#also the comparisons in the post are not to shit on those anime | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

henrysglock · 1 month

Text

[Lumax voice] Turn Around, Look At What You See! In Their Face...

(If you couldn't already tell: I have finally lost all my marbles.)

I'm sure this has occurred to other people by now, but if El's memories leading up to the 4.07 monologue are ripped directly from Brenner's (<- slayful Nat post, required viewing), and she runs in to see One killing Two...then doesn't it stand to reason that that is what Brenner saw when he ran into the Rainbow Room in 1979?

Now before anyone hops in to correct me: There's definitely a version of things where Brenner finds El alone in the rainbow room after the massacre. That's not in question. We all know that happened at some point.

(Regardless of the manner of death...no broken bones or gouged eyes...okay!)

However, as I'm sure we're all aware...these guys are different guys.

(This detail has been beaten into the ground but always bears repeating)

So, what is in question is what close-up Brenner saw when he ran into the Rainbow Room.

Those duplicate memories appear to belong to close-up Brenner:

i.e. not the Brenner who runs in and sees El at the start of 4.08. (This isn't to say that that Brenner doesn't have those memories or similar ones, but he's not the Brenner whose memories are being featured. Begone, thot.)

So, arguably, if El has close-up Brenner's memories...then she should be running in and seeing what he saw, no?

So what did he see? Someone just slightly shorter than him, who walked close enough to warrant a tight shot.

That POV (as has been discussed ad nauseam by many) is far too tall to be any version of El:

But it is about the right height for someone a few inches shorter than Brenner...something like:

So, tl;dr: I want to play a clip for you.

I love choreography and camera work. That's art right there.

However, that video doesn't include the subtitling that accompanies the visuals that link El finding One to Brenner finding El:

Now, it's difficult to compare anything after this point (though not impossible, can't keep a south Wisconsin boy down. I will be using them for comparisons later)...because of course that's when weird, random blood starts appearing:

Hence, the clock is visibly frozen after that point:

This smacks, to me, of the same kind of shit that happened with 004 when the kids were bullying El—Scenes that never actually happened in the real past being spliced into a tape that cuts off and then picks back up like no time had passed/nothing had been spliced in. It makes more sense if you read the post I linked, since the video in that post makes my point clearly.

< TANGENTIALLY RELATED >

The anime nerd in me is tempted to liken this whole deal ^ to JJBA/DIO's time-stopping stand "The World" in...that's right...Stardust Crusaders, wherein DIO pause time for everyone but himself, which I'm certain others have done as well.

Tbqh...I'm still here:

Specifically a reference to The World/DIO vs Star Platium/Jotaro, both of which are time-stopping stands...(Much to think about irt Jotaro/Star Platinum developing time-stopping powers later on in terms of El, sure, but also in terms of "Everything was hard for [One]...He walked in here, and it was like something had changed. He told me he had figured it out.").

[Distant screaming as I'm forcefully prevented from going on a "Stardust Spider-Stardust Crusaders-Dio Brando-Joestar Family-Dio's Bone-Green Baby-Green, Green Grass of Home" tangent in this post...and don't get me started on DIO's regen healing/vampirism from the ancient stone mask...don't get me started on King Crimson and Golden Experience Requiem either...]

Not to mention the DIO reference with One linking this scene to (you guessed it) Edward Munson:

Edward Creel proven once again, but this time it's via goddamn JJBA and Brenner fuckery. (And yes, yes, I know about DIO the band. This ain't about her. Things can have multiple meanings. It was a Choice to associate Henward with DIO and Eddie with DIO. I rest my case.)

< ANYWAY, TANGENTS ASIDE >

As I said earlier, close-up Brenner is shot at a distance baby El could never have achieved. She passes out on the far side of the room, entirely too far away to have been anywhere near close enough for a close-up of Brenner's face, height aside.

However, ignoring the blood fuckery and disappearing gate cracks:

Some-One else has enough energy left to walk towards the doors. All the way over, in fact. So while those close-up shots are 100% out of range for post-gate baby El, they're very much in-range for 3:46 PM One.

Tl;dr: It's entirely possible, if not likely (based on the choreography and camera-work in these scenes) that close-up/angry Brenner was addressing One rather than baby El.

#st nina project #henry creel #el hopper #martin brenner #stranger things and jojo's bizarre adventure

40 notes · View notes

infinityblaze · 5 months

Text

Yeah I'm sad about Richie

I was trying to figure out how to describe Richie Lipschitz to a friend without him sounding like a guy from out school but in doing so I realised that's the point.

I'm sure a lot of us my age (I'm 19) had weird anime kids who went to our schools. Mine was already a creep and was obsessed with Anime women and was rumored to be into lolicon shit as well. He spent all his time talking about it. He had like one friend in our year level the rest were in the years below us.

And while thinking about how to talk about Richie I kept coming back to that comparison. That he is the weird anime kid. But instead of being an absolute freak, he's just a bit of a freak. He's an examination of this new stereotype developing in our high schools and making us examine it.

Richie clearly was a weird kid. I would argue him and Ruth are both 100% neurodivergent. As a kid with neurodivergence I never really fit with the people around me. Which drove me to online spaces when I was younger which exposed me to anime. I was the weird kid in primary school but I mellowed out a fair bit in high school. Richie was never able to do that though.

Because Max actively enforced the pecking order of the school he made sure the nerds were at the bottom. But all Richie needed was a hand to help him develop into a more adjusted person. But the thing is if you examine his behavior in the show, despite the anime references, he's actually pretty normal. All of the nerds are. Of course they're all still into their nerdy stuff by the time they start to come out of their shells, that's who they are. But they are given the chance to grow into their true selves and find a way to fit in and be happy with their school mates.

Richie has an in with the football team, and this makes him feel happy, like he's finally developing more human connections. That maybe his days of hugging his body pillows for comfort are over. He's excited, finally happy. He's still a little nerd who likes his anime, but he can also talk to people he always felt apart from.

Richie could have adjusted his life to be better and for him to feel safer and more at place in the world and yet Max takes it from him.

Richie tells us that there's more to the anime kid. Based on his howls in Highschool Is Killing Me I've head cannoned him to being one of those wolf kids when he was younger as well.

Nerdy Prudes Must Die tells us that everyone has complex inner worlds. And while the Anime guy at my school dated a 14 year old when we were 17, Richie is just a kind guy who likes anime more the the normal amount. He's just a kid. He had a whole life ahead of him to grow into himself and yet in life and death Max takes it away. I could make a similar post for Max himself but that might be a post for another day.

Anyway we love Richie in this house, as well as Ruth, and Pete, and Steph, and Grace. I'm just thinking about Richie.

#artists on tumblr #nerdy prudes must die #starkid #nerdy prudes spoilers #starkid musicals #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #im so normal

50 notes · View notes

trollex-is-gay · 5 months

Note

I had an interesting conversation earlier with a friend about the movie, because they didn't understand why I was so intrigued by velvets character "when she's obviously just a villain"

Because that isn't how these movies work and both of the green noodles are stressed out TEENAGERS.

And I love Veneer, he's a sweet heart, but he was also part in using Floyd's essence to make his job easier.

There is obivous issues from home coming in to play with the twins (?wasn't clear) plans to further their career.

And based on their suits..... I wouldn't be surprised if what they where doing was COMMON among musicians of their people.

Because trolls aren't considered a major anything in their universe, listening to their arrest charges, it made it sound like they got arrest for PET abuse and substance violations

Oh no yeah I was thinking abt that a lot, literally in the middle of writing a post about them for the au as we speak lol. I am CONSTANTLY thinking about how the bergens treated trolls as nothing but little animals for god knows how long, EATING THEM every year, keeping them trapped there...and those guys made peace with the trolls. The trolls LOVE the bergens now! And it hasn't even been that long! But Velvet and Veener have the hammer dropped on them SO hard for doing something very similar to one troll. Sure, they were frauds, and sure, they hurt Floyd and what they did WAS incredibly wrong...but the same time they're teenagers. Like. 16 at the oldest. And their parents are NOWHERE to be seen in current day. If they're alive, they clearly don't give a shit about their kids. It wasn't even jail they got sent to, it was prison, which is much harsher in comparison. Veneer is a sweet guy, a very soft-hearted kid who is a very good character as well. But like you said, he participated. SOMETHING had to be up with their upbringing. Veneer hardly spoke and looked panicked when Velvet flipped the table...and Velvet, who was probably what, 10? 9 maybe considering how small they looked? She flipped an ENTIRE TABLE with THINGS ON IT by herself. There had to be so many events leading up to that even at such a young age to cause her to have that massive of a reaction to a question as simple as "how was school today?" Like no way they had good parents when Veneer is obviously afraid of speaking out and Velvet has a whole airport full of emotional baggage that turned her into the person she is now. And they're not even 18 yet! What the fuck! Someone help these poor kids!

#trolls #trolls band together #trolls 3 #I love them sm you don't understand #I think Velvet might be older as well? Idk the way she talked made me think she was a couple years older than Veneer. But they also look-#-the exact same age. Maybe she's older than him by like a year?#They make her out to be the older sibling from everything I've seen #but she also doesn't rlly look or act that much older than Veneer. I'd buy that they're twins #it would also make sense for them to be twins more than anything because they're nearly identical. Like if you styled Velvet's hair right-#-and took away her makeup she'd be like. A *slightly* taller Veneer.#y'know what yeah I could get on board with them being twins

38 notes · View notes

meenawrites · 6 months

Text

Lo'ak Modern AU

Guys... I cannot believe I wrote modern AUs for all the blorbos except Lo'ak omg. Criminal. Imma rectify that right now.

Lo'ak definitely has some inferiority complex towards Neteyam especially but also Kiri to a certain extent, just in that both his older siblings are pretty successful in school in such and he feels like a bit of a screw-up in comparison.

He's the type where if he doesn't like something or want to do it, he just won't. Like it's incredibly difficult to make himself apply himself to something he has zero desire to do, and that shows in his schoolwork and general attitude.

He feels guilty towards Neteyam every time he gets lectured by Jake for something Lo'ak got them in trouble for in the first place, but loves that his brother looks out for him.

Lo'ak is smart, he just hates studying.

Spider is basically his best friend and the two combined are likely to get into WAY more trouble than either on their own. They kind of share one braincell together. And with Spider being the Anti-Bully of the school and Lo'ak being the way he is, they tend to get in trouble sometimes just for trying to defend someone (just going about it the wrong way).

Like I've mentioned before in my Spider Modern AU post, Spider definitely helps Lo'ak out with schoolwork. I think it would hurt his pride a lot if one of his older siblings were the ones to do it, but he feels like he and Spider are more equals so he doesn't mind getting school help from him. He insists on keeping it a secret though, but the two of them combined aren't super subtle, so Jake ends up finding out and just pretending in front of Lo'ak that he doesn't know while slipping Spider cash as payment basically for Spider tutoring his son (more on this in my Spider AU post).

I think Lo'ak would be on the basketball team. I don't know I feel like it just fits his vibe very well and he would be a star player. It's actually something he takes great pride in, and he's positively beaming every time his father shows up to one of his games and is cheering for him, just bursting with happiness.

Lo'ak's bedroom would be messy for sure. Like that organized chaos where he knows exactly where everything is but no one else can make heads or tails of anything. Probably has a basketball signed by his favorite player on display somewhere above the mess though. The type to have a bunch of posters scattered all over his walls – a combo of basketball and soccer posters, shounen anime posters, a few bands he's super into, and maybe a few pictures of him and Spider doing stupid shit.

Per @be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie 's post a while ago, Lo'ak definitely joins the cheer team to be closer to Tsireya. You'd think he'd be embarassed or something but he's so head over heels for her that he doesn't really care. It definitely helps that he's like surprisingly good at it, so people don't feel like they can actually poke fun at him for it.

Constantly gets into arguments with Aonung that Neteyam has to pull him away from. It's definitely escalated to physical though, but he's trying to tone it down at least for Tsireya. Helps a little that Aonung and Neteyam seem to be developing... something (Lo'ak be dense like that fr).

I think despite how extroverted Lo'ak is he wouldn't have a lot of very close friends outside of Spider and his siblings. Like maybe some people that are class friends or teammates, but he has a harder time letting someone actually get CLOSE close.

I don't know why I have this image of him really enjoying rock climbing/bouldering? Just feel like that would be a big hobby of his that Spider also shares.

Those are all my thoughts right now? But feel free to add on. I feel like I need to re-watch ATWOW to have more to say.

#Meena's Modern AU #Lo'ak #lo'ak te suli tsyeyk'itan #avatar the way of water #spider socorro #avatar 2 #spider soccoro #kiri #neytiri #Neteyam #Jake Sully

32 notes · View notes

hrodvitnon · 8 days

Note

Thanks for hearing me out there, I really needed all of that. I think your blog (as well as other tumblr blogs in general like kaiju-krew) help keep me sane while witnessing all sorts of really dumb takes from the fandom, especially from the likes of Twitter and Reddit. The worst takes I've seen so far are the ones that claim that unlike Kong, if Godzilla ever encounters another one of his kind, he would kill them just for disrupting his nap and/or harm a baby of his kind because he's a reptile and something something "alphas in nature kill offspring that isn't their own to prevent competition" and junk like that.

It just really sucks to see them humanize Kong (and in many cases, turn him into a literal saint) while at the same time, reducing Godzilla to just a dumb animal when they're both intelligent and sympathetic but flawed individuals.

Also your comparisons of MV Godzilla to Doomguy and cats is very on-point. All three of them may look and act prickly at first, but there's more to them than just that and if you actually take your time to look past that and get to know them better while respecting their space, they're actually not bad at all. And in the case of both Godzilla and cats, it's kind of like intruding into an introvert's personal space and acting constantly annoying to them, and then getting mad and calling them a jerk once they show signs of wanting you to leave them alone.

(About Matt Frank's post, I took another look at it and he deleted the initial post, probably because of all the backlash he got from it since he misunderstood MV Godzilla's character hard. And in case you're curious on what the post said, it's something on the lines of something like "It's great that MV Godzilla is just an aggro jerkface in the whole movie (GxK) for NO reason at all and I'm all for it").

(That said, his follow-up replies to that are still there and they're still not the best takes. Here they are, for anyone who doesn't have access to that hellish site.)

Yeeeep, this is why I stay as much as possible away from the Twitter and especially the fandom side of Reddit; in fact, there are very specific reasons I would venture into those lawless depths: Check if anyone else has run into a game bug I've encountered and any workarounds for it, or fun gifs I just happened to spy on a Google Image search.

And you know, maybe it's because I just woke up, but to those who demonize Godzilla, I'm about to do something fuckin' hilarious with my power as a fic writer with my own canon at my fingertips. Check this shit out: In an AbraxasVerse take of GxK, when Godzilla is napping in the Colosseum and the authorities are like "what the fuck do we do," who rolls up but THE ACTUAL POPE to welcome the giant napping Nukasaurus Rex and be like "This is a beast of god who protects our world. I talked about this the last time he saved us, did you not listen to my sermon last Mass? For shame. Let the noble beast rest. Amen." Not in those exact words, but yeah.

Oh yeah, @thebeastunleashed showed the the tweets on Discord. Matt, I respect ya as a phenomenal kaiju artist and you're entitled to which Goji's your favorite and also your opinion, but sometimes it's okay to be wrong. (Incidentally, my favorite Godzillas are Heisei and MonsterVerse so I happen to prefer a Godzilla with a soft side.)

#alteringworldscapes #monsterverse #godzilla #abraxasverse #just for funsies #and yes the pope being chill with goji IS abraxasverse canon now. i can do that. because it's funny to me.#italian authorities: the lizard is in our colosseum! the pope: IF HE FITS HE SITS

16 notes · View notes

katy-l-wood · 6 months

Text

Who wants spoilers?

My new book comes out on October 31st, and I know some people prefer having more of a heads up about what happens in books than others, so this post shall be full of spoilery details below the cut, for those who want them!

You can find all the places to purchase the book on my website.

Main Characters:

Royal is genderfluid and queer and in their early 20s. Uses they/them pronouns. Appears as both a man, woman, and ??? at varying times throughout the story. Royal also suffers from chronic pain, something that plays a crucial role in the plot due to the fact they use magic to deal with it, but the problem with that is sometimes it works a little TOO good. Royal is obsessed with the magic of the Pits.

Clarabella is lesbian, is 17 (almost 18), and has a girlfriend named Emilia. She is Royal's younger sister. She does not believe in magic at the start of the book. She's considered the Good Sibling of her family, but only because she was always compared to Royal who was much louder in their nonsense so Clarabella seemed fine by comparison. She is not fine.

Shiloh is gay, in his mid 20s, and dating Royal. He is a VERY large Irish man with wild curly red hair and a beard that comes to a point, along with a twirled mustache. When Clarabella meets him she thinks he has a face the devil would steal. He is actually a teddybear, and worked as a teacher for a short time. His mother died when he was young in a house fire. He rides a semi-magical horse that is about twice the size of a regular horse. Said horse bites.

Akhíta is in her early 20s and 1/2 Lakota, 1/2 Black. Her father was a former slave who died in the Civil War when Akhíta was a toddler. She's loosely the leader of the little outlaw gang, but only in a vague sense. Her mother is a nurse and has so far managed to escape getting rounded up onto a reservation because she's been useful in the rural area she lives. It's implied that Akhíta frequently leaves the group to free people still being held in slavery/slavery like conditions and smuggles them to safety.

Other Characters:

Little Mountain is a Ute woman in her mid 20s and is completely deaf.

Emilia is 18, a lesbian, and Clarabella's girlfriend. Her father tries to marry her off to a rich Duke in California, which is what kicks off the plot of the book as Clarabella tries to go and rescue her. Emilia ends up getting corrupted by the magic of the Pits.

Fox is a 16ish trans man who ran away with Royal after Royal robbed his parents' house and Fox realized "hey, this person is genderweird, which sure does explain some things about myself, and I wanna know more."

The Preachers are a group of magical women who roam the Pits making deals. It is rumored they are women who ran away from abusive husbands and died in the Pits, but no one is entirely sure.

Plot Details:

No characters die. Royal is believed to have died at the end of the book, but in the epilogue it is revealed they are not actually dead, but some weird shit has certainly happened.

There are several gunfights throughout the book, and some do result in injuries of main characters and the death of NPC type characters.

The Pits, as they're known, are essentially inside-out mountains and the deeper you go the weirder the magic gets. Because of this, people do not go into the Pits, and those who do never come out for reasons unknown. If manmade objects get left in the Pits for long enough, they start to get imbued with unpredictable magical properties. Royal's gang goes into the shallow areas of the Pits--deep enough for objects to turn magical, but not so deep they're in much danger by doing so--and retrieves these objects, selling them to random rich people.

Some animals are implied to be killed during a big fight with fantasy creatures. Also the expected mentions of hunting and fishing for a story like this. Shiloh is injured in this attack.

There are a lot of discussions about racist/neglectful parents and coming to terms that even if they were good to YOU, that doesn't mean they were good people (and maybe they weren't all that good to you either).

There's no major on page racism and homophobia as part of the plot. These things are acknowledged, but only tangentially. Sometimes you just need a weird, fun fantasy story, ya know?

There is a scene where Clarabella nearly falls to her death when her rope snaps as the group is climbing down a cliff.

There's a scene where the characters are in a strange cavern full of huge crystals that show them visions of loved ones--dead and alive--telling them to turn around and go home.

I think that covers most of it? If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

You can find all the places to purchase the book on my website.

#The Pits #The Pits Spoilers #My Writing #Book #Book Rec #Book Release

29 notes · View notes

heloflor · 7 months

Text

Ok so for about a good two-three months now I had a post in my drafts about how I realized I ship Powser, and long story short I started comparing Bowser to what I think to be how most villains in media interact with their damsel in distress if they express “love” for them. Issue is, I don’t have nearly enough knowledge/examples on this topic to know how truthful this comparison is, but said comparison is also the main thing tying this post together. So when thinking of ways to remove this element while still having all the same info in this post, I kind of came up short. Plus, I like the way the post is structured as is.

In other words, here’s the post as I originally wrote it, but be aware that the comparison is probably very flawed. Maybe there’s some truth to it, probably not. In any case, just focus on the Powser side of it, the villain comparison is just there for the structure. Enjoy! (long post ahead, a bit over 3k words)

So I recently realized that I really like Powser which I did NOT expect given I’m usually much more of a “friends to lovers” type of person, and trying to understand why I like it led me to think about how villains tend to be presented in their relationship with the “damsel in distress”, and it’s actually very interesting when you compare it to Bowser.

TL;DR: Unlike most villains who showcase sexual attraction (I think?), Bowser is shown to be romantically attracted to Peach. And while his actions are still very much shitty and should be seen as such, man is he adorable sometimes ! Plus, the way his feelings are shown to be genuine makes him look better than most villains, whose “love” for their victim is portrayed as """creepy lust""" by their medias.

(Obviously there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with sexual attraction. I’m talking in the context of medias that sometimes tend to vilify it, especially when it comes to the antagonists, hence the language used in this post.)

So the first thing that came in mind while thinking of other villains was Dis//ney’s Alad//din (the 90s/animated one) and how Jaf/ar treats Jasm/ine at the end of the movie, more specifically when he wishes for her to fall in love with him and she ends up pretending to be as a distraction.

Thing is, Jasm/ine doesn’t act like she’s in love with Jaf/ar, she acts like she’s thirsting for him, and the way Jaf/ar reacts shows that this is pretty much what he had in mind when saying he wants her to love him. This isn’t love, it’s lust.

Now, I can’t say I’m someone who watches a lot of movies, especially not live-actions ones, so take what I’m about to say with a huge grain of salt. Basically, I kinda feel like what we see in Alad/din is the norm when it comes to villain/victim relationships? Like you have those antagonists who want the damsel in distress to be horny for them, who don’t see those women as people and don’t give a shit about them, only keeping them to get what they want out of them and having no issue discarding them afterwards if they get bored with those poor girls.

Btw that’s not to say that every single villain who kidnaps someone wants to sleep with them. But when it comes to villains who claim to love their victim, there does seem to be at least some sexual tension here, or at least some uncomfortable touches.

And then there’s Bowser. To give a few examples of what he does:

- In that one 1986 anime movie thing, he gets very soft around Peach, gushing about how he’s in love with her and wants to marry her, trying to cheer her up when she’s sad, and let’s not forget that “it’s more of a bracelet, shows that my love is bigger” line with the ring.

- In the mainline “platformers” games, you have “Mario Sunshine” in which Bowser wants his son to have a mother, and “Mario Odyssey” in which he tries to marry Peach, going around the world gathering all the absolute best things for the wedding. There’s also the New Bros U intro with Bowser gently moving Peach’s chair, making sure she doesn’t get hurt by his attack, showing he doesn’t want to hurt her.

- Not sure exactly if this counts as this could be a form of objectification, but you know that cliché of villains getting that all-powerful thing they wanted and immediately betraying/discarding all the people they worked with and/or claimed to love? Well, in the Galaxy games, Bowser gets the power to create a whole new universe, and yet still takes the time to capture Peach, claiming in the first game that he wants her to rule along with him. Again, this could be a form of objectification, especially when looking at his dialogue in the intro of the second game, but it’s still interesting how Bowser doesn’t really fall on that trope, still having his army and Junior on top of Peach (btw the intro of Galaxy 2 is very funny on that front because Bowser literally has enormous powers and yet still makes a detour for Peach, thus causing Mario to be on his tail. Like, let her go dude, she’s not that into you. You got all the powers of the universe, who cares about that one specific woman when you could have literally anybody else?).

- In the first Paper Mario game, Bowser tells Peach that he would fulfill her wishes if she wants (as long as he likes them) and gushes in his diary about how he hopes Peach likes him. And in Thousand Years Doors, he keeps trying to look for her upon hearing she got kidnapped.

- In Super Paper Mario, he gets overjoyed about the wedding but still immediately shows worry for Peach when Nastasia uses her mind control on her, and in general Bowser spends the game clearly loving being able to call Peach his wife, and joins the team again in 7-2 out of concern for her safety. Same with 8-1 where for all he knows he’s about to die and yet his main concern is her safety, to the point where he's willing to ask Mario to protect her for him. His priority is not being with Peach, instead it's Peach being safe.

- In Color Splash, the first thing he does when first getting back to himself during the fight is ask if Mario brought Peach with him.

- In Origami King, he doesn’t want her to see him as a wet floor sign and later asks Olly if Peach is safe and comfortable, which as I’ve seen pointed out implies that him capturing Peach is mostly a forced vacation/sleepover until Mario arrives and she’s put on the spot for show.

(- In general Paper Bowser is a huge hopeless romantic, at least from what I’ve seen of him.)

- In Superstar Saga he helps Mario and Luigi reach the Bean Kingdom for Peach’s sake. Then in Bowser’s Inside Story his most beloved and protected memories are his memories of Peach + he makes saving her his priority towards the end. And in Dream Team, he hears a rumor that Peach might have gotten kidnaped and immediately flies all the way to Pi’illo Island to find her.

- You cannot convince me that his car in Mario 3D World wasn’t an attempt to impress Peach, given this is one of the only two games (three with Wonder) where you play as her and face against him. /hj

- In that one old comic people kept bringing up after the movie came out, Bowser spends a lot of time gushing about marrying Peach. Also despite Peach being very temperamental in this comic, I don’t think Bowser once tries to hurt her? Obviously you have the Magikoopa brainwashing her at the end which is fucked up but outside of that does Bowser ever get angry or menacing when it comes to her?

- In general, outside of the games where Peach is playable and the intro of Inside Story (which comes off as OOC for Bowser tbh, I get him being pissed off but him trying to burn Peach is just really off), do we ever get to see Bowser raise a hand on her and/or try to physically hurt her? Same for his anger, how often do we get to see him raise his voice on her? And no the sports and party games don’t count since everyone is doing the same thing to everyone else in those, and in the party games it'd be unfair if playing that one character led to Bowser going easy on the player.

Now I might be missing some more moments, especially since I’m far from the most knowledgeable on the sport/party games and some RPGs (slowly making my way through them), but there’s one thing that is very obvious: while most villains express sexual attraction for the damsel in distress, Bowser expresses romantic attraction.

Bowser genuinely cares for Peach. She’s one of his most precious memories. In Super Paper, he snaps out of the joy of getting married when Peach is getting brainwashed, showing how much he values her safety. He absolutely adores her and isn’t afraid to express it, especially Paper Bowser.

Those two instances (Inside story and Super Paper) especially really seem to lean into how much Bowser loves Peach. In Inside Story, the fact that she’s his most well-preserved memory shows just how much he values the little time he spends with her and how important she is to him, not as some pretty face but as a person he genuinely wants to create more memories with. And in Super Paper, Bleck is giving him the one thing he’s always wanted, and yet he still shows some reticence when Nastasia uses her mind control, making it look like Peach being safe and sound is more important to him than them being a couple. Idk, those two moments just really get to me when you think about it this way.

(Btw in Super Paper I adore that Peach hesitates to leave him in 8-1 because, while we know Peach is incredibly kind so of course she’d be worried for a teammate, for once it feels like Bowser actually earned it. He spends the whole game being caring towards Peach, and wouldn’t you know, being nice and respectful to someone actually makes them care for you! I swear the Powser potential from this game is unmatched!)

When most villains say “I want this woman to love me”, they usually mean “I want this woman to obey and submit to my every want”. When Bowser says “I want Peach to love me”, he means “I want to be able to wake up everyday by her side, make her smile and laugh and be happy, see her be a mother to my kid(s), learn more about her and spend as much time with her as I can”. Bowser isn’t trying to marry Peach because he wants to “own” her, he wants to marry her because he quite literally wants to spend the rest of his life by her side.

Now that’s not to say that Bowser doesn’t feel any form of sexual attraction. But since Mario is such a kids-friendly franchise, the focus is much more on his romantic feelings. Also, I'll admit, whether Bowser is in love with Peach or with the idea of Peach is up for debate.

I think that’s the main reason why so many people are quick to call Bowser sweet/adorable when seeing the way he talks about Peach. Because the thing is, Bowser is still being a complete asshole here. He’s constantly kidnapping her, putting her in a cage on several occasions, forced her to marry him like 6 different times, very often disregards her body autonomy by grabbing her (+ the kidnappings), terrorizes and sometimes even tortures/kills her people, and his phone pic in the parental controls video + the picture frames in Nintendo World make him look like a creep. Despite his feelings for her, there’s definitely a level of objectification here that should not be ignored.

Hell, I didn’t mention the 2023 movie on the list because I’d argue he was more obsessed rather than in love. Plus the scene where he proposes to her low-key feels like the very first time they meet, making his previous actions creepier (or at the very least they barely know each other, heck Peach didn’t even know Bowser likes her!). And he’s quick to use blackmail and violence against her, especially in the end. The wedding cake toppers also show he cares more about himself than Peach and sees her as an object rather than a person.

(I actually take back what I said in my movie reaction post about Bowser being like the one from Super Paper. He might be goofy when showing his softer side, which was what I was focused on when comparing the two, but he’s also clearly not as genuine and sweet as Paper Bowser. The way he mistreats his army and especially Kamek in the movie is also different from most games, most notably the RPGs since that’s when we see him interact with his people and he’s a relatively good king to them.)

Compare 2023 Movie Bowser to the 1986 movie in which he tries to get Peach involved in the wedding preparations, tries to cheer her up, never gets angry at her despite how much she’s resisting him and never once raises his hand on her. Even when she outsmarts him by making him shapeshift, he’s amused by her attempt. Literally the worse he does in this movie is grab her against her will on many occasions (and obviously the kidnaping and forced marriage, that goes without saying).

Going back on topic, despite Bowser being very much horrible in the way he approaches Peach, since every other villain out there is lusting after the woman they capture, making them appear creepy/predatory, Bowser comes off as an angel in comparison. He’s one of those rare cases of a villain who is truly sincere about his feelings for the woman he captures, and since we see other occasions of him being a sweetheart (with Junior) and a dumbass (the RPG series), he becomes an incredibly endearing character. So his feelings for Peach come off as adorable despite the bad elements because we’re aware he has a soft side so we know he’s truly sincere. Him being sometimes more of an antihero in the RPGs + his inclusion in sports games and the like probably also help seeing him in that good light.

(Also yes I’m very much aware that there’s a huge issue when it comes to how fandoms perceive female characters, and I will absolutely believe you if you tell me this is one of the reasons why you have people who talk shit about Peach so much all while defending Bowser’s actions, especially since his feelings for Peach are so rooted into his character. Oh and obviously you have the people horny for Bowser who love his softer/romantic side and value the moments where he displays this part of himself, that goes without saying.)

I’m especially surprised by the 1986 movie showing such a characterization of him, considering it came out 1-2 years after the very first Super Mario game (aka Bowser’s first appearance, at least I think?). Like imagine making a movie about those characters and going “hey you know the giant turtle monster we fight in this game? What if he was a huge lovable dork who just wanted some love in his life?”. Tbh I adore that choice.

Overall, it’s just interesting to see how Bowser differs from other villains on that front. It’s very interesting to see a villain who does pretty terrible things to a girl all the while being genuine in his feelings for her, idk it’s a very cool contrast. I also like how “true love” tends to be a motivation for the heroes, seen as something good, so it’s fun to see stories where villains have that very same motivation without it being “““twisted””” with lust. And yes I know that last point applies to many more antagonists than just Bowser, and not just for feelings like love.

And a bit off-topic but I also really like how you can easily explain Bowser’s behavior here (not justifying it tho!!!). In the Yoshi Island games, we see he was raised as a spoiled brat who was always given what he wanted, made worse by him being a monarch. We even still see some of that behavior in his adult self, for example when he gets angry and starts stomping his foot like a kid throwing a tantrum.

As a result of his upbringing, Bowser likely just doesn’t know how to take a no. He’s used to always get what he wants, and take it by force if necessary. So when Peach refuses him, he does just that, incapable of understanding why she doesn’t want him.

The 86 movie is actually an excellent example of this. In two scenes (the one with Peach outsmarting him and the ring dialogue) we see Bowser getting worked up when Peach is upset, showing he genuinely wants her to be happy. But at the same time he’s incapable of realizing that he’s the reason why she’s so upset and the one thing he should do is let her go. The ring scene especially shows it very well. When Peach throws the ring and starts crying because she doesn’t want to get married, Bowser thinks she’s upset due to the ring being too big and immediately tries to soothe her by promising to get a better ring. Again, it’s kinda crazy how this movie was made when Bowser only existed for a single year and yet they already made him genuinely in love with Peach.

I’d also add that Bowser seems to have a pretty high opinion of himself, thinking he’s awesome and shit (or maybe he’s overcompensating, that seems like a possibility). As a result, it’s possible that his mentality on the situation is “Well I’m in love with her so surely she must love me! How could she not?”, making it even harder for him to comprehend why she doesn’t love him.

Again, it doesn’t justify his actions in the slightest but it’s still interesting how you can somewhat understand why he’s like this.

And as to why I ship Powser, honestly I still have no idea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think it has to do with the storytelling potential of a unrequited love/it’s complicated/they have history situation in regards to their roles as monarchs, especially in the case of Peach whose character is brimming with untapped potential. I actually like to describe their relationship as “I hate the effect you have on my life but I couldn’t imagine a life without you in it” or “Our kingdoms are enemies for a good reason but if anything happened to you I’d rush in to save you without hesitation”. It's just that idea of them being ex-lovers who had a bad falling out and how Peach still cares about him to an extent and how their lives constantly intertwine with villains trying to take over their kingdoms + Bowser's kidnappings.

And since we’re talking Powser and since wondering whether they know each other or not in the movie got me to question how we can tell they know each other in the games: the best way I could describe their relationship in the games is familiar/”comfortable”, like you have the way Peach tries to convince Bowser to join the group in Super Paper, the way she talks about him in general in the Mario and Luigi games, or stuff like most cutscenes in Odyssey where she never seems afraid of Bowser.

I’ve also seen that Switch Tennis game with the evil racket and how Peach is the one who tries to get through to Bowser when he steals it, straight up saying “listen to me” which makes it seem like she knows she’s the one person who could get him to stop, or you have the first Rabbids game where she comments on how “Junior is sometimes even worse than his father”, plus the way she looks like a mother about to reprimand her child in the cutscene where Jr learns Bowser is coming home (which I find hilarious; lady that’s not your kid, I thought we’d been through this already in Sunshine!). Oh and CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE WAY SHE’S LOOKING AT HIM IN (spoilers in link) THAT CUTSCENE FROM THE NEW RABBIDS 2 DLC!!!

I don’t know how to fully explain but, looking at these kinds of interactions, you can tell that the two of them know each other, and to an extent Peach knows that Bowser won’t hurt her, hence why she’s not afraid to oppose him. It’s pretty funny actually how in the games Peach tends to be exasperated by Bowser more than anything else. Like he’s not a menace, just a weekly annoyance. And again, when you compare it to the movie where there’s only hostility and awkwardness between them, you do get the impression that they’re two complete strangers meeting for the first time. The fact Movie Peach had no idea about his feelings for her doesn’t help either. Then again, about the hostility, Peach in the games is much sweeter so maybe she shows a nicer side to Bowser because that’s just who she is.

#Powser #Bowser X Peach #Princess Peach #Bowser #Super Mario #Flor talks #long post #looking at the ending of that post you can tell this was written shortly after the Rabbids DLC 2 came out #But yeah; as said in the intro I'm really not sure if the comparison to other villains #and what it entails in how Bowser is seen by the general public is actually a good take; I don't think it is #but also I like how this post is overall written #all in all; that post is just an excuse to gush about Powser; so please don't take the 'analysis' part of it too seriously #btw yes I saw the Wonder animation and love it; pretty funny how powser will never be canon yet Nintendo keeps giving us content #(not that I'm complaining; quite the opposite)#also it feeds my hc that Bowser would LOVE a chubby Peach bc big=healthy in Koopa's eyes since turtles have thick limbs #also also it's pretty funny how I'm worried that Peach being less kidnapped=Bowser's crush slowly disappearing #but then Nintendo keeps proving me wrong by showing that; kidnapped or not; his crush isn't going anywhere; and I'm very happy about it #in other news I'm going to star putting the number of words in my longer posts so people know what they're getting into #also might put the read more earlier to make sure the whole post isn't opened when trying to see the rest of the intro

17 notes · View notes

butterflyintochains · 4 months

Text

The Remarried Empress Post

A Huge tangent from my usual posts, because I have some thoughts. Especially about the whole Navier vs Rashta thing. This may not be coherent, and I am sorry for that in advance.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Firstly, I wanna talk about something that often goes ignored by the wider TRE fandom. Navier is, while a fantastic ruler, a deeply hurt young woman who has had to effectively rebuild her whole life. It's seen in season three of the webtoon that, in order, three men confess love to Navier: Heinrey - her husband, Kaufman - an international ally, and Sovieshu - her ex-husband. And, most tragically, Navier doesn't believe either of them to be honest. We know that Heinrey means it truthfully, but Navier doesn't, why not? Well, she views herself as fundamentally unlovable. She brushes Kaufman off due to him being under the influence of a love potion, but her former and current husbands' confessions do rock her.

We see first that Navier is thrown for a loop when Heinrey confesses to her after their wedding. Ever since she divorced, she's been bracing for another Rashta. For her new husband to have picked her for convenience, and then take a mistress on for love. After all of Rashta's wiles, Navier has come to see herself as boring and unlovable. Good for ruling with and governing, but not much else. From the novel, we also see that Navier doesn't even think much of her own appearance, from her diet being so controlled so as to avoid weight gain, she believes those around her are only calling her beautiful because they're obligated to due to her position. And, with Rashta being so loudly praised for her 'wildflower' beauty, Navier was made to feel very insecure by comparison. How fucking tragic for a woman who is meant to be in the prime of her life, could you imagine how awful you'd feel if this shit was all you'd ever known of marriage? If everyday you were waiting for your own husband to abandon you for someone else?

As for Sovieshu's confession. Boy, what the fuck are you on that makes you think you have any right to say this shit? For one, he breaks protocol. A foreign emperor, a guest with diplomatic status, tells a newly minted Empress of the empire that's kindly hosting him and his ungrateful wife, that he loves her, excuse you sir, but get your royal shit together! You're an emperor, act like one! Second, you are her ex-husband, who at every juncture: put Navier down, insulted and humiliated her, did horrible shit on Rashta's behalf to hurt her, instigated the divorce for the unborn baby of your undisciplined and uneducated mistress, exiled her brother, and banned her from writing to the one friend she had left after the Nianne fiasco. If that's how you love Navier, no wonder she broke down crying. I would have too.

As for the legions of Rashta apologists who point to Heinrey's sketchy actions to excuse Rashta. Are you lot stupid or what? No, I don't agree with everything Heinrey does, and I do think he should be more transparent with Navier now they're married. But, there's a huge difference between a prince/king/emperor doing what he feels he must to secure the future of his nation. And some girl from nowhere; lying, embezzling money, abusing innocent animals, and ordering the torture of staff, as well as selling a young lady into slavery because she doesn't like her. And then trying to pass her baby with a previous lover off as the heir to the throne. Heinrey, while not perfect, is at least competent at his job, and has a wife who he can trust to share the load. Rashta can't go two minutes without causing drama, and has a husband who actively doesn't trust her to do anything without breaking everything.

And, how can Rashta apologists justify her hiring a hitman to kill the man who helped her escape from slavery? And then to direct that hitman to kill Navier's parents for no real reason? Or doing nothing as empress to make things better for slaves? At least some of Rashta's actions as mistress can be explained as a need to survive, like paying the duke and viscount to bury her past. But, she's won her little war against Navier, she's got the man, the palace, the title, the unending wealth. Navier is gone, married to someone else, ruling another empire with him, and is now (as of the webtoon) expecting their babies. So, why does Rashta continue to allow Navier to live in her head like this?

As for Sovieshu, the real villain of this story, how anyone can justify his actions is beyond me. The cookie incident. He abandons his wife for someone he met in a forest, as far as anyone knows he knocks her up, forces his wife to live alongside his mistress, and host a party for her unborn baby. plans to spring a divorce on her and remarry her, bans her from writing to Heinrey (as well as burns the letters he sent her), the cooked bird incident. Then, decides he wants her back? Sovieshu never loved Navier, never valued her, never saw her as important. Until she found someone who did. She's not the love of his life as Sovieshu apologists say, she's an object he wants control over.

I dunno, Sovieshu and Rashta just piss me off. I hate it when people don't learn from past mistakes, and when they don't listen to external voices, and the idiot duo do neither. Like, Navier takes her overtrust of courtly structure into her new life, and works hard to set her new court to rights. Heinrey learns from his impulsiveness, and matures into a good man, husband, father, and emperor. But, when do we ever see a mea culpa from either of Sovieshu or Rashta? Never, unless they're doing it for their own gain.

This is all to say; I just don't understand how anyone can read this story, and still sympathise with Sovieshu or Rashta. Because, as far as I can see, they've done nothing to earn any reader sympathy.

#the remarried empress #long post #character analysis

11 notes · View notes

foundtherightwords · 10 months

Text

Time Out in the Upside Down

(GIFs by @kwistowee)

When the above comparison was posted on Reddit, somebody pointed out that it looks like Ralph just stepped out of the time machine into Eddie's trailer. I, who have been grading papers for three days straight and delirious with boredom, naturally thought, Hey, that sounds like a fun idea, and proceeded to write a little one-shot because I wanted to procrastinate. I don't know who wants to read it, but here it is.

Ralph stepped out of the lift, into a murky gray light. He squinted. An evil red glare flashed through the dimness, showing him a cramped room, covered in what looked like thick vines or roots. It certainly wasn't a corridor of the swanky hotel he'd just entered. Flakes of snow or ash swirled in the air, sticking to his nose and his throat as he took a breath.

"Achoo!"

The moment the sneeze escaped him, the walls of the room shook ominously. Scratching, scraping sounds echoed from the ceiling, like some sort of animals—a lot of them—were crawling over the roof.

Ralph fixed his pith helmet more firmly on his head and clutched at his rifle to stop his hands from shaking. Where in the world was he? He knew he shouldn't have tempted fate. He knew he shouldn't have gotten into that lift, not after what Lauren and her friends had told him about it, not after he'd seen how it reduced Lauren's brother, Nick, to a shell of a man. Curiosity killed the cat, as his sister Victoria would've said.

He turned around, hoping to go back the way he came, but to his horror, the lift had vanished.

Ralph barely had time to panic, when he heard voices. They were coming from behind a door at the end of the room, whispering at first, then becoming louder as they rose in contention.

"I did hear something, I swear to God!" one of them said. It sounded young. Not a child, but not quite an adult either.

"Maybe it was your own fart," another voice, older, retorted. Their accent was... strange. American, Ralph thought. A bit rougher than the American visitors he'd met in London, but close.

"Haha, very funny. No, it was more like a—like a sneeze."

Ralph held himself very, very still.

"Are you saying those bats can sneeze?" the older voice snapped.

"Just open the door, will you?!"

"OK. But if this got me killed, I swear I'll be your personal poltergeist, Henderson."

The door handle started turning. Ralph looked around, frantic like a trapped animal. There was nowhere for him to go. The lift was gone. The window was too small, and either way, it was blocked by one of those slimy vines. The only way out was through the door, where the two unknown persons were waiting. Ralph fumbled with his rifle, wondering if he should raise it. He wasn't even sure how to hold it properly.

"Just open it! Like a Band-Aid!" the young voice—Henderson's—said, impatiently.

"Shut up!"

The door burst open with a bang.

Ralph screamed.

The person on the other side of the door screamed.

Then the person stopped.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, staring at Ralph.

Ralph stared back.

It was like looking into a mirror.

Before Ralph or the other man could recover their shock, another face peered over the other man's shoulder. Henderson, Ralph presumed. He was a boy, dressed peculiarly in some sort of hooded jumper with a cloak of fur or feather or moss draped over it.

The boy's eyes went wide as they landed on Ralph.

"Holy. Shit," he said solemnly.

***

"Are you sure you two are not related?" Henderson asked, once they had settled into the room on the other side of the door. It was slightly more spacious, but also covered in the same vines. Strangest of all, there was a rope made out of bed sheets hanging from the ceiling, and when Ralph looked up, he saw something that made him doubt his sanity. The rope went through a fissure on the ceiling, a gash in the middle of a coil of vines, and what was on the other side of the fissure was—another room, a mirror image of this one, complete with a mattress directly below the rope, only upside down. He couldn't understand what he was looking at, so he stopped looking and turned his attention back to his new acquaintances.

Not that looking at them was any better, especially the young man that Henderson called Eddie. If it wasn't for Eddie's long hair and outlandish garb—a sleeveless, puffy vest worn over a leather jacket, a black handkerchief tied around his head, pirate-like, and a bandolier slung low over his waist in place of a belt—he and Ralph could have been twins. Not in the same way that Ralph and Victoria were twins—born on the same day but looking nothing alike. Eddie was a little leaner around the face, but they shared every feature. Even some of their movements were similar. It was disconcerting, to say the very least.

Eddie rolled his eyes at Henderson's question. "I think I'd known if I was related to some snobby Brit dressed like an extra on Raiders of the Lost Ark," he said, while sizing Ralph up. "Besides, I don't see much of a resemblance."

Henderson shook his head. "Sorry about him," he said to Ralph.

Ralph shrugged helplessly. He could detect the contempt in Eddie's voice, but he was too bewildered to feel offended.

"So you came here in... a time machine?" Henderson said. Ralph nodded.

"Does it look like a DeLorean?" Eddie chimed in. "Were you accompanied by a crazy scientist named Doc Brown?"

This time, his contempt was unmistakable, and Ralph's hackles were up.

"Listen here, you pillock, let's throw you into my world and see how you fare!" he hissed. This boor wouldn't last a day with Victoria bossing him around.

"Pillock?" Eddie said with a snort. "Where did you come from, a Dickens novel?"

"No, 1926 London, you—you plank!"

Before Eddie could think of a comeback, Henderson stepped in. "Would you both just calm down? Jesus. In case you haven't noticed, we have bigger things to worry about here."

Eddie shrugged, unintentionally mimicking Ralph's gesture just a moment ago. An overwhelming sense of déjà-vu washed over Ralph, and he had to close his eyes briefly.

"The time machine's in a lift," he explained. "My friends, they came from—from the future in it. I was going to join the French Legion, but on the way to the dock to catch my ship, I went past the hotel where they said the lift was located, so I thought, let's check it out, what's the harm? And now... here I am."

"And where's this lift now?" Henderson asked.

"It's disappeared," Ralph replied miserably.

Henderson and Eddie glanced at each other.

"I know this sounds like horsefeathers," Ralph said. "But it is the truth. I am from 1926. Look." He opened his knapsack and dug out his identification papers. "Look at my date of birth!"

Remarkably, the other two didn't seem that surprised.

"Hey, three days ago I didn't know there was another dimension under my hometown," Eddie said. "Honestly, a time machine in an elevator sounds almost normal compared to that."

Their easy acceptance calmed Ralph down. "But what sort of future is this?" he asked. "Are we at war?" He glanced at the nail-studded bin lids and homemade spears that Henderson and Eddie held in their hands.

Again, they exchanged a look.

"I guess you can say that—" Henderson began.

"It'll take too long to explain," Eddie interrupted. "We don't have time." He nodded at the ceiling meaningfully. That horrible scratching sound still hadn't stopped. If anything, it had gone louder... and more concentrated, like whatever creatures making it had gathered into one spot. "So just stay out of the way, OK, Limey?"

"What is that—" Ralph asked, only to earn a furious "Shhhhhh!!!" from both Henderson and Eddie.

Without further discussion, they all quieted down and strained their ears, trying to gauge where the sound was.

BANG! A vent on the ceiling exploded inward, making them jump.

The thing poking its head through the opening was—Ralph had no words to describe it. He guessed it could be called a bat, if a bat was the size of a large cat, had three rows of teeth, razor-sharp claws, and a forked tail. It shrieked at them, a horrible, piercing screech.

Eddie and Henderson jumped to their feet, bin-lid shields at the ready, and drove their spears at the opening. Their stabs managed to hit the target a few times, but the bat refused to back down despite the black blood dripping from its face. When it did retreat, even more terrifyingly, several others took its place, like a Hydra. There were too many of them. Already they were tearing through the ceiling. Soon they would swarm into the room. Ralph hated to think what those teeth could do to a person.

The boys kept screaming and stabbing, but there was no stopping the bats. Ralph tried to get out of their way, tried to combat the fear and the guilt. It appeared he would always be useless, no matter where or when he was.

Then his eyes landed on his Legion-issued rifle on the floor, where he'd put it.

Well, how hard could it be? You just point and shoot.

He snatched the rifle up. "Duck!" he shouted.

"Those are not ducks, they're—" Eddie yelled back, but Henderson, apparently the more clear-headed of the two, immediately dropped to the floor and pulled Eddie along.

Ralph pulled the trigger.

The explosion was so close, it knocked his hearing out. All he saw was a flash and a puff of smoke, and then the smell of gunpowder assaulted his nostrils, telling him that he had indeed fired a shot.

A jagged hole stood where the open vent was, but the bats were gone, save for a large blood splatter.

"Close it!!!" Henderson screamed. Eddie pulled a chair over and jumped on it, throwing his nail-studded shield at the hole. The nails stuck to the ceiling, holding the shield in place. Then they both turned and looked at Ralph in awe and gratitude.

The ringing in Ralph's ears died down, enough for him to hear Henderson gasp, "Dude, why didn't you use that before?"

For a while, the three of them could only sit and breathe and grin at each other in that companionable, relieved way strangers often do when they just get through some ordeal together.

Suddenly, Henderson's smile went out, his face paled, and he jumped to his feet, closely followed by Eddie.

The angry shrieks of the bats were coming back, getting closer.

Henderson tightened his grip on his spear. Eddie picked up the remaining shield on the ground and turned to Ralph. "You'll be OK with that?" he asked, nodding at the rifle.

"Yes," Ralph said, with a confidence he didn't quite feel.

"Good." Eddie seemed to have come to a decision. He unclasped the bandolier around his waist and handed it to Ralph. "Welcome to the Upside Down."

And then Ralph saved Eddie from the demobats with his gun, and somehow Ralph found the time machine again and made his way back home, where he met a nice American girl whose last name was Munson, and they had a kid together (Wayne). When World War II broke out, she had to go home and they got separated, but she gave birth to another kid (Eddie's dad), and that's how Ralph Penbury became Eddie Munson's grandfather. (Can you tell I wrote this very, very late last night?)

#crack fic #ralph penbury #ralph timewasters #eddie munson #joseph quinn #crossover #stranger things x timewasters #it's so silly #i've never written a crackfic before #i promise i'll start posting my *proper* ralph fic soon

37 notes · View notes

fishyfishyfishtimes · 4 months

Note

Thing is about the fungi though… those are mating types (which aren’t even the exact same as sexes but pretty close)…. They aren’t genders like. How obvious is it that fungal sex has nothing to do with human sex, let alone gender, which is a human social construct? Are people really THIS widely delusional? Delusional in the way someone is who claims a “miracle” every time something nice happens, or what? Schizophylum commune having whatever number of mating types doesn’t tell us jack shit about how sex functions in humans… which in turn isn’t even gender, just related to it. So what the fuck is up with tens of thousands of people going on and on acting like it does? It’s like going “AHA grapes are purple and also sometimes green, and both taste good. People are also different colors sometimes. So therefore racism is bad. Checkmate racists.” It’s a loony toons argument, a terrible argument, and it does a disservice to the intelligence of anyone who is asked to nod along and act like it makes any kinda sense. Rotting brains as we speak.

Oh, anon! Where did you get the fungi post? I must’ve reblogged it ages ago… well, nothing wrong about stumbling upon it, of course.

It’s true that sex and gender aren’t the same thing, and that animals (and plants and fungi and other organisms, of course) have no concept of gender in any form. Animals that change their sex aren’t really transgender, even if it’s fun to say they are, since they have no gender identity to differ from their sex. It’s just a part of their lifecycle, like puberty to us! Totally different. Even then.. I think people pointing out these organisms and their varied selection of mating types and sexes is rather to counter the argument that being trans (and/or queer, and/or a person with an unconventional relationship or family/group dynamic) is unnatural! Yes yes, it’s not a perfect comparison for the sole reason that these animals don’t feel gender identity and what’s natural for them is wholly different from what is natural to humans… but that just shows how silly it is to point at nature and say that it is an unchanging, rigid monolith that humans should follow the rules of, when nature is so diverse and full of exceptions to the so-called rule! You know, undermine the silly “what is natural” thing some awful folks like to pull.

Besides, knowledge of the varied selection of mating types of animals brings people comfort. For one, I’ve seen people in my reblogs say that after learning about seahorse males being the ones that are pregnant, the knowledge brought them gender euphoria! And even if sex and gender aren’t the same thing, sex is still fluid, and seeing that certain animals’ sexes are also fluid is just.. well, nice to learn about. Perhaps it makes one feel less alone, or less like an outcast if they’ve been made to feel like that their whole life — because, well look at that! This animal is like me, in a way! This can go for all kinds of people. I think it’s sweet :]

Anyone can think anything of people likening other organisms’ sexes and mating types to humans and our sex and gender, I do really understand wanting to be true to the nature of… uh, nature! I always want to be as clear as possible when I talk about animals and their biology, so I tend to only refer to fishes’ sexes as just that, sex! I don’t want people to get the wrong idea and anthropomorphise animals too much; a wrasse going from female to male most likely doesn’t think too hard about its body’s change, it just happens. I just wanted to offer a view of why some folks like to liken the two together, you know? I don’t think they mean any harm!

#asks #anon #anonymous #anonymous asks

11 notes · View notes

no1ryomafan · 5 months

Text

In my constant brain rotations of “why are people in the west so hard on mecha aside from the fandom can be a bit unfriendly” I think one thing I realized as much as I hate to say is how mecha is sometimes treated remind me of the constant hatred superhero stuff gets.

It’s such a weird comparison because with mecha I do not know what the root of it was-and I’d love to know why but I feel there’s either no clear answer or there is one and it’s stupid-where as for superheroes in the west while there’s still a dedicated community the mainstream audiences have become tired of them due to over-saturation, which I understand, but it’s caused such a massive dismal to the entire genre of it much like mecha.

People think superhero stories can’t have any substance because it’s all about fighting and not about the characters- yet forget the SIGNIFICANT impact they had to so much pop culture. How superhero stories were rooted within comic popularity, how superheroes inspired countless of stories, even so far as reaching japan since so much early anime was taken off of western media which birthed its own genre of superheroes. It’s no different to how mecha help started up the anime industry making it one of the most important genres to japans history, yet most people don’t know it and belittle it.

Yet in superhero story cases it’s even WORSE when people are against it yet then go to see one superhero movie because it’s animated and put it on a pedestal and don’t bother to try other superhero content even though they consumed is no different from the norm. It’s the exact same shit when people watch eva and then think all other mechas don’t compare to it, when the genre always had darker, mature and emotional elements, just only a select few decide to canter to a audience who doesn’t even accept what genre it’s from which makes it all the more frustrating to deal with.

I’m someone who’s hardly into superhero stuff even if some of it catches my eye but it sucks to see that the situation is pretty identical to how mecha is seen, that I can’t help to feel sympathetic whenever I see some comic book fans upset at the mainstream audience even if they too can be a little hostile.

#meg text #to clarify I do agree 100% live action superhero movies especially the MCU got really stale #but that doesn’t mean those movies being stale should single out all superhero content when the stuff before is still GOOD #I was in a server that wasn’t mecha but someone was like “I hate superheroes” yet the discussion was just about a old Justice league cartoo #again- what’s so wrong about the animated ones? when they were from a time pre-saturation and people praise shit like spider verse?#I seriously cant tell if this is also a factor of the ever growing issue of people don’t wanna check out old things despite their importanc #*me awaiting the day someone unironically saids the boys/invincible/spider verse is a deconstruction so I can sigh in pain with actual fans #I hope to god that doesn’t happen but it feels like it’s close to why people already say superhero movies don’t have characters #and maybe that’s true bc I haven’t watched a marvel movie in ages but also I think you more so mean “characters being expanded upon”#because… every story has characters… just some can lack dimension and depth… but their still characters…#oh and it’s funny how it’s always these two that get singled out for focusing on action but shonen gets a pass 😑#action doesn’t equate to less characters!! How do people not realize this?#it’s fine if not your preference but fights can LITERALLY be CHARACTER DRIVEN #a lot of them are in fact because there’s always a purpose to these fights! Even if the meaning is sometimes barebone #also I know there’s gonna be a mecha fan who hates superhero who finds this post #and hate to break it to you but I’m pretty sure the super in super robot came from superhero and just not super powered #especially when a lot of the stuff Nagai made/worked on was him clearly tackling a superhero story from another angle #of course mecha isn’t entirely a superhero genre since we have “reals” but the 70s robots? Oh yeah meant to be superhero’s #and what I said above I think the comparison is warranted because the downplaying is unreal sometimes #will say between the two superhero’s probably have it worse because mecha honestly is more so “im curious but idk more then 5 shows”#because my god I can’t have some conversations irl where this shit doenst get unnecessary heated #had a whole English teacher who wouldn’t stop complaining about superhero movies last semester in college 💀 it’s that bad #that said mecha still suffers from people liking one show and shooting down the other it’s just not as prevalent bc mecha content is low #it’s not dead like others say but it’s mainly been gundam and people now just think gundam is every robot (which is PAINFUL but whatever)#moral of the story is don’t judge a book by it’s cover especially when that book is actually really important to fucking pop culture

4 notes · View notes

sorenblr · 10 months

Note

What is your opinion on the sexual cutscenes of FF16? I think a similar question was previously asked about Triangle Strategy and it seemed rather forced for the sake of pretending to be a more mature story, when FFT didn't rely on the explicitly sexual content to tell a mature story.

(This ask and the response are based on information that has been available as early as the demo and shouldn't contain any spoilers for the full game).

I don't mind a good sex scene and find the strangely puritanical reaction against sex depicted in film and television to be one of the most alien and frustrating discourses in recent years, but in this case it just seems to be the natural consequence of Yoshi P. demanding that his team watch the fucking GoT box-set:

...We wanted to create something that really resonated with a lot of people. And when we saw how Game of Thrones, and before that the Song of Ice and Fire series, has really resonated with players, we knew that this was something that we wanted to do as well. When we first started creating the game, we had our core team of about 30 members very early on buy the blu-ray boxset of Game of Thrones and required everyone to watch it, because we wanted this type of feel.

Game of Thrones made a lot of people a lot of money, and we thought to ourselves, boy, we would also like some of that money.

A larger distinction is that GoT features real actors who are, you know, people, and so it's not terribly embarrassing to see them stripped and smashing their shit together or jacking off or whatever. FFXVI, according to the aesthetic preference of an entire industry, is populated by uncanny digital homunculi only crudely approximating the appearance of real people with the animating force of God's breath filling their lungs. I don't anticipate that FFXVI will have full-bore, hog-out ramming or anything- I assume it's just a lot of post-coital sideboob, maybe a glimpse of Clive's weird little ass here and there- but in this presentational mode it would play closer to comedy if you're not catastrophically addicted to Overwatch porn.

There is a reason the camera would always cut away before Kratos starts fucking. You don't want to see that shit. You think you want to see it, but you don't want to see it. Do you expect to profit by seeing what David Jaffe in his wisdom has obscured from our eyes? This isn't In the Mood for Love. A color pencil rendering by some chronically masturbating teenage fan submitted to EGM in 2006 would be more stimulating than whatever these games are capable of showing you. You don't need to see Kratos' stroke game. You haven't even earned the right.

Beyond the unintended aesthetic effect of these things, I don't really trust this team to incorporate that influence in a meaningful or considered way, based on what I've seen of the game thus far. It extends to the 'epic medieval violence' and the prolific use of 'fuck'. I love fuck like a brother so please understand when I say that this is an incredibly remedial deployment of the term. The fuck sauce is not imitable. You simply have it or else it'll never be yours. A decade of stewarding radically PG-13 MMO quest dialogue has closed off the way to that place for Michael-Christopher Koji Fox.

And the insistent comparisons to Matsuno's oeuvre from the fanbase, often as a defensive appeal to legitimacy wherever the GoT influence is noted, are bordering on the absurd. Vaguely medieval politicking was apparently the only mark of his work that ever found purchase in people's minds, and none of the particular aesthetic, aural, or tonal distinctions that made those games living and vital. I don't expect that this game will have a meaningful resonance with those works except that people will be furious when the narrative inevitably ends with Clive facing off against some sort of ogre or deity instead of late medieval Karl Rove. But I also don't expect I'll have anything meaningful to share on the matter until I've seen for myself if it's as blandly imitative as it all seems. I mean, it's at least coming from an incredibly cynical place, as evinced in the quote above.

I don't have $650 USD burning a hole in my pocket at the moment, but I would love to be proven wrong whenever I have the chance to play it in like, late 2024. I similarly thought that FFXV looked totally insipid but then found it very affecting. Combat is an easy sell as one of the last living "character-action guys". You can use 'Stinger', that's good. There's a cooldown on the launcher? What the fuck is wrong with these people? It's probably still pretty good.

final fantasy sex thoughts postscript: they should make FFX-3 but it's about wakka and he always has one nut hanging out of his shorts and every 15 minutes he tucks it back in and says "sorry 'bout that brudda" to no one in particular but then it just immediately falls back out. also he's racist against al-bhed again

#ask #final fantasy #final fantasy xvi #ffxvi #god of war #kratos #game of thrones #posts that smell like low tide at the pier

30 notes · View notes

inkdemonapologist · 1 year

Note

HI THOUGHTS ON THE NEW TRAILER (if you've seen it - or if you're going in blind, ARE YOU EXITED)?

GOSH i have… CONFLICTED FEELINGS!

First, briefly, elephant in the room: I don’t really support JDS the real life company. No judgement to those that are excited to get the game, you know, no ethical consumption under capitalism and all that and we all gotta just make our own choices about where we draw our own lines. But just for me, I… personally don’t feel good about the idea of, deciding all their weird behaviour and mistreatment and unprofessionalism is fine in the end as long as the trailer looks cool. I’m intrigued by where BATDR will go, and it’s apparent the folks that worked on it put a lot of love into it. It’s possible I’ll change my mind; maybe as time passes it’ll become clear that they’ve cleaned up their act (though that one staff member’s passive-aggressive reactions to the last controversy video are uh, not promising). Or maybe someone will finally speak on this, say that the backlash to all their earlier bullshittery was a wake-up call, and they took steps to get their shit together so it would never happen again, but they didn’t want to address it publicly until they had a game in hand to regain the community’s good will. That would make sense. I don’t really expect this to happen, though, so I am not planning to buy/play/stream the game for now.

But, you know, I never played the original BatIM, either, and that didn’t stop me from being totally obsessed. So setting my misgivings about the actual company aside: THE TRAILER

I LOVE…. SON BOY BENDY…. IM SO HAPPY HES CUTE… I can’t believe Bendy is actually going to be in a Bendy game. This is hands down the thing I am the most giddy about. ALSO I KNEW HE WAS GONNA BE IN THE VERY END OF THE TRAILER I KNEW IT

It’s really encouraging to see them teasing new characters and new story and new circumstances, rather than leaning on Established Old Favs for hype… feels like there’s really a new story to tell here, with big changes in the status quo of the studio, rather than just trying to make More Of BatIM?????, which is great to see. It looks potentially really cool for fans of the original game.

“Beware the ink demon” “What’s an ink demon?” is actually great

At the same time… I have this feeling that I'm not the target audience. Like, it looks potentially way better than I expected, but those good choices ultimately lead further away from the stuff that interests me most (the pre-ink studio). The inky studio is interesting to me as a consequence of JDS, as a vehicle through which to discover what went wrong in the real world… and from what we’ve seen in the trailer, we’ve kinda moved beyond that in BatDR. I think that’s a smart creative decision that bodes well for the game, while also being not quite what I’m looking for. It’s a strange feeling! I'm not EXCITED like many of my fandom friends, but I am intrigued and interested.

(while proofreading this answer this morning in order to post it, the JDS Press Archive updated on the website with the first newspaper clipping and IM IMMEDIATELY FEELING WAY MORE DELIGHTED.... the trailer is fine BUT APPARENTLY WHAT I REALLY WANT IS MORE NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS LMAO)

I usually find comparisons of BatIM to Bioshock sort of reductive (like….other horror games have audiologs….BatIM doesn’t have plasmids or anything like the Big Daddies/Little Sisters or a Would You Kindly Twist or Critiques of Objectivism or ANY OF THE BIG ICONIC THINGS so like, the inspiration is clear but I really don't think it's Just Trying To Be Bioshock) but BOY HOWDY DOES BATDR SEEM TO BE TURNING THE BIOSHOCK VIBES UP TO 11 LMAO. thats not a complaint it just SURE IS THAT

One of the things I find a shame in batim proper is how quickly it stops being an animation studio with a weird cult around its main character. By chapter 3 it’s all SO mechanical like some kinda nonsensical factory… and this beautiful sprawling world in BatDR looks really cool, with a design that's filled with love and care!! but is also less and less an animation studio where something went wrong. Again, conflicted feelings!!

OBVIOUSLY if Sammy appears in the game for more than a cameo I AM REALLY CURIOUS what all of this has done to him. Is he dead? Is he still in Chapter 5 mode and incoherent? Is he able to find a new purpose in a world that’s supposedly free of the Demon? Or is he a “demon follower” who’s gone into hiding since his god was (allegedly) murdered? BECAUSE THAT LAST ONE COULD MAKE HIM QUITE AN IMPORTANT ANTAGONIST ACTUALLY,

(this is getting into wild speculation territory but i would ALSO be down for Sammy having immediately attached himself to this wilson fellow. Just keep up the trend of putting your total faith in the least trustworthy people Mr Lawrence!!!)

Like every other girl-liker on the planet i am also delighted about malice with gun

The lost one is cool-looking

I immediately want to know more about the implied DOCUMENTARY ABOUT JOEY DREWS LIFE???????

#i know you have questions you always do #batdr spoilers #batdr

59 notes · View notes