#I think that would make more sense story wise.

[hanamukes]

Uika and her inner monster, Doloris

Admittedly when I first watched It's MyGO and Ave Mujica 0th, I didn't really think much of Uika. She and Doloris are presented as such vastly different entities that my brain kind of glossed over her, because I don't tend to go crazy for characters who are presented to us as always being bright and warm. Even when the last episode aired and I saw her undergo the transformation from Uika into Doloris, it still hadn't fully set in for me (though perhaps this is simply because I was busy losing my mind in excitement about seeing Ave Mujica at all as well as the sequel announcement).

But reading the interviews that came out after the anime finished airing completely changed that. Uika is Tomori's opposite in every regard? She has a secret so intense it made her voice actress stand out of her chair and yell when she heard it? I need to know more! What on earth could this seemingly kind character be hiding?

I've been keeping a close eye on her content ever since, and it's slowly making me feel insane. So, in anticipation for the anime, as well as their 4th concert which will happen in December and thus give us even more Doloris lore, I wanted to compile a post on the both of them in which I will present my various thoughts and theories.

Doloris

Uika is, in the most literal sense, Doloris' actress. This could perhaps lend to many believing that Uika is not Doloris, or rather that Doloris is not Uika. At the same time, I want to pose a very simple question.

Who came first: Doloris or Uika?

Timeline-wise, Doloris came first. Can Uika even exist without Doloris? Can she be who she is without us immediately recognizing her as being Doloris? What came first was not "Doloris is a puppet persona Uika plays as on stage," but rather it was "Uika is Doloris from Ave Mujica." This was their intent; to introduce Doloris to us, and then to introduce this girl who has an identical design to her in the anime, who is seemingly her exact opposite. What weight could Uika's scenes hold, if not to tell us that she will later turn into the monster known as Doloris? On her own, without Doloris, what does Uika represent?

Doloris herself talks about wanting to be seen for her true self. Is Uika Doloris' true self, or is Doloris Uika's true self? Which is it that they want us to believe? Which one does "Uika" want us to believe? Which one is Sakiko, or perhaps Oblivionis, trying to convince us to believe? Who is "Uika"?

Our introduction to this character was not a Sumimi scene, or her consoling someone, or a frame of her smiling, or of her expressing her love for music. It was this.

This creepy, disturbing montage of Doloris, covered in blood, inviting someone into her cult. Inviting you into her cult. Inviting you to dig deeper.

Though if you want to go even further back, I would argue our first, true genuine introduction was Black Birthday itself.

You see, I don't believe there's any true and correct way to interpret Ave Mujica's songs. The songs are whatever you make of them. That's part of the insanity of Ave Mujica; of never having a proper answer, of always wanting to dig deeper. So I won't say this is that correct reading, but rather one of the infinite possibilities. That said, after watching the intermissions from their concerts as we currently know them, I can't help but feel their first 6 songs perfectly tell the story of Doloris. It goes something like this:

Black Birthday: Doloris' rebirth into her true self. The dyeing of one's purity into corruption. Finally being able to see what was once unseeable (perhaps the light in the pitch black darkness, which she discusses a lot in their stage plays). It's a disturbing birthday party welcoming the new her.

The Two Moons ~Deep Into the Forest~: Now reborn, she finds herself lost in a forest. The play sequence in the last episode of It's MyGO feels reminiscent to this song; Doloris straying into a forest (Loft Moon), while Oblivionis ridicules her, and yet she's so beautiful she cannot take her eyes off her despite the pain of having her heart torn asunder. The song even has imagery describing candles lit on a table, which we can see in the anime rendition of this scene.

Choir 'S' Choir: She's slowly giving in to the insanity of Ave Mujica. This song reminds me a lot of Perdere Omnia; when she finally stops her denial and begins to understand why the others wish to destroy the world. She's letting herself become an esquire, a fallen angel if you will. She hears voices screaming at her, and she knows she's being hunted down, but she keeps dancing anyway. She's testing out her new abilities.

God, You're a Fool: This song represents her inner doubts. What exactly are they fighting for? For whose sake? Why do they have to be in this situation to begin with? If God wasn't a fool, surely everything would be fine... right?

Mas?uerade Rhapsody Re?uest: She's decided she no longer cares about anything. No longer cares how corrupted she becomes, no longer cares to hide her dark feelings. She's just going to fully embrace it all, she's going to let herself be taken by the shadowy jesters. The mask is a part of her now.

Ave Mujica: With her mask as her skin, it's her turn to lure others in. She's going to corrupt you. She reassures you that those with masks will fulfill your any wish, and that even though this is a place of no return, don't worry, there's nothing to be scared of.

It's interesting, because while the songs can apply to anyone (the other dolls for one, and perhaps even the listeners themselves), I can't ignore the parallels between the story these songs are telling, and the story of Doloris as we've seen in the concert intermissions. (Regarding the Utopia single and the ELEMENTS series, those songs were written more to fit a specific narrative, and I don't think they apply to the dolls themselves as directly. That's just my own personal take on them though and is why I won't be analyzing them here)

As for the intermissions themselves, there's a lot going on in them and much of Doloris' dialogue isn't about herself, but I want to go over some general observations:

Doloris uses 僕 (boku). This is significant because she's the only one who has a personal pronoun that differs from her actress; Uika uses 私(watashi). Ave Mujica songs use 私 (watashi) as well, though I don't think this means much in the context of Uika or Doloris because it's just for formality (if anything, it's interesting because it's an inverse of Uika's narrative opposite, Tomori; who uses 私 (watashi) in her daily speech but 僕 (boku) in her songs). That said, in Quaerere Lumina, there's a segment where "Doloris" switches to 私 (watashi), which many found haunting because it almost felt as if those words came from Uika herself, and that she switched back to Doloris after speaking vulnerable words from her heart.

She uses 君 (kimi; "you") in an interesting way. In Perdere Omnia, this referred to Oblivionis. In Veritas, however, she uses this repeatedly in the context of "someone" who she wants to be reborn with. It's someone who extended a hand to her, and who took her mask off her. It's someone she wants to be with for the rest of her life, just the two of them. And at the end, she uses it in reference to you, the audience, who will surely attend their next concert. Who is it that removed her mask? Oblivionis, or us? (Like many things in Ave Mujica, my own interpretation on this is that it's probably Oblivionis, because at its core, this is a yuri band, and Oblivionis is in fact someone who we've seen accept Doloris for who she is)

Each doll has a specific thing they focus on: Oblivionis stands her ground despite everything but also talks about finding things pitiful, Timoris is logical and an observer who wants to be acknowledged, Amoris talks about her lost love and boredom, Mortis talks about peace and quiet as well as the beauty in death. For Doloris, the thing she highlights that the others don't is us watching her slowly spiral into insanity, and particularly as of Veritas, her sense of her own body (as well as this attachment to someone else, as mentioned above). She sees herself as an empty shell, which is true for the others as well, but on top of this she has a fixation on her mask and the relationship it has with her body. It's her skin, and simultaneously, if you remove it, below that you'll find her true, perhaps ugly self. It means a lot to her that someone could love the her that exists without the mask. (Is this intended to be foreshadowing for the relationship between Doloris and Uika, and which of the two of them is her truest self?)

Doloris is an embodiment of insecurity, and simultaneously, she's a ferocious monster when she performs. Rico Sasaki herself claims that she feels like Doloris possesses her when they hold concerts. Her voice is cold, bitter and pained; it's a far cry from Uika's speaking voice, which is so warm and comforting. She is plagued with sorrow, of which she would rather die and be reborn than have to deal with. Her ideal world is simply one of being together with the one who accepts her in all of her ugliness.

Uika

There's a sort of trend to Uika's scenes: when she's around someone else, she waits for them to talk or express emotion before she matches their energy, and when she's alone, she drops the happy idol facade. The very first time we ever see her, she's doing just this.

This is also apparent in two other (coincidentally Sumimi) scenes, where the same thing happens in each: Uika is matching the energy of who she's talking to, but the second she's separated from them by a door, she has an almost empty expression on her face.

(The fact this has happened for both Sumimi scenes, when Uika has so little screentime so every second we see of her is supposed to be precious, has me really wondering just how much she likes her "dream job." Also, I wonder if this is a coincidence: immediately after both of these shots, she looks at her phone and sees Sakiko on her screen which cheers her up (the first is an old text, the second is a phone call))

It's something that on its own feels a bit deliberate, but when you take a certain intermission from their concerts into consideration, it really does become something you can't ignore.

This is the one part of the concert intermissions in which Doloris uses 私 (watashi). This is what many interpret to be Uika's words.

To put this simply, she feels as if she's an empty shell who has to match the energy of the people around her. When nobody is there to give her something to react to, she reverts to that husk. This is exactly the vibe I get from a lot of her scenes in the anime.

(I talked in depth about these two scenes in my Taki&Uika writeup so please do check that out for my thoughts on them, but to recap for this context: it's interesting to me how she looks so "empty" until she reads Sakiko's message (and feels seen by her, thus breaking her out of that state; I also want to mention she never messaged Sakiko first despite having her phone number, which to me is such an explicit example of her feeling like she doesn't exist unless someone else contacts her first that you may as well have a bright red arrow pointing at it), and on the right we can see her matching Sakiko's energy)

And actually, she almost implies as much to Mana directly.

"It's easy for me to sing when I'm with you, Mana-chan." On the surface, this just seems like something she's saying to make her excitable partner happy, to show agreement even though she's exhausted and not nearly as excited as she is. Mana reacts, calling it a compliment. But is it really? Her wording here is deliberate: she can only sing well because she's with her. Because she's being seen by someone else. Watching all of their scenes, I can't shake the feeling that Uika would not "shine" as an idol without Mana by her side. Immediately before this, Mana's happily waving and thanking the filming crew while Uika gives them a more heartless nod. Uika's appeal as an idol is that she's "cool" (this is written on her character bio), so it's not that I would expect her to match Mana's energy in that sense (who's appeal is her energy)... but I do wonder what she would be like in this context without Mana, given she already seems rather tense even with her. (Here's an easily missable clip of her sighing the second she's alone)

What about her comforting Tomori? Surely that was the one scene where she was acting of her own emotions? And what about when she talked to her in the final episode? It's not as if she was matching Tomori's energy 1:1! She reached out to her on her own!

And maybe that's true. However, consider this: that happened after she got Sakiko back in her life. Is an empty husk still just a shell if the one who's there to look at her―and bring her to life―is by her side now?

Let's take a closer look at these scenes though, shall we?

The planetarium. Uika was there to look at the stars, which are reflective of her childhood memories with Sakiko. Then, she finds Tomori, who she recognizes as being from Crychic (because she attended their concert a year ago). I could believe it if she sat next to her because Tomori looked upset; Tomori has subtle facial expressions yes, but it's pretty obvious when she's hurt. She decides to sit next to her, but her seat won't recline (I've seen people point out that she's been there before, so she surely would have known how to put the seat down; I think this is very funny and could be true, though I do want to point out Tomori said "this seat works like this" and Uika was sitting in a different seat than we saw in episode 8 anyway). Tomori helps her and they make indescribable eye contact briefly before they go back to watching the stars.

Then she kept an eye on her when they left and caught her on the stairs. Pretty standard stuff. From the get-go though, she was matching Tomori's energy. This is really subtle and more obvious in motion, but when she's asking if Tomori's okay, Tomori's head dips down twice, and each time Tomori's head dips, Uika's dips down a second or two later to match her.

If it was just once, I wouldn't think anything of it, but twice? Why is she studying her reaction this closely to the point of replicating it?

Then this happens, and I'll just leave my commentary from a year ago because it still applies:

Uika stares at Tomori and the Crychic photo that she saw on their social media comes to mind. She focuses in on Sakiko and Tomori... but moreso Sakiko. This kind of goes under the radar as it comes across as her bringing up stars because she knows it's something Tomori clearly likes and thus could be a bridge of conversation between them, so to speak, but I can't shake the fact that thinking about Sakiko was what prompted her to start talking about the stars she can see in Tokyo. Sakiko, who she was separated from for so long and who she was only able to reunite with in Tokyo.

(As a side note before I continue, this conversation makes me wonder how familiar she is with Tokyo. I'm not well-versed in Japan's geography nor do we really know anything about Uika's personal life, but I do know she lived on an island as a kid because she says Sakiko visited her island. It's also her chat icon)

Another easily missable detail, but when she picks up Tomori's notes, she waits a second for Tomori to give "consent" (via eye contact) before she continues talking. I'll also just mention here that I do think Uika meant what she said about singing being something that conveys someone's heart, and I feel like this was the most honest she was in the entire show.

Moving on to the episode 13 confrontation. I'll be honest, this whole interaction is very weird and as I'm typing up this post I'm still not sure what to make of a lot of it.

Once again, Uika is in the planetarium, this time in the same seat she was in for episode 8 before she met up with Sakiko (starting to see a theme here). Then she spots Tomori and grabs her shoulder, calling her Tomori-chan. Tomori seems confused so she checks that it really is "Tomori" and says they met there before. She does the same thing she did in episode 10 where when Tomori shifts her head, she shifts hers too while she's talking to her.

I like this shot because it feels like she instantly goes into "handsome" mode when she realizes this girl is a fan of "Sumimi's Uika."

This is where this interaction gets weird, because Tomori says she doesn't know who Uika is, and Uika responds with... "I'm glad she doesn't." Huh? Even Anon herself says "Huh?" out loud here. I could not possibly give you an explanation for why Uika would be "glad" that Tomori doesn't know who she is. Why is she trying to get close with her if she doesn't care that Tomori doesn't know her?

Then she asks if Tomori's song worked and Tomori says yes. It still feels like she's trying to gauge her feelings (but for what?). Then she claims she doesn't know Tomori, they just "met at the planetarium before." Anon seems pretty weirded out still. Then she changes the subject and asks if the two of them are in a band. When Anon shows her her phone, which has all the band members listed, she stares at it for a second before asking if she can follow.

(Anon's face being cut off here is interesting to me given this is from Uika's point of view, and really what could be so interesting in that photo?)

The length in which she stares at it makes me think this is likely how she learned MyGO exists, though I can't really piece together what she gets out of this aside from knowing what band Tomori is in. Then she asks if she can follow them and leaves. The whole interaction feels so pointless yet so deliberate: we didn't get closure on Taki's character arc in this episode, but we got this scene of Uika following MyGO's social media account? I'll be interested in seeing how this is relevant later on.

Oh, and the most important part of this scene: Tomori never told Uika her name. Anon is visibly weirded out by this. Of course, this scene is also followed by another shot of Uika not having to match anyone's energy, looking stern as she seems to whenever she's by herself. (She's looking at Crychic's social media page and commenting on how Tomori is from Sakiko's old band, by the way; how did she pull that up so fast? She just sat down?)

Uika and Tomori are narrative opposites. The director for the anime stated that Uika is her polar opposite in every regard. Ricochi also pointed out that while Tomori's songs turn her human, Uika's turn her into a monster. Their episode 10 confrontation was intended to be them meeting before the Ave Mujica ball gets rolling, so to speak, in order to allow them to contrast greater when the sequel comes out.

In general, what I make of Uika's cheerfulness is it's reflective of something Ricochi said in regards to Ave Mujica as a whole: like the moon, she can't shine on her own, but when others look at her, a light glistens from her. It almost makes me wonder if she wanted to become an idol in order to, like she said in her introduction clip with Mana, "make others feel better too" with her songs, at an attempt to mask the fact she can't shine when she's alone herself.

Those are the biggest points I wanted to articulate, so below I'll drop some other observations.

Regarding the flashback scene of Uika and Sakiko as kids... Uika is blushing here when Sakiko is not.

Normally I wouldn't think anything of this, because that's just how the models are (for instance, Sakiko's casual clothes model seems to always have the blush regardless of her mood, while Oblivionis of course doesn't; Uika's model also doesn't have a constant blush), but this scene was hand drawn. It's more deliberate. I don't want to insinuate that this implies Uika cares more about Sakiko than Sakiko cares about Uika because I don't think that's what they meant here at all, just that these specific memories may hold different meaning to Uika than they do for Sakiko. Perhaps more importantly though (and even less obvious) is that Uika's hair looks longer in the shot of them looking at the stars than it was for their meeting and the bug catching. It makes you wonder how much time may have passed between those two memories. (I do recognize this may have just been a continuity error of sorts, but she is wearing a different outfit too)

In Sakiko's conversation to Nyamu, she hints that she got Uika for her band because of Sumimi's popularity. This is interesting to me because in episode 7, she absolutely... glares? at the Sumimi music video.

...Which makes you wonder how she really felt looking at it. In any case, I don't think it was just for the fame because you don't exactly call somebody and tell them to help you forget everything if it's just for the money. That's a pretty intimate thing to ask somebody, and especially for Sakiko who up until then had been actively avoiding speaking anything from her heart. We also know that Uika does the lyrics for Ave Mujica, so we can truly only make guesses as to what transpired between their talk and the final episode...

Oh, also, when Sakiko calls Uika, she blushes. Which feels pretty notable to me when seconds beforehand she was in "cool, kind of broody idol" mode.

As for the last episode...

When Nyamu asks if she can go to Uika's place, she says yes! It makes you wonder how close she is with everyone by this point, and also what her home life looks like.

This one is sold on the voice work, but she sounds super happy to get to see Sakiko.

This also happens at the end of the episode, when she asks if she can ride the train home with Sakiko despite the fact she got there in a cab. I wrote my thoughts about this here, but it is interesting to me how it implies she might not know about Sakiko's home life at this point.

For this line, it's not lost on me how similar this dialogue is in reflection to what Doloris says in their stage play immediately after; with Oblivionis talking about them being dolls, and Doloris questioning her every word. It's as if she'd turned into Doloris the second she put her mask on...

Tying it all together

What's striking to me is that in all the trailers for the Ave Mujica anime―which by all means will be where we learn more about Uika―we've only seen one shot of her.

The rest have been Doloris. From this we can presume that the doll lore from their concerts will be relevant to the actresses, we just don't know to what extent.

It's scary really, because... seriously, even if Uika does feel like an empty shell, there's more to it than just that. And despite all of my analysis up until this point, I have not a single clue what her actual deal could be. Even after I post this, I'll continue to watch her scenes over and over, trying to piece things together with what little we have right now.

I'll be very interested to see both Doloris and Uika in the upcoming anime, and in what ways the lines between them are blurred.

[4lexnilsen]

“besides,  i’m not really all that good with girls.   when i was in fourth grade,  i thought i’d impress this one friend of mineby reciting walt whitman’s poems to her at lunch break.   it turns out not everyone can appreciate the meaning of what is that you express in your eyes?   it seems to me more than all the print i have read in my life.   long story short,  she never sat next to me ever again,”   he laughs,  poking fun at himself and his love for poetry and literature,  and how most people don’t understand it.   “very wise words.   i think i’ll write this one down.”   pale blue eyes lighting up,  brimming with amusement up until she looks up at him and graces him with this sweet smile of hers.   his cheeks flush,  heart skips a beat,  and suddenly all the love poems make sense…   so,  this is what they’re all about.   “well,”   he should be grateful for the question as it keeps him from blurting out something stupid like you have the most beautiful smile or bet the sun’s jealous of how radiant you are,  but with his mind so hazy and completely bewitched,  it takes him a while to come up with a decent answer,   “it’s nowhere near as impressive as your plan,  and i’m not entirely sure,  but i think i’d like to be an english teacher.   i want to inspire kids the way my own teachers have inspired me.   talk about books and literary tropes all day.   i’d be really good at that.   though,  my greatest dream is to write a book one day.”   but he knows how competitive the market is these days,  doubts he could create something that would capture some literary agent’s attention.

“he’s got very smart,  expressive eyes.   you can tell he’s brilliant just by looking at him.   oh,  i bet he would teach me german if his schedule wasn’t so busy,  right,  ace?”   he laughs,  glancing briefly at the german shepherd and offering him a shy smile.   maybe they’ll warm up to one another eventually.   “it really shouldn’t be like that.   i mean,  how unfair is it?   men never have to think twice before going out.   we’ll never know what it’s like to walk the streets of chicago alone at night and constantly look over your shoulder because who knows what kind of degenerate might be following you.   everyone should feel safe.   i’m glad you’ve got ace,  and don’t worry…   no hard feelings.   he just wanted to make sure you were okay.”   he can’t blame the dog for doing his job and protecting her.   walking into walgreens,  he follows helena around the aisles,  studying the products laid out on the shelves with the curiosity of a little boy.   “alexander aisle.   i like that.   sounds very regal,”   he laughs,  his heart swelling because it’s very sweet of her to call him by his full name.   alexander.   he never thought it could sound so nice.   “oh,  i’m so getting the avengers ones.”   getting distracted by the colorful packaging,  he picks a small box of avengers themed bandaids and clutches it to his chest.   “captain america will make my jaw hurt less,  i’m sure of it,”   he muses,  struggling to keep a straight face while gauging her reaction.

"okay, yeah. that does make sense." not that it was a topic helena could relate with, but she understood about strict parents on other subjects and was rather empathic in general. "bookshelves don't snot on you and hurt your feelings." she agrees, laughing at the first part of his comment about boys being snot covered. funny he knew his own species was that way. watching ahead, there's a small turn of her head and honey eyes catch him staring. instead of quickly looking away like she wanted... ( because what was he staring at? ) helena directs her smile on him, the thing she's unaware he was admiring. lips forming in a kind smile before looking back away. "and what journey are you going on?" for his career, she means.

"oh, certainly. he's the smartest doggy ever. maybe ace can just teach you himself." a little laugh emits, the doors of walgreens opening for them and that familiar drug store scent engulfing her senses– candies, other packaged foods, greeting cards, something nostalgic. "thank you," for being a gentleman, letting her go first. "and chicago's full of them." weirdos. but only few stupid ones still want to harass her with a mean looking dog next to her side, trained to attack. "give yourself some credit, at least you knew not to make the situation worse when he was a little unhinged a second ago." a hand taps ace's furry head between his ears, letting him know he's still a good boy as helena leads them around the aisles to the first aid items. "most of the time." and he's right, ace probably can sense he's a cat person. "here we go!" she peps before marching down it and teasing him, "the alexander aisle."

[memories-break-our-fall]

wait Eve fey thought….

[hopeswriting]

daily life arc miura haru. does anyone know who i'm talking about. do you guys remember her. i still can't believe what happened to her 😔

[cloverconsolass]

I wanted to make a ducktales undertale au but like what would the name of the au even be... Ducktale????? Undertales????? The only option rlly left is underduck but like 😬.

Also man it is hard to place ducktales charaters in the undertale characters places and have it make sense story wise. 😮‍💨

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Key Lime Sky

sci-fi, romance

an autistic pie blogger who’s struggling to make rent witnesses a UFO explode over xyr small town, and after posting about it xyr readers want xem to investigate

nobody else seems to remember or notice the weird things going on, except for a handsome bartender who helps xem investigate

and when people start disappearing, the landscape starts changing, and they’re unable to escape, they realise they’ll have to find the source and stop it before their town is consumed entirely

arc from netgalley, out August 13

[grandcovenant]

it's such a shame that sophia as a character is so reliant on keeping everything about her a mystery until.... literally the last chapter, because it makes her a lot weaker as.... one of the main characters. she's intended to have the same level of importance as geppetto in the narrative, however, in execution..... you can't really get invested in her because she doesn't really offer anything meaningful to you until the very end, and by then it feels a little too little too late. (and so much of it is wrapped around simon's plotline, which i have already expressed i don't really care for.)

i think it's why i try to make a bigger deal of things like the hermit's cave, or the thing about being a listener being "the devil's power", according to sophia's mother. these bits show her as an existing part of the setting she's in, and not as the walking Big Reveal set-up she... kind of is, honestly.

sophia is meant to be p's guide through his growing humanity, a counterpoint to geppetto, and i wish more was done with it!!!

[ask-ursa-tonypeter]

[fic: double-blind] Question for extremis!Tony: so Peter clearly prefers the version of you before/without the extremis, to the point of doing everything he can to bring that person back. How does that make you feel? Hurt, angry, jealous? Or do you just think it's Peter being silly/mistaken and it doesn't bother you at all?

There is no person to bring back. He can't see it right now; he's... confused. But when I make things up to him, he'll realize I've been the same dad he's always known the whole time.

[bambeebirdie]

Alright so I just finished Earthspark and boy fucking howdy do I have opinions, but I’m not talking about those right now because I’m tired and the ending broke me in such a way I no longer care about anything.

What I would like to say though is I think Tanatulas should have been replaced with Shockwave in that on episode he had with Nightshade. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Tanatulas. He was literally so good, I loved his designs and his vibes and the only bad thing about him is that he never said his pronouns back. But really think about it. He didn’t have to be there. Earthspark spends too much time with the Maltos to really develop anyone so the more characters you add the more everything struggles.

Tanatulas showed up for one episode, he’s not even in the finale. Shockwave was there though and vaguely important, but it doesn’t make sense for him to just suddenly be okay with the Maltos. Unless he took Tanatulas role. Then his sudden willingness to help them would have made so much more sense. It also wouldn’t have been a very hard change, just as a whole, because neither Tanatulas or Shockwave are that important.

Just give Nightshade a line about how they should save Shockwave because they trust him and well everyone else acts the same.

Shockwave even fills a similar general role as Tanatulas being a weird scientist who care more about their science than the war. So it really wouldn’t be a hard switch and would make Shockwave make more sense. If you want to go further too Shockwave doesn’t even have a normal vehicle mode so he really could have given similar lines about alt modes to Nightshade.

Obviously Shockwave actual introduction episode would be different or maybe he’d just get replaced entirely but I really don’t think any of those changes would be too hard. Because again, he’s just not important enough for any changes to his character to be hard.

Tanatulas in Earthspark doesn’t validate his existence much as is. I really do love him, but he’s replaceable and just clutters an already poorly handled cast. While I think it would be cool if he was just more important they clearly didn’t want that by not even giving him a finale shot. So I do think just swapping his episode with Shockwave (and whatever other alterations are needed to make that perfect) fixes the problem with having too many underdeveloped characters since it removes one character and in the process developes another.

[carcarrot]

old man yells at cloud about constant sequels

[arabian-batboy]

So would it be asking for too much for Eri to somehow use her Quirk on Dabi and rewind his body all the way back to before his body got burned?

That way: 1- he will no longer be a threat to anyone in this war 2- he wouldn’t have any of his memories/trauma that made him hate his father + Shouto so much 3- it will be a good excuse to why he can’t be arrested for all his crimes because technically you can’t arrest a child for crimes he hadn’t commit yet 4- he will get a 2nd chance to have a happy childhood and his parents will have a 2nd chance to be better parents toward him.

Or would that be too sappy and I have to mentally prepare for his death instead?

[ananas-pineapple-thing]

u know i’m not sure if it’s because i read the series pretty young but i never got into percabeth even though i like their characters and enjoyed the narrative of them growing up and getting together !🫣 i think it works for the story but i don’t have any strong feelings abt it

[gibbearish]

also is the thing with the box ever. explained?

[fellhellion]

I think the only reason Miguel and his name keeps the O'Hara surname is because of doylist reasons like the name being a brand and pad didn't care to give Conchata a maiden name

Like, I try not to think why the characters kept the name of a man that abused them because honestly the reason is solely outside the story which is a shame, but the writer wasn't interested in examining that layer

Again a shame

Yeah nah I totally agree and thought the same, I just like trying to puzzle out the reasons for these kinds on things on Watsonian level sometimes haha

It’s a shame like you said though because it is an interesting little layer and we don’t really get anything more on it.

[spectral-central]

dick grayson (as nightwing) deserves a spiderverse moment give that mf the spotlight in a preferably animated, passion project that's both a love letter to old fans and a good starting point for new fans and that also redefines the way pop culture sees that character i don't think you understand how much i need that

[banghwa]

Why Hungary? If I may ask? 🤔 eps with the..um.. recent political stuff

is it really that controversial omg? 😭😭😭 really i just wanna go bcs it looks like a very beautiful country, id like to visit some of the national parks and i've always wanted to go to budapest 😓 my cousin traveled around europe a few years ago and said he really loved his time in hungary, n i also have family friends who live there! idk im not rly sure what you expect me to say......ive never seen anyone cite america's historic and continuous involvement in the colonization of palestine as a reason to raise suspicion of someone saying they would like to maybe visit new york city one day. idk.