#Why couldn't it have been anyone else

[kazaleas]

ive been watching my life fall apart recently and it's not really getting better but atleast I did some writing today. How are you feeling?

[hirazuki]

Me, episode 1: Oh, a relatable protag! And a relatable female protag, at that. Sweet! That never happens.

Me, a few episodes in: Wait, the protag really is going to be my character? The one I identify with the most? Seriously? It's not going to be a strange, at least somewhat sinister, seemingly hostile male side character? It's gonna be a female character and the protagonist? That's insane, that literally never happens... what's the catch??

Me, more than halfway through the season: ... huh, I guess Maomao really is it. Okay, then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Me to myself, after episodes 22/23:

[localguy2]

Suddenly got the craziest fucking idea I've thought of yet:

Zane was originally going to be made to help the elemental alliance in the serpentine wars, per the alliance requesting Julien for something so technologically advanced it'll end the war.

and so Julien started working on Zane during the conflict, and with the elemental alliance providing him with the necessary recourses to create Zane. (metal, wires, screws, schematics and blueprints and other small supplies, a suspiciously powerful and most definitely magical power source, etc).

But the war ends, and the serpentine are sealed away.

So now Julien is left with a half finished robot that wouldn't even have a purpose if it were to be alive, but Julien decides he's going to give it a new purpose.

"If it's not going to be a weapon of war, than it's going to be a weapon of peace."

So he stars reprogramming Zane, from "Mostly human machine designed to fight." to "Almost human machine made to protect those who cannot protect themselves".

He starts adding in extra features for Zane, stuff like breathing, blinking, eating, so he comes off as more human.

he codes in what would be the nindroid equivalent of someone developing a new hobby and getting good at it.

Such as cooking, or perhaps making ice sculptures or even learning how to ride a snowboard considering how he lives in a frozen forest (last one was from Quest For the Lost Powers book).

But he also adds in other stuff to help Zane out in his purpose of protecting, such as a battle ram mode to bust down doors, a lamp head mode to help light out dark areas, being able to shoot out cold air from his hands to cool stuff down without the usage of ice powers (last one was from the start of season 3).

And eventually, he gets so attached to this project of his, that he starts viewing it as more than a machine made to prolong the peace, and by the time he actives Zane for the first time ever, he can't feel but view Zane as a son.

Zane was Julien's life work, "Machine" doesn't do the nindroid enough justice, it doesn't feel right, and it isn't right.

So, even his plans of making Zane a weapon of peace change, and now he views Zane as a son, and as his own person.

Look, I don't care if this headcanon/idea breaks Canon, fuck if I care, but the opportunity is too great, it would would give us an answer to a good number of questions.

one of them being: What was Zane's old power source?

[eskawrites]

is it foolish of me to believe that in the celebrity fake dating au several years in the future once the very first fanfic site is up there is a large uptick in erathia sales and tenar/lark becomes a popular ship

not only is it extremely un-foolish of you, anon, it's also completely on point. like, you have no idea. this is something that has been in my notes since basically the beginning of this fic.

like, i think robin in particular has always been a role model for girls since the erathia films, and it's absolutely my headcanon (actual canon?) that there's a small part of her fan base that's just lesbians exchanging knowing looks with each other and quietly wishing her the best.

i also fully believe there was a tenar/lark fandom basically as soon as the second movie came out. after all, nancy and robin put a lot of thought and effort into making their characters' dynamic something more than the usual 'two women fighting over the male protagonist.' (fun fact this is partially inspired by the making of wicked the musical and how glinda and elphaba could've been typical catty opponents and instead became incredible foils who present the show's great love story). combine that with their natural chemistry, and gay/bi women would easily read their relationship as a potentially romantic one. catch a bunch of women in the late 80s/early 90s passing around fanzines a la early Star Trek fandom or something

anyway i could talk about this forever but i probably shouldn't. instead, here's the actual semi-polished lil write up i made a few weeks back:

Tenar and Lark—Nancy and Robin’s movie characters—actually have a bit of a fandom going on and have since the 80s. The fandom only grows when Robin comes out, and then when she and Nancy go public with their relationship (in fact, there’s a bit of a conspiracy for a while in early 1998—Nancy and Robin aren’t hiding anything, but they’re not confirming anything through interviews, either. So when paparazzi photos start coming out of them holding hands and going out together, most of the public is like ‘oh gals being pals’ but a not insignificant number of Erathia fans know what’s up). Anyway, as Robin and Nancy become more serious, more and more people rewatch the Erathia movies and see their characters in a new light. Suddenly all the work Nancy and Robin put into building their characters and creating a three-dimensional friendship between Tenar and Lark translates into the potential for something deeper. Tenar and Lark become one of the most iconic wlw couples, kind of on par with something like Xena on Gabrielle. In the early 2000s, someone asks Scott Clarke what he thinks of Tenar and Lark, and he just chuckles and says it makes sense and he wishes he saw it way back when.

(there are probably some spin-off books, eventual prequel/sequel series, etc and so on that come out--the erathia films were originally based off of the star wars trilogy, after all. and you bet your ass that in all of those, tenar and lark are completely in love)

[canni-killer]

finish drawing. feel proud! see three pieces of art. i want to kill myself.

[born-to-lose]

I love being the always single person in my family, mad respect to my sister for constantly dating guys for the last 8 years, I would have shot myself

[unproduciblesmackdown]

truly something that, amidst facing / going through a dramatic Life Change ft. unavoidable emotional effects of that, there are instances where i can't conceal any & all degrees of being distressed / upset, & repeatedly getting "it's hard for me too" as a Direct Response to that: really something & a half how the asserted theoretical Sympathy of [i feel similarly!] is invoked so as to, oh you know, preclude sympathetic Treatment. such as that what would be More sympathetic in these instances would be to say Nothing, "if there's nothing but dismissal / making it first & foremost about someone else's feelings to say, don't say it at all" style

[arolesbianism]

Thinking abt spiraling upwards side characters again. Charredpelt my absolute beloved

[theflyingfeeling]

stupid stupid stupid stupid I am so fucking stupid

(LONG rant in the tags. originally a little longer still but apparently there were too many tags so tumblr deleted the rest lol)

[m0e-ru]

losing the idgaf war

[girlthativealwaysbeen]

dni.

[fitzhastoomanysideblogs]

It really sucks having to be bored out of my mind every single day because I have no friends, no job, no way of even accepting money so even if I did get a job I couldn't be paid, nobody to look forward to talking to and nobody who actually enjoys my presence so I'm completely alone and all I have to do is be on my phone, be on my laptop, stare at the wall or the ceiling or take a nap.

I don't even really have a reason to look at my phone anymore and haven't in years because, again, I have nobody to talk to or look forward to talking to and nobody who actively wants to talk to me so all I do is open tumblr and scroll for a few minutes before closing it, and I avoid instagram to the best of my ability so I'm not tempted to contact my fp or think about them or anything

[txmxkis]

it's been a weird 8 hours. but i had a dream about boothill last night so fuck it we ball

[mochirialgworl]

WHAT IS GOING ON???

Why the hell is rob lowe on gmm???

y'all couldn't get anyone else? like Peppa Pig or smthn?

[weaselle]

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

[dredshirtroberts]

god. no one prepares you for the irritation and anger that comes when assistive devices and medical equipment actually fix your problems.