#I DON'T NEED A REVIVAL BUT I DO

[februerik]

i'm 🤏🏻 this close to making an abc selfie youtube video essay commentary analysis, sincerely

[babymillennial]

At the risk of setting off a bomb in the Aaravos and Leola fandoms, I do wonder if we ever talk about how--if Aaravos's description of his daughter is accurate--she would probably hate what he's become in her absence.

[akai-anna]

Round 7

Round: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

[thatonecrookedsmile]

I would say that, considering his history, he's not that wrong, but even I have doubts as to whether that would be right. But at the end of the day, this is just a joke that's been in my head for a while, sooooo…eh.

Oh hey, an attempt at a comic? Made by me? That I didn't give up during the process or lost all motivation? What was my only attempt at this, 2019? Damn, it's been a long time.

I thought about leaving this here without editing or any colors, just the natural ones from the paper and pencil. But something in my head said "HAHAHA, no" so I went back to work. I had to put this idea down on paper this time (literally). If another year passes without me being able to execute this idea, I would lose my mind.

This scenario was inspired by this video by Jehtt, inspired by the original meme by Windii. Credits to both of them.

For a long time I wanted to joke - especially on the anniversary - that I wanted Sammy to only have less than 5 seconds in the next game (or in other words, take his screen time in DR, and shorten it even more). You know, just for the funnies (unless..?) But,thanks to the news released at the beginning of January this year about The Cage, I legally can't do this joke anymore…this year. Don't worry, after that comes out (and finally gives Sam the screen time he wants,hopefully) and we start to crawl into the Bendy 3 production era, I'll make this joke when I can.

Anyway, happy birthday Sammy Lawrence. You may not be my favorite character in this franchise, but there are some things I can actually appreciate about you. Plus, you made me laugh a few moments before (you know what I'm talking about) so there's that.

And happy 7 years to Chapter 2, and by extension, Susie, Norman, Alice, the Searchers, (Johnny????), and Beta Ink Bendy. (I would mention Jack too, but he was only introduced with the release of CH4, so technically it's not his birthday yet, but I'll consider him here).

And now? May I be able to do something for CH4's anniversary. Wish me luck,cus I'll need it.

(it might be really late now, but it's still the 18th where I live, so it's still his birthday, so I still won)

[ratcandy]

(spoilers for the new update btw; this is tagged as spoilers too but just to be safe) By the way, headcanon-wise, I don't think the parasite is out of Sozo's system that easily.

like. I understand to some extent imprisoning him is forcefully sobering him up by denying him further intoxication, which would be one thing, but this is not Just Drugs . this is Drug Parasite. That is a thang inside him that is alive

At least this is assuming that he is indeed based off of an ant with cordyceps. Which I figure is most likely But even if OTHERWISE, I emphasize:

we revived him. by planting the mushroom

Mans was resurrected . Not through our usual means. But through the mushroom. There is no way, if it is the literal Thing that brings him back to life, that he is separated from the parasite by just popping off the outward manifestation of it on his head .

Surely planting the parasite would only bring IT back. But it brings him with it when it is revived, because not only is he its host, he's the best damn host its had. Considering just how he goes to fucking town on those mushrooms (or the mushroomos)

I mean we could argue that re-education while in prison is a literal cleansing process somehow, but For Me. Personally. As someone who feeds too much on angst. I keep imagining a scene wherein Dr. Sozonius is just sprouting a new mushroom again (if not various across his exoskeleton) and just .freaking out. Because while he doesn't remember any of what he was like or what he did during that time, he knows that it fucked him UP because why WOULD IT NOT fuck him up .

he lost his family. his home. he has no idea where he is. he woke up in some strange place feeling like he was gonna vomit. because he was so full of mushrooms why wouldn't he.

but there's something still there. there's something depending on him to the point that HE depends on IT

and just gradually... as the mushroom(s) sprouts again... he starts slipping into his old mannerisms......... he starts craving..... and he knows he Should Not. he knows he's so old now it would just kill him (not knowing it already killed him once). surely he wouldn't handle it again.

but it's so . tempting. the mushrooms. he needs them. he can hear it. them. whispering. to him.

something internally. pulling

towards

the

[rustedleopard]

What do you think clover's family was like?

This is such a broad question that I wish you were a teeny bit more specific. Like, do you want a summary of canon or my personal headcanons or what? Eh, you know me by now, I'll talk about everything.

Canon Supported Answer: We don't know what Clover's life was like on the Surface besides it being implied to be Not Good. Starlo's lumpy and uncomfortable couch brings back unpleasant memories, yet they can fall asleep on it in seconds during nap time. Seeing the dirty dishes in Ceroba's sink/the Steamworks kitchen reminds them of their duties back home/that they never did the dishes without being told. Their hat was tattered and decomposing (as pointed out by Ace). They accept Martlet's offer to take them in in every version of a Neutral Run, even if it's an aborted No Mercy Run where they were gunning down every monster in sight, AND there is no option to deny it. They abandon their mission to seek justice for the five missing children and live with Toriel in every timeline that Flowey doesn't interfere in. In the Pacifist Run, somewhere in the Ketsukane estate (the kitchen, I believe), there's a line of flavor text that comes up about Clover wondering how everyone back home is doing but they also don't really care all that much. Heck, the fact that they chose to jump into a mountain that children were known to go missing in in the first place speaks volumes by itself.

There's little things too, like how Clover moves without making a sound, how they eat inedible stuff like packing peanuts and gunpowder, the fact that they're willing to take food out of the garbage, the way that they can just... give themself up at the end of a True Pacifist Run, etcetera, that could either be just a character quirk OR something that stems from their life on the Surface (why not both?). I could go on, but at a certain point I'd just start reciting half the flavor text in the entire game. I do think it is important to note that 1.) Clover is not very forthcoming about their life on the Surface. Everything you learn about them you learn from the flavor text. I think the only time they ever get asked about it is when Ceroba is accompanying them, and whatever answer/response they gave her (I imagine it was a Look™) had her backpedaling. So they're intentionally close-lipped about it. And 2.) You never learn any specifics about it. Who's raising them? Do they have parents? Siblings? Are they an orphan? What was an average day like for them? And on and on. This is the point where you can make up whatever you want about their life on the Surface, and so long as it takes into account what comes up in the game, you can come up with something solid. And this is the part that leads to.....

My Headcanons: Woof. Okay. I don't think too deeply about every little defining moment about their life on the Surface because I treat it more as scaffolding for their character. So don't expect a complete breakdown of every aspect of their Surface life. But here's the jist of it:

Clover was born to a single mother. Their father walked out on her just before they were born because their mother and father had a rocky relationship and their father wanted to bail before a baby would "trap him into the relationship" (they weren't married or even engaged, so it was easy for him to just... Leave. He never comes back). All the anger and resentment for the failed relationship that their mom felt rebounded onto Clover, because now she's stuck raising a baby she doesn't really want unless she's with their father and they're raising them together. Clover was supposed to be the baby that glues the relationship together, not what tears it apart. Their mom became negligent of them as a result.

As Clover got older, they would make bids for attention and affection like pretty much every child does, but their mom never reciprocated. They'd keep doing it over and over and holding onto hope that their mom would look at them and be the mom that she's supposed to be, but that hope would diminish each time they were met with coldness or outright indifference. Their hopes of building a connection with their mom evaporated when their stepdad entered the equation. Their stepdad saw their presence as competition/a reminder of his girlfriend's/wife's previous relationship and is an insecure enough man to let that bother him. So he really helps to push Clover further into the margins of the family/ruin their life. "Clover is old enough to walk home from school, they don't need their mom to pick them up." "Clover knows how to fend for themself, you don't need to end the night early to go back home and make them dinner. Stay with me a bit longer." "Clover doesn't need their own room. It's the responsibility of the older sibling to make sacrifices for the sake of their younger sibling. They can sleep on the couch." (Did I mention that they have a younger stepbrother? Because I hc that they do.) And on and on and on. They hate their stepdad and mentally call him "Mom's boyfriend/husband" instead of Dad. They don't really care for their younger stepbrother either, because (even though it wasn't intentional on the baby's part on the account of the baby being, well, a baby) he was leveraged as a wedge between Clover and the rest of their family.

They had to learn how to do things for themself like cook or clean or sign their own permission slips or bandage their own wounds or etcetera because they learned that they can't rely on others to help them. This fostered a strong sense of independence in them. It also made them a bit... odd in personality in a way that made making friends difficult (idk how to say that in a polite way; neglect does change your personality though). They wake up for school on their own, make lunch for themself and eat breakfast and do their morning routine then walk to school, do their studies, if it's a shit day they'll get into playground scraps with kids who are bullying other kids, they walk themself home and let themself in with the key that their mom gave them because the door is locked otherwise, they make their own dinner and do their homework without any help, they watch their Westerns on the TV, they tuck themself into bed. They skitter around the margins of the domestic sphere that is their mom's and stepdad's and stepbrother's lives like some sort of cockroach because that's the way that they've been made to feel. Their parents never hit them. Despite that, they were able to deeply wound Clover without ever raising a hand against them.

And part three of this post: How Do I Imagine Clover Feels About This? Well, I imagine that they feel nothing for their family. Not in a nonchalant fashion, but in the depressing "I can't even muster up the ability to care about you" manner. Feeling hate and anger takes effort; in a strange roundabout sorta way, feeling negative emotions means that you do care because you have some expectations that you want to be met and that anger is you trying to fight for them/your situation to be better. In contrast, feeling nothing is far worse because you no longer care anymore. You've accepted your circumstances. Why get mad about something bad that their family did to them? They're meeting the expectations that Clover has set for them, which are in the dirt. Whatever coals of anger or outrage they had within them have burnt to the ashes, there's nothing left to spark. They wanted their mom to be a mom to them but that was years ago at this point; they've moved on. They wanted a dad to be there for them, but he was never in the picture and the closest thing they have is the man that their mom settled with. They know that their familial situation is BAD, but because their family is all that they've ever known, they don't quite get the extent of how bad it is.

That's why they're fine with marching up a mountain known for having kids go missing in it: they have a mission, justice needs to be enacted. And if they die/go missing on this mission, so be it. It's not like there's anyone waiting for them back home.

[gemknightau]

How to make friends 101

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[xbraveheartx]

Thinking about how... the game shows you the two ways in which a puppet can "awaken" by showcasing NPCs and even the boss battles themselves, even detailing specifically as to how certain puppets awaken as their past lives as opposed to taking on a new ego.

The Parade Master and Fuoco both have their personalities-- they're not mindless puppets. They're following orders, yes, but by choice. They have egos and are rather... inhuman looking.

Polendina and Pulcinella both seem to me as being modeled as more generic in appearance, something that would speak "I'm a Butler" to everyone who sees them. Gentle faces and welcoming postures. They developed egos.

Camille, Geppetto's wife and Carlo's mother, woke up. It is stated specifically "It was God's miracle that Camille was made into a maid puppet" and "Her appearance and identity in living years were similar, so it was probably easier for her to manifest an ego". She specifically tells those who took her "Send. Me. Back. To. My. Child."

Romeo's face was specifically modeled (or was his actual head used? Still debating on that, it's suspicious) after himself. He woke up, recalling memories of his past and recognizing people from his past.

P was modeled specifically after Carlo, and throughout the game, we're shown him as recalling memories of his past. Geppetto says "It seems you inherited his personality instead of his memories", but with how Sophia comments on his physical reaction to mentioning the familiar necklace ("You look ill. Ever since I mentioned the necklace...") and how we're shown a series of memories through the ergo at the Black Seaside-- he does inherit the memories. The bad ending even goes so far to depict "Carlo", who is obviously not a real boy, in such a terrible light that it screams this is not who you really are.

So then with this trend... he...? ✨

Just really neat how they lay out the differences between waking up and developing a new ego.

[spacedkey]

the eternal struggle of reading webcomics/manga/manh(w/u)a that i think are really good but have cringe ass titles so i can't recommend them without someone doubting my sensibilities and taste in stories

[gingerteaonthetardis]

literally in the middle of so many things rn but what if i hit pause on them all to rewatch doctor whomst

[threewaysdivided]

Hey ! i'm a longtime follower of your blog and I've read a lot of your YJ analysis and why the latter seasons totally flopped. I haven't seen you comment on Young Justice Phantoms, although I guess your opinion remains the same. However I'd love to read it one day.

PS : I do think Greg Weisman is a decent writer, but not that good at characterization and desperatly needs editors and not enablers *sigh*

Hey nonnie!

Glad you’ve found my YJ writing critiques interesting. 

The reason why I haven’t commented on Young Justice: Phantoms (or the final Targets comic) is that I haven’t watched it, haven’t read a synopsis and have no plans to ever do so.  My interest in the series went pretty cold as far back as Invasion but at the time I was willing to give the showrunners good faith on their claims that they had a plan to bring things together and that the problems were mostly production issues.  However, after how bad Outsiders was (and having seen similar awfulness from Greg Weisman in other franchises) I don’t have any good faith or trust left to give them.

I talked at length about how Outsiders left the show with no compelling narrative as part of this big Invasion breakdown (grumpier TL:DR version here), but here are the most relevant sections:

In terms of the Central Conflict, the Light are proved utterly correct: by Outsiders the Original Team are callous, hollow husks of their former selves, who have replicated a worse version of the same status quo the Team originally formed in response to. Dick, Kaldur and M’gann’s Anti-Light are a new upper echelon of older heroes who keep even more secrets from the next generations, who exclude the new generations far more strongly from knowing their plans, who give them even less reason to trust or communicate with them, and who do so for less just, less honest and less narratively justified reasons than their own mentors’ understandable (if condescending) desire to shield the proteges from the parts of the Life they may not yet have been equipped to face. Not only that but their constant lying with the intent to control others, and refusal to hold themselves accountable for those actions goes directly against both the League’s stated heroic ideals of “Truth, Liberty and Justice” and Red Tornado’s conclusion that caring is “the human thing to do”. By the end of Outsiders, even the existence of the Team itself is undone; decommissioned into the exact kind of safe training space that the Season 1 characters were desperate for it never to be. […] With Outsiders, any actual narrative set by Young Justice Season 1 is over. By their own standards the Team have lost, and lost entirely.

The meta-narrative of Young Justice Animated is that of a show that started with a promising initial season and strong sense of narrative identity, only to discard every part of that identity.  With Invasion the show discarded its original characterisations, themes and ideologies; replacing them with contradictory and often antithetical ones.  Outsiders would then shed even the surface trappings of its aesthetic (in favour of the more generic “modern DC” art-style) and mission-based narrative structure.  There is nothing left, save for some superficial proper nouns and call-back references: the textbook definition of an In Name Only Sequel.

I didn’t bother with Phantoms (and am frankly a little artistically insulted by its existence) because I knew it was doomed from the start to be a narrative stillbirth.  Having actively abandoned its original identity, Young Justice was left desperately scrambling to forge a new one, by clawing at the one thing it had left: people’s nostalgic attachment to the Season 1 iterations of the cast.  But this could never work because every season since has been engaged in a performative pretense of not acknowledging the character-breaking contradictions and hypocrisies forced upon the original cast by the poor writing decisions.  Phantoms would have to thread an impossible needle: wanting to be about the “journey” of the original cast for nostalgia reasons, while not being able to acknowledge that the last two seasons (and attaché comics) have resulted in all of them either actively failing or being tragically soft-locked out of their explicit character arcs without breaking that kayfabe of performative ignorance.  And, in trying to tell a story without engaging with that story's content or how broken it had become, what would they have left but to fall back yet again on canonical filler, sidequests and references held loosely together by contrivance? 

It could only ever be a zombie-fic of itself: having long-since concluded or abandoned any remaining character or plot threads, driven forward solely by the stream-of-consciousness compulsive-writing of a production team desperate to remain present, relevant and profitable.  And from the feedback I’ve heard from the general community and fandom friends who kept watching, it seems like Phantoms did indeed pull down the curtain on that empty, directionless, hollow-automaton-filled narrative for a lot of people.

As for Greg Weisman himself, while I agree that he is a particularly poor character-writer, I will respectfully but firmly disagree that he’s otherwise decent.  I think the fact that we have to caveat “he’s a decent writer” with the condition “so long as he’s surrounded by a team of strong editors and directors to keep him from being awful” kind of reveals that he isn’t.   I also don’t really accept the premise that the main fault lies with the people around him for not stopping that.  They certainly haven’t helped but he’s a grown adult who can make his own decisions. Enablers don’t generally induce behaviours; they simply amplify or become complicit in the behaviours that are already there.

In the video Plagiarism and You(tube), Hbomberguy did a great job of laying out the difference between “honest mistakes” – which can be easily cleared up by good-faith apologies and explanations – and “dishonest behaviour” – where the person(s) is aware that what they are doing is not appropriate and falls back on reputation-protecting deflections and “non-apologies” to avoid consequences when caught.  Weisman would not so-frequently disrespect his colleagues’ work with contradictions, or write patterns of misogyny, queerphobia, casual racism/ableism and abuse apologism into his stories if he did not fundamentally feel entitled to do so, was not comfortable and in agreement with those beliefs, or did not think he could get away with it.  And the way he has routinely responded to even gentle, good-faith comments by fans expressing frustration/confusion with inconsistent characterisation/structure indicates someone who knows he has done the wrong thing but resents being questioned or held accountable.  And then we see him continuing the same behaviours.  A “decent writer” should not need an editor to hold their hand and explain why directly contracting explicitly-stated characterisation is bad practice.  A “good ally” should not need someone to tell them that disproportionately subjecting queer/non-white characters to shock-value violence, writing minority characters to be dirty/dangerous/less valid in their identities, erasing/demonising/misgendering AFAB trans and bisexual identities, rewriting strong female characters to need motherhood or men to “tell them who they are”, writing gay men to be secretly misogynistic/racist, and framing victims as being equally responsible for their abuse is offensive.  All of which he has either directly done or tacitly allowed under his lead.  Multiple times.  Across multiple series.

These are not isolated incidents of “good-faith mistakes” from a newcomer learning the ropes (if they were, it wouldn’t bother me like this).  Weisman has had multiple seasons - multiple franchises even - and decades to show himself to be the kind of sincere ally and visionary artist of integrity that myself and his fans wanted him to be… and that he has so benefited from presenting himself as.  He has chosen not to. Say what you want about their stories, but you can’t claim that marginalised creators like ND Stevenson, Rebecca Sugar, Dana Terrace and allies like Neil Gaiman didn’t push back hard against their own publishers and make a lot of careful compromises in order to tell those stories in a way they felt was respectful. Weisman is in a very privileged position, with a resume that carries a decent amount of clout. He could have held himself to the creative standards he publicly expresses; could have worked improve his craft, could have examined his own biases and actually learned from the communities his stories speak about/over.  But he didn’t – because obviously it's easier and more comfortable to keep being lazy, keep relying on his colleagues to carry him, to not question his own biases/privileges and then lie when caught.  And with the money he makes, and all the second chances and new jobs he keeps getting handed, what incentive does he have to change that behaviour? 

So, personally I don’t buy his attempts to position himself as an UwU Nice Guy Ally whose haters are taking him out of context and whose nasty publishers keep forcing him to do incoherent bigotry.  He’s a grown-up, who can own his own behaviour.  And, even with a generous reading, this is at best the behaviour of a fair-weather sell-out who is willing to abandon his principles at the slightest hint of pressure from above.  That is not what respect looks like.  I wanted to give him good faith, but in light of all this, I find I can no longer trust him to keep his word or be honest about his intentions.

This is kind of the other reason why I choose not to support or engage with YJ Phantoms (or the revival in general): on top of being utterly disinterested, I just don’t want to incentivise this kind of creative behaviour with more money or attention.  I also can’t ignore what could be a pattern where Weisman makes grand promises that he likely never has a plan or intent to fulfill, then deliberately leaves holes/timeskips/inconsistencies in his narratives in order to generate ongoing demand for separate-purchase side content which promises to “fill those gaps”… but which never does because there isn’t actually a plan to facilitate that (thus creating an endless cycle of demand and profit).  To me that cuts a little too close to the potential for a privileged creator to be exploiting their clout and the good-faith belief of their fanbase in order to grift those fans out of their time and money.  I don’t find that acceptable.

So, yeah.  Not to deploy the GIF again but:

It'll be a big, fat doughnut on YJ Phantoms content from me 🍩. Sorry!

[everybody-hit-the-pyro-cue]

im going to cry this is actually healing me

[annikasevenshots]

okay okay okay

if jack picard-crusher and sidney laforge had a kid (a picard-crusher-laforge) and (if only!) thaddeus troi-riker was alive and had a kid with soji asha soong (a troi-riker-soong) and if their two kids had a kid, then we would have the Ultimate TNG Kid:

a picard-crusher-laforge-troi-riker-soong.

[jils-things]

Since he's on your mind lately...

H

Hey girlie 🤭 hold still

HEY WHAT THE FUCK /POS

DUDE I FUCKING JUMPED I WASN'T EXPECTING TJAT HEYEYYDYYRGRHJAKALALAJJSJ WHATAHEBBFJDJCICKKKKKKKKK

I FEEL SO OLDDDD OMGGGGG OMGGGGG A CLASSIC IMAGEEEEEE SCREAMASMMSNSSSBSBDBFBDBFNGNG 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥 A CLASSIC TARTALADON PIC SOBSSSSS SOBSSSS 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 OUDUHDGUG MY GIRL CELA KISS HIM NOWWWWW KISS HIM NOW I AM URGING YOU YA PRETTY LEAF GO ONNNNN💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

[devourcr]

i'll be writing tonight ( i hope! ). i had my meds changed recently and my body's been adjusting to it. but i have too much muse to contain.