#Out here retroactively looking at their past actions and going

[sammy8d257]

Do you think Purple enjoyed being a king because it

1) Gave them a sense of importance

and

2) Reminded them of talking care of someone

Cuz like, one detail I keep remembering is the fact that Purple themself, went out into the Nether to collect quartz to distribute to the villagers. They didn't send anyone else out to do it like how kings would usually do. They went out into the dangerous nether and got it by hand.

And the villagers liked Purple enough to make them a whole statue

So like, Purple obviously cared for them and I'm personally headcanoning they probably learned how from taking care of Orchid...

Do You See My Vision-

[madlori]

On Tommy and narrative threads

So some fans who are vehemently anti-Tommy frequently use the talking point that they need to have Buck confront Tommy about his past behavior while under Gerrard, or have him find out about it if he doesn't already know, and that he should break up with him about it. Or they need some kind of reckoning to happen with Hen and Chim in order to move forward.

I'm 95% sure neither of those things are going to happen, and here is why: the show considers that narrative thread to be closed.

It has run its course. It's done. It's been resolved. As fans and viewers - and as many of us are fic readers and writers - we always want to see things hashed out onscreen in exhaustive detail but that's not practically possible. The narrative sometimes has to signal that threads are resolved in other ways, in the way characters act towards each other and speak about each other.

Throughout the course of the three Begins episodes in which he appears, the writers clearly selected Tommy to represent the "firefighter who acted kinda jerky but got better through personal growth and friendship with new people" narrative. By the end of Bobby Begins Again, this narrative is more or less complete, as we've now seen Tommy act to support Hen and also be accepted into a friendly relationship with both her and Chim, not to mention Bobby. When he reappears in season 7, nobody acts like he's anything other than a friend, and Chim outright admires him.

This is the conclusion of this thread, as far as the show is concerned. Did he ever sit down with Hen and Chim and make some big speech or have some big discussion about how he's learned and changed? Probably not. Those kinds of direct conversations sometimes do happen in reality, but more often than not, you just spend years working with someone and your opinion of them shifts as all of you change. And remember, Hen and Chim worked with Tommy for years before Bobby even showed up.

And ask yourself this question: if Hen and Chim have both moved on, and have accepted whatever direct or implicit apology Tommy offered, how is it Buck's business to decide that no, that's not good enough, HE'S going to demand some kind of restitution on their behalf? That's patronizing as fuck. These are people with their own agency who don't need Buck to advocate for them and exact some kind of retroactive revenge for something they're not even mad about anymore. Would he be upset that Tommy ever made off-color remarks, or was less than welcoming to people who are now his friends? Maybe. Is he upset that Eddie nearly killed a man? Is he filled with moral outrage and disappointment that Hen cheated on her wife? Chim physically assaulted him, and so did Bobby. Is he still holding that against them? Is he upset NOW that nobody's speaking up on HIS behalf when Gerrard targets him? Buck's an adult. He knows that people frequently look back on their past behavior and cringe at what jerks they were, himself included.

Tommy has several times alluded to being ashamed of his past actions. He knows the score. The message we're meant to take from those comments is that he's taken steps to not be that guy anymore. Need he flagellate himself forever? Does this need to cost him and Buck a relationship they both value? It can't have been easy to come from a terrible father, go into the army, then into the LAFD with a terrible captain, and then to meet people who challenged your behavior and made you want to be a better person. The fact that he became a better person is something he should be admired for, not punished.

[auntieinthemushroomhat]

I have no one irl I can discuss Miss Scarlet with (it usually doesn't stop me though, but I do try to limit it to a sane amount), but no matter how much I talk to my friends about it, they won't ever grasp the true extent of everything related to it, because they never watched and never will watch the show, and that's okay. So here I am speaking into the abyss. Hi!

You know, I've been thinking about Stuart's departure. And I'm really starting to think he was right in leaving. Don't get me wrong, I'll miss him immensely, he's a great actor and somewhat of a comfort in the show since we've known him, we know his motivations, we've grown to like him, etc. I like his and Eliza's banter and bickering, but I never did like their romance all that much.

Looking back, in my opinion, they acted more like older brother/younger sister than familial friends with romantic attraction. And I probably would have liked them even more if they never even had that romance aspect, but I'm not sure, since I'm thinking about this retroactively not way back when, when I first started watching the show.

I'll miss William coaching Fitzroy, but I'm also curious how Phelps will approach the subject, since they seem to be on better terms, and maybe more professional than what William and Fitzroy had.

Perhaps William's absence will also provide us with more opportunities to see our favourite side characters and Eliza interacting, eg. Fitzroy (Does he still have a crush on her? Has he moved on? If he still hasn't, will Phelps notice? How will he react?), Ivy and Mr Potts (Will they get married this season? Will Ivy move out? [I know lots of us have been pondering this specific question, as quite a few fanfics imagine this scenario.]), I'd love to see Moses return along with Solomon.

I've seen people mention that Eliza is in dire need of a female friend, and I have to agree. I'd love to see a past female character return, with a vengeance (not literally). My top candidates would be Clara Simms from season 1 or Arabella Acaster, which might be controversial. I'd love to see them make up and move on. Because, I might be wrong in thinking this, but aren't they the two sides of the same coin?

I realise I haven't mentioned Nash yet. I'm excited to see his trial and all the difficulties they will have to deal with it during and after. Once he's free and Eliza rejoins Nash & Sons (if she even will, who knows?), will he leave for Paris, or will he stay? Will Eliza go with him perhaps? So many opportunities. I love it.

I wanna see Patrick and Eliza get closer, whether in the form of friendship or perhaps more, I'd be happy with whichever.

I just want to see Eliza thrive with people surrounding her who love, cherish and support her. (Obviously realistically still and deservedly so, it would be boring if it were all sunshine and rainbows, ya know?)

I hope all the pitchfork action on the internet hasn't put too much of a damper on the Miss Scarlet team's excitement that the show's been renewed and they get to work together again.

[starter-library]

THE GUY WHO DIDN'T LIKE MUSICALS LYRIC STARTERS feel free to change phrasing/pronouns as you see fit

“Musicals tell the impossible (impossible) They evoke the philosophical”

“Should we kill him?”

“What an ass! What a bitch! What a cuck!”

“The apotheosis is upon us”

“Where the fuck is he?”

“You gotta believe in something, [name], you piece of shit”

“[Name] you piece of shit”

“Sometimes I just wanna shout on top of roof and mountain tops”

“Yesterday is retroactive Got myself a new perspective”

“What the fuck was that?”

“I may not have a home but that's way okay”

“The world is my house, The dogs are my food”

“Uh, what's going on here?! I'm very confused and concerned by all this”

“Do you wanna save the planet?”

“What do you want, [name]? Tell me what you desire to see”

“So, what do you want, Paul? What's that one concrete goal that motivates all your actions?”

“I don't know, I want what anyone wants? Money, a partner? Kids, someday, maybe?”

“A man so vague just can't be trusted”

“D'you know what I want for myself? I've waited for so long to tell somebody else.”

“You're my muse, my source of light”

“[name] my love. I want you to choke me out at night”

“I want you to choke me while I jerk off”

“I'm gonna go get some coffee, do you want anything?”

“Get your cup of roasted coffee”

“Get your cup of poisoned coffee”

“You better empty out all of them pockets but don't empty out all of them pockets”

“Check your mirror, you'll find hell has arrived”

“Do the things I say, I'm a cop”

“Put in your mouth and suck it!”

“Oh, [name], please stop! I'm your wife, just talk to me, baby!”

“God, we were young once. Innocent and fun once and free”

“You tied up my heart, You tied me down”

“Now break me open with your love and mercy”

“[name], baby! Apple of my eye! Don't you trust me?”

“I've effed up, [name], effed up with you”

“Will you ever forgive me? I'll crawl on my hands and knees”

“Oh fuck, I'm fading fast, I think you better come quick”

“I really don't wanna die alone in here. Time to say our goodbyes at the end of the road”

“This body's not gonna last, the air is cold and thick”

“You brought me back from the dead, [name]!”

“The time for chaos is long past overdue”

“Death isn't optional in fact it’s optimal”

“Join us and die”

“We're gonna kick your ass and then we're gonna Fucking kick your ass”

“I'm not your girl anymore”

“You left me out of your sight for one second and look what happens, nightmare time”

“No matter what you believe The apple's fallen far from the tree”

“It's not my fault anymore”

“Did you know that I wanted to live with you?

“Why does it hurt to love you? Why am I in pain?”

“If I turned my insides out, would you even know that I was there?”

“A show stoppin' number is something you die for”

“This song's pretty good, huh? I bet you didn't know I was also a composer”

“I've also been writing my own musical…Do you mind if I give you the pitch?”

“But those glory days, they're gone for good…Or are they?”

“Business calls, I'm up to my ass in shit. What is this business?”

“Last weekend feels like ages ago”

“I can't wait to get home to my boys”

“Come on, [name] We've got some catching up to do”

“There's only room for right and wrong”

“You can't run”

“You're staring down the gun 'Cause you're easily disposed”

“Did you hear the word?”

“Is your heart so damp and bleak that you won’t give us a peek of your soul?”

“There's a voice inside of you on the edge of coming through”

“Am I dead? I’m coming apart at the seams!”

“I’ve never been happy wouldn’t that be nice?”

“Is my integrity worth anything at all?”

“Am I crazy? Maybe I’ve always been”

“What if I told you I made it and this is the life that I chose?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Don't you want to see me happy? Is it so tragically wrong?”

“We must go on with the show it's inevitable”

“I found my calling you can do the same now”

[creaturefeaster]

jumping back to my tim and hannah ask, I meant like how does gary work with the both of them ykyk?? And how all 3 of their relationships are (friendship wise)

Ohhh I see, okay.

Gary's got a pretty complex relationship between Tim and Hannah actually. Hannah's hometown, before she and her brother moved, was rather close to the main passage to the underground Talpian Dominion. When Hannah was younger she'd often meet up with Gary, who was always being rebellious and crossing the threshold into the land above. They sort of met by chance at first, and Hannah's laidback attitude was easy for Gary to get along with, so they just kept hanging out.

Gary being the person that he is, his overall friendship with Hannah is a bit rocky, being argumentative and a little bit of a grump from time to time. Hannah knows Gary doesn't always mean to be that way, and that he tries to be a decent person, so she still stuck by him.

One day though he just stopped visiting Hannah, after the gaps between his visits had already been lengthening. They got to be pretty good friends, so Hannah was upset about this for a while. But that'd've happened a few years before she moved up closer towards Tim, so she's had time to get past it ^^;.

But where Gary actually ended up, when he finally stopped visiting, was actually up in Little Stone where Tim lives. Or, well, he traveled the land for quite a bit, found himself up there eventually, and settled down. Where he originally thought was just a somewhat secluded flat opening in the woods, close enough to society were he to need any supplies, but far enough to where nobody could ever bother him. ...But instead he accidentally settled on Tim's acreage, and didn't realise for the better half of a year.

You could probably count the amount of times he encountered Tim with your fingers and toes alone, throughout the few years he lived there, but still a very unique kind of relationship between them came to be. Gary hated Tim the second they ran into each other, but Tim just thought the guy was interesting, and never told his mother about it. Which is all whatever, but Gary being so isolated from the world, any time they did run into each other he'd always draw the encounter out a little longer than it needed to be.

Tim also just totally trusted Gary even though he was literally trespassing on their lot, and that sort of trust continued after the Fault, because the first person he thinks to go to after he finds his mother kidnapped, is Gary. Not any neighbor, but Gary. It'd be this choice that not only connects Hannah & Gary back together, but also a visit that would retroactively save Gary.

So right at the start of the Fault you basically have this weird triangle of feelings between them, for better or worse. That tends to be their theme throughout their journey.

Gary wants to dislike Tim but the guy is so nice & he's been his only living connection to the world for years, and he's tense around Hannah because of his absence, but reliant on her because he needs her help with his pet Citus, who's body she helped design and build. Hannah is having to relearn Gary, the friend she used to know, concerned for his wellbeing but hurt by his actions-- while her other friend Tim navigates his temper with ease from more recent years of exposure. And Tim is buddy buddy with them both.

But also Gary can be there for Hannah when she needs a more logical brain to talk to. No offense to Tim, he can just be a little silly and airheaded with his takes on life, but that outlook also keeps Gary from getting too uppity about things & keeps everything lighthearted amidst their complex feelings.

Here's how I look at it simply, though:

Hannah - Tim: too silly, nothing to stop them from making dumb decisions.

Hannah - Gary: no fun, all serious, they can sometimes rub eachother the wrong way & make things more difficult than they need to be.

Tim - Gary: a cycle of nothing, friendliness that's met with defensive hostility that's met with more friendliness that's met with frustration. nothing gets done.

Hannah - Tim - Gary: balanced, just the right amount of fun and smarts, with a healthy distribution of emotions. they can accomplish a lot when working together.

🐥

[fictionadventurer]

Thoughts on the beginning of The Two Towers:

The opening lines of the first chapters are short and focused on action. Almost makes it read like a YA novel, so pretending that it was helped me speed up my reading pace.

This actually started at the end of Fellowship (with Frodo looking out across the world from the mountaintop), but this is the point where it stops being a quest and we understand that this really is a worldwide war.

I love how, even with the huge time pressure, Aragorn takes time to honor the fallen Boromir with a funeral. This respect for the dead really highlights the book's pro-life worldview.

Though given the huge time pressure, he probably shouldn't have stopped as many times later on to sing songs and stuff.

Aragorn dubs them "the Three Hunters". It's so cute.

I think I have massively underrated Eomer as a character. I love this boy. He's wise enough to see things are going wrong, so he's subtly gathering his own loyal followers in case civil war starts up. He's shocked by these people telling him All the Myths and Fairy Tales are Real, but he still takes it in stride. He's willing to let them go and give them horses despite the king's order. He's a good lad.

This is also adorable: "Strider is too poor a name [...] Wingfoot I name you."

Merry is the Experienced and Prepared Adventurer to Pippin's Wide-Eyed Innocent, and seeing their dynamic here makes me upset that Jackson's movie mostly made them interchangeable comic relief.

I was thinking that Treebeard's dialogue sounded like a Narnia book, then I remembered that Treebeard was supposedly based on Lewis. So apparently Tolkien did a very good job.

I love everything about the Ents here. It's like the Tom Bombadil scene combined with Galadriel's scene. The protector of the forest with a long history. The songs of the long past. The loss of the Entwives is so weird and so cool and I love the texture it gives here.

This scene even retroactively makes the Tom Bombadil scene make more sense, because he explains that the forest outside the Shire is the same type as Fangorn.

I'm upset people don't talk about Quickbeam more. I'd forgotten there was more than one Ent with a name. He's the hobbits' other buddy and doesn't deserve to get forgotten.

Tolkien was on-point for recognizing that an entire forest literally marching to battle is one of the coolest things that could possibly happen.

[staarry-skies]

gonna be insane abt usamamo for a second im so sorry esp to my moots who do not care about sailor moon my heart goes out to you

read more bc this is so much longer than was intended

i see a lot of the same "theyre only in love because of fate/their superhero alter egos/their past" takes A Lot (to be fair its usually directed at the 90s anime, to which i do agree n understand, however ive also seen it directed at the manga which is why im talking abt it) and i just Do Not Agree, so im gonna talk abt it in a twt thread bc im insane and twt is my outlet for my insanity. (this was originally written for twt but got too long oops.)

starting with the whole "theyre only dating because of past lives" because its the easiest to debunk, its just flat out not true. mamoru n usagi never really got the chance to officially get to together pre-past lives reveal in the manga but its pretty damn clear they were going to, probably the next time they met as civilians and swapped their different keepsakes that they have from each other.

theres also the whole "oh well their feelings are remnants of silmil" which i think takes away a lot of their agency as characters and also just isnt true and is also pretty easily disprovable, usagi likes mamoru for being there for her and supporting her when she needs it, and mamoru likes usagi for being this incredibly strong heroine but also being a normal cheery girl all at the same time.

which leads me to the next point! "they only like each other because of their alter egos", two rebuttals here, they dont exactly stop being tuxedo mask/sailor moon just because theyre out of costume that is still them but i do see why this is a popular criticism. my other thing is that its definitely not true for mamoru, whos usually the one criticized for not truly liking the Real Usagi™️ and only liking her for sailor moon (or serenity but we just went over that and funnily enough this criticism should be directed more to usagi but we'll get into that later).

for this lets go back to why mamoru loves usagi, according to earlier in this post i claimed it was because of the dichotomy between her and sailor moon, the crime fighting warrior, and usagi the happy-go-lucky school girl who always brings a smile to everyones face, thus showing that he loves /all/ of her not just one side over the other.

but me saying so isnt really enough so lets hear it from the boy in question: "its true... for a long time the crystal was the only thing i wanted... but now when i see her... angry one moment then laughing the next... the crystal? no thats not what i really want... usako youre what i want" - (crystal ep 7) so... yeah thats pretty cut and dry, oh yeah nows also a good time to mention that ill be pulling stuff from crystal too because of the nature of crystal having been more closely supervised by naoko and being a stricter manga adaptation, any scenes it adds are retroactively canon to the mangaverse (at least to me, but if youre looking for a similar line from the manga: "youre strong today sailor moon, everyday i feel like im seeing a different side to you, is there other versions of you ive yet to meet? i want to know everything, who are you really?" - (chapter 8) same idea as the crystal quote just a lot more vague lol)

also this is reflected in more than just words, its actions too, tuxedo mask is a lot more closed off towards sailor moon earlier on and its not until chapter 4 that he starts being a lot more openly caring and affectionate, and you wanna know what happens in chapter 4? he finds out sailor moon is usagi, and it doesnt take a lot of media literacy to put two and two together to figure out why that shift happens there.

now for usagi, remember when i said the whole "liking the alter-egos" criticism applies to her more but is never directed at her? well heres why, we never really see her civilian relationship with mamoru develop much on her end before the reveal, she is of course attracted to mamoru but on a way more superficial level (usagis pretty notorious for her immediate, but ultimately kinda surface level crushes on people: see rei).

she denies her crush but its pretty obvious she has one, for example when mako points out that usagis blushing after one of their interactions and asks about it and she insists pretty loudly that she "doesnt like him!" but never really explains the blush (earlier in the same scene when she sees mamoru she blushes and b-dmp! is written in the bg, keep in mind he hasnt done or said anything yet so its not embarrassment) and then theres chapter 3 where she recognizes that his profile sorta looks like tuxedo mask which she'd actively try to deny if she didnt like him like she says she does, so its pretty obvious she has a crush on mamoru.

but her relationship with tuxedo mask is what gets more development, she goes from that superficial crush she has on mamoru to liking him for deeper reasons than just: pretty guy! i.e. helping her, being there for her, and grounding her when she needs it. also in the same vein as her recognizing him in chapter 3 the reveal is her just recognizing him as tuxedo mask, which obviously she has to like mamoru quite a bit to do (even if the evidence was quite literally all around her) (in saying all of this i do think pgsm does a much better job at showing her genuinely falling for all of him but pgsm also skews more towards the 90s anime in terms of characterization so i wont be using that).

and finally "usamamo are only together/feel pressured to be together because of fate/chibiusa" short answer: no. long answer: noooooooooo. no but in all seriousness this flat out isnt true, if you'll remember the first 14 chapters of the manga are kinda. yk. dedicated to this. their fate isnt to "be together" their fate is to literally DIE if they dare attempt to be together again, they are together DESPITE fate, like i dont even know how else to put it because multiple characters comment on fate repeating itself when it comes to dooming usamamo, they werent reincarnated to be together they were reincarnated to be happy and live normal peaceful lives.

as for fate as in the future, thats pretty easily disprovable because its ALSO something the manga goes over, during the dream arc when mamorus suffering from nehelennias curse he starts feeling guilty and selfish for constantly being a burden on usagi to the point he asks her if she really does want a future with him, even saying that he feels horrible for potentially tying her down to a future she might not want, which yk would kinda not be a concern he would have if he was only with her for the creation of crystal tokyo (side note: nowhere does it say usamamo NEED to be together for crystal tokyo to exist, usagi could very well rule alone like queen serenity or with any other partner, its just that the current timeline has them together in ct) as for usagis response, mamoru falls asleep before he can hear it, but she says point blank that she can change the future if she wants. So. Yeah. dont really think i need to say much more than that on that front.

And the last part of the "fate saga", "theyre only together to have chibiusa" which is such a crazy and lowkey highkey misogynistic sentiment, but for arguments sake lets take a look at why its completely wrong, first off, again. "i can change the future as much as i want" - (chapter 40) she could have chibiusa by other means (for example the way queen serenity had serenity) but also, the reason they care so much about chibiusa is because she's a product of their love, they obviouly care about her as a person but they wouldnt just force themselves to be together just to have her and her alone (if that makes sense i have no idea how to phrase what im trying to say) in any case its a really gross thing to say because it insinuates a lot of really weird things!

if you made it through all that you deserve like a medal or something but thanks for listening to my silly little thoughts about my favorite couple right now

[high-theyre-frendough]

I've realized lately that I've been using this blog for venting about some of the stupid bullshit that I've been dealing lately. I'm sorry about that, and I realize that some of you probably aren't too interested in hearing about it. I have created a tag which I have retroactively applied to old messages called #household drama and/or vent which can be blocked if you so choose. What is the drama, you may ask? Glad you asked.

Around the end of June, I started dating a person who I've been referring to here as "Bitch." When we met, I was also dating my (now ex) Max. Max & I previously shared an apartment which had a lease that was ending, and Bitch's household was looking for new roommates, so Max & I figured, why not.

It did not take long to realize that Bitch is fucking insane (is it ableist if they regularly uses that word to describe themself? I don't care). Bitch is the kind of cartoonishly unhinged that if their actions were portrayed in a movie, said movie would be criticized for being unrealistic. Anyways, the specifics of shit that Bitch does belong in their own posts, and this is like a summary thing.

Ok, so, Bitch has a boyfriend who has somehow put up with them for the past seven fucking years. I have no idea how. This man has an immense amount of patience (which has been rapidly disappearing in terms of being able to tolerate Bitch). I was hanging out with said boyfriend on and off. I was getting to know him as he was going to be one of my new roommates. We hit it off.

For the rest of this, I'm gonna be referring to him as Daddy, as I do that anyways. We had sex. I broke up with Max (which I should've done, like, before I met her, but that is it's own drama). After a bit longer, I broke up with Bitch, cause I couldn't deal with that anymore.

A key point here is that Bitch does not know I've been fucking Daddy. If Bitch were to find out, they would probably commit some kind of felony due to severe jealousy issues (Bitch was already accusing us well before anything was even being thought about happening, as they spend most of their time obsessing over whether or not Daddy is cheating which ironically is what caused him to finally snap because of how insufferable Bitch is). Kind of fucked up how Bitch claims to be poly but also has severe jealousy issues and will not let Daddy interact with other people, nevermind date anyone. Literally will call him over and over whenever he is not right next to her. I'm not joking; Bitch will call him when he's been downstairs for a few minutes too long.

Bitch will spend hours yelling at Daddy and throwing fits over nonsense. Just the other day, Bitch broke his fucking grill, then cried over him being annoyed about it, saying that he was upset "for no reason" when she fucking broke it cause she didn't know how to use it.

Guess who he comes to for comfort? Me. Cause I actually talk to him like a person. Cause I actually have conversations to him that don't revolve around wanting to put him down so I can be the center of attention like Bitch does. Cause we have similar interests. Because we actually like each other. Fuck, cause I'm better at sex. That's not the only reason, but it's certainly a reason. (Oh, also, at this point I'm fuck buddies with the other roommate, Amanda. Basically, everyone's fighting over me, but as far as Bitch knows, Daddy didn't do anything with me. Amanda largely tries to avoid the drama anyways, so she's not relevant here. She is, however, a very lovely woman who is good at cooking and I love her as well as Daddy, though in different ways.)

I still live here. I share Bitch & Daddy's bedroom. Bitch is constantly trying to get me back into a relationship with them. I am not going to. Basically I alternate between, let's see, HAVING A FUCKING METAL GODDAMN CHAIR THROWN AT ME AFTER HAVING THE LIVES OF MY CATS THREATENED, and also sometimes they go on about how cute I am and how much they want to have sex with me.

Bitch is constantly bitching about everything. Meanwhile, Daddy is obsessing over me and tries his hardest to avoid her and instead be around me. The only reason why Bitch is still here is due to an unrelated court thing. It is generally assumed that if Bitch were to find out and/or be kicked out that they would lie to legal authorities so that the court thing goes poorly, which would be really really bad. It would not be out of character at all for them to do that.

[m39]

Decade of DOOMstruction(2000s): Honorable mentions part 1

Just a little thing before we start – I’m splitting this part of DoD’s roster into two subparts because I prefer talking up to ten things per part to not make you waste too much time on reading.

With that said, let’s take a look at my honorable mentions of the 2000s WADs (most of these I retroactively named).

2000 – ATOMIC TOMB

It’s still good, I think? I’m trying to remember other parts of this short map since the biggest thing I recognize at this point is the beginning, where you are immediately surrounded by hitscanners mosh pitting to the door you hide behind and you have only shotgun to defend yourself. Good luck surviving without taking any damage.

I also think it’s kind of messy, at least when it comes to how enemies are placed, making it look like the author had no idea what he was doing.

Still, it’s one of his earlier maps, so I can be rather merciful for this map. And if you can get past the beginning without ripping your hair out, I think you will like it.

2001 – SIN CITY

This map was kind of a blast to play, not gonna lie. Despite being the early ZDoom WAD, it doesn’t get irritatingly quirky with its features; just some enhancements to the core gameplay… along with stealth shitlings.

Vomits

If not for this crap, I would call this map great, but instead, it’s just very good. Still, I’m surprised it didn’t end up much more annoying.

2003 – VOID

Now this map is a freaking peak of the early 2000s. While still having annoyances like platforming (if you don’t like them in WADs), some of the enemies, the final boss and his temporal invulnerability, and other ZDoom quirks, it’s still a great map filled with fun ideas, like acquiring each key with different challenges.

I’m kind of mad now that I gave the Revenant Award to Doom Raider map instead of this one because while both glitch out and can make themselves unbeatable, with this map, I felt like the cyberdemon bug wasn’t happening all of the time (at least in the past that is). Not to mention that Void is at least 50% more fun, even if it’s more polarizing than that map.

This is one of the WADs that are must-play.

2004:

ACTION DOOM

You want Contra in first-person mode? Here we go. This WAD will provide it. And it’s great in what it’s doing. It’s very fun, even if it’s slightly bugged due to the fact that it was uploaded over two decades ago (the original version that is to say). Its second map offering three ways to get into the third one, with each route having something different to do is only one of the bigger features among other things to do there.

If you want to check it out, try out the remaster from 2022. While I didn’t play that version, I think it’ll be more cooperative with GZDoom than the original one.

DECADE

While the imps constantly ambushing you from behind overstayed their welcome, and the MAP10 part of the WAD feels off to me, it’s still a good map. As the 10th anniversary celebration of the first game, it’s a pretty nice blast to the past; I didn’t even mind the stock music (probably because it fits the map's concept).

Worth playing even when it’s not December 10th.

2005 – TOTAL CONTROL

For me, this map feels like a variant of Altar of Evil, but filled with more tech shit and with hitscanners instead of new enemies, therefore it’s worse.

But, even with these wankers ruining my day left and right, it’s still a fun map to play. Not as fun as AoE but it still has its moments.

TO BE CONTINUED

That’s all WADs for today, people. There will be five more of these in the near future to revisit.

[semimedieval]

the beach part 2: heteroerotic pearl diving

jenny's playing elden ring and keeps getting murdered by a guy with the sun for his head :( and me, i'm going to read the quartz and rim pearl diving scene. which is like elden ring to me.

Rim shot Through the water like a fish. Breathing wasn't a problem, and if it had been, he could hold his breath for three minutes, swimming full power. He suddenly noticed an oyster, several of them in fact. After a few minutes of diligent searching he found a pearl. (Not the pearl of course) The pearl was suddenly thrust out of the water, and fell on Quartz's head. "Ow!" she exclaimed, taking it out of the water where it had fallen. "What is this?"

Your honor, this is cute. I'm sorry, Quark for life, but this is cute. How do you flirt again? You throw precious items at a girl and then invite her to illuminate underwater darknesses with you. 10/10 no notes. He was right.

"It's a pearl. Duh." said Obsidian.

buddy you are not in that scene your ass was supposed to be racing chuji in the water. This ain't about you. Anyway, Rim comes back, and we hear his date proposition.

Rim bobbed to the surface. "Wanna help me find pearls?" He asked. "It's a bit dark down there, even with my water vision" "Uh...okay." she said, rather nervously. Rim grinned. "Thanks! And don't worry about air or swimming even if you'ld like!" She nodded and dove under.

Quartz trusts him very fast and has no follow-up questions about issues of air or swimming, which creates a delightful sort of retroactive implication that she was nervous about the implication that she's being asked on a sort of date, rather than the question of breathing underwater. Which Rim has covered.

A bubble of air appeared around her head, connected to the world above by a thin tube of air. He picked through the oyster, guided by her light, pick up some which would make good eating, and occasionally, picked up a pearl. She looked around herself, impressed. Underwater, it was unusually calm and quiet.

This is pretty much as atmospheric as we get but it's a really touching and lovely kind of atmospheric and exactly the sort of Extranei Juice that I'm hoping to emphasize in 3.0 – the sort of magic that creates new sight, new ways of seeing, new places to see. Rim and Quartz on the edge of a world that they by all rights should not be present in. I think there's enough vivid possibility in that image that it's almost helping me imagine a rich and interesting middle ground for the pendant stuff that happens later – I think the two should find an underwater cave, insist on backup for exploring it, bring Leander and Mina, and then find that for whatever reason one person (Quartz) must wait outside while the others explore. So we still get the sense of her waiting, helpless, and she does not get a pendant, but she is less comically removed from the action and the horror than she is in 2.0. And of course we get to recreate that image – Wryn trapped and in danger, Quartz waiting outside – at the end of the story. Just a rough sketch – obviously this will all make more sense in the outline. But I want to emphasize Sea Horror more and Sea Wonder too.

I do miss good old Moopy when I reread these roleplays. Wherever they are, I hope they're well.

They don't talk much down here in the roleplay, a feature that I changed in 2.0 – here, I use that moment to heighten emotional intimacy in a fairly utilitarian way. I just have Quartz ask Rim about his past and learn some things about it that she needs to know. I think it can be done better, and I think the way I write their friendship in 2.0 is dominated by my dedication to writing what was interesting to me at the time – a lesbian who figures out she's a lesbian and stays that way with no further divergences or doubts – and moments of intimacy between Quartz and Rim are undercut constantly by her narration going "Wow! That heterosexuality sure is compulsory!!"

Which is not the kind of narrative I find particularly compelling anymore, especially as it reflects a problem in which Quartz, as our only POV character, really only builds lasting moments/arcs of emotional intimacy with Obsidian, Rim, and Spark. She has moments of connection with Ky and Lupus (using the old names is killing me) but only by accident really. And Chuji, even as her future sister-in-law and one of her oldest friends, is criminally ignored by the narrative, all because of stupid beef with Augustine.

The point is Quartz should be so full of love it's killing her, and a little in love with everyone, and certainly a little (more than a little) in love with Rim. Or Wryn, as the case may be.

Here and now, these young and silly proto-versions of them who are still allowed to be a little in love but just as embarrassed about it as all of the gay people around them (much to consider) wrap up their pearl diving trip.

Rim passed her the rest of the pearls. He picked up a few more oysters. "Come on, we should head up again." He said. She nodded and swam upward, surfacing.

Rim announces that oysters are ready to eat. By implication, he lets Quartz keep the pearls.

[robiinjason]

Hiii, do you have any recs for Robin Jason comics? I'd love to read more about him but I have no clue where to start. Love your art btw it's all adorable <3

Sure thing!!! And omg thank you 🥺🥺 your art is super cute too!!

If I were to rec One Thing as a starting point for Robin Jason, Batman #408-#429 covers Jason’s main run as Robin and his death arc and is the main essential reading I’d recommend. It’s fairly short and a good place to start imo! 

Among others, it includes his post-crisis origin and first outing as Robin, his first meeting with Dick, the Garzonas incident, and his death and its immediate aftermath in the Death in the Family arc. 

While Jason’s time as Robin in post crisis is fairly short and not as hard to get through as other characters with longer runs, i know Reading Comics Hard so I’ll make a shorter list first, with more recs under the cut!

Batman #408-#409 (Jason's origin)

Batman #410-#411 (his first outing as Robin)

Batman #413 (smart boy Jason)

Batman #415 (more good Jason moments)

Batman #416 (his and Dick's first meeting, also Dick and Bruce argue)

Batman Annual #12 (has a solo Jason story set at his school)

Detective Comics #569-#570 (Jason gets to kick the Joker's butt)

Detective Comics #571 (the Scarecrow kidnaps Jason)

Detective Comics #573 (this one’s just cute)

Superman Annual #11 (Bruce, Jason and Wonder Woman visit Superman on his birthday and stuff happens)

Blue Devil #19 (Jason is pen pals with Kid Devil)

Batman: the Cult (a 4-issue pretty dark miniseries where Bruce is kidnapped and brainwashed by a cult. Some great Jason moments)

Batman #424-#425 (The Garzonas storyline, or when Jason may or may not have pushed somebody off a building. Trigger warnings for sexual assault and suicide)

Batman #426-#429 (A Death in The Family, or Jason’s death arc)

I’ll be referencing this Jason reading list, since it’s what I followed when I started reading. It can be checked for a more comprehensive list of his appearances too, since I’m not aiming for a full list! (though I might edit it to include more stuff eventually.)

First things first, Jason got rebooted once during his time as Robin; he was originally a circus kid like Dick in pre-crisis (before the reboot), and later in post-crisis got his more well-known origin as the orphan who stole the tires off the batmobile. I’ll be focusing on post-crisis Robin Jason since I’m still reading his pre-crisis run, but the list I linked has more info on that if you’re interested!

Batman and Robin-focused 

Stories centered on the Dynamic Duo!

Batman #408-#429 - Jason’s post-crisis run as Robin, as mentioned above! The last four issues are the Death in the Family arc. The Batman: Second Chances trade collects a good chunk of these (#408-#416), plus Batman Annual #11 and a couple stories from before Jason’s post-crisis origin.

Detective Comics #568-#582 - Jason’s Robin run in Detective Comics! It’s a fun read and Alan Davis’ art style is very cute imo. (Jason isn’t around from #575 to #578 due to getting hurt in #573)

Batman Annual #10-#12 - More Batman and Robin stories. #12 has a Jason solo story set at his school! 

Batman: the Cult - a 4-issue miniseries where Bruce is kidnapped and brainwashed by a cult. A pretty dark story and one of the last ones from before his death. Jason has some great moments in it!

Dc Retroactive: Batman - The 80s - Story from 2011 written by Mike Barr, who wrote Jason’s 80s Robin stories in Detective Comics!

Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spetacular - One of the stories, More Time, is about Jason and Bruce and goes between the past (with Jason as Robin) and the present (with Jason as Red Hood). Short and very sweet!

Crossovers/Teamups

In which Jason meets or teams up with other characters, with or without Batman!

Blue Devil #19 - Jason is pen pals with Eddie Bloomberg/Kid Devil and teams up with him! 

Action Comics #556 + #594 - Jason meets Superman!

Superman Annual #11 - For The Man Who Has Everything, or where Jason goes with Bruce to Superman’s birthday, first meets Wonder Woman, and Stuff Happens. (Jason gets to be the hero!) 

New Teen Titans V2 (1984) #18-#31 - Jason joins the Teen Titans for a while! It’s fun to see him in a team and his characterization here is really good imo. (this is the span of issues he appears in but he isn’t in all of them)

Legends (six-part miniseries) - A DC crossover event! Jason has short but great appearances (the time where he breaks his leg, but wants to get up and help anyway).

Nightwing Year One #101-#106 - A rewrite of Dick's Nightwing origin with occasional Jason appearances until #106, which is a retelling of their first meeting where they work together to rescue Alfred. While I have Issues with the characterization of Jason in this, it has some cute moments and I’d be remiss to not include the story that introduces Dick’s nickname of “Little Wing” for Jason.

After his Death

Stuff dealing with the aftermath of Jason’s death and the impact it left on others. (Some of the stuff here is just listed for a single page or panel rather than a full story about Jason)

Batman #430-#432 + #496 - Bruce in the aftermath of Jason’s death. 

Batman Annual #13 - Jason appears in a flashback.

The New Titans #55 - Dick and the Titans find out about Jason’s death, and Dick confronts Bruce about it.

Batman: Year Three + A Lonely Place of Dying - While these focus on Dick and Tim respectively, they’re set after Jason’s death and show how Bruce is dealing with it. Year Three is in Batman #436-#439 and A Lonely Place of Dying (Tim’s origin story) is in Batman #440/New Titans #60/Batman #441/New Titans #61/Batman #442, also included in reprints of Death in the Family.

Detective Comics #618 - Has a nice little moment of Tim looking up to Jason.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #100 - The issue is mainly a Dick origin story, but in the end there’s a sweet and sad story about Jason’s beginning and ending as Robin.

Nightwing Secret Files and Origins - On the first story, Taking Wing, Jason appears to Dick as a dream/hallucination while the latter is having a near-death experience and accompanies him through various of Dick’s memories.

Joker: Last Laugh #6 - The one time when, upon believing Tim was killed and being taunted with Jason’s death, Dick kills the Joker. (the full thing is a six-issue miniseries)

Nightwing (1996) #63 - The aftermath of Dick killing the Joker (though he was revived), but I’m mainly including this for the one panel that shows a picture of Dick and Jason on what seems to be a ski trip.

Batman: Gotham Knights #34 - At the end there’s a story called “The Delusions of Alfred Pennyworth” about Jason’s ghost and Alfred.

Batman: Gotham Knights #43-#45 - Has a flashback to a Barbara and Jason teamup and a recap of Jason’s death as a social worker looks into it and investigates Bruce’s family.

Detective Comics #790 - Bruce talks to Cass about Jason on the day of Jason’s birthday.

Robin V4 #85 - The story itself is about the Joker reflecting on the Robins and Jason only appears briefly, but I think it’s worthwile to include as it’s one of the few times where the involvement of Jason’s mother in his death is acknowledged after Death in the Family. (Also there’s a panel where Jason kicks the joker on the crotch)

Green Arrow V3 (2001) #7 - The one panel where Jason is shown swinging around in heaven :)

Alternate Universes/Other Media

Some stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else/isn’t quite comics/isn’t really canon, but I think is neat and wanted to include!

Letters - letters from readers sent during when Jason was Robin and after his death. They can be interesting to look through to get a sense of how he was seen by readers at the time (there’s even an eulogy by a clergyman!). The ones I’ve seen can be found in this tag, and this post links to a few too (as well as some other info regarding Jason and the vote that led to his death).

The Batman Files - A book that contains several files over various topics and characters across Batman’s history. Among other things, it has Jason’s death certificate. (mainly including this because early on I spent a while trying to find out how old he was when he died)

Tiny Titans #23, #29, #33, #39, #45, #47 - An adorable alternate universe comic in a kid-friendly setting! Jason’s design in it is very cute.

Batman The Brave and the Bold #13 - Jason and Robins from other points in time team up to save Batman!

Teen Titans Go! season 6, episode 17 (Egg Hunt) - He doesn’t actually appear, but Jason is namedropped and said to be Batman’s favorite Robin.

Batman And The New Robin (unmade cartoon) - An unproduced animated TV series from the late 80s that would have starred Bruce as Batman and Jason as Robin! Unfortunately the project was abandoned and the show was never made, but the full series bible is available to read in its entirety and a link to it can be found here! There’s a page on it on the Lost Media Wiki as well.

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

All fans are equal but some are more equal than others. NOT.

There’s been quite a few people in the fandom lately getting very stressed, feeling they’re obligated to constantly be on the defensive re: their fandom choices.

Apparently, whoever has a different opinion about a character or a ship must be said character’s/ship’s stan i.e. overzealous and/or obsessive, i.e. not an objective viewer. Even worse, they must be a dreadful person, who condones a number of moral offences that said character/ship perpetrated (or is thought to have perpetrated). Because, of course, the only acceptable reason for appreciating/enjoying a fictional character or dynamic is their morality. And, by that reasoning, fans who support the correct character/ship must be better fans and better people.

Nothing is more ridiculous than the notion of the objective fan. An “objective” fan is called a “viewer”. You and I, Riverdale friends, we are not just viewers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have created blogs and dedicated hours of our lives to a fictional couple from an extremely mediocre show. We are still undoubtedly capable of critical thought and objective analysis but we are also aware of our own emotional investment in the show. (Or, at least, one hopes). As a fandom, we engage in activities that exist independently of the show. Fandom is a space of free expression. No one gets to play the higher moral card here. Needing to loudly tell everybody how wrong they are? That’s not the sign of an objective viewer. That’s the sign of a viewer who is also extremely invested, just for different reasons than I am.

Are we seriously holding the morality card over people’s heads for a show that used a poc woman’s pregnancy (Toni) as the means to retroactively establish trauma for a white male (Kevin), all the while touting it in every media possible as a woke response to the BLM movement?!

Are we seriously holding the canon card over people’s heads for a show that treats its 5th(!) season as a tabula rasa?! If the Lodges new backstory in 5x12 shows anything, it’s that s5 is not a time-jump. It’s a reboot.

There are so many people “enlightening” others on their inability to understand canon …

Seriously? That’s the hill you’re willing to die on? Canon Riverdale? You think that people don’t understand what they’re watching? That they’re interpreting canon incorrectly?

No, but seriously: canon for a TV show consists of what the characters say, what the characters do and how the actors portray them. Does this really apply to Riverdale?

Let’s take Donna for example.

Canon explicitly tells us Donna did what she did to avenge her grandmother. At the same time none of her canon actions were against the people who were actually responsible. So, riddle me this, fandom friends: why did Donna do what she did, as per canon?

Let’s try this another way:

Donna is a psycho bitch. Both in terms of Riverdale’s canon (the writers’ intention) and real-life criteria. To create a tag that reads “Bonna for ever uwu!” is deranged.

On the other hand, her character is (like a lot of Riverdale’s characters) an inconsistent caricature. Canon uses ridiculous dialogue and a lot of the Bonna scenes are cartoonishly enemies-to-lovers tropey. To create a tag that reads “Bonna for ever uwu!” is hilarious.

This doesn’t mean that Bonna is a canon couple. It does mean, however, that a Bonna crackship is based on Riverdale’s campy and over-the-top canonic writing.

A viewer who thinks Bonna is disgusting is not more “objective” or more “correct” or more “true to canon” than a viewer who thinks Bonna is funny. Nor are they a better person for it, and this cannot be stressed enough.

Similarly, who is canon Cheryl?

1. Cheryl is an absolute bitch: if a privileged student was calling an actual homeless boy a hobo in your real-life school, you would neither think her a queen nor use “hobo” affectionately in your tags, comments etc.

2. Cheryl is a deeply traumatized person: her father killed her brother, her mother killed half the town and forced her in conversion therapy, she attempted suicide and more.

(Note #1: this more does not mean more than the other Riverdale characters).

(Note #2: nor is it an excuse for her rudeness, affectionately called “mood for chaos” by the writers).

3. Cheryl is also a caricature of the archetypal mean girl who’s there for laughs and meta comments. She’s not to be taken seriously.

4. Cheryl is lgbtq+ representation …

5. … who canonically shits on other lgbtq+ characters.

6. Cheryl is one half of Choni, who are canonically presented as an uber couple.

7. Choni is also, as per canon, a couple with an acute power imbalance (cough!gaslighting!cough) that visually very clearly panders to the male gaze.

But most importantly:

8. Cheryl canonically is not the sum of her parts. The different facets of her character do not intermingle in any meaningful way.

Was Betty kissing Archie specifically a sore spot for Jughead?

Canonically no [2x14]. But, also, canonically yes [5x03, 5x10].

Are there seriously fans that are astonished that Betty is making some highly questionable choices while investigating?! Did they just discover Dark™Betty/Killer Genes Betty? That is canon Betty! Was it ok before because she was then smooching Jughead instead of giving him the cold shoulder? Honestly, the only newly outrageous part of s5Dark™Betty is the fact that she still believes in “killer genes” despite having spent 4 years at Yale …

As for liking/disliking Betty and morality …

Look, I’m going to be very honest: I am NOT particularly enjoying s5 Betty. And it’s not because of b*rchie.

S5 Betty has 99 problems but the sexcapades ain’t one.

For me, it’s the fact that she’s turned into s1 Alice 2.0. But surely that’s not news either? Ever since the first info about the time jump, everyone and their mother have been speculating about the teens becoming their parents …

Just because Jughead is better written (and written to be more likable), it doesn’t make him more worthy of redemption. Just because the writers are keeping Betty’s redemption “secret” (insert eye roll) for their big reveal in the season’s penultimate episode, it doesn’t mean she won’t have one.  

Simply put, the writers have made Jughead more likable. He’s still the underdog. He’s the only character in Riverdale actively trying to deal with his trauma, since the very first post-time jump episode (working at Pop’s explicitly to fend off the debt collectors). He has scenes with a new and extremely likable character (Tabitha). He has the only new plot line (the Mothman). Said plotline is narratively already tied to both his unknown past and the town’s destruction by Hiram. His behaviour is explicitly explained, even as his recent trauma remains unknown. He’s transparent.

In comparison, s5 Betty is traumatized but not the underdog. Her trauma (TBK killer) is both known to us and a repetition of previous storylines, which makes it narratively less exciting. She is completely disconnected from any other storylines. She comes out as being judgmental and self-interested: telling Tabitha Jughead’s not her business while previously accepting his help? Berating Polly for lying while not keeping in touch and lying about her own life (TBK)? Please note: I’m not saying there isn’t a reason behind her behaviour, just that it comes out in a negative way.

You don’t like Betty’s current behaviour? You don’t consider trauma a good enough excuse? Cool.

You feel sorry for what she’s going through? You consider trauma to be a valid explanation for her behaviour? Also cool.

Personally, I don’t give a flying fig, either for Betty’s trauma or Jughead’s. Because, even though Trauma™ is s5’s actual mystery plot, narratively speaking, trauma never affected the plot of the past 4 seasons, nor s5 trauma will affect future plots, once revealed. And you know what? That is also cool.

None of the above is better.

And just because I’m not enjoying Betty right now, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want her to overcome her current situation or that I won’t cheer for Bughead like a River Vixen on fizzle rocks, once they reunite.

This thing though, where people are made to feel as if they owed anyone in the fandom an explanation about why they like the things they like, because, somehow, their preferences are a reflection on their character or their cognitive abilities to read a TV show? This is a joke.

There is no “wrong” way to consume any show, let alone Riverdale, with its fractured format, its short-term memory and its see-sawing characters.

Look, everybody’s here for their own reasons. For most people this is a place of escape. No one’s escaping better than the other, because of how they enjoy their teen TV show ... 

[littleeyesofpallas]

So i did a little thing on Kensei and his biker motif and that included his hollow form looking like he was made out of car parts. and i figure I might as well tackle Mashiro's hollow form now, since it's adjacent.

To start with, it should be noted that Mashiro has a whole thing going on with her right out the gate. Unlike the other Visored who all seem to have adopted some kind of passably human attire, Mashiro is out here running around in a super hero suit... The outfit itself pulls from some pretty clear influences:

The little stripey things down the chest are a look taken from Himitsu Sentai Goranger, the 1971 live action super hero show. In the team of five, each ranger has a number and a matching number of stripes down either side of the suit's front fastening zipper. Where as the ascot+jumpsuit is verymuch the definitive Kamen Rider aesthetic. It's also possible that her weird giant goggles and even her green hair are also meant to evoke the general look of Kamen Rider's helmet.

(it's really weird that her goggles just sort of sit on her head? they don't even appear to be connected to one another, let alone to her head... The only reason I even really identify them as goggle is actually because of her TBtP design replacing them with regular sunglasses, which retroactively makes it clear that they're definitely meant to be eyewear. (even if she never wears them, like some sort of digimon protagonist))

And, as usual, I've mentioned before(because i'm a broken record) that these are contemporary sources, as both shows came about in the 1970s, and are foundational works in the tokusatsu genre, and consequently the building blocks of the Power Rangers franchise. But I want to elaborate on that because there's a lot of cool trivia in there...

Both shows were created by legendary mangaka Shotaro Ishinomori, who was also the creator of the 1960s manga, Cyborg 009. Cyborg 009 also featured a team of uniformed, scarf wearing cyborg supersoldiers. In fact, Cyborg 009 is basically the first Japanese superhero team.(and remains an enduring classic, even as continual remakes and reboots in the past decade have butchered it....)

The uniforms, the 5 man team, the helmets/masks, the heroic scarf/ascot, the team poses(and the solo poses), the evil organizations and monsters of the week, the "<insert name> KICK!" all stem from this one man's body of work. So she's not just a throwback to one particular set of characters or shows, or even one person's body of work; her look really is quintessentially THE image of a Japanese superhero.

Anyway the original Kamen Rider helmet is designed after a grasshopper and thus has the big compound bug eye lenses --even as the later series drifted away from the bug theme, the iconic eye shape has stayed-- which is why Mashiro has the big goggles, as well as why her mask has the giant eye holes --Also the heart shape of the mask is a throwback to the heart shape of the Pink Ranger in Goranger.

As a grasshopper, the original Kamen Rider's finishing move was the now famously imitable RIDER KICK! And in every subsequent iteration, some variation on the Rider Kick has remained the Kamen Rider signature move. And this in turn is why Mashiro's hollow has a whole legs and kick focused thing going on.

Incidentally though, there's a whole thing about her demeanor that doesn't just echo the superhero look from the 70s; With her energetic and childlike demeanor, it seems like the indication is that she dresses this way very earnestly. She isn't just dressed in a way that makes her look like a superhero to us as readers, she looks like someone who is trying to dress like a superhero, even to other people in-world. On the one hand she probably reads most readily as a cosplayer, but I feel like the implication here is that she actually thinks she is/wants to be a super hero.

Also, not to dip too far into headcanon, but given the way the Visored were first introduced as a rag tag looking bunch of misfits, it really seemed like the implication was they all got their powers separately and sought eachother out only after struggling with their own inner hollows; Essentially just mirroring Ichigo's experience... That they, while human, started turning into hollows. They fought off the hollow process resulting in giving them shinigami powers. but they struggled with a growing inner hollow, until someone showed up and offered to teach them to control the mask.

Also, there was that real ominous throw away exchange where Mashiro brings up that the first time she pulled out her own mask it lasted 15 consecutive hours. and Kensei didn't believe her, as if he wasn't around when it happened, or isn't even closely acquainted enough to just know it as a personal fact... Obviously that's contradicted much later when the TBtP has her as his former lieutenant, but it has a few vague implications...

Mashiro: ね—ね— ベリたんてさ何でこんなことしてんだっけ?

Hey~ hey~ Why's Berry-tan doing this?

Kensei: 虚化状態を長時間キ—プする為の訓練だよオメ—もやったろ

It's training to keep Hollow state for a long time. You did it too

Mashiro: あたしやってないモン

I did not

Kensei: ンだと? ウソっけ...

What? That's a lie...

Shinji: ホンマや白は最初から15時間以上虚化できたからなァ一人だけ虚化保持訓練してへんねん

it's true. because Mashiro was able to Hollowize for more than 15 hours she's the one person who didn't do Hollow state training

As always there's just a lot to be reckoned with when it comes to any number of swerves that happened in the middle of the Arrancar arc, but given the implications of how the hollow mask really works, we're lead to believe the mask's overall power and effectiveness is one of two things...

Either, like the zanpakutou spirits, they're a matter of making peace with the reflection of the inner self.

OR it's possible that the mask correlates to a total lack of balance, and just embracing the selfishness

this would btw more readily address the initial conflict between old man Zangetsu and the inner hollow, as they're of course still one and the same, but Ichigo needs to accept and embrace the negative side of his inner self in order to make peace with both of them.

Anyway point being Mashiro's apparent lack of a need for training would suggest she's super in tune with her hollow? Given her childish and hyperactive personality, it might just be that she's so immature that she doesn't have much of an inner conflict. She wants to dress like a superhero? So she does. She's confused? she whines and asks annoying questions about it. She's frustrated or unhappy? She rolls around on the floor and throws a goofy little tantrum. She doesn't have shame or hangups or a part of her she wants to repress, she's exactly who she is.

Which makes me think that if they had just been a ragtag group that goes around recruiting new Visored when they find them, like they did with Ichigo(instead of just one group that had always been together, which was just a boring explanation) then I can't help but imagine that when they found Mashiro, she must have been running around in her human life actually being a superhero.

Oh right, and Kamen Rider is so named because he rides a motorcycle. So Mashiro's partyl based on a motorcycle riding hero, and the TBtP made Muguruma a biker gang leader. Which explains why they thematically fit on the same squad. But is hollow Muguruma supposed to be hollow Mashiro's iconic hero bike?

[dutchdread]

Same anon who asked you about Tifa and Zack's happy ending. Let me ask you this then, will you turn away from the story if it doesn't go the way you want when it comes to romance? If so then I find that a bit sad and even more so when you say that most people aren't fans just because they don't care who Cloud loves. Don't know if you know this but the devs have said that they don't care either. During and after OG Cloud does not ever look like he has any desire to be in love.

It depends, if I think it's poorly written I would, yes, I think that's the only honest thing to do, and I am pretty convinced that that would indeed be poorly written. I am a fan of FFVII because I like the story and because the story is well written. If the story turns out to be something else, something that I don't think is very good, then I am not going to sit here and lie to myself that the story is something it's not, unlike Cleriths. And I don't see a version of this story where Cloud ends up with Aerith that would not feel like poorly written fan-fiction that ruins the characters, the themes, and every other aspect of FFVII save for the gameplay. For an example of this just look at advent children, a lot of people dislike that movie, and a lot of people dislike Cloud in that movie. And the reasons they give usually stem from a perception they have of Clouds actions, they look at him as a glum emo whose mourning his dead girlfriend. I do like Advent children, because I DON'T see Cloud as a glum emo who is mourning his dead girlfriend. I see him as going through the final stages of a well written and realistic character arc concerning feelings of inadequacy and failure, a man who thinks he doesn't deserve the happiness he has found because of the sins of his past, and who is afraid that his own weakness will cause him to lose that happiness. And if Cleriths are correct that Cloud loves Aerith and that this is the emotional backdrop of his mourning, then they're also correct about him being the kind of guy who takes advantage of women and who abandones children just for the sake of being suicidal over the dead girl he loved after knowing her a week. I think that's a shit story on the level of twilight, and I think those are shit characters on the level of 50 shades of grey. So yeah, if that turns out to be the story, I'd definitely stop being a fan.

If the ultimate conclusion to the story of FFVII is to turn back time because the fans are a bunch of children who couldn't accept the fact that Aerith died, despite the need for that acceptance being a core element of the original story, then I don't want to be a part of that story, same reason I stopped watching star wars after the tragedy that was "the last jedi", because I have no interest in watching or supporting the spoliation of a franchise I once loved.

If the romantic element of FFVII is so cliché and phoned in that we're going to change history just to screw over Tifa and further wank Aerith, then I want no part of that grade school level writing. There is nothing noble about being a fan of something that's no longer good. There is a reason I stopped rewatching Game of Thrones after season 8 came out, even though technically nothing changed about the earlier seasons, because it doesn't matter how good the build-up is if the pay-off is shit. You can think a storyline is good because you assume the complicated threads will come together in a satisfying way. Then if they don't, you realize you were never looking at a well-crafted intricate storyline, but at random stuff happening. Knowledge of the future can retroactively ruin the past. Luckily, I don't see that happening, because I think the developers are slightly better at their jobs than that.

[spn-headcanons-daily]

I present you the list of fake people: the ones who I think were not born but created by Chuck as they are with fake memories about their past life added to them and everyone else, to serve as plot devices.

Jane, the nephilim who Cas kills for Metatron's plan in s8, is definitely fake. There's no way she could survive for that long with the heaven's rules against nephilims. And somehow the only existing nephilim turns out to be right here in america? And she doesn't fly away like angels can or uses her powers against them, and, more importantly, her existence is the only thing that allows to move the plot of the season further. She's literally just a plot point.

Daphne Allen is possibly fake - her actions are too strange and too convenient for the plot development; she appears only as Cas' backstory, and she's never heard of after.

Lee Webb could be fake. Because if he actually was Dean's good friend and a hunter in the past, why didn't one of them contacted the other even once over the years? He is invented by Chuck with added memories to mess more with Dean's head, to show him - that's what you get for trying to escape your story, that's how your only peace and retirement could look like - becoming a monster yourself.

Campbell cousins are fake. Because if there were alive hunters from Mary's family before, why the hell no one contacted John after her death? And even if they lost contact with Mary and didn't know about her children, why other multiple hunters who John met over the years never mentioned the Campbell hunter family? I think Ghuck invented them to give resurrected Samuel some company, and then realized that they don't bring anything interesting to the story and quickly killed them off.

Adam (the first man) and Serafina are fake. There's no way Serafina - an angel with apparently free will and human feelings, living among humans for thousands of years - wouldn't be involved in the plot before or at least mentioned, especially with the fact that heaven doesn't have enough angels; and Adam just conveniently lives with her in the driving distance from the Winchesters?.. No one heard of him for years but now, when his rib is a key part of the current plan, he can be found within days and with an angel that can immediately heal him? The whole situation doesn't look real to me, I think Chuck planned it all (I actually believe that turning Jack into a bomb was his plan but that's for another post). Adam might be the real first human, maybe, but in this case he is resurrected with fake memories for that point of the story.

Adam Milligan might be fake. Created to make the story more interesting, with memories added. He might be even named Adam because he is Chuck's creation. Also the original thought of Adam being fake belongs to @eviltoxicgayshit (sorry for tagging you do you still not hate me)

Ben Braeden might be fake or at least heavily redacted by the author in the beginning, because there can't possibly be that much coincidence between his and Dean's personality (but I suppose that he wasn't created at that moment with memories added retroactively, but just sort of initially designed for the story).

Bobby and Charlie from the apocalypse world could be. Because they are very conveniently alive, look exactly the same despite living in a different environment, and the Winchesters meet them almost immediately after going into that world, which is an impossible coincidence. Or maybe they are just strongly manipulated into their story, literally a big part of their life written to reach that moment, which isn't the same as being fake but not really better. Probability of it for Charlie is higher, because that's not her real name, the original Charlie used a lot of different fake names and this is just the one she gave the Winchesters. So what are the chances that in apocalypse world she chose that name as a permanent one?

Ghostfacers, maybe. Were either created or redacted by Chuck for fun and to make fun of the main characters. Have actual free will for the most of it though, because at first Chuck really liked them (possibly wanted to keep them alive through the execution of his plans, remember that sketch with them meeting Castiel - them being chosen to witness the apocalypse), and found them entertaining enough to not interfere with their actions, and then he got tired of them but not killed but simply left them be because they aren't a threat to him or the story.

Anyways I like to think about that very much. People created as plot devices - a scary, but very fascinating concept. I hope people will interact with this post and add more characters who they think also could be fake because I'd like to discuss that

also later, if anyone is interested, I might write a post about a reverse situation - people who I think Chuck deleted from the story

[neokonewman]

Honestly? I think what tangled failed to do was make sure characters had good chemistry as friends. Seriously Cass and Rapunzel where like crude oil and the ocean. One single match from destruction. Season one is bottom barrel because it goes out of it's way to excuse Frederick for his shit. Season two was actually really good because Rapunzel was still herself and was making tough choices left and right. Season 3? Ohhhh boy. Season 3 was a half good half bad because while I do applaud her trying to bring her friend back into the fold? Cassandra wasn't wrong when she said "this has to stop now. This thing where you THINK you've been my friend". Cuz as far as I could tell? They were never friends. Hell even when being a slow burn villain, Varian had better friend chemistry with Rapunzel. When the show expects me to swallow "Cass and I are besties.and sisters!" whole sale? I'm not buying it.

Oooooh boy! This ask is just dripping with potential rant power. Sorry in advance for how long this answer is destinied to be!

First things first. I absolutely agree with you on how badly TTS handles chemistry amongst the main characters. Cass gets the worst of it because she is shoehorned as Rapunzel’s BFF off screen and suddenly she has equal sway on Rapunzel as Eugene? Her character can’t even be allowed to breathe most of the time because the show is obsessed with sticking her next to Rapunzel to the point that she can’t grow any further away from her. At least other show original characters like Lance and Varian have an actual introduction and a place in the world outside of Rapunzel, but even then they suffer because Rapunzel is upfront and center and there is very little wiggle room for interactions that don’t have at least have some involvement with her. It’s here where our opinions differ however.

I would make the bold claim by sayin that S1 of TTS is by far and away the best out of the three. Yes it has the glaring flaw of bias for Frederic and against Varian that makes me question whether or not it should be considered “good” but it’s much better balanced than the other two seasons that follow it. In S1 we actually get character who aren’t Rapunzel more chances to shine without her stealing the spotlight away at the last moment. In S1 we actually have an actual conflict that drives the story forward and at least pretends to care about developing the characters. Even the obnoxious bias could have still worked out in the shows favor if they were ever properly addressed in story and not swept under the rug like they were in later seasons. Heck, I would go as far as to argue that the worst parts of S1 is the fact that S2 and S3 make it worse retroactively.

S2 in my opinion is the dullest of the three, by a wide margin. With them never addressing what the mains left behind in S1 as well as taking the threat of the rocks away WAY too early, the conflict is particularly nonexistent. Not only that, but it does what I think is the worst thing a show can do during a season long journey. They never actually develop the world outside of Corona. They established that there are 6 other kingdoms in the alliance with Corona, but the most we get of any of them is the one throwaway line about them being close to the mountains of Koto in Freebird. Other than that we overstay in three separate places that end up being worthless to the plot as a whole. After spending three episodes in Vardaros right out the bat, we never return or what’s become of them afterwards. Them mains stranded on the Island is pretty dull and is only memorable to me because they had the guts of mentioning Varian again and established that Rapunzel STILL has an unhealthily delusional bias for Frederic despite of everything. The House of Yesterday’s tomorrow is just an excuse of shoehorning a bunch of magical hijink cliches that aren’t done very interesting. Heck, despite them spending a whole season getting to the Dark Kingdom, they only spend an episode and a half there and only a single night in universe. The rest of S2 is just filler that don’t even develop the characters or tell any interesting stories. Like, an enchanted forest episode even though the mid season finale takes place in another enchanted forest? A repeat of the first part of Tangled the movie with Cass replacing Eugene? Whatever the heck “Curses” was supposed to accomplish? The only thing interesting that S2 introduces is the Brotherhood, and we all know how little they are used afterwards.

I would also like to point out that at the start of S2, the mains just…. Stop developing almost entirely? Cass and Eugene never have any meaningful moments together like they do in S1, and are reduced to just taking potshots at each other to remind us that they have some sort of relationship. Lance is reduced strictly to comedic relief and in my opinion is just there to give Eugene something to do when he is removed from the plot because once again, the show is obsessed with making Rapunzel and Cass’ friendship be a thing that only matters. Hookfoot is just there to give his stand up routine about how marriage is terrible in the first episode of the season and just to exist afterwards, yet he SOMEHOW gets actual episodes focused on him while Lance suffers. Even characters properly introduced this season are cursed to never flesh out because Adira keeps pulling a vanishing act for no established reason, Hector is only gets any lines in his debut episode and never given any real focus again, and Edmund gets the same treatment as the other dads (except maybe Captain) by getting his entire character reduced to one trope later on in S3. Speaking of…

S3…. Ooooh boy S3. It’s not as boring as S2 for me, but that’s only because it’s a media equivalent of a train wreck that I couldn’t look away from. It’s like they took the two major issues of the past two seasons (the clear bias and shallow filler) and mashed them together while trying to savage it by inserting what worked in S1, (actual conflict) but completely missed the point why it worked in the first place. All pretense of caring about any other character other than Rapunzel and Cass is gone in this season. Even episodes that focus on anyone outside of Rapunzel, ends up ending with Rapunzel saving the day because she is the only one allowed to be heroic anymore.

They try to make Cass’ villain arc as complex as Varian’s but for some reason they think her blaming a literal baby for being kidnapped is enough grounds to go on a murder streak without one episode of hesitation. Lance is just there for bottom barrel dumb humor, yet the show thinks he is responsible enough to raise two kids on his own. Varian falls into the pigeon hole of just being the “kid character that hangs with the grown up mains” trope that he managed to avoid in S1 while also being just a plot device to not only give the mains access to tech, but also get shoehorned into scenes to keep the audience somewhat invested. Eugene is literal retconned in universe to be just a bland supportive boyfriend. Rapunzel, my gosh Rapunzel…. She treated is so painfully “perfect” to the point that she is completely unrelated. I’m not calling her a Mary Sue because they only ACT like she is perfect. She is still a hugely flawed human being, but the other characters just applaud her because she is “the magical, wonderous sundrop” and very little else. Also yes, Rapunzel being obsessed over Cass while playing off all the horrible actions her BFF as her being lost is the most frustrating thing ever. It’s as if she became Frederic from S1 and abandoned everyone else well being in favor of one person who doesn’t even want her attention, only worse because it’s made into a good thing. Again, S1 is made retroactively worse because of the seasons that follow it.

There is much more things wrong with S3 than S2, but honestly I find myself changing my mind a lot whether which one is objectively worse. Like making a show boring is arguably the worst thing you can do, but the choices, morals, and all around writing of S3 is just bad. Then again the writing in S2 is honestly pretty on par with S3 at times, so again, it’s a toss up.

Sorry again if this answer is a lot, but it was pretty fun at the same time. Thanks for the ask. ^^