#Originally he was supposed to just have nightshade powers but I realized that would be neglecting his stage magic side

[nari-kami]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GEN ASAGIRI

So to celebrate here is my redesign for Gen in the Dr.Stone magical girl AU

Gen Asagiri aka Nightshade

Gens powers are called “nightshade tarot cards” at the moment but I might come up with a different name in the future.

This is how they work:

• Gen can summon playing cards that have different effects depending on their meaning.

•For example 8 of diamonds means defense or protection so Gen can use it as a shield while Jack of spades means swiftness so Gen could use it to speed himself or an ally up for a couple seconds. •This would give him a lot of versatility in combat •The amount of cards he can summon depends on the ranking of the card so for example he could summon multiple 3 of hearts without breaking a sweat but summoning an Ace twice would be almost impossible without him collapsing.

•With the joker card even Gen himself doesn’t know what it does

[blueikeproductions]

@nukeli Ok so “DEI” refers to Diversity Equity & Inclusion, a relatively new initiative that was designed to show off minorities, women, and people of color more.

Now on the surface, that’s not a bad thing, we’ve had plenty of diverse shows before like Diff’rent Strokes, Cyborg 009, Family Matters, Everybody Hates Chris, Kim Possible, My Life As A Teenage Robot, The Golden Girls, The Magic School Bus, and more.

This includes people behind the scenes like actors, writers and directors. Stuff we’ve had before too.

But the modern version of it, via DEI, has evolved into let’s just trash white people, and to quote the South Park line grifters use annoyingly as their rallying cry “Put a chick in it, make her lame & gay!”

So we’ve gotten stuff like Tee-La from He-Man being the stereotypical butch lesbian with a side shave haircut who just seems to hate everyone now and feels personally attacked, pushing Adam/He-Man aside to be the hero, and similarly Skeletor being pushed side in favor of making a similarly stereotyped butch lesbian Evil-Lyn the main villain. A big complaint among other things was how Tee-La was just incredibly unlikable and hard to root for, along with giving her and Evil-Lyn The Power in a manner that doesn’t make sense for their previously established characters in the 80’s and 2000’s cartoons. Thankfully the sequel show to MOTU: R corrected these problems, bringing Adam/He-Man & Tee-La on equal footing like they always were, and making Tee-La far more likable. Also Tee-La inheriting The Power from her mother The Sorceress, is used much better here and it makes more sense how she uses it here, vs the previous coddled, stereotype “I am woman hear me roar” direction they tried.

DEI has also poorly affected other things, like little people not getting jobs in the Snow White reboot movie to play the Dwarves, both because it was seen as offensive, and also Peter Dinklage running his mouth (somewhat justifiably in areas) and ruining it for everyone. Cleveland Brown in Family Guy being recast because his original voice actor was white being replaced with a black actor who impersonates the voice rather than doing his own thing with it, and DEI informing a new form of segregation, as only black actors can be black characters, whites can only be whites, Asians Asians, and etc in animation. Never mind popular black actors like Kevin Micheal Richardson and Phil LaMarr have done non black characters before with LaMarr famously being Samurai Jack, an Asian character. Some Asian actors who were for the casting changes realized too late it affected what they could do as it meant they can’t do anything other than Asian characters when they wanted to read for a non Asian human character. The point of voice acting is everyone can be anything like how many male characters are voiced by women like Tommy Pickles or Timmy Turner or how some female characters are voiced by men like Linda Belcher.

DEI also tends to over focus on how a show has only diverse actors and characters, and ergo EarthSpark’s marketing was going all in on how it had black characters, putting them as top billing over the Autobots on toy packaging. It also tended to favor its female cast, making the (non Megatron) men look incompetent. Like how GHOST is almost exclusively female, with the few male members being complete idiots. (To be fair, Schloder is supposed to be more of an Inspector Clouseau type but still.)

The more egregious instances to me is despite emphasizing kali, they don’t do anything with it that would make it look cool to all kids watching. Like Twitch using it to fight a Decepticon, outwitting him or her, using a skill she inherited from her adopted human father makes sense! As well as emphasizing the Terrans being Earth natives and learning its culture. Instead it’s just left hanging there, and I feel like someone internally said it’d be cultural appropriation if Twitch or Nightshade used it.

The production notes also intended Robbie to be the leader, something the second season went back to, but the first season emphasized Mo way more leaving Robbie little to do, to the point when he was practically dead, his parents instead showered Mo with affection for her problems when he was laying right next to them barely holding on.

Also Nightshade’s everything, causing the controversy that saw more casuals and parents reject the show hard. Nightshade is another example of DEI, over focusing on their being nonbinary as their sole character trait, despite their geeky, scientific side being just as important. The second season again corrects this, focusing entirely on their personality more and properly showing off their gift of science. It was too little too late though.

Really when you look back on it, the first season, despite its decent ideas, emphasized a lot of the DEI stuff casual audiences hate, with the second season going back to a traditional Autobots vs Decepticons conflict, and using more of the earlier ideas in the production bible. I still believe the more intriguing Megatron steals the Emberstone plot was repurposed into Starscream wanting it, because someone clearly didn’t want Megatron to relapse into being evil again.

This also feeds into another modern problem of not really having true villains anymore, and how due to DEI, most of the villains we get are only entitled white people to antagonize the people of color or female heroes (now we HAVE had this before off and on but not to this extent, and even then it was handled organically and made sense), vs stuff like the modern Invincible adult cartoon having a diverse villain cast like its comics did. A lot of modern stuff similarly tries to paint the Decepticons as being the true heroes despite the writing and the audience not supporting it. It’s why the Micheal Bay films are still popular because despite making the Autobots into more violent 80’s-90’s action heroes, they’re still defending the Earth and humanity from the monstrous Decepticons who intend to blow it up to obtain the trendy MacGuffin of the day. As for the cop/military stuff, one, it makes sense that the Autobots would ally themselves with the Earth military to help humans have a fighting chance, and two it’s not going away, because of the movies shifting to incorporating GI Joe as the human military force over NEST/Sector 7. Even Noah was ex military via RotB. The only bad cop was Barricade, a Decepticon, and any bad faith humans in military power were usually proven wrong for their hubris in thinking they didn’t need the Autobots.

Even TFONE has largely returned to a more simple black and white approach in having proper heroic characters in Orion’s miners turned Autobots, and properly evil villains in the Quints, Sentinel, Airachnid, and Starscream. Even D-16 makes sense as being evil again as he let his frustrations and anger at Sentinel, who he looked up to, consume him in a more believable way than Prime and Cyberverse making it look like he was just throwing a tantrum for 4 million years because Optimus got what he wanted: control.

So ultimately diversity is still a good thing, but the modern approach to it by embittered people who thought they knew better has instead pushed us back a few decades when things were largely ok in terms of diversity and making natural strides in improving.

Family Matters and Static Shock were among my favorite shows growing up, but now, because of current trends, I can’t look at characters like Liko from HZ or Hazel from New Wish without thinking they were the result of DEI and not an organic desire of trying out something else. And that’s not at all how it should be thought of.

[god-hunter]

X-Men Blue #10

This issue is late, but I’ve been so behind on my reviews that I just read this one recently.  That said, I really like what Bunn’s been doing with Blue lately.  His tie-ins for Secret Empire were fun and way more interesting than the ones from Gold.  But now that that’s out of the way, he had time to develop Hank some more.  And share with us that he has a dirty little secret.  One hint:  It has to do with all the Sorcery he’s learned so quickly in the past year.

[SPOILERS]

First off.  Thinking of Hank as a Sorcerer is strange enough in itself.  He’s a Scientist!  But I guess this Hank started turning to that, once Science equations and theories weren’t helping him get home.  Now that he’s been home and realized that time has no place for them, I suppose you could say he’s had a bit of a darker edge recently in these Bunn issues.

Well.  One main reason for that would be that he’s been working with the Goblin Queen!  [What!?]  I know.  But it’s cool.  I like it.

This issue starts with Hank talking to Gazing Nightshade in Madripoor.  (She was one of the blind X-Force members from the Ultimate Universe, or whatever.)  Anyway, for one reason or another, he confides in her.

She’s helpful though and knows that he feels guilty for what he’s done and his secrets.  [I’m guessing we’ll find out more about what he’s done, unless he just means experimenting with sorcery in the first place.]

Hank leaves the library, or wherever they were, and walks out in the streets, thinking that he knows he’s on to something.  He’s about to unlock a big secret, but the rest of the gang would never understand.

Then, the Goblin Queen herself, appears saying that she doesn’t like his little ‘girlfriend’.

He brings up that it’s unfortunate that he needs her to continue being a powerful sorcerer.

Meanwhile, we get to see Iceman training with Danger, which was nice and fun.

Lorna, a.k.a Polaris talks with Magneto about her role in this book, basically.  She’s basically the new Psylocke.  She doesn’t trust her father, but she knows that the X-Men need her.  And Magneto is fine with that.  Frankly, he needs someone to challenge his strategies.  And he says so himself.

Scott and Jean have a new psychic link that they’re dealing with.  Constantly in each others heads.  He brings up her new attraction to Jimmy, or her fling with Hank.  The fact that she knows how he feels.

But then she goes, “It works both ways...”  ‘You know how I feel about you too’.  They’re about to share a kiss, but bad timing.  Boom, something explodes in the Mansion.

But FIRST.

(I skipped a Jimmy & Angel scene, where they fly back to Colorado.)  Jimmy wants more answers of his origins, and Angel is glad to help.  Kira Lee, the sheriff is there, which gets Warren all perked up again.

(I also skipped Goblin Queen training the Beast), which is where that explosion came from.

Beast transformed into his fur ball self, with a massive surge of power.  And he ended up creating/bringing other X-Men from different worlds into this plain.

All sorts of demons too for fodder.

[BOOM].

That’s where that explosion happens, and Cyclops & Jean are the first to explore it.

That’s when Madelyne Prior - The Goblin Queen calls out to them.  “There you are! ...The Gangs all here.”

And we see her team of “Hex-Men”, which hosts Pixie, Colossus with a horned helmet and gladiator themed armor, Bloodstorm - Storm as a vampire, and that Nightcrawler demon/dragon thingie that we’ve seen before.

We can’t forget our Beast, who is rocking some ominous horns, himself.

Danger and Polaris were apparently attacked off screen. [That was probably where the explosion was directed.]

But anyway, thats the new deal.  Hank has been possessed.  And it is ON!

-To Be Continued!-

Hell yeah.  Intriguing and exciting.  I was happy to be able to continue right on to Issue #11.  That’s next.

[i-am-snowils-admiral]

Now I'm curious... what were you thinking for the meta type stuff for that Frozen au?

For the record I may have a vaguely incorrect idea of what meta means and so may have used it incorrectly.

That said, I was mostly going to go on about casting and how the story would need to change, so I’m glad to do that since I didn’t get to put a lot of it into the short thing that I wrote.

Elsa: 

Roy Mustang.  I honestly don’t know if I want him to have ice powers.  I suppose it has to be that way for the plot to work, but for some unknown reason, in a lot of my own personal headcanons and aus, Roy has power over poisonous plants, meaning he’d build a castle made up of...interwoven vines of poison oak, nightshade, etc.  He decorates the castle with oleander flowers, dangerous red berries and mushrooms.  But for the sake of having the story make sense, I’m leaving all that behind (*sigh*) and sticking with ice.

Kristoff: 

Riza Hawkeye.  Kristoff will probably have to change the most because I’m royai trash and need it to happen.  In the beginning of the snippet I wrote for the original ask, I quoted a part of the movie where Kristoff admires Elsa’s handiwork, remarking that the ice is “flawless”.  I’m working off of that where Riza’s initial attraction is to the strange sorcerer who can create ice so beautiful, and then sees him decked out in his icy dress robes and kinda...forgets that the ice is supposed to be the good looking part.  Anyway, though.  Black Hayate would probably take the part of Sven, though he’d have to be enormous.  I can’t really stand the thought of turning Black Hayate into a reindeer, so instead I’m going to turn him into a Miyazaki-style enormous wolf.  Because reasons.  Riza can be a beautiful, Princess Mononoke-type wild child who uses her attunement with nature to get some major awesome cubes of ice.  I love her.

Anna: 

Edward and Alphonse Elric. I’m splitting Anna into two people because of two reasons.  First, there’s two Elric brothers, and second, I think that Anna could have afforded to harbor a little more bitterness towards her sister, and so I’m throwing Edward in to have abandonment issues while Alphonse handles more of the “unconditional trust” type thing.  In this au, Edward received the initial wound from Roy’s ice powers, though it was a little more serious than Anna’s streak of white hair.  He ends of losing his arm and his leg to frostbite when Roy’s magic hits him, and both he and Al are wiped of their memories. He gets automail somehow, but I’m not sure where I want to put Winry in this.  Alphonse is the one injured by Roy’s blast of self-doubt in the ice palace, the way Elsa freezes Anna’s heart in the movie.  The frost spreads throughout his entire body, much the way his entire body is taken away in the transmutation.

Hans: 

I’m using an oc for Hans.  I didn’t necessarily want Hans to have any romantic attachments to any of the characters (real or imagined) so I’m going to call him Ed and Al’s half brother.  In this au, Roy’s mother (Trisha) ends up marrying Hohenheim, who had a son of his own, and then gives birth to Ed and Al, making both Hans and Roy half-brothers to them (though not related to each other).  Technically, I could say that Hans is 03 Envy, but I wasn’t particularly fond of that development, so I’m just going to have him be miscellaneous half-brother Hans, possibly named Skyler (I have a lot of weird aus, and in one of them Ed and Al have a half-brother named Skyler, but he’s nice so idk about using him here).

General plot stuff: 

Hohenheim doesn’t leave, and Trisha doesn’t die of an illness.  They die the way Elsa and Anna’s parents do.  Roy particularly misses Trisha, because though his step-father is kind, Trisha was most understanding about his ice powers, and it was Hohenheim’s idea to “conceal don’t feel”, while Trisha had some doubts about that method.

Hans/Envy/Skyler/whoever is the son of Hohenheim, who married into the royal family after Trisha’s husband and Roy’s father died.  Skyler (I’m gonna use Skyler because using Hans is confusing) wants the throne not because he has a ton of older brothers like in the movie, but because he’s jealous that Roy is the crown prince even though Skyler himself is technically the eldest.  Turns out having a parent marry into royalty doesn’t give you many royal rights.  Skyler shows up at Roy’s coronation, and quickly becomes a bit of a role model to Ed, who sees him as the older brother who did everything he could to be present for him, as opposed to Roy who shut himself away.  Technically Skyler didn’t even show up till now, but Ed just needs support and so doesn’t think much of it.  Skyler’s excuse is that he was away at school and didn’t even realize that Ed and Al were all alone till he arrived for the coronation.  Sketchy but semi-believable.  Unlike Hans, Skyler actually remembers about Roy’s ice powers, because he was there when Ed was injured, and didn’t have his memory wiped.  His plan is to antagonize Roy until his ice powers are revealed, forcing him to flee the country, then to use Ed and Al’s deferment to his judgment to get himself crowned king.

Once Al gets frozen (haha), Ed becomes determined that, per the troll’s instructions (which definitely did not come after a musical number in which a troll who probably wasn’t Maes Hughes tries to get Riza and Roy together), Skyler will be able to un-freeze him.  Ed doesn’t consider himself as an option because he has Issues and doesn’t believe himself capable of the type of pure love that will save his little brother (he is, obviously, but like I said, Ed has Issues).  Once they return, Skyler decides that the death of the younger, beloved prince would be a good way to solidify Roy’s fall from grace, and leaves Al to die by locking him in Roy’s old room.  Edward comes to find him (sorry Olaf fans out there, Ed is not Olaf, and Olaf is not in this au, but someone has to pick up the one piece of plot he’s responsible for) and, after he discovers self-deprecating notes that Roy has written to himself to remind himself to “conceal don’t feel” in order to protect his precious little brothers, becomes convinced that Roy had loved them all along and tries to drag Al back out to Roy in one last, desperate attempt to save his life.  On the way, Ed’s automail acts up because of the cold, and he ends up collapsed on the frozen lake, with Skyler about to strike him down.  Alphonse throws himself in front of Edward, as Roy, who had broken out of prison in an attempt to save the brothers he cares so desperately about, attacks Skyler with his ice powers, immobilizing him (do I want him to die?  I don’t know.  Depends on what you want it to be rated).

Because of the self-sacrifice, Al unfreezes, and Roy is convinced by his brothers that there is still love in their family, and uses it to end the eternal winter that he had unwittingly started.  He and Riza forge a tentative friendship-that-will-probably-turn-to-romance, and everyone lives happily ever after.

This got really long, sorry.  Thank you for the ask, though!  I’m glad I got to expand on it.