Tall Shadow is less girlfail but she still has the pervasive energy of... this isnt going to make sense to anyone but me BUT BB!Tall Shadow is SO girl obama to me. Well-spoken high road liberal who gets steamrolled by dirty fighters.)
So BB!Quick Water,
For one she's going to be part of a full family. It's either going to become the Water Family OR her name will change and she'll become Quick Tail.
I think she's going to become good friends with Shatter Frost, as Shadow's Clan early "conservative" types who think Clear Sky has a point.
They might end up with kittens, because DOTC is supposed to be about. Like. Ancestors. It's bizarre that they gave the Quiet Rainkin like 20 surviving descendants while everyone else dies off. Not cool actually.
In any case, I want to boost Quick's role significantly. Let her be one of Tall's key cats, either a hunter or a fighter. Something that isn't surprising when she eventually tries to toss Shadowstar out of power
Shadowstar actually survives this coup. She's one of the longer-lived founders in BB!DOTC, unlike canon where she was the first to go. Quick, meanwhile, is one of the VERY FIRST Dark Forest demons, which I can hopefully have a lot of fun with.
Fern Leaf
(CW: Canon!Slash and the racist trope he's written as that includes physical and sexual violence)
She is VERY up in the air currently, because I'm rejecting Slash as a villain completely. It was SUPER fucked up of them to make TWO stinky, born-evil native villains and then write one of them the way they did. Not only is it thematically RANCID, but it's also LAZY writing.
They have to make Slash a lustful creep so that Clear Sky looks better, because they DIDN'T WRITE A REAL REDEMPTION WHERE HE FACES ACTUAL CONSEQUENCES.
Like... I'm sorry, we understand that the way they wrote Slash is a really old trope, right?? "The natives will kidnap our women and hurt our children if we don't unite, and that's why the colonization of this land was totally cool" Warrior Cats is no stranger to xenophobia, but this time it went so far it invoked an outright racist trope.
(And then they just... totally gloss over that Star Flower is "young" compared to Clear Sky, who was less than 3 at the time, meaning she must be around the same age as the son he is actively abusing and EURGH Forest Divided makes me want to throw up)
SO.
Now that I have screamed about how ROTTEN this part is to stress WHY I need to gouge it out with a rusty spoon;
First of all, Slash has an updated name to help separate him from canon a bit. The Mountain cats call him Dashes for his leg markings, the Park cats call him The Silver Pelt for the color of his fur, his real name is Star-shine. Just "Star" in a casual context, his birth name. "Shine" is a leader suffix.
In-canon, Fern Leaf's purpose is to be abused by Slash enough that she reveals information to Gray Wing, and to contrast Beautiful Boy Clear Sky who beats the shit out of women and kids for good reasons so his abused underlings still wuv him.
So... no. Not keeping that. Lol, lmao even.
While I'm not totally against allowing Star to remain some type of harsh or even abusive towards his cats, IF that remains, I need to stress how much it is influenced by the constant stress and violence the Forest Cats are surrounded by. Harsh times don't cause abuse, but they do contribute, and even important, protective people can still abuse a victim.
Doesn't make it okay. Doesn't even make it easier to heal from. It robs you of the simplicity of it all-- being hurt by someone you desperately want to remember fondly.
Still, it's a very fine line to walk when I already have a big problem to fix here. I'm dealing with an egregiously racist trope, even if I HAVE already removed the MOST awful parts related to Canon!Slash's behavior (it's not appropriate for the tone I'm setting or something im comfortable writing).
But the physical abuse is a huge part of Fern Leaf. So, do you see my conundrum? I am confident handling the nuances of abuse, but this part of the story could use bleach.
I have a few ideas, one I'm leaning towards, but I'm still open to suggestions
Idea 1: Fern Leaf is one of Misty's kits
This was an earlier thought I'm moving away from, but it's worth mentioning. I already have Birch and Alder I'm doing this with, with Alder Claw eventually defecting from SkyClan, so adding Fern Leaf to the litter might be redundant.
In any case, Milkweed was mates with Misty. If this idea stays, Fern could be the one kitten she managed to escape with, forced to leave the other two behind. But then I wouldn't keep Fern's abuse, y'know?
(Plus Milkweed has so many kittens to pick from that I already need to shave some down. She's got like 6 in canon; I've gone over it before but a massive reason why WC's family trees are so tangled is because of "superqueens" like this. They tend to give one parent a lot of kits instead of giving a lot of parents a few kits.)
Idea 2: Fern Leaf is Star's daughter
Either with or without abuse, this is the one I'm leaning towards. It would mean she can show up a lot through the story as his ""lackey"" until Thunder and Bright learn that her and her dad are just like them.
If I nix the abuse (which seems wisest at the moment, honestly) then Fern can still be covered in her iconic scars, just from tangling with Park and Mountain cats constantly. Naturally she's at the forefront of battle patrols, she's fighting alongside her dad.
Plus, there's lots of opportunities for overhauling the dynamics from canon. Her mom didn't "abandon" them, she was probably attacked by the settlers. Star can be a good parent or just one with more complexity, instead of whatever canon was trying to do with Slash and this unrelated kid he hits.
(Re: very strange they refused to acknowledge that sometimes biodads are not worth forgiving or coddling. Interesting that Tom the Wifebeater and One Eye are sympathized with by the narrative for having kids. Curious they decided Canon!Slash of all characters would NOT be a father.)
Idea 3: Shuffle Fern into a Mountain or Park group.
AKA: prioritize the portrayal of intense physical abuse and her recovery, while avoiding tying it to the Forest cats entirely.
I feel like this one is the least interesting, but I'm keeping it on hand just in case. Like it says on the tin, she'd get any association with Slash/Star removed. I'd try to keep her developing a bond with Bright Storm though, since one of Gray Wing's... okayish moments was his interactions with Fern in trying to encourage her to leave.
(Even then, i really cant stand how the narrative concludes through Gray Wing that Slash is super evil because he doesnt feel love. And that he just decides to not tell Tall Shadow there's an evil group of cats spying on her and planning to invade because... Wisdom idk.)
If I do this, I will probably put her into WindCo. Their "homestead" system where individual families own mini-territories is a ripe situation for abuse to occur in, and the very structure of WindCo means that there's no one around to stop it or seek out for help.
Plus, maybe I could find some way for her to help out Thunder's crew as a WindCo insider. It's not a total wash, I just find Idea 2 more interesting.
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alright gang i've watched dragons rising up to episode 18
gonna infodump my thoughts, spoilers from up to ep. 18 under the cut!
sooooooooooooooooooooo holy shit this season's incredible
the idea that master wu took care of the ENTIRE monastery is so laughable. lloyd a huge chunk of wu's screentime is snapping at the ninja to do THEIR chores
mr. frohicky is so funny and him and zane are dating now i dont make the rules
on a serious note! i love frohicky and zane's dynamic
pixal..... i miss her
lloyd understands why wu never told them shit now. "why didn't you tell us you were the grandson of GOD" "eh never really came up"
lloyd and arin are so special to me, lloyd really did adopt this kid huh
nya working sora through her self-esteem issues!! their dynamic is particularly sweet and i really love that they got paired together
wyldfyre is slowly but surely becoming my favorite dragons rising character
like her and kai's dynamic shifting as he helps heatwave was so sweet
plot twist i freaking LOVE arrakore he's just sad in a cave
i didn't expect them to go into nya's trauma in this episode cuz like hgjkdfshjgk not plot relevant but the bitterness in her voice when she talked about the djinn having a thing for showmanship. hmm.
COLE AND HIS FAMILY MEAN SO MUCH TO ME. HIM AND GEO ARE BOYFRIENDS AND THEY HAVE KIDS. I'M NOT EVEN SAD COLE DIDN'T GO WITH THE REST OF THE GROUP I'M SO HAPPY FOR HIM also lostshipping for geo and cole please
FUSION POWERS ARE SO COOL
that creature was just a shiny ditto
cole in general was incredible, andrew francis continues to do an incredible job voicing him
him FEELING the very earth crying out and screaming, it hurt :( i love when they go into the physicality and connection of their elements but mannnn :(((
the administration is the stanley parable
zane jumpscare of him just sitting in the mailroom AHAHHA
JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY JAY
he was giving off bitchy villain energy please ninjago please please give him a villain arc please please
LOOK AT HIM
pretty sure i fucking busted @rottedsoulx 's headphones when i let out the loudest scream when jay showed up like. hooooooo man i'm so sorry dude HAHAHGKJFDH
lord ras and beatrix lore..... innnnnteresting also beatrix' twin having an elemental power is WILD
"you know how i taught you patience and stuff" "yeah?" "fuck that go ham" thank you kai
THE KIDS HELPING THE NINJA I KNEW I WAS RIGHT TO ADOPT THEM ON SIGHT IN PART ONE
in conclusion i'm ecstatic my crops are cleared my depression is gone i'm in love with this season
#im soooooooooooo normal guys#dragons rising#dragons rising spoilers#ninjago#lego ninjago#ninjago spoilers#spinjitsu screams
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Worm Arc 3 second half thoughts (bank robbery):
Holy shit child! You covered a bunch of innocent civilians in venomous spiders and basically told them you would fucking kill them if they did anything. How exactly are you planning on becoming a well loved hero after this?
But as far as plans go? Really not that bad. Most of the downsides I see are only if we assume you want to be a hero later. Drop that and it's a pretty good plan.
Also maybe the whole "tell a hero that something is going to happen" bit wasn't the best idea. Do we know for sure if getting the full response of the Wards because of that? No. But it sure seems like it might be related. Taylor and not thinking things through is definitely a combo I am expecting to see more.
The Undersiders absolutely fucked the Wards shit up. Just completely. Suddenly they have bug girl (or I guess I should call her Skitter now) who gives them a little bit of leadership and they just destroy the Wards. God damn. Fucking Aegis is just the worlds biggest chew toy. I love it so much.
And on the note of fucking people up, HOLY SHIT CHILD ROUND 2. WTF did you do to Clockblocker OMG. This kid is going to have nightmares for the rest of his life. You could become a hero and save the world 10 times over and he's still never going to feel comfortable being in the same room as you. God damn. Absolutely brutal. That was amazing and I want to get you some ice cream to celebrate. Embrace your inner villain.
The ways Panacea can use her powers are bonkers. She is super cool. Also from what she said in the interlude I think she really could use some therapy. Or maybe she just needs to join a villain team for a little bit to blow of some steam. Healing people is great but you don't owe the world your entire self Amy. Relax, take a break, have some fun.
Tattletale's power set is probably my absolute favorite though. I also love the shit out of her personality. She is the most fucking amazing character I can not wait to see more.
These thought posts are getting longer each time I do them. I told myself I was gonna just do one post an arc and that they might just be a few sentences each. That didn't last very long.
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Now, I'm on the fence about this.
On one hand - Duh, can very obviously tell. Especially with the way they waited until the last moment to show his face.
Of course they're going to make one of the villains stereotypically hot for the fanservice. Especially when The Spot is basically faceless and morally irredeemable (unsurprisingly that doesn't stop people)
And It's like - Cool. Understandable, thank you for giving him a fat ass. Love that for him.
BUT THEN I remember these are the same people that were calling him an animal and stuff in the script and I-
Like...
Making your character hot as fuck is one thing.
Making your character a 'sexy beast' is another.
You see where I'm going with this?
Like they didn't SAY they meant to write him as a sexy beast but like....
Y'all wrote him as a sexy beast, didn't you?
You wanted him to be both sexy AND vicious without realizing that would make him a sexy beast.
And I don't even think they.. know they did this??
I feel like they thought this was what people wanted - which, based on the sea of smut, kinda is - and in doing so they accidentally turned the knob up WAY WAY too much to point they 1) totally disconnected Miguel from his comic counterpart and 2) stumbled into some questionable race stereotypes.
And like.. I don't hate them for it. Because they seem so oblivious?????
They very clearly wanted him to be like an 'Edward Cullen' - buff, attractive, tortured, dangerous, a literal vampire -
But not understanding intersectionality, they didn't realize that applying that same archetype to a brown man reads WAY WAY differently.
Like, all I want to do is sit the writers down, show them a slideshow explaining what the hell 'Machismo' is to them, and then go
"iight now try not to do that shit again. The ass can stay but y'all have to tone down the animal shit. Like by a LOT. I'm going to need four scenes of him being humanized on my desk by Monday."
Reading that article and hearing them talk so enthusiastically about Miguel's ass and wanting to make him hot - while also calling him animalistic and designing him to be so - I literally do the Call of Duty meme like
'Mission Failed: You'll get em next time. 😐'
I swear it's like they fleshed out Miles, Gwen, Hobie, Jeff, and Rio and then realized the movie was coming out next week so they just forgot to finish Miguel's and Peter's and George's arcs. Like hello????? come back here??? Hello????????
It's like them VERY narrowly dancing on the trope of 'fatherless black boy is violent and repressed due to lack of guidance' when it comes to Miles-42 but just barely missing it enough for it to be okay but that's a story for another day isn't it
#that last paragraph is like gingerly placing a grenade on the ground then moonwalking away#the meal y'all cooked was good but it wasn't the recipe you were trying to cook#spiderman#atsv#spider man#marvel#across the spiderverse#miguel o'hara#miguel ohara#spiderman 2099#ro rambles
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@periwinklepaint
Here is a scene I wrote for an au (that I really need a name for bc it dominates my thoughts).
Bit (a lot) of background on this AU: It's supposed to be a superhero/urban fantasy/soulmate au. Everyone has some degree of magic, they just have to learn to harness it. All soulmate pairs are the canon ones from Double Life.
Scar (Hotguy) and Gem (Fauna) are heroes. Grian (Chaos Sparrow) is a vigilante. Pearl (Scarlet) is a villain. Jimmy is just a civilian, but he's a victim of the prophecy (basically just the Canary Curse).
It was supposed to be Scarian mild annoyance to lovers and Gempearl enemies to lovers, but it has gotten more focused on the:
Scar & Gem besties relationship,
the Grian & Pearl chaos skyblings relationship,
the Grian & Pearl & Jimmy & Lizzie skybling/seabling relationship,
the Scar & Pearl depression villain arc relationship,
and Gem & Grian's sibling dynamic.
At this point in the story, our four main characters (Gem, Scar, Grian, and Pearl) have made a deal. The higher-ups at the Hero Corp want to interrogate Scarlet (Pearl) for information because she's not only the primary villain of the city, she's also the leader of the underground, who are presumably the people who want to assassinate Jimmy (if he dies, it's basically Ragnarok). Pearl does not have control over individual people or groups in the underground, she just runs the system.
The Hero Corp wants Gem and Scar to retrieve Pearl and bring her to them. So Gem and Scar set up a meeting, since there is mutual trust between the four of them.
The conclusion was that they could take Pearl, but Grian would take one of the heroes as collateral so that he could ultimately get her back. They decided to exchange Gem rather than Scar because they knew that Gem is the Hero Corp's precious baby and they'd be desperate to get her back, which ensures Pearl's release. Additionally, Scar's magic is incredibly strong since he's a fae. He has a natural advantage that bypasses some of Pearl's talent in magic.
So he places a curse on her that can only be broken if Scar chooses to break it. Basically it prevents her from flying (she's got wings, so does Grian), getting out of range of Scar, and the curse includes the ability to control whether the person the curse is placed on can talk or not, but Scar refuses to utilize it.
Also since Scar is a fae, he can't lie. But he does have a silver tongue that easily gets around the lying factor. Also he doesn't know that he and Grian are soulbound. Also Gem doesn't have a soulbound. Also I'm really insecure about posting this like I think it's cool but maybe other people won't think it's cool but an IRL friend really liked it but idk and I did write this all on discord because I needed to explain the scene to said friend and it was going to be easier to just write it and AAAAAA
okay here are some words of scar being a badass byeeeee
-- --
The Hero Corp keeps insinuating that Scar is working with the villains. They keep insisting that he break more and more of his morals to find more stuff.
And finally, he just goes "Do you want a villain? Because I can give you one.”
And it's dead silent.
No one says shit.
Gem's apprentice, Guqqie, is there with their jaw dropped.
Scar's usually green eyes are glowing red.
He's angry.
"It seems to me that you want a villain," Scar says, his voice echoing in the silent room. "I can give you one. Isn't that what you want?”
No one says anything.
Scar's red eyes burn into the side of [boss]'s skull. "I thought you wanted a villain.”
Some people are staring at him. Some are trying to get out of this room. Some are trying to ignore what's happening.
"Did you not want a villain?" Scar asks. "I don't appreciate lying.
"I can't lie," Scar says. "I'm not sure if you know this, but I cannot lie. I feel like maybe you'd extend the same courtesy for me.”
"Do you want a fucking villain?" Scar snaps. "Or are you just unsatisfied with me having boundaries? Not liking how you compare me to Fauna and wish I got taken instead? Realizing that Villains are people too?”
It wouldn't've been terrible to be taken by Sparrow (Grian, Scar thought with mild wonder. A beautiful name. His heart fluttered, despite the situation), but the thought still stood. [boss] didn't know that Sparrow wouldn't hurt him.
"Don't you want a villain?" Scar asks, quietest yet. "Don't you?" More silence. The clock on the wall ticks. Scar can hear his heavy breath in time with his heartbeat. "Well, I'll give you one." He rips his hero badge from around his neck and lays it on the table. "I resign.”
And he stalks away, the explosion of "no!"s and "why?"s and "HOTGUY GET BACK HERE!"s blocked out by his mind.
And he walks up to his apartment, his mild haven here, and sees Pearl and Jimmy. He snaps his fingers, lifting Pearl's curse. She looks up in alarm, and Jimmy follows suit.
"We're leaving." Scar tells them, leaving no room for argument. "And we're not coming back.”
#mcyt#life series#traffic life series#traffic smp#trafficblr#traffic life#trafficshipping#mcyt fanfiction#fanfiction#fanfic#fanfic writing#life series fanfic#goodtimeswithscar#scarian#soul horizon au
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