#as i said it is a way too big problem

[the-great-papyru]

i think the thing a lot of papyrus takes get wrong is that they forget that, among other things, papyrus is funny. in my experience writing papyrus, i often find the most funny line is the most in-character one. an unfunny papyrus doesn’t ever feel like an accurate papyrus to me. it’s more than part of the game, it’s part of his character. and disregarding that is what messes up a lot of otherwise good impressions of him.

[roots-symphony]

do you think the reason agatha’s trial felt weird is because she was the only one who did not actually buy into the mythos of the road since she knew the truth? like that was why no perspective change and all the other reasons why people thought it was a fake trial

[the-mpreg-guy]

the hill that i will die on is that cas would have never said he loved dean if he had to deal with the consequences of it afterwards, meanwhile dean (who was SUPPOSED to tell cas he loved him in the original crypt scene script) would have eventually worked up to saying it without external pressure

[ganondoodle]

made it to lvl 100 of the skull caverns for the first time ever in stardew (i made it once before i think but collapsed in that very room bc of the time limit back in the day lol)

severly disappointed with the reward, Qi congratulated me for doing it without crafting staircases likE REaL mEn talking about my farmer and him like they are both so above and beyond 'normal' people-

....................i did craft staircases....................

[silusvesuius]

i legit love when a character's gender is so integral to their personality (and perception obviously.) like so concrete that if genderbent their whole shtick would just be absolute dookie. anyways i'm just writing this text so i can talk in the tags (My beautiful safe haven)

this 14 minute song is soooooooooooo FYRE

[batsplat]

casey also talks about sepang 2015 what do you think of that

oh in that podcast? uh... lemme listen again...

yeah idk it's not really anything new I'd say? he's said basically all the same stuff in more interesting and extensive ways elsewhere. I think casey inevitably has a very 'well feuding is bad and helps nobody' point of view, has expressed that before in the past, does it here again, and he's also drawn a parallel between himself and marc on several occasions. which... well, of course there's similarities in terms of public discourse or whatever, but the parallel really falls apart whenever casey argues the feuds cost valentino. like, I do think it's sometimes important to just. keep in mind. it's interesting that casey draws this comparison in his mind but that doesn't necessarily means he's right about this. I'm not sure how you'd argue that starting a feud with casey cost valentino anything competitively? you can argue it didn't help him I guess, and then we can have a debate about the ins and outs of the 2008 season. we can also have an argument that in a hypothetical world where casey isn't ill in 2009, valentino doesn't break his leg and casey isn't on a piece of junk in 2010, and valentino isn't on a piece of junk in 2011-12, then actually maybe valentino sparking open animosity with casey COULD have cost him. but we don't know that! didn't happen! I wish we could have found out, but we never got the chance! as it stands, the tally on this is pretty straightforward: casey won the title when things were reasonably civil between them in 2007, and valentino took control of the following season at the exact moment he worsened the relationship between the pair of them in 2008. obviously, it's all more complicated than that and casey would of course argue laguna didn't negatively affect his subsequent performances... but it certainly didn't help them. like, at the very worst valentino escalating tensions in 2008 is a complete net neutral. after 2009, them being bitchy to each other every other tuesday was completely competitively irrelevant beyond maybe affecting how they approached occasionally fighting for a podium position. hey, maybe casey used that feud to fire himself up through sheer spite throughout the later stages of his career, but that doesn't actually support his anti-feud stance - it's basically the exact same thing as what valentino does. they're both quite similar in that regard! always so hungry to prove a point, to show how someone else is wrong. kinda half the point with this feuding business is to get yourself going, get yourself motivated, yeah. he straight up openly admits to using yamaha's repeat rejection of him as a way of giving himself motivation, and at the end of the day that's really not all that different?

anyway, what else does casey say... oh yeah, that him and the other aliens were already kinda prepared for this and had learned vale's tricks. that valentino had only been able to get into the minds of the previous generation. welllllll *wiggles hand* sure, I mean, he did clearly have to change his approach... he couldn't just use the exact same playbook to get to them, either on-track or off-track. but that's why he did change up the playbook... again, whether you want to believe valentino won his final two titles 'in the head' rather than just through pure pace kinda depends on how you assess the evidence, but it is at the very least a debate. and, y'know, it's always worth remembering that valentino's most important mind games with casey didn't happen in a press conference... it was on the track. and the on-track stuff really is just embedded in how valentino approaches winning. speaking of aliens, this is what dani and jorge have said:

like, valentino's entire approach to his riding, even to the way he's setting his bike up, is deliberately about directly fucking with you... he's not actually always trying to be faster than you as much as he's trying to give himself the tools to make your life miserable, to pressure you into mistakes, etc etc... and again, especially with casey (if anything because he was so mentally sturdy), the off-track stuff was really just window dressing. (I know they bicker a lot after 2009 but it's just so fundamentally irrelevant to actual on-track competition.) so you can be aware of those tricks, but it also doesn't necessarily help you when someone's being nasty to you on-track in a way you just fully do not enjoy. which is what it was like for casey! for casey, a lot of this comes back to the truly unpleasant context of how he was perceived by the public, how he was treated as mentally weak or 'broken' or whatever partly because he had the misfortune of coming up against a bloke who had the reputation for breaking rivals. I think it's quite natural to end up with a bit of a hardliner 'actually I've never been mentally affected by a result in my life' stance - and of course casey is a lot tougher than a lot of people give him credit for. that being said. sometimes your rivals affect you, shit happens, it's part of the game. it's fundamentally a nice idea to think that valentino's tactics weren't just morally wrong but also ineffective, which is kind of the appeal of this narrative, right? you want to believe you're above that, you want to believe you were adequately prepared and wise to valentino's tactic. it's unsurprising and understandable that casey does tend to tell the story that way, but again it's *wiggles hand* also hard to describe it as completely factual

uh. what else. oh I'm thrilled casey does canonically know valentino and marc were friends, he has said he wasn't following motogp too much during that time period so you couldn't be sure of that. does this mean anything? does it tell you anything? well, no, but it's just a pleasing thought to me. I like that. oh also 'provoking particularly aggressive riders isn't a good idea' is kinda a funny take from casey? like, he of all people would hate the idea of being cowed by someone's reputation like that... casey's right that provoking fast riders can potentially be dangerous, but y'know I do think that's probably not news to anyone almost nine years later. um. that's all I've got I think

[cywscross]

You just don't think antis are a problem because they're not in your fandoms. Once they start making posts with thousands of likes accusing you of being a pedophile and threatening to find out where you live and work so they can report your pedophilic tendencies because you ship teenagers (shounen characters), you'll start caring very quickly. Not in favour of that happening to you? Cool, you're a proshipper.

The fuck

[dredshirtroberts]

dry swallowing pills is my stupidest flex. i'm not even showing off anymore i'm just impatient

[ectopuppy]

which ben 10 series do u like best??!! im a sucker for the original series bc of nostalgia personally, but they are all good in their own ways

this is an impossible question to answer so im just gonna talk about why i love each series im sorry and thank you anon for gifting me this opportunity to ramble about The Hyperfixation (tm) o7

This is going under a cut btw. It's a little under 3000 words of unedited thoughts so like, just a heads up lmao

Why is the Original Series Good?

So first! Before I get into it! I overall just fucking love Ben 10 conceptually in general! I've always loved aliens and sci-fi and superheroes so you can imagine how excited I was to stumble onto this show airing on teletoon when I was just a tiny Kiki.

The OS has a lot going for it, but the big one is, of course, the nostalgia factor. Iconic as fuck! Fun theme song! Max is there! Yay!!

The BEST character in the OS is Max and I WILL die on that hill. Even as a kid I fucking loved him. Ben and Gwen are fun characters, but Max is the much needed reprieve from them constantly bickering. (Which is one thing I'm glad there's a lot less of in later series.)

Ben is a compelling hero, and the OS is an amazing START POINT for him. While he does have character growth in the OS, I would not be THIS obsessed with him if the OS was the only Ben 10 media that existed. He's a kid. A bit of a brat, but always TRYING to do the right thing. Which he's not always great at considering he's, you know, 10, but he really does try.

Something a lot of people seem to brush past when talking about Ben is that at the beginning of the series he was actively friendless and being bullied at school. I feel like that's a huge factor in why the Omnitrix is so important to his identity in later series. (or even in the Xylene episode when he finds out the Omnitrix was supposed to be for Max) He really didn't have much going for him before that. Being a hero is very likely one of the first times he's felt like he belongs somewhere, you know? Anyway..

Gwen is also very fun in the OS. UAF filed down her teeth just a little too much in my opinion. A lot of her personality in the OS is her THINKING she's sooo much more mature than Ben despite also being a fucking grade schooler. (They are literally the EXACT same age, right down to sharing a birthday.) She's is just as immature as Ben, no matter how much she thinks she isn't. It's just that her smug "I know better." attitude doesn't cause outfacing issues as often as Ben being impulsive and a little self centred.

The OS also benefits from being the "spaghetti on the wall" series. Things just kinda worked however the writers wanted at the moment. Big point here: Magic got to just be magic. (I have made a whole ass post RE: Anodite Gwen so I wont get into it here, but I like the retcon. That statement does not conflict with the above.) Gwen getting fed up being sidelined and going "Fuck it I'm learning magic." is so good and I love it.

I feel like it is impossible to not like the OS in some form, because it's the Original Series. Everything that happens later can only have happened BECAUSE of the OS. Is it my favourite series? No. But it's charming and silly and fun and I love it. c:

Why is Alien Force Good?

Alien Force is a tonal downshift for the series. The era it was made in was the era of Gritty Cartoons for Cool Boys, and it shows. Now, this is not a bad thing to ME, but I know a lot of people don't like the heavier atmosphere of Alien Force, especially in its opening arc. Like... episode 1 (or 2 not sure, but it's in the premiere) of AF has a dude straight up just fucking die, which is kinda. A lot. I can see where people are coming from.

HOWEVER.

Personally, I love the entire DNAlien arc, and it's use as a coming of age story for Ben. A big part of AF is Ben realizing that he needs to grow up. In the OS he was a kid. Max was the leader and the beacon of morality. In AF Max is MIA from episode 1. Gwen is more mature, and has mellowed out a lot, but she just isn't a leader. Kevin should never be put in charge of other people, so he's out. So it's Ben. He has to step up and lead, because there IS nobody else.

But, also the show is not gloomy! It has it's moments, and I get why people might watch the premiere and think "Hmm, too dark.", but AF is silly as hell. I will point to the Alien X episode as my basis here. It's smack in the middle of the DNAlien arc, and it's dumb as hell. Again, I have made a whole ass post about this, but the gist is: I love Alien X being a god being with the ability to do LITERALLY anything, but Ben gets so frustrated that he refuses to use it unless the universe is actively collapsing. (Also, the incurseans are there, and they are never not silly lmao)

But to me, the best thing AF did for the series was give it structure. The OS was extremely episodic, but the front half of AF is held together with a tight plot line. The back half not so much, but it does have a lot going for it character wise. Case in point:

Let's talk about Kevin. c:

Kevin was always a fun villain in the OS. Any time he showed up I knew we were in for a fun time, so him becoming part of the main cast (As a hero and friend no less!) in AF was a major selling point to me personally. Unlike with Gwen, I feel like they sanded him down just enough. He's still kinda sleazy and a bit of a shithead, but now he's trying to do better.

I'm aware the explanation for this behaviour is that the Omnitrix energy he absorbed in the OS drove him crazy or whatever, but that's not something we get up front if memory serves. He really does seem like he naturally just grew up and realized acting how he did when he was 11 wasn't exactly getting him anywhere good.

Kevin's arc in the back half of AF plays really well with Ben's arc. Ben is at an all time high after saving the universe, while Kevin gets mutated again and has a really shitty time. Ben getting humbled while Kevin gains confidence just works really well in tandem, I think, and they end AF on somewhat equal footing.

AF also gives us some of my favourite side characters so I really love it on those grounds alone tbh. Mostly talking about Paradox here, but also Albedo, and The Plumber's Kids (especially Alan I love him he's so baby <3), and Sandra. God, I love Ben's hippy dippy granola mom so much it fits him so well.

I could make a whole fucking post about Paradox to be honest, and this post is already insanely long so I'll be brief here. He made it a billion times easier for the writers to play with timeline bullshit without having to sneak retcons past the audience every time. He's also just insanely fun. Silly Time Man. I loves him!!

I also really love Julie and Omniverse did her so fucking dirty, but that's a whole thing and I'm sure I'll get into it when I get there in my rewatch so I'll save it.

Again, I don't know that I would say AF is my favourite series, but I will say AF DOES happen to have my favourite EPISODE of the entire continuity though. "Con of Rath" is the best Ben 10 episode and I will fight you on this one.

I'm about to pivot into Ultimate and seeing as I haven't gotten there in my rewatch I am going to have less to say about it (and Omniverse) since they aren't fresh in my mind and I don't want to be spouting half remembered nonsense or go dig through the wiki to fact check (and spoil myself on things I don't remember). I know this post is stupid long, bear with me a bit longer.)

Why is Ultimate Alien Good?

Every new series of Ben 10 does something to change the status quo in some way. In AF it was aging up the characters and relegating Max to side character status. Omniverse does much the same, giving Ben a new partner and pushing Gwen and Kevin aside. Ultimate changes things in a different way, though, and I'm NOT talking about Ultimate forms.

Ultimate's big shake up is actually the name of it's first episode: "Fame".

Now, in this house we love a secret identity, lemme get that out up top. For Ben, though? The fame works. He never really honestly HAD a secret identity the same way most superheroes do. He'd always just kinda done his thing, and had it work out. All of his villains knew who he was. (To the point that "Hit 'Em Where They Live" kinda makes no fucking sense? Zombozo is dumb as shit so like maybe he didn't? But Charmcaster DEFINITELY did, and Ben was famous OFF earth already? It's whatever, but like ',:| ya'know.)

The important thing about making him famous is that it gives him a new avenue for character growth. As in my dude needs to get his fucking act together good god. Like, it's Ben, when it comes down to it he buckles down and does the right thing, but fuck man. This is a character trait that will haunt the rest of the series. There are episodes of OMNI that focus on Ben needing to get his head on straight wrt being famous.

It circles back to my point from earlier, though. Ben was NOT popular before "Fame". His friends included: Kevin, Gwen, and Julie. That's it. He's on a soccer team (At least at the beginning of AF I feel like it never comes up later.), but he never talks about his teammates. That one bully whose name escapes me is on okay terms with him after "The Gauntlet", but I wouldn't call them friends. But after his identity is leaked suddenly everybody likes him. He's gone from absolute nobody to celebrity overnight. Of course he would love this.

This is also an extension of one of Ben's core character traits: He NEEDS to be a hero. Actually he needs to be THE hero, because that is his entire self identity. It comes across (both in universe and from a meta standpoint) as Ben being conceited and selfish, but underneath it is really just a sad little boy who is clinging desperately to the ONE thing he's ever been that people liked. The Hero.

If Ben isn't the hero then who is he? He clearly doesn't know as of the AF finale. He loses the Omnitrix and completely breaks down. Even though he's an expert tactician and a damn good leader, he doesn't even know who he is without the Omnitrix.

Azmuth of all people is the one to tell him to get his head out of his ass. I don't think any other character could have done it, though. Azmuth does not care about Ben's feelings, but he's also someone who (whether he likes it or not) sees ALL of Ben's worth. Max or Gwen would be too soft and Kevin's words wouldn't hold the same weight. Azmuth is someone Ben looks up to while also being someone who won't pull his punches. If he's telling Ben he can do something it has to be true, you know?

That aside, lets talk about the "Ultimate" in "Ultimate Alien".

The Ultimatrix is... weird. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it is so completely and clearly just a marketing gimmick. The Ultimatrix can be as cool as it wants, it is not making it out of this series alive. Also, everything I find interesting about the Ultimatrix gets dropped. The first episode has Ben be apprehensive about using the Ultimate forms, but then it's just never brought up ever again for some reason.

Also this shit:

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN????? WHY IS IT NEVER TALKED ABOUT? 😭

It all just feels so fucking meaningless knowing the Finished Omnitrix is going to replace it. Like, Albedo made this peice of shit. So even if I hadn't watched parts of Omniverse first I would have put together that Azmuth would inevitably replace it, right? But it doesn't really matter I guess. That's my personal gripe with Ultimate forms, though, so I wanted to get it out here. Ultimate's does give us "The Ultimate Sacrifice" which is an episode I remember enjoying though, so its not a complete wash.

The thing with Ultimate as a series it that it's really just Alien force... 2!! to the extent that fans refer to them as a collective. "Ultimate Alien Force" Like, my header up there ^^^ was "Why is Ultimate Alien Force Good?" when I first started writing the AF part, and I only changed it so I had a smooth transition to talk about "Fame". They are so intrinsically linked in my brain that I didn't even blink lumping them into one. It makes it hard to find fault in Ultimate when I love so much of the things introduced in AF that carry over, you know?

Now onto the one I was soooo close to saying was my favourite:

Why is Omniverse good?

Omniverse is very, very special to me. I did not watch UAF as a kid. It started airing just as I was hitting my "I'm too old for cartoons" phase, so I just.. never watched it. I wouldn't have ever really gotten into Ben 10 as much as I have if not for someone talking about how much they liked Omniverse on my timeline when it was airing. I watched a large chunk of Omni before doubling back to watch all of the OS (Which I had only seen bits of growing up.) and then UAF.

I fucking love Omniverse and a big reason is:

Him 👆 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

I would kill and die for Rook Blonko.

He is mine moste beloved boy. My babygirl. My right hand arm etc.

But beyond The Boy 💖 Omniverse has a lot going for it. It's another tonal shift for the series, this time back to the more innocent and silly tone of the OS. Like I said, I like the tone in UAF, but Omniverse is just so bright and charming it's hard not to enjoy it.

The art style is also very fun in Omni and matches that lighter tone really well. (There are some stylistic choices I'm not personally big on, but it's whatever.) Where UAF had scaled back a lot of designs to give off a pretty generically American Comic Book style, Omniverse lets characters look interesting again! I'm thinkng specifically about Animo and Charmcaster here (Charmcaster's UAF design is so boring. Omniverse puts her back in her cool robe/tunic thing from the OS.), but in general the characters in Omni just have more interesting designs than they did in UAF. Like, Paradox isn't just Guy in Labcoat in Omni lol

I also think the ten episode arc structure does Omniverse a lot of favours. It gets to have the fun silly episodic nature of the OS while also holding onto the structure AF gave the series.

Beyond that, based on my memory of the series (which I have not watched since it finished airing so it's not exactly perfect) I don't really have much more I can say about Omni. It's fun, and has good characters and plot lines. It's just a really good entry and was a solid ending to wrap up the whole four series continuity.

And so, finally, I can wrap up this fuck off long post.

Like I said up top, I can't definitively say which series is my favourite. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and are good in their own ways. If pressed, I would probably say "Um... Omniverse maybe?", but I love the OS and UAF so so much it's not a confident answer. (having not watched Omni in a hot minute also doesn't help lmao)

Thank you for reading my big dumb post. If you got all the way to the end, I love you. I mean, if you stopped reading it I also love you, but if you managed to get through all, uh, 2800ish words of this post without tapping out, you are on the top shelf. <3

I'd love to hear your thoughts, or answer more specific questions if you have them!

[honeysunchild]

It really hurts when it feels like a friend you considered family gives up on you and the relationship

Like, we could have talked about it, we could have found a solution together, we were each others family remember?! But instead you chose to just give up and cut me out

[immortalsins]

ough the way my friend in my house was insisting that it's best to go to a beach in another city along the coast (to celebrate another friend's birthday) but five of us could go in her car and one would have to take the (expensive, long) train alone (with beach stuff), instead of just going to the smaller but closer beach that we can all get to on the bus together. she stood there and said 'we'll get to the beach quicker in my car than all on the bus' ok five of us will. and the other will not. but that doesn't matter to her

[dutybcrne]

Me BSing hcs like: The fact that Kae is not only able to create a shield when he is dangerously low HP but also the fact that he is able to regenerate HP when he hits opponents with Frostgnaw is definitely due to him receiving his Vision when Diluc had tried to kill him in their Confrontation...but could it be possible that his familial ties to the Abyss Order could have influenced that HP drain of his-

[icewindandboringhorror]

oh my god.. a job for me.. historical pierrot beach performer lol

[holdharmonysacred]

Started writing a post about unit blorbofication and story depth in FE in light of the latest round of past FEs VS 3H VS Engage discourse, someone remind me to go back to writing it later when I get my brainpower back.

[marmorenshud]

should I go to ikea tomorrow, saturday, or monday

[opens-up-4-nobody]

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