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spoonfullofwit · 4 months

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The HOTD AND MAGNIFICENT CENTURY CHARACTER COMPARISONS ARE NOT PASSING THE VIBE CHECK (in my opinion)

(Mostly talking about the shows. Not delving too much into books because I have not read the books yet. It’s on my TBR. And I know certain details that happen in the books because of videos that talk about A song of ice and fire universe. And I am not delving too deep into the Ottoman Empire history)

Okay....Wow.

Like....wow. Where do I even begin?

Point 1: A quick one to get it out of the way. Viserys I and Suleiman being similar is the best one in regards to that they are so oblivious when it comes to their family and it goes straight over their heads.

They don't understand why their families can't get along even though it so fucking obvious why, and they had the power to put a stop to the infighting if they did the obvious thing. For Suleiman put a stop to the fratricide law to prevent his sons from being forced into killing each and stop their mothers from plotting against each other to save them. And for Viserys not getting married a second time or abdicated the throne while he was alive and give it to Rhaenyra.

They love their wives to death and when Hurrem and Aemma died Suleiman and Viserys souls died with them. They have complicated relationships with their children; they have obvious favorites that caused conflict within the family. Suleiman with Mehmed and Mihrimah. Viserys with Rhaenyra.

I get this comparison. I accept.

But give my man Suleiman more credit because he was a better leader, commanded respect, and always stood on business on every aspect. While Viserys was a little flaky and kind of wishy-washy especially with politics and governance; despite being a decent enough guy he was not a good ruler. While Suleiman is considered the greatest rulers of all time both in the show and in real life because he was decisive, smart, and ambitious.

In a fight/war Suleiman would have fucking obliterated Viserys (without the use of dragons of course). But if not pitted against each other I think they would have been good enough friends. (though I think they would have secretly thought each other was a little weird).

Point 2: The main ones that burned my biscuits.

Hurrem is more like Rhaenyra and I am willing to die on this hill.

People have the uptmost gall and audacity to say that Hurrem is Alicent Highttower coded.....DID WE WATCH THE SAME SHOWS?

Hurrem is so Targaryen coded. At the very least Martell or a little bit Baratheon coded.

Like people are getting caught up on the ONE aspect of Hurrem's character which is that she is a bad stepmom ( i love her but it is the truth) like Alicent since they are both trying to kill their step children to make way for their own biological children...but Hurrem is more than that. And reducing her to just that is a disservice to the core of her character.

Yes Rhaenyra and Mustafa were robbed of their thrones but they are so different with their values and morals. And their gender plays a huge part in that also.

Mustafa did not have to prove himself to anyone or was questioned of his capability of ruling because he is a man. If history played out in his favor, there would not have been huge shift in history. It would have been more of the same because like I said he is a man. Mustafa is not much of an underdog because he has all of the privileges that Rhaenerya does not have access to.

She is constantly having to prove herself and her worth because she is a woman. She is constantly doubted and her honor is always called into question because she does exactly what every man does.

Rhaenyra is willing to do things (blood and cheese) that honestly I don't think Mustafa would have done. And if they met they would have not liked each other.

Because Rhaenyra probably would have reminded him too much of Hurrem.

Hurrem and Rhaenyra are rebels that dance to the beat of their own drum. They are the ones that broke the mold of what is acceptable for women. They were the first to achieve a level that was thought impossible for a woman.

Rhaenyra is the first woman to be named rightful heir to the Iron Throne and first sole ruling Queen (even though sadly it was for a short time). As a character Rhaenyra was balling the fuck out (as she should!). She was arrogant, was not afraid to put someone in their place, larger than life, and she wanted power. She fought in a literal war! Under the right circumstances she would have been a great ruler. She did what thought was best for her and lived life on her terms. Which is something even real women can barely do.

Hurrem was the first slave to become a legal wife of a Sultan and helped create an entirely new title, Haseki Sultan, which is the chief consort of the emperor. Which is the second most power position for a woman underneath Valide sultan (Mother of the Sultan). Haseki Sultan had immense power and influence of the empire! That is a huge step! She began an entire era called the Sultante of Women! She trailblazed for other women to rise up and gain power. All because she stuck her neck out, stood her ground and refused to be walked all over. Hurrem was all or nothing and did not asked but demanded respect. She dared to reached for more despite the heavy risk. She's fiery, charismatic, brave, intelligent, vicious, altruistic, headstrong, complicated, and plays by her own rules not anyone else's. She fought tooth and nail for she wanted.

Sounds very Targaryen to me. Show version Hurrem even have prophetic dreams and has fire and dragon motifs for christ sake!

Rhaenyra and Hurrem were both betrayed, abandoned, and had to move mountains to get what they want while losing a great deal in the process. They don't follow rules that don't serve them and are unabashedly upfront. These two would have been great friends! Hurrem, Rhaenyra, Laena Velaryon and Daemon would have been the best group on fucking earth. They would probably taken over the world in style.

Alicent would not have liked Hurrem. Maybe would not be so hostile toward Hurrem, but still would not like Hurrem's rule-breaking ways and her confidence.

As the saying goes good girls barely make history.

Point 3: The "good girls" in question

Mahidveran is the one who's soooooo damn Alicent Hightower coded. Like they are pretty much the same except Mahidveran is more outwardly viscous.

This is team "I blindly follow rules that don't serve me then get mad when said rules don't serve me." They allow others to control their lives and understandably they became resentful for it, and rest in their victimhood mentality.

They hide behind other people because they cannot stand on their own two feet. They are so self-righteous and refuse to take accountability for the wrong they have done.

I will give Mahidveran props for standing up for herself and her son to Suleiman from time to time. While Alicent waited until the last possible moment to stand up to her father (which resulted in absolutely noting). And I will give Mahidhveran major points for being a more involved parent and did not raise a rapist, drunk, and pedo.

While Hurrem and Rhaenyra went against the staus quo, Mahidveran and Alicent IS the status quo. If there was no Hurrem, Mahidveran would have been just another Vahide Sultan we would not have known or cared about. Or if Mustafa died before becoming a Sultan she would have been just another concubine pushed to the side because she did not break the mold. Which is understandable because it is dangerous for a woman to act out if she does not have protection or leverage. I understand that not everyone has it in them go against the grain and that's okay. Same for Alicent, if Rhaenyra never existed and Alicent married Viserys and carried on having sons she probably would not made much of a impact because again she complies with the restrictive patriarchal view of femininity and cannot fathom living another way because the risk of societal backlash is too great and scary. And again not everyone is strong enough to not give a fuck what societal expectations.

However, my problem with women/female characters like this is that they do absolutely nothing for the progress of other women and do everything for the progress of men. Even for men who don't deserve it (cough Alicent). They help continue the cycle of men dominating over everyone and maintaining a status quo that keeps women disempowered and treated as property and pawns.

I am not saying Hurrem and Rhaeynera are perfect feminists or perfect women or even perfect people. I am not saying everything they did was for the betterment of women because let's be real it was probably not. But women who take hold of their agency and personhood, shows other women that there are alternative ways to live and you do not have stand for a society or system that mistreatments you. Being selfish is the most radical thing a woman can do, because selfish "wild" women shows the gaping cracks of patriarchy, if more women choose to be themselves and live on their own terms then the system would eventually fall completely apart.

Alicent and Mahidveran would have been great superficial friends. They hang and out exchange niceties. Mahidveran would tell Alicent everything she want to hear because that's the kind of friend Mahidveran is (look at Hattice, Shah and Fatma.) And I totally see Mahidveran trying to worm her way into a marriage alliance between Helaena and Mustafa...Which I wouldn't be mad at cus my sweet baby Helaena deserved someone who wouldn't hurt her and keep her safe.

Thank you for reading my Ted Talk. Sorry if its long and got way to philsophical I might make more posts on this because it is very interesting and obviously I have thoughts on this. I love these shows so much.

#magnificent century #hurrem sultan #mahidevran hatun #mahidevran sultan #hurrem x suleyman #sultan suleyman #sultan suleiman #house of the dragon #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #hotd #game of thrones #fire and blood #king viserys #viserys targaryen

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highfantasy-soul · 2 months

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NATLA - Episode 4: Into the Dark (3/3)

[Masterlist of my NATLA thoughts]

An explanation of what I'm doing here and my history with ATLA.

Of course, full spoilers ahead.

Sokka's instincts make an appearance in this episode too as they're navigating the cave - love that Sokka is smart and figures out the stones light up in the dark - and even though his plan goes awry, just like in the animated show, sometimes his instincts are right, sometimes they're wrong - he's delving more into using his brains to help the group rather than just his battle prowess. Here is where the character beats between him and Katara in animated episodes like 'Jet' come to fruition alongside their interactions last episode.

In the animated version, they have a lot of time (ie beginning of every episode, so 20 times) to have the characters poking fun and mocking each other, but in only 8 episodes, that can feel like tonal whiplash if the characters swing from mocking to learning the lesson then back to mocking then learning the lesson then back to mocking then learning the lesson all in one episode - structurally, it just wouldn't work. Merging Katara's frustrations with Sokka always needing to be in charge and 'he knows best' into these two episodes really let that dynamic breathe, deepen, and be resolved in a satisfying way. They have a really sweet sibling moment reminiscing about home, and Sokka urges them to continue on, doing his best to be a good leader.

They both get to explain why they fell in with the people they did, how Sai helped Sokka and Jet helped Katara. The idea that we don't get through life alone, we need friends and mentors to help us along the way, is a huge part of 1) this episode with Aang and Bumi and 2) the entire series. I like how Katara reminded Sokka that when he was thrust into a leadership position, he didn't have anyone to help him through it - he was just given command and left to his own devices. It's a concept that comes up in the animated show too and I'm glad they're giving it time to breathe this season. Again, we're setting the foundation for character's core traits through the series, Sokka's being: a leader, strategist, inventor, and warrior.

I like that it's sibling love that saves the day in the caverns - I mean, first off, the power of MUSIC is what somehow got the badgermoles to guide them through the tunnels the first time, it makes sense that they'd be a bit more intellectually advanced and be able to sense emotions and follow verbal commands. And second, love the switcharoo with it not being the crystals but rather an emotional through-line. The OG was a bit eehhh for me because honestly, teasing that a KISS would light the way out (and some in the fandom STILL believing that's what got them to safety) is just….eewww to me. Very unnecessary especially since Katara and Aang are literal children. I'm more for them developing a strong platonic bond while they're this age because it really didn't feel organic to me for Aang and Katara to get together after Aang's whole crush that started from the first moment he saw her. It was a little too 'ok, you saved the world, now here's your reward: a woman' in the og for me. Not to say they can't fix that ship, but cutting it for now I think is a good move.

I do think this episode had some of the best moments and some of the most 'eh' storylines for me, so a mixed bag. I loved everything except the Bumi storyline, but again, I get what they were going for with it, I just think the execution could have been better - and by that I mean fully nix the 'crazy king' aspect of Bumi (which would have made the internet even madder than it already is) and just fully reshape his character to fit the tone of the live-action. Characters like Bumi are just SO over-the-top it's really hard to get that balance right in live-action.

But as far as criticisms go, it's pretty mild compared to a lot of plotlines I forgive in other favorite shows, so - eh *shrug* I'll live.

These past two episodes were quite annoying to analyze beside the OG because I'm rewatching the animated version to make sure I get specifics right and these episodes covered are all so late in the season! Omashu happens, then I had to go through storylines that show up later in the live-action but happen earlier in the animated. But, rewatching the OG is always good for me and I stand by the assessment that nothing got messed up plot-wise moving those later storylines up to here, rather I think it built an even stronger foundation for the heavier stuff to come like the Spirit World and the Blue Spirit storylines.

#natla #netflix atla #avatar the last airbender #netflix avatar

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witchsickness · 2 years

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"billy’s idea of affection is, not an active display of tenderness, but the absence of violence" This fucked me up so much oh my god I'm so mad that they killed him off like that

for years i’ve been trying to make some sense of billy’s place within the show and my conclusion is that billy’s abusive background should’ve uhhh never been introduced! by that i mean:

ST is, at its core, just a fun, scifi-anchored show. my personal opinion on the writers and their abilities or lack thereof notwithstanding, ST is a nostalgic and uncomplicated show, where social issues like abuse and homophobia seem dissonant against the monsters and the fireworks. with that in mind, billy’s entire character is rendered obsolete and out of place in the sense that, other than the very glossed-over abuse the byers’ siblings have been subjected to in the past, billy is the only ST character whose issues actually have roots in reality. every other character’s plotline is interwoven with the scifi aspect of the show, so any issues they’re dealing with (ptsd, loss, physical injuries) stem from, and are immediately caused by, the main plot of the show.

billy is different from everyone else in the sense that he doesn’t need monsters to become a tragedy. he’s living in his own hell before even moving to america’s monster hotspot, and that sets him apart from everyone else. you could argue max is in the same boat, but we never actually witness max feeling unsafe inside her own house the way billy does. max is immediately admitted into the plot, and is given an important role from the get-go, while billy’s plotline in his introductory season is limited to his rivalry with steve, that never goes anywhere, and. his abusive household. his monsters are human, and that, contextually, makes his storyline redundant, since it never affects the main plot.

ideally, a show of this magnitude should be able to effectively address and deal with all the issues its characters face, whether caused by the stuff they go through (it’s inconceivable how none of the characters display any sign of trauma after years. YEARS of violence and living in a constant state of alert. but that’s asking for too much lmao) or, especially, whether the issues were written into the character to begin with! i highly doubt dacre has the agency to actually push for a backstory, so i can only assume his ideas were greenlit, either because the duffers couldn’t care less, or because they were only too happy to let someone else do their job.

the thing is. the second you introduce real issues into your show, the game changes. it’s not totally okay to gloss over monster-induced ptsd if you care about your characters, but it’s not criminal, either. glossing over actual abuse, though. uh. that’s bad, scoob. introducing a plotline like this, with no apparent reason whatsoever, since it never actually affects the plot of the show or any of the other characters, means undertaking a responsibility you must be prepared to see through later on. abuse isn’t something to be swept under the carpet like everything else in this show, because it has an impact in real life.

idk if the duffers are delusional in their abilities to deal with such a huge, complex issue, or simply ignorant of how insulting it is to mention billy’s abuse once and then completely forget about it, or use it as an excuse to turn the abused and queer-coded teenager into a sacrificial lamb. in any case, the reality is that their way of handling billy’s character is careless at best and vastly disrespectful at worst. billy’s abusive background renders his death that much more tragic, and that much more wasteful.

maybe everyone would’ve been better off if billy had remained the two-dimensional bully the duffers intended him to be, and the show went on being the flippant, superficial 80s anthem it was always destined to be.

#you could say im bitter! you could say that!#idk kinda alarming that the only ones displaying empathy for billy are the harringrove ppl. kinda worrying tbh : /#billy hargrove #ask #anon #my stuff

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shinneth · 5 months

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The Sailor Moon AU born from my saltiness towards the manga

Read this for context. tl;dr: basically my love for Sailor Moon's 90s anime and 2003 tokusatsu has only grown over the years, while my feelings for Crystal remained at pure hatred whilst my feelings for the original manga has taken a sharp decrease.

In other words, I seem to work backwards from most other Sailor Moon fans.

Over a year ago, I had written out a hypothetical of how Sailor Moon's manga would play out if Naoko Takeuchi rejected the Super Sentai concept and made Usagi a (mostly) solo hero, sort of in the vein of Sailor V but much less fun with even more tragedy. I guess you could say it's a Sailor Moon but with more of a Kamen Rider motif?

Either way, I never released it anywhere until now. Mind you, it's not really a story so much as it is a gathering of ideas for a story...

THE SAILOR MOON MINIMAL SENSHI AU

One nagging sentiment I felt while rereading the manga is how it so often felt like Usagi, Mamoru, and Chibi-Usa were the only characters who mattered, and on several occasions the only characters who were able to get anything done. Even on the rare occasions where other characters got a chapter named after them, oftentimes the Moon Family still had more pages dedicated to them, and/or the non-Moon Family character's power-up ultimately became more of a battery to beef up Usagi and the character development was often minimal and inconsequential.

Crystal amplified that feeling many times over, but it was disheartening to realize one aspect of the source material it did justice was marginalizing the rest of the main cast. If I were to look at this in a super-cynical light, I'd hypothesize the likelihood that Naoko never wanted a big cast, or even the Core 5 team. If she did care about the non-Moon Family characters, perhaps it was out of obligation.

I'm willing to bet that the main reason Naoko Takeuchi bloated out her cast was due to mandates from TOEI hoping for more toy sales if more heroic Sailor Senshi existed. But that's just my headcanon on what must have been a nightmare production behind the scenes.

So it made me wonder about how the manga would have been if it “trimmed the fat”, so to speak. For all of Usagi’s protestations about how she “can’t use mist, fire, or lightning” to be useful… well, let’s face it: she already had a higher kill count than all of her friends even that early on in the story. Mamoru often had little episodes later on in the manga where he felt oh-so useless and powerless even though he’s killed monsters/notable antagonists plenty of times AND regularly takes part in killing off the main antagonists WITH Sailor Moon (while her friends were benched, even when they weren’t ragdolled into submission).

So, how much would really change in the manga if Sailor Moon was largely by herself with very few allies who could help her in battle? I can easily picture Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter being snipped from the story entirely.

Believe me, it KILLS me to say that. Mercury was my favorite since the beginning. But if I'm being honest with myself, it'd only take a few tweaks of the story beats to make Sailor Moon's first three allies completely superfluous.

For story purposes, Sailor V/Venus would have to stay in since she does play a vital role as a princess decoy, but otherwise… what if she lost her power entirely after the reveal of the true Princess Serenity? Or dies soon after? Without a team to lead, Minako wouldn’t serve much of a purpose. Heck, in this AU she wouldn't necessarily even need to wield Venus' power (since so few other planet powers are getting represented here) so much as a bootlegged copy of Moon Power.

We have a canon example in the Black Moon arc of how Venus was just “there” for much of it, even when she didn’t have to contend with her three teammates for spotlight/exposure. Hell, I recall her complaining in the manga that she’s bored and frustrated because she can’t do anything.

Luna and/or Artemis can easily substitute the exposition given by Venus.

Chibi-Usa would stay on and become Chibi-Moon; as previously stated, she’s a consistently focused-on character in the manga. In fact, she's highly integral to 3 out of the 5 story arcs. Definitely enough to the point where most of the manga would have to be changed if she was denied Senshi-ship.

Sailor Pluto… is tricky, but not impossible to write around. She’s heavily tied in with Chibi-Usa’s backstory and character growth. As Chibi-Usa’s friend and Time Gate guard, that much would stay the same. I would argue that Pluto needn’t be a Senshi to serve either role (she’s succeeding her father Chronos iirc, and Takeuchi is firm in her stance that men can’t be Senshi). So it can be arranged that she can maintain her duty as plain ol' Setsuna. It's heavily implied in the manga that she's not a reincarnation like the other Senshi were... at least, prior to her canon death. It wouldn't be too crazy to say Setsuna has beyond-mortal powers that give her extended life even without being a Senshi.

Hell, Queen Serenity basically enlists this child to duty saying "Here's all these awesome powers that you're not only not allowed to ever use, but if you DO use them, it'll end up killing you!" - Setsuna shouldn't need her powers to guard the Time Keys, and we've seen the Talismans can be held in civilian form. Though I'd argue her Garnet Rod needn't be a proper Talisman if she isn't to transform; it'd just be her means of self-defense.

Perhaps she never gets revived/reincarnated after her death? Because her connection to Chibi-Usa greatly diminishes from Infinity (and beyond).

The rest of the Outer Senshi… well. If one tweaks the Talisman prerequisite for the Holy Grail, such as make it LESS than three needed…

That’s all you need to cut Sailor Neptune and Pluto out entirely of the manga for sure. As much as I love Michiru, I can’t deny she is the epitome of “just there” in the manga. Pretty sure no one’s gonna contest this.

Even her relationship with Haruka is a side-note compared to Haruka’s constant pining/angsting over Usagi. I just kept getting this sense of Michiru being Haruka’s silver medal.

Haruka and Hotaru are the hardest ones to write around for this concept. That much I will admit.

But, one running theme for this AU is that, Moon and Chibi-Moon aside, no one else can wield the power of a Sailor Senshi indefinitely. Well, technically Mamoru is still there representing Earth, but only so much as he's able to in his canon iteration due to that pesky Y chromosome. I slated for Minako to permanently lose her power, and possibly even die for it once her narrative purpose was fulfilled.

Even if Setsuna remained a Senshi in this revision, it’s a similar outcome for her. In a best-case scenario for the latter, a reincarnated Setsuna likely would have no memory of her lonely past life and possibly come off as an entirely different person from who Chibi-Usa knew. She'd finally be able to live out a normal life no longer bound to duty and that's about as happy an end I could imagine for her.

(And hey, that’s all the more impetus for Chibi-Usa being drawn to Hotaru!)

Going back to Hotaru, then, her being a cyborg in this iteration of the story lends well to a tweak in the narrative: Pharaoh 90 attempting to artificially replicate the Moons’ Senshi powers, possibly referencing the means in which Minako was temporarily able to wield her power, to create a Sailor Senshi exclusively to realize its desires. One might say it's a perversion of the Moon Power itself.

But tampering with this dangerous power ends up corrupting Hotaru, of course, and retaining how Hotaru becomes Mistress 9 works nicely with this tweak. A Silver Crystal could sustain her powers without destroying her, or at least that's the running theory.

Whether or not Hotaru becomes a Sailor Senshi proper… I’m 50/50 on that. Mostly due to Saturn’s canon role as cleanup duty following the fall of the Silver Millennium. If any non-Moon Senshi were to exist for the long haul, it should be Saturn. Their powers are polar opposites, so it’d be a neat yin-yang deal, with Saturn still being dormant until an equalizer is needed.

Although I'd probably not call her Sailor Saturn, as it is arbitrary to include some planets (Venus, Saturn, Uranus) but not others. In general, I think the names of the non-Moon Senshi that have to be kept because removing them would completely upend the story would have to be a little more generalized than that. The Moon is often paired with the Sun and the Star(s), so that might be a safe bet. Even though the Sun itself is literally a star-

Anyway, keep Hotaru's rebirth a thing, but possibly end her role in the story once she becomes babby. So that Chibi-Usa, as canon manga mandates, seeks horse-boy as her rebound.

Alternatively, we could stay the course of the “Moon only” team narrative and have Sailor Saturn be little more than an artificial Senshi, not unlike the kinds we see all over the place in Stars. Between Dr. Tomoe, Kaolinite, and Pharaoh 90, I can buy them creating what is essentially a bootleg Senshi. Heck, that might even be the intended evil purpose of the Holy Grail once Uranus unlocks it with her Talisman.

Speaking of Haruka... Honestly, as far as the manga goes, she can single-handedly represent the Outer Senshi and their credo by herself.

But in the context of this AU, that doesn’t amount to much, lol. Honestly, I’m picturing Haruka as a darker counterpart of Minako. A temp Senshi at best, but one who’s using her powers for morally questionable reasons. This can range from romantic rival… (with no Michiru in the AU, that at least partially makes Haruka less awful - I’d nix the non-consensual kiss on Usagi, but in the spirit of a manga LITTERED with suchlike kisses, it’d probably need to stay as-is)

…. to embittered and vengeful foe who fully recalls her past life and blames Usagi+Mamoru for their failings. It was kind of a shit deal for the Outers to be permanently stuck in their post in the outer solar system, never getting to enjoy any of what they're dedicating their lives to serving. Perhaps she now perceives the practices of Queen Serenity as morally dubious at best - and tyrannical at worst, now believing, maybe, that the Dark Kingdom was RIGHT to end the Silver Millennium. And irony ahoy, Haruka - like Minako - can tap into her former life’s power. Make her take up Michiru’s role as the one who awakened as a Senshi on her own thanks to her Talisman.

Hell, one can have Haruka play both sides during Infinity. Tomoe can use his twisted science to amplify the "Uranus" powers to bypass the limitations of Venus’ powers. Probably at a deadly cost down the road.

As for the prerequisites for Super Sailor Moon? The whole “all Senshi aligned + grail” deal? Well… y’know, the Cutie Moon Rod came into existence as a trial run of how UsaMamo’s love is so potent that they don’t even need to do a WooHoo to procreate shit. Do that again, just add the actual product of future WooHooing. Chibi-Usa is familiar with the Holy Grail prior to its creation. Not a stretch. As far as this AU is concerned, Moon, Chibi-Moon, and Tuxedo Mask are the only "valid" Senshi to begin with.

Despite the amount of non-Moon Senshi chapters in Dream, I don’t see much changing in a setting where only two Moons and a Mask are fighting. For pretty much every arc, Usagi gets the lion’s share of killing blows. Mamoru and Chibi-Usa canonly have several as well - so what’s a few several more?

After all, the manga’s focus was always first and foremost on Miracle Romance. More often than not, when other characters got panel time, Usagi, Mamoru, and/or Chibi-Usa were the topics of discussion.

At the end of the day, the antagonists of Dream are squarely focused on screwing over the Moon family; the other Senshi were mere chess pieces for them to knock over. And they only became an actual threat when they literally handed over their newfound powers over to beef up Super Sailor Moon to Eternal Sailor Moon, so... there you go.

And for those few times Usagi was just hanging out with gal pals at school? Well, that’s what Naru is for. Hell, add Yumiko+Kuri too; they might end up with some degree of characterization! Usagi never not had the benefit of company during downtime! There just... tends not to be a lot of that in the manga; that's all.

Really, the biggest question in handling Dream is wtf to do about the Amazoness Quartet, considering they eventually become Senshi themselves - namely the equivalent of Inners for Chibi-Moon to have in the future. Since Usagi wouldn't have Inners in this AU, it stands to reason the Quartet are likely not gonna be redeemed and likely one-shotted much like their Trio predecessors.

As for Stars...? Well, it's basically this entire AU but dialed up to 20. The running theme of this arc is fake Senshi running around parading as the real deal while they kill, conquer, and pillage for their tyrant, who'd be the culmination of all the worst aspect of not just past antagonists, but past attempted would-be Senshi like Minako, Haruka, and Hotaru who would all either be permanently powerless at best or dead at worst.

But a worst-case scenario just might make them come back for one last go, and this time, there's be no blurred lines or moral greys: if Venus, Saturn, and/or Uranus made a return in this iteration Stars, that would be their permadeath. Unless, you know, this series still ended with Usagi yeeting herself into an automatic happy ending. And even then it's a big maybe. It'd be in Galaxia's hands, and you know Galaxia don't give a damn.

Chibi-Chibi/Chibi-Chibi Moon would still be a thing, as would Sailor Cosmos, obviously, since they're technically a form of Usagi and all. Their stories would largely be the same, I'd imagine.

I honestly can't think of where I'd put the Starlights and Sailor Kakyuu as good guys in this AU, though. I think the only way to make them work in the story and not be killed as quickly as possible like the Sailor Animamates is to have them allied with Galaxia and be functionally identical to Animamates (aka they're all fakers), but function as undercover agents to identify the holder of the Milky Way's strongest Sailor Crystal (Usagi's), find her weaknesses and the best ways to corner her, then coordinate a strike.

Alternatively, pull inspiration from the 90s anime where they ARE legit Senshi (they just come from another galaxy and all, so it wouldn't break the AU if they're more just reflections of the minimized Sailor Team) - but make them willingly surrender their Sailor Crystals in exchange for bracelets that will keep them alive, so long as they do whatever Galaxia says. Then they become reflections of Usagi and her family, and even perhaps make analogies between the three Starlights and what Venus, Uranus, and Saturn tried and failed to be for Sailor Moon.

The other elephant in the room is whether or not Mamoru gets killed off in the very first scene of this arc like he does in canon. It's a no-brainer that he'd have to die by Galaxia's hand eventually. Usagi just won't have nearly as many buffers to block her PTSD and be in total denial like she did in canon. Naturally, Chibi-Usa will be even less effectual than canon since she won't have her own personal underlings to pretend she's BFFs with and add firepower, so if only to balance that out (since the Sailor Quartet are literally the only ones who didn't die at any point in canon), Mamoru might be allowed to live a bit longer and make his love-forged bond with Usagi not quite so easily broken. But it will still break by force, one way or another.

Of course, because Galaxia's intent will still be to break Usagi, no one's getting spared at this point in the story. All of Usagi's normal civilian friends will end up biting it one way or another throughout the arc. Stars is clearly meant to be a depressing af climax to the series - at least that'll kinda deter people from hounding the mangaka into yet another arc for money's sake.

Usagi would ultimately jump into the Galaxy Cauldron at the end, though I imagine it'd be somewhat a different experience than how it was in the manga, given most of her friends don't exist in this AU, and the few that do either left/died on bad terms, or fucked off entirely without remembering Usagi or her family at all.

Maybe, if we're being generous, Usagi reunites and the temp/fake Senshi she encounters here actually make amends and promise to work for a better future? There's a lot of variables here.

It'd still end in a wedding because this is the Miracle Romance Supremacy AU, after all. Guess it depends on your mileage whether or not the ending is worth it.

So yeah, that's the long and short of the really fucked up AU I thought up inside my head because friendship and comradery always came off so hollow in the manga to me. Especially with ~Miracle Romance~ being so infuriatingly inflexible in the manga.

Hope you got some sort of entertainment value out of that. Highly doubt I'd write this proper - it wouldn't be worth the backlash, and I'm not nearly invested enough in UsaMamo to do this concept justice.

Feel free to leave your thoughts or whatever.

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originalwinnercheesecake · 2 years

Text

Gus Porter Appreciation Post

I have been wanting to do gull analysis of the important characters in The Owl house since like 2/3rds of the way through season 2. Now that the first season 3 special is right around the corner It feels like a good time to make posts and get views again.

Gus is a character I find particularly interesting. In season 1 and for part of season 2 Gus is there, but he is secondary comic relief, very token, and almost never seems to move or affect the plot. He slowly grows as a character with and develops arc’s though, and whats interesting to me is that unlike with characters like Luz/Eda/Willow I cannot really say when his character hit the turning point. I mean I know when his character had shifts, or started to focus more visibly on certain aspects of his character, a lot of the big moments his character goes through and core aspects that come to spotlight in episodes like “Through The Looking Glass” and “Labyrinth Runners” on re-watch actually start more subtle in the back ground of season 1 episodes.

Warning very long post underneath

Things with Gus that could have been done better

Okay first lets address some of the weakness’s of Gus’s character. I want to get those out of the way so that I can spend more time speaking his praises. Up top I call him 3 things “Secondary comic relief” “token” and “unimportant plot wise”. I stand by all three being true (at least for a lot of the series) and all three can be problems with his character. For the “secondary comic relief” one... King is out main source of comic relief. King is voiced by Alex Hirsch, who many fan’s recognize as the creator and voice actor for many Gravity Falls characters. He is a very funny man. King himself is also a funny character, because he sees himself as big and ferocious, has a large personality, and all of this is wrapped up into a like 2.5 ft tall fluffy little dog body. Gus’s first ever job in the show was to come assist Luz on adventures and mishaps where she would be away from Eda and King. Unlike King though Gus does not have a large personality, and with his a main trait being “Self-proclaimed “Human Expert”, when actually everything he says is wrong” he just never seemed as funny. Also King despite being mostly comic relief had lore and backstory from the beginning, taught Luz about demons and life with Eda, and was able to come up with clever ways to help defeat foe’s. Gus... shares his food, and can do basic distracting.

I called him “token”. that is a word that I know gets thrown around a lot, and there is some argument as to when it is appropriate and what it means. So let me give the definition I learned for “token”: One or a few characters that are different from the main cast in a noticeable way, and are added in mainly to give the illusion of this show/book/game being inclusive.” You know how in 90′s and early 2000′s shows about super hero’s/crime fighting a team will have that one (or maybe two if its a big team) female character because otherwise the show writers can be accused being sexist “don’t you think girls can be hero’s too”? Plus without her they will have more trouble doing cliche romance tropes. Or how about in Christmas specials you always have at least one who is briefly stated or shown to be Jewish, because of course the show runners know that Christianity isn’t the only religion, and Christmas is not the only holiday. Gus would qualify as a token character for two reasons. One is that he is one of the only few boys at Hexside who is learning magic, and is also important enough to have a name. The score for that I believe is Girls 11, Boys 5. Of those 5 Jerbo and Barkus were intended to be one off characters and while we saw them again they got no focus and virtually no development (Barkus is in a hexsis holdum club, Jerbo flew for that jerk professors flyer derby team that one time). Edric only shows up spuraticaly and rarely is shown at school. Mattholomule also rarely shows up, and when he does it is to be a parallel foil to Gus (more on him and that later). So Gus is our only frequently occurring boy to actively bee seen trying to become a witch.

Secondly he can count as a token Black character. The Owl house has prioritized including 3D characters of different sexuality, and learning types. Its disability representation has also gained positive notice and appreciation by its audiance as well. But is does have some problems and struggles in race. I will start by saying that I am white, and as such I do not notice as many things as a POC would when it comes to racial inclusion, and my word should always come second to a POC’s when talking about this. But even I can notice that Amity’s character seemed completely thought out and written with fluid direction when Dana and the crew were still throwing Mabel, Webby, Star, Anne, every other off-beat, family carton, female protagonist of the last 10 years, and multiple popular teen cliche’s all against the wall to see what stuck as character for Luz. Even I can note the racism on giving Luz a new White Mom when she already had a Latina Mom. Then treating White Mom as her main/better/more fun mom, because Latino Mom tells tries to change Luz (get her to tone down her more destructive behavior while at school) but White Mom lets Luz do whatever she wants, up to and including praising her for crime. And even I can notice how Gus got way way less screen time and focus than characters who had lighter skin than him. Now here I want the opinion of POC fans: in season 2 Dana and the crew added 3 more POC characters (Raine, Darwin, and Darius), brought back 2 existing characters (Katya and Mattholomule) and, admittedly more towards the end of the season 2, gave Gus and Skara more focus. Did this feel to you like Dana and the Crew noticing and correcting an issue, or did it feel more like the damage control?

Gus’s plot relevance in episodes is kinda self explanatory. In 1B he does not even participate in shenanigans and mishaps that Luz,Willow, and Amity do. He is the group cheerleader. Which would be fine if they let him do all the cool tricks, acrobatics, and full on routines cheerleaders do. Combining his illusion powers with all of that would have been really awesome. But instead of doing any of that they just gave him two small flags that he waved back in fourth from the stands. That was his whole cheer routine, and most of his 1B character... Okay now I am finally done with writing out the flaws/problems with his character, remember I do love this character, and can move on with praises.

Gus’s magic abilities

Gus’s learning trope is that he the “stressed out gifted kid”. He is a protege magician when it comes to Illusion magic, and have even skipped 2 grades. Okay We do not know that much about how different grades work at Hexisde (it’s an all grade school) since Luz our main character see’s the school for the first time at 14. Given that Luz enrolls during a Summer semester I am guessing that Hexisde is a year round school (how do grade levels work at those? I do not know) that does like 4 three week breaks during each season. But I am going to guess that Elementary level kids learn about the different coven tracks and opportunity’s in them, middle school kids pick their track and learn the basics/early lessons, then High school kids perfect their magic and take more advanced lessons. We have never heard Lilith or Raine or any of the Blights mention Colleges, so maybe its not a thing on the isles and kids only leave when coven recruiters come and take them away...

Gus again skipped two grades and “Labyrinth Runners” implies he does it pretty young, he looks like 9 or 10 in his flashback of his first week in advanced classes. If Willow’s powers came late, could Gus have developed Illusion powers early? We also see that he wasn’t then and still is not now in complete control of his powers. My guess is that when Perry and Bump saw what Gus was capable of they moved him up those grades because they believed the best thing for Gus was to get help from an experienced illusion professor who could help him learn more control and mastery of his powers. We can see how great the Illusion professor is in “Labyrinth Runners”, and how much she cares about Gus.

In season 1 Gus mostly sticks to what seems like advanced basics. He could sentences in the air, and make copies of himself, and he was amazing at it. He was not doing one letter at a time, or even one word at a time, he could magic whole sentences into the air at once with great theatrics. His can make multiple copies at once. His copies still remain fully functional when he is away from them, and they can all talk. For clones made by a child, they are very advanced copies. In “Looking Glass Ruins“ Gus makes an illusion large enough to cover a small grave yard, and then In “Labyrinth Runners” his school. In that episode he also pockets a powerful magnifier glass that lets him peer into foes heads and call fourth bad memories. This gives Gus a way to cause actual damage to Belos in “King’s Tide”.... But Gus may have been hit some recoil on that.

This brings me to another part of Gus’s character that I love: He gets progressively stronger through out the show, but he never reaches the ceiling of his potential. He can give his copies more advanced mobility and speaking skills, But when he does they are less likely to do what he wants. See the that only pretended to take notes for him when he skipped, and the one that he made when he wanted to interview himself who promptly told him “I would rather die than reveal my secrets”. He is not able to make large illusions in season 1, and in season 2 they tire him and he still loses control if they go over a certain size. He learns to use the magnifier glass quickly, but he can only us it on an already subdued opponent and using it may pose danger to him in the process. Gus has all the potential to become a mater illusionist, and the dreams and ambition to become even more. But all of this will be one day in the future. For now he is a kid who needs to keep studying and practicing so he can get better, smarter, and wiser. This brings me to my next point about Gus

Relatable Fears

First off let’s look at the pressure Gus puts on himself. He loves to brag about getting to skip two grades. He can be a show off with his magic, and when mentioning that his dad wants him to become a master illusionist he laughs says “That’s easy”, and declares that he will become this powerful and new figure in relational politics and end a long standing feud between the boiling Isle residents and the Giraffe’s.

When tries to help Willow deal with a pixie infestation with an illusion and it doesn’t help at all, and she gets hurt anyway, He goes through a huge existential crisis and starts wondering openly questioning if the illusion track is even worth studying. Some bullies trick him into helping them clear a way to the graveyard for them, before revealing they do not want to be his friends and do not care about his feeling’s or opinions. Gus blames himself for all of this. Who was he kidding thinking Bria actually cared? Well it’s not his fault. HE thought Bria cared because she did a really good job of putting on a show of acting like she cared. Its pretty high key hinted that he does this all the time at Glandis and that’s how she keeps her three “friends” and probably others under her thumb. Heck its low key hinted that she got Mattholomule in so much trouble that his parents took him out of Glandis at least in part to get him away from her and the members of their group. Gus isn’t stupid, Bria is just a skilled manipulator.

After Bria Gus and the cast, unfortunately meet, Adrian Graye Venworth. Gus see’s through his first illusion and saves Edric and the other kids from being tricked into getting sigiled. But Later Gray and a member of the Emperor’s Coven trick Gus into almost going with them by casting an illusion to make the Coven Scout look like Willow. Hunter See’s through the Illusion and grabs Gus yelling that it is a trick. Gus is devastated that he could not tell the difference between his best friend and an illusion and concludes that he must be stupid and have something seriously wrong with him. A few things that I will point out here (and I am so glad Hunter points out to Gus in the episode). Gus is not at fault at all. The coven guard pretending to be Willow fooling him? They showed up when Gus was in danger, scared, and desperate to find help so of course he feels a wave of relief at Willow. Hunter saw through it because he has rained himself to never drop his guard (he has had to) But Gus has no reason to distrust Willow. Even if he was fooled it was never a fair fight. Gus is a gifted kid, but he is still only a 12 year old kid, and is still learning. The Emperor’s coven is made up of all the most ambitious students and highest scores AFTER they graduated school, past tons of vigorous recruitment tests, and devoted their lives to nothing but improving their magic and serving the Emperor. Adrian is a Coven head, a.k.a the top ranking Illusionist on The Titian. Him and all he guards are older and have both more training and experience than Gus. They were able to fool Bump and the Hexside teachers too, and none of them are fools. Gus’s only problem is the pressure he puts on himself.

To go a bit deeper into Gus’s fears, we see him began to work through his fears in season 2 but I think his arc with fear and overcoming it actually starts in season 1′s ‘Enchanting Grom Fight”. Remember at the end of it when Willow and Gus are helping with the clean up and that peace of Grom morphs into their fears. We see that Willow is afraid of ladybugs (???) and that Gus is afraid of clowns. Now Clowns are a pretty common, it would be enough to assume Gus is scared of their big red grins, yellow teeth, or giant stomping feet. But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” through that Illusions are not able to help solve his friend’s issues like Gus hopped he loses faith in them and himself. Then h starts calling Illusions “party tricks” and himself a “clown”. Which descends to “Stupid”, “Fool”, and “Kidding himself” in “Labyrinth Runners”. You add all this together and it equals Gus not being scared of clowns because of creepy make-up, oversized cloths, or how in-your-face some clowns are. We only see the clown image Grom used on Gus from the back but I am gonna gus its front looked kinda similar to Gus himself. “Clown” is the bad name Gus calls himself when he gets angry/scared/or frustrated at his own mistakes. Gus is scared that maybe he is destined to be a clown. Maybe his dad, teachers, friends, and himself are all fooling themselves when they call him someone special, and maybe everything he is good at is just stupid, unimportant, party tricks.

THAT IS NOT TRUE. Gus’s is a great friend and his support has done a lot for Willow, Luz, King, Mattholomule, and Hunter. He has been a real light and the dark for them all. While his illusions have limits, he starts finding knew things he can do with them throughout the season as he improves (and we thankfully say god bye to the Gus the uninspiring cheerleader and the two tiny flags that all he does is flick back and forth). Gus’s own magic feets even hit Heroic status on at least three occasions “Through the Looking Glass Ruins”, “Labyrinth Runners”, and “Kings Tide” where if not for him things would have gone much worse and potentially innocent lives could have been ruined or lost. Gus can, is, and will be great witch. He just needs to take some time, and come into it in his own way.

Gus’s development into a more empathetic friend and his growth and maturity through out the show.

Just a small heads up most of this will be about Gus’s relationships with other males. I know, I know Willow and Luz are his best friends. I am not trying to undervalue his relationships with them, they are great friends and very important to him. The reason I am not talking much about them is that his friendships with them start from their first meeting and remain really consent throughout the show. There is never really any change. They are all friends, Willow and Luz know he is younger by a couple years but they do not treat him any different for it. Gus loves this and is super protective of both of them, trying to jump on or “Gus chomp” any big kid who calls one of the Trio “losers’ or tries to give them a hard time.

Let’s start with the first time we see Gus in his element. Gus’s time as the President of the Human Appreciation Society (a school based club he started). This was Gus at his absolute worst, most jerkish, and it got him nothing. Gus says in the episode that he created the club because being the youngest kid in his grade he was always overlooked and wanted to create a place where that would not happen to anyone. When he says that it is the only time that he is either kidding himself or just being stupid. Because Gus is a tyrannical leader that and overlooks every other person there. No really he is. Gus calls himself “The President” but also made himself a crown, like he’s the king. He has a huge list of rules that he made himself and that no one else is allowed even comment on. He is the only person allowed to touch the objects, He is the only one allowed to make decisions (he legit see’s the group wanting to vote as anarchy), and judging by his reaction to Matty dumping out his backpack Gus may even be the only one who is usually allowed to bring in artifacts. Gus made himself a place where he would get to be in charge of kids older than him and they would have to listen to what he says. Well later in the show we see that Bigger Kids used to take advantage of Gus’s trust and trick him into doing their work for him. These are his worst memories.So seeing that I can see why Gus would want a place like the H.A.S., but that is an explanation for his behavior and not a excuses. He is acting like his old bullies and it is getting him nowhere. The bigger kids in his club must stay because they are interested in learning more about human culture, because they do not seem to care for or like Gus. When Mattholomule challenges him for leadership two kids support him and one just proclaims himself “an undecided voter”; none of them back Gus. When Bump kicks Gus out of the club none of the kids care or ever speak to him again.

Losing the club was painful for Gus in the short term because it was a club he cared about (and it led to 1b Gus and his boring obsession with two tiny flags. They really could not have also given him a horn, some lights, or put the flags on a baton), but after the way he had acted I cannot say he did not deserve to lose it, and he did grow from this. His relationship with King is the first one to show his growth. In “Really Small problems” Luz gets the day off from school and decides to take King to the carnival. While there she runs into Willow and Gus and asks King if they can join them. Gus is really condescending to King here, but King agrees to let them join for Luz. Willow and Gus do not listen to what King wants to do, gradually take more of Luz’s attention, and eventually fully exclude King. This drives King so crazy that he buys a potion to make Gus and Willow temporarily disappear. Which of course he bought from a con artist, its actually a scam that gets everybody in trouble, and King has to apologize and explain his loneliness to the other kids. He tried to make peace with Gus and Willow by offering them both pieces of broken friendship necklaces which they both take. Gus thanks King saying that he has always wanted “A jagged piece of cheap metal”. Willow gets on to Gus, I guess believing he is still being condescending, but I do think Gus was checking himself. Two episodes later when everyone is getting excited about Grom Gus gets to be the announcer and he goes to King to ask if he would like to be his assistant. When King gets stage fright Gus finds him and helps him through it in a much more tactful and friendly way. Gus is 3-4 years older than King, so to King Gus is a big kid. When King confessed the way Willow and Gus made him feel, I think this was the first time Gus was able to see his former bullies in his own actions. He did not like it and he makes steps in later episodes to be more friendly to King and treat him like one of the group.

Now Let’s go to Mattholomule. Gus was a jerk to the other members of his club, but when Mattholomule does his whole “scared and lonely new kid who just wants friends act (which I know was not completely an act)” Gus believes it and really does seem genuine in wanting to be Mattholomule’s friend afterwards. When Mattholomule turn on them and sends Luz to the detention pit, Gus goes to save her, and Mattholomule gets literally dragged along in the crossfire. Gus could have left Mattholomule to rot down there. There is a few options as to maybe why. Maybe Gus feels responsible since he kinda started this whole mess. Maybe since Mattholomule has the most experience with dentition pits Gus and Luz thought they could need him in the escape. What ever reason Gus shows genuine kindness in recusing Mattholomule as well as Luz. That is not an act that Gus gets repaid back to him right away. As soon as they get out and Bump see’s what they did to the pit, he tries to blame Luz. Gus takes all the blame, part of which should got to Matty, but Matty only speaks up when he see’s that he still has the opportunity to steal Gus’s club. Just to be clear on Mattholomule as H.A.S.P: He is a jerk, he will be just as tyrannical as Gus was, and like Gus the club made him no friends, no more popular, and any power he thinks the title gives him is in his head. Gus has to leave and become better.

But in “Through the Looking Glass Ruins” we get more back story on Mattholomule. We meet his old crew (whom his brother does not seem to like him hanging out with anymore) and see that they are all better than him at magic and hear how his lack of polished skill led to other kids making Glandis very difficult for him. Mattholomule essentially dealt with the same issues as Gus but on the opposite end. Mattholomule tries his best to keep Gus away from the other kids, and Gus thinks this is just him being mean. Only to find out to late that these other kids are just using them both. Because Gus was once kind to Matholomule, something that try as he might Matty has apparently not been able to stop thinking about or being grateful for, Matty goes back to help him. After watching Gus defend the graveyard from his old crew Matty finally makes the right choice for the right reason (reasons other than power or dept) and offers to help fix it up. Then, at hearing the illusion history may have to be hidden away, Matty suggests that he and Gus can build it a stronger defense system. Gus has a new friend now (who may one day also become more than a friend, they do share interests and passions) and has renewed faith in both that illusion magic matters, and that people aren’t all bad, and are capable of changing for the better.

These lessons all come to play during Gus’s relationship with Hunter. Gus does not really like Hunter when they first meet. Hunter or “Caleb Jasper BloodWilliams” is a strange, rude mouthed, big kid, who Gus has not seen before, but getting Willow’s flyer derby team approved suddenly depends on him... It turns out “Caleb” is really Hunter, a.k.a the Golden Guard, and he is here to trick them into the roughest coven of them all. Yes Hunter regrets it and goes back to save them (actually he may have done it more for their palisman than them, but he still helped them). He did the right thing, only after lying to them, scamming them, and putting all of them in danger. Gus is not obligated to forgive Hunter or try and be his friend the next time meet. When they meet again Gus half expects Hunter to try and pull the same crap, until he learns that Hunter is on the run. Then he offers him help and a listening ear. Gus did this because he knows that Hunter is not 100% bad, feels empathy for how alone/confused/scared Hunter is, and he knows people can change for the better. Gus has come along way from the bratty, vindictive, kid he sometimes acted like in season 1a. To him these basic acts of kindness do not seem like much, but to Hunter, who is going through so much, they mean the world. It’s because of Gus’s influence that Hunter finds the courage to come out of hiding and publicly supports the rebel side. This indirectly helps lead to all 6 kids (I included King) being together on the day of Unity and able to help each other against Belos.

Gus Porter All and All

Gus is a really great, well thought out character. He is in the background more than some others, and I wish the show had brought him to the forefront more (I do believe that if the show had run longer we would have gotten more of him and Matty protecting the graveyard, Matty introducing him to his favorite book series, and Gus meeting Steve. Grrr). But even when Gus is stuck in the background he still has some really interesting arc’s going on and you miss out if you just dismiss him. I also appropriate Gus getting to do important things and be a hero from the background, he reminds me of Codename: Kids next Door’s numbah 5 in that respect. She mostly stayed out of the spotlight by choice, but was indisputably the backbone of her team. Gus’s journey through school and the insecurities that he deals with remind me a lot of myself when I was younger as well as friends I had back then. I am willing to bet a lot of kids in school can relate to Gus and I like how so much of his feelings and situation are shown to us instead of told. Its nice that kids can see him, and have him to help learn to not doubt or be so hard on them selves, You are special, the right people will see you as such. IF the voices in your head call you names, then tell them to shut up because they do not know.

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brick-boats · 9 months

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So now that it’s been about a week since the release, I’d like to go on a spiel of the different aspects and headcannons of my script.

**Spoiler Warning**

A THREAD

So my main goal for this project was to rewrite all the scenes in chronological order. The way the original movie was plotted had different time jumps all over the place, which was confusing to follow. My aim was to make a story flow smoothly from start to finish.

Second main goal was to expand on all the characters, especially reintroducing P.T. Boomer. The humans needed just as much of a bad guy as the engines did with Diesel 10. Not only did I give the engines more screen time -for a movie about Thomas-, but for the humans too.

That being said, I found a lot of the human characters in the original movie were just so muddled and boring. And when watching/reading the director’s cut they had more potential, but unfortunately Britt Allcroft gave them too much unnecessary exposition.

One that went overboard from the director’s cut was P.T. Boomer, he was shown as an excessively comical villain that was more of a joke than a threat. That however gave me the inspiration to make him the original Schemer from Shining Time Station. A name which he hates.

Burnett Stone was also a greatly wasted potential. Britt only portrayed him just as a sad man, but in the director’s cut he had much more emotion and passion! I certainly gave him reasons to be sad about. He is a man broken by the loss in his life, but protective of Lily.

Lily was definitely the most interesting to write. The original & director’s cut had some lackluster writing and acting, but it gave me inspiration to portray Lily as high-functioning autistic. She is smart and clever, but easily gets emotional and overstimulated.

Patch was the most blank template of all. I portrayed him as a country boy with a heart of gold. He cares a lot about his friends and Shining Time, and after learning about Burnett’s secret of Lady, his loyalty pays off in the end.

Billy Twofeathers was a greatly missed opportunity. Not only is he wise, kind, and experienced, but he stops at nothing to protect Shining Time and the nature around him. Something very spiritual and important to his Native American heritage. A no nonsense gentle giant.

Stacy Jones was honestly one of the better written characters of the original film, despite having little screen time. She also cares deeply for Shining Time, and loves to help others. I gave her some more moments being a helpful guardian to her friends.

Mutt…oh Mutt… I don’t know why Britt was trying to force a magical sentient dog trying to change fate for Shining Time by “making Lily to get on the wrong train” or “being at the right places at the right times”. In my story he’s just a dog. A good boi. Simple as.

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Now for the engines! Thomas and his friends deserved a lot more spotlight. Britt did ultimately make the right decision by including just the core 6, minus Edward. The director’s cut honestly did not have a good place for Edward plot wise. It’s sad but it was for the best.

I -did- however give Edward a small roll at the start and very end of the script. I do headcannon he took Sir Topham Hatt and Lady Hatt off to the mainland for holiday. Another small cameo is George the Steamroller near the end with Diesel 10, just a little nod. ;)

Unfortunately, like Edward’s original role, I couldn’t find a way to include Duck into my script. He and Edward were just there in the director’s cut to overly-explain to the audience what was going on in a toddler-esque way.

In the director’s cut Duck also clashes with George again and references the season 5 moment where George causes Duck’s truck to collide with Gordon. Which was a weird addition if TATMR was intended for audiences -outside- of the Thomas fandom, so how would they know?

Overall, George being originally written as a tertiary villain going around smashing all the buffers was just silly tbh. I axed it out in favor of his little cameo in my script. He’s tired of Diesel 10 complaining and states his hatred for railways, true to his character!

Splatter and Dodge were two wasted characters! I did them some justice by writing them as proper henchmen…Hench-diesels? They’re not completely braindead, just silly little goons. But once Diesel 10 and Boomer pair up -with intent to cause harm-, Splodge says enough!

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And last of all, the Conductors. Goodness gracious they were the real diamonds in the rough. I had to cut a lot of nonsense out, especially the soccer ball/baseball bat moment with Mr. C… that gold dust hits hard, huh? I couldn’t even make it work in a dream scene.

Junior wasn’t as bad. I just tweaked some moments here and there to make more sense in the story. Example how he “put party poppers down Thomas’s funnel” is a moment we don’t even see on screen. I included a gag where he just puts them under Thomas’s wheels to spook him!

As for Mr. Conductor the 1st and 2nd, just some nods to George Carlin and Ringo Starr’s roles in Shining Time Station. Carlin being the grandfather and Starr being the father to Alec Baldwin’s. I know it’s not the original chronological roles but I like it better this way.

In conclusion, this whole project was the result of almost 2 months of hard work from me to the fandom. A love letter for TATMR for its nostalgia and happiness from my youth. Britt had some wild ambitions, but it just needed to be… Rerailed. ;D

Thank you for reading!

#ttte #thomas and friends #thomas the tank engine #ttte thomas #tatmr #thomas and the magic railroad #ttte lady #ttte diesel 10 #fanfic #fanfiction #long post #headcannons

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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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Am I the only RWBY hater legitimately happy they're addressing Ruby's trauma and her constant shoving it under the 'i'm a happy dappy shounen protag! you can lean on me!' rug. If it fucks it up I don't think I'll even be too mad - The Owl House fucked theirs up and that's one of the best new shows out. The fact they actually had Ruby faint as her literally shutting down to the new information was neat to me. So tbh despite the rest of the episode being, lmao, bad, I kind of want to be happy and expectant based off that alone. If the focus of the volume really is zeroing in on Ruby's mental health (which it definitely is squaring up to be) I'm kind of interested what they'll do.

You're far from the only one, anon! I'm cautiously hopeful, based primarily on that opening. The fact that we've got Ruby lagging behind the group alongside, our trailer with her past doppelganger seemingly judging her, tells me that yeah, we are squaring up to tackle this. Which is great!

It's also, honestly, kinda frustrating. I was saying years ago that if RWBY finally gets its act together it'll be too little too late in many respects and now we're bumping up against that very problem. I have trouble taking Ruby's trauma seriously when it was nearly nonexistent post-Penny's first death and actually nonexistent after her resurrection. I especially have a hard time taking it seriously when it's book-ended by cutsey mice and vine gags. I'd argue that on one level RWBY already has fucked up Ruby's mental health arc, simply by letting it languish for eight years and introducing the core of it in that mess of a premiere... but that's not to say that there won't still be worthwhile aspects this season, even if the arc isn't all that it could have been.

I'm also just so, so wary after Volume 8. Because Volume 7 had so much going for it. We had the same basic setup of, "This is nowhere near perfect because we had too many problems going into the season, but damn if what they're doing with Ironwood and the team isn't interesting!" And then that crashed and burned so very hard. Obviously that's not to say RWBY will fail again to follow up on what they've introduced, but history hasn't made me particularly optimistic.

Tomorrow is going to be pretty crucial imo. Because Ruby's faint - while yes, emphasizing her shock and tendency to, in this case, literally shut down - is also an easy way to dodge her having a more complex, nuanced reaction. The premiere dodged that further by going, "Ruby says she's fine and conveniently the girls aren't gonna push her about that. Oh look! The episode needs to end now." So tomorrow's 15-20 minute chunk is when the story has to start actually doing something with this revelation - whatever that looks like. If Ruby begins to deal with his somehow (because remember, we only have 9 episodes left), fantastic, we're on our way through a potentially satisfying arc. But if we continue to waste time on silly jokes while Ruby just remains perpetually in this state of, "I'm fine, no need to grapple with what I'm dealing with" - which, notably, has basically been her default state since Volume 3 - then I'm worried we'll get another one-episode "fix it" towards the end of the season, rather than an emotionally fulfilling arc. There's a big difference between actually taking Ruby through this journey of coming to terms with her grief and (fingers crossed) her mistakes vs. introducing us to the fact that She Is Sad and then giving us a scene later in the Volume when she inexplicably, completely Overcomes It. Think Oscar accepting his role as Ozpin's host off screen. Qrow suddenly deciding he's done with drink and look, there are no problems with quitting. Or Ruby's lie never amounting to anything, Ren deciding he's just a bad teammate somewhere out in the snow, even leaving half our characters for a Volume with a potential time-skip on the horizon.

RWBY is very good at saying, "Here's a big problem" and also "It's fixed now," but it's grown terrible at providing the in between; how we got from the staggeringly difficult problem to its resolution. I'm really hoping Ruby's arc doesn't go the same route.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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strfe · 3 months

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RE: IDENTITY.

after spending hours watching a video (source) @speedchasing sent me i'm going to make it everyone's problem cover a little regarding how i've always written cloud's personality and overall 'identity' from the happenings of crisis core (post-nibelheim) and note how i've always perceived it, as well as some new developments, some of which are unique to vii remake (meaning his personality will differ to an extent between his og / viir verse(s), etc).

i still believe that cloud has never really thought of himself as 'being zack'. the closest example of this being true is in the flashbacks cloud has, where he inserts himself where zack would be in reality, because zack had been the only SOLDIER present at that point in time (other than sephiroth, in most instances, and he at least knows he is not sephiroth) and it's reasonable for him to therefore have been that (other) SOLDIER, since if he knew anything of his past — it was that he was a 1st class SOLDIER. the identity that cloud takes on at the beginning of ffvii is one comprised of his memories and desires, as well as tifa, and also zack's memories. from the moment cloud regains consciousness at the end of crisis core, the jenova 'mimic' ability present within him begins to shape the personality that he will eventually take upon himself in ffvii. the idea of zack: the hero that cloud had always admired & wished to be ever since he was a child, as well as the legacy of memories that zack leaves with him upon passing the buster sword along, imprints itself onto his consciousness and begins to formulate when he meets tifa at the train station just prior to the beginning of ffvii.

the jenova cells rewrite his memories and come together to formulate the idea of all of cloud's memories (namely prior to the nibelheim incident), zack's ideals and behaviourisms, tifa's memories of him, and the dream of becoming a hero he clung to so desperately as a child (and even into adulthood).

the mimicry is intertwined with his very consciousness to project a reality to him that he wished to be true, and that protected him from the reality of zack's loss & his perception that he was a failure in every aspect of the word: he hadn't made SOLDIER / hadn't proven the kids that bullied him wrong / couldn't fulfil his promise to tifa to get her to notice him, and he was unable to do anything but watch as his closest friend (the one person who still embodied 'the hero' that he aspired to be but never was, and didn't believe he would ever become) laid down his life for him. he was 'too weak to save anyone': a sentiment sephiroth reminds him of in remake, but one he desperately tries to avoid.

something this video made me consider more-so (especially with regards to the events later in the game, then from 'on the way to a smile' onwards) is the idea that zack, aerith & sephiroth are all a fundamental part of cloud's consciousness. while zack and aerith guide him towards recovery and salvation (something it has been noted he couldn't otherwise do alone), sephiroth guides him towards destruction and embodies his pain and regret. in remake, sephiroth seems to purposefully be trying to disconnect cloud from that which makes up his consciousness, and / or become the domineering presence in his consciousness, and is shown on multiple occasions to have a stronger hold on him (cloud) than even in the original game. moments such as cloud stepping towards johnny to kill him, and not hesitating to strike down reno (even resulting in the whispers intervening) aren't entirely out of character for someone who has killed in the past, but they are moments that are definitively not present in the original game, and there is emphasis on cloud's behaviour scaring others and / or being especially violent, even for an 'ex-SOLDIER'. this is likely also due to his connection with sephiroth during remake being more prevalent. his consciousness is gravitating slightly more towards 'destruction' than it does in the og. while i can't say for certain, i do expect the disparity to grow as time passes and the story continues in remake, especially if the theory that zack has become detached from his consciousness in some way(s) is true, and increasingly more-so if sephiroth accomplishes this same feat for the other memories that shape cloud and his bond with others.

the main thing to note is: cloud in remake is not only an amalgamation of his past memories (among other things), but also of future memories that sephiroth has been feeding into his subconscious.

while this isn't a staggering change at the moment, it is a slight one, and i expect it may be key to certain elements of ffvii changing so i'm tentative to write too far into the vii:r verse outside of what story has already been revealed to us. for example, i would be reluctant to write as far as the north crater knowing that by that point in remake our expectations may have been completely subverted / characters may be acting differently or have taken different paths, etc. i think it has been long enough now to say quite confidently that vii: remake is not a remake, it is more of a convoluted sequel, and as such (while i'm happy to merge elements of remake/rebirth + with the og for fleshing out the world / its characters / character dynamics), i'd prefer not to write specifically in the remake verse too much further than is 'current'.

#❛ HEADCANON ( my fingers are tingling / my mouth is dry )#not sure why tumblr hates the indent feature but it wouldn't let me indent all my text. homophobic #anyway i have bad brainworms #if i have you in dms im sorry #this also isn't to say i Won't write remake threads outside of what we understand #just . i'm tentative to jump into it with everyone without any initial discussion #sometimes it can be fun to gauge how shit might go down even if it winds up being completely wrong / i'd just preferably like.#talk about doing that first LOL

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norsecoyote · 4 months

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Miraculous is an exceptionally good kids' show

I started watching Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Chat Noir because of a CJ the X video.

(Or, rather: because we needed to kill some time in an AirBnB in San Diego (this was the same trip but not the same day that our car got stolen), our then-4-year-old wanted to watch something, all we had access to was Netflix, and the thumbnail for Miraculous popped up and I at that point remembered the CJ the X video.)

It took us over two years to catch up, because after that trip it became something we watched together as a family, which we only made time to do every so often. But last night, with our kid now just over a week away from her 7th birthday, we finished Season 5 and the conclusion of the primary plot arc which had been driving the show since the first episode.

And... as weird as it would have sounded to hear myself say this two years ago, I'm genuinely impressed by this show, and I want to try to talk about why.

Uh, spoilers, I guess? Though I cannot imagine there are that many people reading this who would also have an interest in watching the entirety of Miraculous totally blind.

One of the things CJ discusses in that video, that was honestly the major selling point to me as "something to watch with your kid," is the show's surprising and often-subtextual emotional sophistication. Like, the entire conceit of the major antagonist is that he preys on people with strong negative emotions and turns them into supervillains, and while some of the scenarios are certainly silly, they're also all grounded. The way the show portrays the interpersonal dynamics of the core cast is certainly simplified, because this is a show for kids, but it's all realistic enough that it let us actually have meaningful conversations with our daughter about how to treat people.

For example: Chloe Bourgeois is an utterly absurd caricature, the spoiled vindictive brat to end all brats, and frankly it shows herculean restraint on the part of the writing team that they waited until the final episode of S5 to make the obvious joke, but: the broadness of her cattiness, selfishness and cruelty made it legible to our kid even from the beginning. We had a lot of conversations with her about why Chloe acted the way she did, and Chloe's motivations (if that's the right word) made sense to her. I would not be at all surprised if growing up alongside Chloe for two years -- or rather, alongside Chloe's brief flirtation with but ultimate rejection of actually growing up -- has a long-lasting influence on the sophistication of our daughter's moral compass beyond its 4yo starting point of "mean" vs "nice."

(Also, so carefully developing Chloe as this truly awful but fundamentally "relatable" character was crucial to the successful introduction in the later seasons of the genuine sociopath Lila. Seeing the contrast in our kid's reactions to the two different flavors of villainy was fascinating -- she haaaaaaated Lila.)

The overall commitment to emotional sophistication also paid off tremendously in the arc of Gabriel/Hawk Moth/Shadow Moth/Monarch, both in the sense that our kid understood him and why he was doing everything, but also in how his final heel > face > heel > face turn, a rapid-fire sequence of Shocking Twists that could very easily have come across as contrived, cheesy or worse, instead felt fully "earned" and deeply satisfying. Miraculous may use bright colors and broad strokes to paint the relationships between its characters, but the final result feels like a painting, not a cartoon.

The other aspect of the show that impressed us, really throughout its run, was the way it handled shifts in the status quo. Like, the entire first 3/4 of the first season presents itself as purely episodic: someone gets their feelings hurt, they get "akumatized," the heroes save the day, Hawk Moth curses Ladybug as the iris closes over his window. (Notably, as CJ the X points out, they make zero attempt to explain the nature of any of this magic or the vocabulary used for it -- it's presented as a world where everybody is already used to it all, and every episode is Just Another Day.) And honestly most of the episodes of the first four seasons have that same fundamental pattern -- it's not until like halfway through the fifth season that they start regularly shaking up the formula.

But, every once in a while, and not just in season finales, the show introduces some new bit of lore, or gives the heroes or villains access to some game-changing new power, and then just... keeps moving. It neither ignores the new stuff nor falls victim to classic DBZ-esque power creep, instead just fully incorporating the changes into the landscape and exploring how they affect the dynamics of the conflict moving forward. Ladybug spends a lot of time straining against the limitations of her power set, but every so often she actually solves one of those problems, and afterwards that problem is just... solved. And like the bad guy quickly adapts to her new capabilities, of course, but not (just) by throwing More Power at her but by changing his tactics.

In fact, one of the few times the show did feel like it was just doing Competitive Power Level Charging ended up not only not being that but setting up for a very clever payoff. At some point, Ladybug gains the ability to, after she saves someone, create a magical charm to protect them from being akumatized again, and then that process gets incorporated into the standard post-battle victory sequence. And then, not long afterwards, Shadow Moth gets the ability (somehow?) to make "megakumas" that can just... break through those charms. But she keeps giving them out for some reason, and eventually discovers that a LOT of charms all working together can protect even against a megakuma, and at this point it's just like okay, I'm seriously losing interest in the arms race subplot.

...until it is revealed that Ladybug's habit of giving out charms to fucking everybody, all the time, even to people who already had one that totally failed to do anything at all before immediately breaking, is actually a critical mistake, because oops one of the infinite people she tossed one to like confetti was secretly Shadow Moth himself and in the finale he figures out how to use it to track her energy signal anywhere on Earth. And this instantly redeemed the whole plot element, because not only was it not in fact the writers being lazy and uncreative, they deliberately stuck it into the one sequence of the show that gets repeated more or less verbatim every single episode -- which, it was clear by episode 2, is deliberately reflective of the repeated animation sequences in classic shoujo anime -- to misdirect the audience about whose laziness it was.

The show is also unafraid to genuinely shift the status quo of its second primary conflict: the love rectangle between the two leads. For anybody still reading this who hasn't seen the show (which: why?), the gimmick from the very beginning is that, in their civilian identities, Marinette (aka Ladybug) is in love with Adrian (aka Chat Noir), and in costume, Chat Noir is in love with Ladybug -- and they are both explicitly forbidden from ever revealing their secret identities to each other. This state of affairs continues unchanged for some time, even as their classmates repeatedly try to set the two of them up -- until, all of a sudden, it changes. The character growth is slow and subtle, but it's there, and by the third or fourth season they actually start making new moves in the endless dance, before the whole first half of the fifth season is basically dedicated to exploring "what if?" scenarios and systematically demonstrating that there is no shortcut to them being properly Together without them both Growing Up and also Defeating Monarch.

And like, I am very aware that none of this is groundbreakingly original television or storytelling -- it's just surprising and refreshing to see in the context of a show that starts out looking like, basiclly, a slightly better-animated PJMasks.

This is, unlike the CJ the X video, not actually a recommendation for any adult to go binge Miraculous, but it is a recommendation for any parent to consider watching it with their kid. The combination of surface-level simplicity and deep, thoughtful character writing and plotting makes it simultaneously accessible to quite young audiences and complex enough to "grow with them," and ultimately leave even an adult viewer feeling satisfied with the time spent.

(plus, of course, it makes for some adorable moments:)

#media analysis #ramble #legitimately the two most unrealistic things in the whole show #is that the population of Paris appears to be approximately ~100 #and that all of them have complete and terminal face blindness #miraculous #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #children's media #children's animation

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unlimitedhorsepower · 1 year

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t&b has shown how barnabys tragic backstory is just public information but out of all heroes the hero going through the most shit because of their hero position is undoubtedly karina...

sure, barnabys past is mostly public, and he has no secret identity, but even if he was young he became a hero, karina was a child. karina also didnt just become a hero like other child heroes, she also became an idol.

being a child celebrity is a horrible experience as a fact, and the only other person who may understand karina on this matter is ryan, who definitely looks like a kid in the teaser added to the beginning movie, and who is referred to as an experienced hero, something kotetsu gets referred to bc of a decade or so experience... and considering hes about barnabys age, he had to start as a kid

the other child heroes have very distinct and separate public/private personas, which is true for karina too- but she has responsibilities due to being an idol. she has to play up a certain kind of persona, wear a certain kind of clothes, she cant even choose her tagline for herself.

she is sexualized and objectified to sell the idol blue rose, and she does that every time shes in her hero suit. the reason i say ryan may be able to understand her is that while we dont know anything about him for sure, he most likely started as a kid and went through a similar career path as barnaby (in the sense of his private self being public knowledge), but it has worse ramifications to go through that as a kid

still, it doesnt come even close to the way blue rose is marketed as an idol. at times, t&b comes close to making some sort of somewhat self-aware commentary on it... but never quite manages, and t&b2 really let karinas character down and let her not have any meaningful character development and perhaps taking back agency for herself

its wild to me how she should have the most against hero industry- it never protected her, on the contrary, it facilitated her exploitative career. had mr. legends match-fixing become public knowledge, for example, she couldve been given a moment to shine.

shes very smart and also one of the best heroes, having tied with keith for KOH earlier, and it feels unimaginable to me that she couldnt have easily accepted it. blue rose is part of the dark side of the hero industry, the marketing and the lies (her entire persona is based on lies, and she is suffering for it for many reasons, and she cant change it because her manager is against it)

similarly, ryan has undoubtedly seen it all happen somewhere else (why else does he keep acting like sternbilds heroes are such an unique case with how they support each other etc), and i think he wouldve accepted it as easily

blue golden, i feel, has more insight into the hero industry than kotetsu & barnaby, because kotetsu is such an idealistic person at the core and while barnaby has been mistreated by the hero industry, its easy to chalk it up to mavericks direct interference than the entire industry itself

karina never was a tool to be used by a villain- she just happened to become an idol to be marketed since she was a child. the issues of the hero industry run far deeper than just some ouroboros interference. i dont think karina (or ryan) would find mr.legends shittiness a surprise or have any qualms about accepting it immediately

just because youre a hero or someone who works for the hero industry doesnt mean youre a good person. mr.legend and maverick certainly couldnt arrange the entire match-fixing by themselves: there had to be a lot of people involved with it. t&b2 really downplays this aspect... and LL auduns character potential isnt realized...

hes a vigilante... according to who? the hero industry?.. which decrees that only the biggest companies in sternbild may be able to sponsor heroes? what if your NEXT power was past the required threshold and you had the pure idealistic heart of a hero but you cant find a sponsor?

even the 1st season touches on how commercialized the hero industry is, but i feel like that whole aspect was forgotten for s2. it feels like they forgot the whole corruption angle entirely, the way apollon media is one of the sponsor companies but it owns OBC which broadcasts and owns heroTV...

karina doesnt have meaningful personal connections to ouroboros, but she doesnt have to. she just knows firsthand how cruel the hero industry can be, and how everyone involved within it is just a person. the title of a hero doesnt make anyone ideologically good.

she has worked hard for what she has achieved as blue rose, but still her achievements are overshadowed by others, and i remain of the opinion blue golden shouldve won KOH, since karina has tied with keith in the past and if ryan is good at something, its being a hero (lol), so he wouldnt have been a hindrance to her in this goal

but im getting sidetracked... theres just so much potential about karina that the show never acknowledges so that she can talk about crushes or something instead of anything serious...

#tiger and bunny #karina lyle #blue rose

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diesoonandsuffer · 2 years

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What are your thoughts on the star trek movies youve seen? I kind of want to watch them since everyone talks about them but the og movies force me to confront that the actors aged (a weirdly specific hangup of mine ahdhdjdjsjs) and I haven't heard a lot of flattering things about the aos..... I guess I'm just wondering if you liked them or not since we seem to have a lot of similar star trek opinions! The aos ones seem bittersweet to me too because spock had such a sad life after the og movies : ( but yeah I was just wondering if you thought they were worth watching!

hi anon! tumblr kept burying this ask they don’t want me to help you but i WILL

i think the aos movies are worth a fair shake. in some ways they’re better than some of the tos movies in terms of pure like…writing quality and such. i know they’re very controversial and to some they may seem like an affront to the legacy of star trek or whatever but. idk maybe i’m just so used to everything lately getting rebooted and remade and sequeled that this really didn’t make me bat an eye. i was like yeah okay. sure.

with the first one it definitely will take you a minute to adjust. for me i had this uncanny valley feeling at the beginning where i was like okay so this is kirk but this kirk is like this and not that, okay, and so on with everyone. but once everyone’s been introduced that feeling sort of goes away, at least for me, and you can just focus on the story. there’s enough source material within the core of the characters as well as references to the canon throughout that you can still feel the energy of the originals but its separate enough where you know it’s its own thing. by the third movie especially you really feel the series start to settle into itself and feel more defined, but it’s a process.

there are definitely some aspects to them i’m not crazy about. uhura’s character seems to barely take anything from her source material, there’s some weird sexualization in the first two movies, and some writing choices are just not that great. but i’ve seen so much bad media that to me these aren’t unforgivable sins. maybe i’m just not as passionate or a long-term fan as other trekkies but i don’t hate the aos movies at all.

if you’re worried about og spock then yes you are going to get a bit sad. and he looks VERY old. his eyes somehow have gotten smaller? but it also is a fun little treat in the first one to be like OMG HI SPOCK!!! so try to enjoy that aspect i guess lol

TLDR i think they’re worth at least trying because some aspects of them are really fun. do it for bones alone. i love aos bones and i dont know why. i hope this helps!!

#if you do end up watching them please let me know what you think!#im sorry if you end up hating them LMFAO #but thank you for trusting me #sam’s thots #aos #ask

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small-gremlin-thing · 2 years

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MY THOUGHTS ON AMPHIBIA S3E17:

Oh man, where do I even begin with this?!? The overarching story in general and the feeling of “this is it” that was prevalent throughout the episode was phenomenal, I was damn near on the edge of my seat the entire time. The visuals were also absolutely stunning, the fight scenes were edit worthy (source: already working on one lol), and I’m just blown away at how much the animation as a whole has improved since the start of the series.

I do have a few grievances unfortunately, the episode felt sort of rushed and could likely have been split in two, but I personally can look past that since I don’t expect perfection from this series (if you can’t look past it, I totally get where you’re coming from and we can agree to disagree).

Now, to break down my absolute favourite scenes, though not in full detail since I don’t want to type a 10 page english paper (that’s reserved for annoying my irl best friend). First and foremost, the introduction to Marcy’s mindscape/room/void(?). I’ll lump all of these together for simplicity. Going in I didn’t think that the room that Marcy was locked in was a little puzzle room, but really that doesn’t surprise me. Then we got to see the massive library and the fantasy world created for her (+ the dope ass outfits), and I unironically would love it there that place looks fun as hell (minus the creepy friends and possession of course). Then when Marcy rejected the fantasy by realizing that she didn’t want that, she wanted her real friends, and she got thrown into the void(?) I was lowkey a bit worried. But the connection was severed and she’s fine, so that’s good. On a similar note, the flashback to Marcy meeting King Andrias for the first time just solidified how much I love her as a character, and how much of a dick the core is.

The fight scenes in this episode need no introduction, as I’ll once again say that they were absolutely phenomenal! Whether it be between the Plantars/Boonchuys and robots/herons, Anne and King Andrias, or Grime/Sasha and Darcy, they all had me screaming (/pos, mostly). On a similar note, the loss of Grime’s arm caught me (and the vast majority of of the fandom as I’ve seen) by complete surprise. Time to bust out the clown makeup I guess, because I was convinced that it would be Anne. I’m not mad about that theory being false though, Anne doesn’t need any more trauma than she already has.

The scene where Sprig read King Andrias the letter from Leif and King Andrias sacrifices himself was also very well done! We got even more confirmation that Leif is a Plantar, and Andrias sacrificing himself(?) and turning out to be a cyborg was emotional (and unexpected as far as the cyborg aspect is concerned).

Finally, the reunion between Sasha, Anne, and Marcy was one I’ve been waiting for for forever, and it feels so nice to finally see it. They’ve all got their issues but the bond that they share is like no other and they’re destined to be by each other’s sides and just AAAHH MY HEART, I LOVE THEM!! The final moments where they realize that the moon is falling (is this Majora’s Mask??) and their work isn’t done followed by the end of the episode just left me wanting more in the best way.

Jesus Christ on a bike I wrote a lot, but not without reason I guess. My closing note is that I won’t be doing an analysis like this for the final episode, instead I feel it would be more in order to write a love letter of sorts to this show that has brought so much joy into my life. I was 13 when this show began, 15 when I was introduced to it, and I’m now 16 and almost done with my sophomore year of highschool. I feel like a love letter is in order if you ask me (also, if that would fall under the Amphibia Supernova event let me know so I can tag it accordingly!). I’m not ready for this series to end, but that’s where we’re headed, so I’ll see y’all on the other side.

#amphibia #amphibia spoilers #amphibia season three #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #mrs boonchuy #mr boonchuy #hop pop plantar #sprig plantar #polly plantar #grime amphibia #king andrias #darcy wu #leif plantar #sorry this is so long i love this show a lot ok

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thiscrimsonsoul · 2 years

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what were your thoughts on MOM?

{out of paprikash} Spoilers for MoM ahead!

I LOVED MoM for a lot of reasons. Yes, it hurt to see Wanda going down this path, but I was actually pleasantly surprised with how much comic influence this particular installment had compared to others for Wanda. And that was hard to do considering she began from a place that totally scrapped 90% of her background in the comics. But without retconning or weirdly changing anything, they brought in several things from the comics, such as Mount Wundagore, Chthon, her motivations, and her descent into obsessive madness. Even though they didn’t play exactly the same role or unfold the same way as they did in the comics, it was cool that they took her in more of a comic direction, even though my heart bleeds for Wanda that all this had to happen this way for her. Such things are canon now in the MCU so it’ll be interesting to see what if anything more is done with them in the future.

I loved Strange throughout the entire movie, as well as all his variants. Just... yes, 12/10, approved. I also really liked Wong, he needs more airtime and his own movie at this point because yes. A lot of what Stephen went through made my heart ache but from a storytelling and characterization point of view, I really loved it. It’s made me want to write him so badly, and if I thought I could do it well, I would bring him to my multi on here. Unfortunately, I just don’t feel I write him well and I’m not confident doing that. However, I do write him with a close friend off Tumblr where I can hide inside my mediocrity haha, and I’ve branched out from writing standard 616 Stephen to writing Dark!Stephen, and it’s just been harrowing and sad and I love it hahaha. Not what you expected me to say probably, but I’m enjoying writing an obsessive, unhinged, but still core Stephen version of him, it’s very interesting.

As far as the movie as a whole, I absolutely adored it. I’m a huge Raimi fan, have been since the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies in the 80s. I also am a hardcore horror fan. I’ve been watching horror movies since I was four, it’s my go-to genre, even more so than fantasy, which would be my second favorite. I actually don’t overly like action/superhero movies. I’ve been watching MCU movies just for the characters I like, heh, which is why I still haven’t seen a lot of them. So for me to have my favorite witchy girl in a movie that let her go full horror was awesome. Loved the Ring-esque way she crawled out of the Mirror Dimension, loved Zombie!Stephen, loved mentally askew Dark!Stephen, and I have to give the movie credit for actually surprising me with a horror element, heh. I’ve seen SO many horror movies, and nothing really scares or surprises me anymore. I actually was surprised by Black Bolt’s death, just the visual aspects of it. I actually gasped and was like, “Oh! My goodness.” Which is saying a lot for me with horror stuff because it usually doesn’t grab me like that.

I loved the fantasy/creature elements. Zombie!Stephen was great, I LOVED the eyeball creature in the beginning, and... here’s where I reveal just how weird of a person I am... I actually thought the temple guardians were really cute. The big ogre guys that bowed to Wanda? THEY WERE! THEY HAD LITTLE SCRUNCHY FACES AND TINY EYES. I’m... a strange person, haha. But yeah, a lot of the creature elements were right up my alley. I also loved the sorcery. I can watch Stephen making hand gestures all day and night, and Wanda battling sorcerers from around the world at Kamar-Taj? *chef’s kiss* So overall I came out of the movie super excited and happy and having really enjoyed it. It has inspired me so much and breathed new life back into Wanda, who I had begun to feel very stagnant with writing of late, so that’s great. Also the multiverse aspect makes crossovers and bringing OCs into rp that much easier and I just love it. Not that all of us weren’t already writing whatever the heck we wanted anyway, but now we have a canon vehicle for it. I just... ugh, loved this movie.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t things about it I didn’t like. From a story-telling point of view, there were things that didn’t make sense or that were just stupid. For example... Captain Marvel and others look completely different in different parts of the multiverse but all Stephen Strange variants are... the same. Just change the hair. Meh. I get why they needed to do that from an actor standpoint but it still made things seem less... multiversal.

Also... the timing of things was not consistent. Towards the beginning of the movie, Wanda was able to grab America and almost drain her dry of her power in seconds, but at the end of the movie she... inexplicably leaves her lying on an altar for... however long... waiting for... what, exactly? And then takes forever to start the process of draining her? Why? I mean, the reason is because we had to give 616-Stephen-inside-zombie-Stephen time to get to her but.... again, meh. Wanda could’ve had what she wanted in seconds, and she should have. If you need to make her wait, come up with another obstacle, don’t just have her wait for absolutely no reason, that was dumb.

But all in all my criticisms of it are pretty minor. I would absolutely see more MCU movies like this one. MoM is now my favorite MCU movie, and before that my fav was AoU, so that’s saying a lot, heh. And no, I don’t believe Wanda is dead. That little poof of red energy we saw as the rubble collapsed? Yeah that was her either poofing herself somewhere else or creating a shield, and nobody will tell me otherwise until they show it to me in another movie, heh. It would be absolute bullshit to kill off a being as powerful as Wanda in such a mundane manner.

Okay, that’s everything I can think of as far as a general review. If anybody has specific questions about things, I’d be more than happy to answer them, but yeah, overall I loved the movie. =)

#{ out of paprikash } ᵒᵒᶜ #dsmom spoilers #multiverse of madness

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