#basically like a ton of existing villains

[kidalias]

Happy Pride y’all!

Had this sitting around a few months back while making a wlw ship of Gwenpool and Screwball (They are called Poolball). And of course, in that time Gwen came out as Ace+Aro in Love Unlimited. So I guess they’re a happy pair of aces now. :P

[bloomeng]

I'm a little nervous to talk about this because the internet is truly the place where nuance goes to die but fuck it I'm going to do it anyway.

So misogyny in fan spaces. There's so much that can be said here, but I want to focus on a trend I've seen in fanfiction for years. This isn't a call out to anyone in particular or a fic that I read recently, it's just something I want to talk about.

There's a range in which I see misogyny displayed in fanfiction. The most subtle version is when a fic has a large cast, but despite this, the female characters just float in the background as accessories. Writing big casts is difficult and I understand that (it's part of the reason I tend not to like big casts) but despite this all the female characters will remain less developed than their male counterparts. The other version is they will exist only to advise or prop up a male character, which isn't to say that a female character can't play that role in a story. On an individual level, it's not an issue, but when it's the only role over and over it becomes an issue. My solution to handling big casts is to break them off at times into pairs/smaller groups and allow everyone to have their moment. It doesn't need to be perfectly balanced but even small moments could go a long way.

The next step up is literally ignoring them altogether. I understand not every character is going to feature in every story. Time and place and all that jazz. But it's telling when they're so clearly written out of a story for the sake of not addressing them. If we can cram in all these male character cameos we can do the same for the women. Personally I feel writing is stronger if you only include characters for a purpose beyond them just being there (and it would be two birds with one stone bc that would automatically allows for more depth), but this is fanfic that I'm discussing, where fan service rules everything.

The third trend and arguably the most egregious I refer to as the “Sakura Effect.” The Sakura Effect is when an author will include either a pre-existing female character or an original female character for the sole person of villainizing her to extreme proportions. It’s scary to me because as much as media can be misogynistic this is so much worse in my opinion. As fans I would hope we would be better but then I see characters flattened or created simply to be awful. And yet “no one” sees the issue in that.

I’ve seen authors go far as to say apologize in the notes about mischaracterizing female characters for the sake of the conflict. Like we’re so close to recognizing the issue yet so far. Also for some reason it’s socially acceptable to add character bashing tags to fics?? I see this the most with Naruto fics, but to this day I will never understand why people feel the need to establish how much they hate a female character in a fic that doesn’t even touch on them. Or they warn people that they made her evil bc they hate her??? Like ok so we’re recognizing the problem and doubling down. Cool.

I once saw someone create a female character for a fic who was described as ugly and with a ton of acne and a bunch of people called the author out for the description and its subsequent streotypes. The author responded by basically being like I hear you but I don’t care. But I was also concerned that no one else in the comments was concerned that the character was female as well.

I see this trend with people to make these super creepy stalker female characters as conflict for their mlm ships and it’s just like…. do we not see the inherent issue in this. We complain about the treatment of women in the source material and then we (fan culture) turn around and make arguably more offensive characters.

This is a fairly ranty non-nuance, doesn’t even touch on intersectionality, look at misogyny in fanfiction but that’s all I have the capacity to discuss today.

[do-you-ship-this-comic-ship]

propaganda:

THE canon comic book couple OF ALL TIME. They are SUPERVILLAINS. they are FRENCH. They are QUEER. They are a SUPER INTELLIGENT GORILLA and A LIVING BRAIN IN A JAR. They have both died multiple times, yet have inexplicably come back with zero explanation, thereby making them canonically immune to the burry your gays trope. They have historic beef with a group of ACTUAL TEENAGERS. Oh yeah, and did I mention they are A GORILLA AND A BRAIN. They are the embodiment of how batshit insane superhero comic book lore can get in the best way possible. 

Basically, their backstory is Brain was once a human scientist who took a wild silverback gorilla and raised his IQ to 178 with the power of mad science experiments, originally planning on implanting his own brain into Mallah’s body. But seeing how intelligent Mallah became and becoming attached to him, the scientist couldn’t bring himself to go through with the experiment, instead making Mallah his lab assistant. Then the scientist gets his body burnt to a crisp in a lab “accident”, which may or may not have been orchestrated by his rival, Niles Caulder (and tbh thats probably the case considering the other shady shit The Chief’s done but that’s another can of worms entirely), and Mallah saved him by transferring his brain to a jar-like life support vessel. Thus starting the scientist now known simply as The Brain’s mission to get revenge on Caulder and take over the world, becoming an arch villain to the Chief’s team the Doom Patrol and later the Teen Titans. Mallah and Brain would pretty much be your basic henchman and villain duo for most of thier existence… UNTIL Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol run in the early 90s, where after stealing one of Doom Patrol member’s Robotman’s spare robot bodies, Brain and Mallah confesss thier love for eachother, sharing a kiss… before the robot body housing Brain explodes and kills them both.  

Don’t worry though, they got better.  

What I find most insane about Mallah and Brain, you know, apart from the fact one of them is a whole ass gorilla and the other is just a brain in a jar. And the fact Grant Morrison and other writers not only had the sheer audacity to make such a bonkers and strangely disturbing couple canon, but stick with it being so, is that fact that their relationship is… genuinely compelling??  

Like, there are so many stories where their motivation is just getting brain necessities like a new body. Because he longs to feel simple sensations again like being able to smell flowers or drink tea (and also fuck nasty with Mallah, as he deserves). And Mallah is 100% ride or die for Brain and does everything in his power to help him. From trying to break him out of a prison ship while fighting superheroes Apollo and Midnighter, to the aforementioned finding him a new body, to kidnapping an orchestra to play for Brain because the tickets to thier show were sold out and felt bad about not getting brain tickets. More often than not, especially with the body stuff, its foiled or tragically backfires, but Mallah never stops trying to give his partner a better life and make him happy. Even if it means them both being doomed in some way. It’s both bizarre yet compellingly tragic and oddly beautiful.  

Plus there are a ton of smaller moments between them, like their old married couple energy bickering, Brain venting to Mallah about how no-one in the hero or villain community takes them seriously, to them chillin’ in bed together having a philosophical debate over what kind of dancer god would be. 

 In spite of how bat shit insane their relationship is, and all the evil things they’ve done as villains, you can’t help but be endeared by them and low key kinda root for them. 

Even though in the main line comics, brain and Mallah are broken up as of the latest Unstoppable Doom Patrol run, with brain dead (thanks to Mallah betraying and murdering him) and Mallah going off to do his own thing by taking over a city with the other villainous DC apes in the Ape-ril Special one shot (which I mean tbh good for him), someone at DC seems to have as much of a soft spot for these two as much as I do. Since they’ve appeared as a couple in other recent DC continuities/adaptations, such as the Peacemaker Tires Hard miniseries and, of course, My Adventures With Superman. Which I am more than happy about.  

Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand why most people wouldn’t be a fan of Brain and Mallah and their ship for… several reasons. But come on man! It’s a French Gorilla and a Brain in a jar who are supervillains and madly in love! How can you stay mad at a canon queer ship that delightfully bonkers!? 

[genopaint]

Been in a big Axel the Alligator mood lately so I redesigned some characters the last couple days and even introduced a new villain!!

Here's some of the notes I included about them all from twitter :) it's below the readmore

To go along with the new Axel the Alligator arts I did a bit ago, I figured I should draw the No-Name Grunt again! I gave them a bit of a make over from last time

Most notably their suits are now purple to match Camilla the Chameleon's, since they are her henchmen after all!

If you don't recall, these are basically Axel's goomba. The basic bottom of the barrel enemy the main characters fight. They're all a part of Camilla's seemingly never ending gang. They all follow her every order because they're obsessed with her, but she can't even be bothered to remember their names. Thus, the No-Names. Instead, they're each given a numbered belt and she just calls them by their number.

There's TONS of No-Names, that's why there's even color variations for the grunts you encounter. But there's even different classes of No-Names.

Like bruisers, fliers, stuff like that. However, I want to redesign them a bit more cause I wasn't 100% on their old designs. SO you'll have to wait and see if I bother with them. But you get the idea, the grunt kind of represents the whole army of underlings anyway.

Oh, and of course... No-Name 10,000. The super special ultra rare No-Name encounter. When you defeat it, it drops TONS of gold and exp!

Also some really quick sketches for some of the other No-Name classes with this suit redesign. I think it's cute they're all kind of matching but now I worry maybe they're not unique enough? Before their suits were all different colors... idk... Much to think about...

It's gonna be a WHILE before I get to make an Axel the Alligator game so I'll keep thinking on it lol

And of course there's probably gonna be a lot of No-Name enemy types it all just depends on what I would want / need for each game I suppose lol.

They're like Badniks, they reuse a lot of old ones but new ones or variants could show up wherever it's needed

----

And of course, where there's No-Names, there's the No-Name generals! Similarly, Camilla doesn't care to remember their names. But they're juuuuust important enough to be allowed to command her underlings when she's off doing more important things.

Uno the Uromastyx is Camilla's original #1 super fan, and as such is the leader of the generals. He's a bit stuck up and loves to wave the fact he's #1 in the others faces.

Dos the Daboia is a bit of a loser and is ALWAYS panicking. He's constantly worried his suit is too blue.

And Tres the Tree Lizard is a chaotic girl who loves explosives. She's constantly building bombs to create chaos. Whenever the No-Names use explosives, they're probably her creations.

They're the ultimate undying loyalists to Camilla, and they all HATE Carnage and Behemoth because the trio was there first and yet Camilla makes Carnage and Behemoth her right hand men. Out ranking even the No-Name generals.

But of course, Uno, Dos, and Tres stand no chance at ever beating either of them. Even if they gang up on them.

----

Two more Axel the Alligator characters! Sol the Saurus I've shown before and has a shiny new redesign. But Ceaser the Ceratops is his brand-spanking-new rival!! Pretty neat!

These two existed from before the meteorite came... What on earth are they doing in present day???

Sol fights with a giant sword that builds energy as its swung, and Ceaser fights with a giant shield that builds energy as its hit. They used to be allies but that was a long long long time ago

Also I'm not 100% on Ceaser's design or name so don't be surprised if I touch it up

Also here's an updated height chart with the No-Names and these dinosaurs. Again it's not 100% accurate but it gives an idea (Behemoth IS taller than Dos it's just a bad pose I promise)

also a comparison with some short guys in front of the dinosaurs :)

My concept is that Axel characters don't really stop growing as they age (which I believe real reptiles do the same thing?) so since these dinosaurs are from ancient times they'd have grown a CRAZY amount in the mean time. idk

[haveyoureadthisfanfic]

I'm aroacespec (and honestly confused about where I fall on that spectrum, but I do know I'm sex/romance favorable) and tbh my relationship with shipping is weird.

There are some ships I look at and I'm like "how can you see this as anything but romantic" and there are other ships where I'm like "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" and it's almost always the total opposite of what the fandom majority's view is. For example, my Sonic "how can you see this as anything but romantic" ship is Espilver, and my "okay but why do we have to ship them, can't they just be friends?" ship is Silvaze.

I will say that something I've noticed is there tends to be a double-standard with allo people (specifically cishet people) when it comes to ships. You get a ton of "why can't they just be friends" with slash and femslash ships, but then those same people will ship a het pairing that look at each other in a single frame. I don't know if it's something that's more obvious to me because I'm gay myself (or even if it's more obvious because I'm aroacespec specifically), but it's weird to me. I choose to look at it this way: if this was a het ship with the same character dynamic, would people still say "why can't they just be friends?"

That's not to say aroace people are in the wrong for looking at a pairing and saying "can't they just be friends? Why do we have to ship them?" but with a lot of cishet people specifically, it feels like there's a lot of people perpetuating a borderline homophobic double-standard. I get it when it's something like Scott and Jay from Ninjago, but so many masc characters' dynamics are canonically given homoerotic or even just romantic undertones (a good example of this being, in my opinion, Sonadow; there's not an almost 3 and a half hour long Sonadow iceberg video on YouTube for no reason. As far as I'm aware it's the longest Sonic-related iceberg video on YouTube that covers exclusively official content) which is why people tend to gravitate towards those ships. I could do an entire analysis on why gay ships tend to have bigger followings than het ships but if I did this would get too long lmao. I will once again point to the Sonadow iceberg video though.

I generally use shipping to explore my own relationship with my aroace-ness, and usually I do that using characters I either headcanon as aroace in some way or who are canonically aroace, because I can relate to those experiences. It's kinda weird to me to see other aroace people acting like doing that is bad or wrong, because usually that's what people are doing, and even if that's not what's going on, fanfiction doesn't affect canon.

There is no right or wrong way to participate in fandom (unless you're harassing people and/or actively putting people in danger), no matter what you identify as.

Basically: People should be allowed to do what they want, if something bothers you that bad there's nothing wrong with blocking a person or tag.

(I might've gotten off subject a few times, sorry lol)

Okay, that thing about blocking tags inspired me to look through my blocked tags to see what ships I've blocked and here's my petty aroace thoughts on all of them without naming names lmao

Fanon het ship. They've never given any indication that they know of each other's existence. Her girlfriend is right there.

Canon het ship. Had the chemistry of two wet paper bags. Literally just shoehorned in there because god forbid any story exist without a romance subplot.

Semi-canon het ship. I'm mostly neutral about them. Just unnecessary.

Fanon mlm ship. Literally brothers?? I don't care that one of them is adopted, they grew up together?? As brothers??

Fanon het ship. I don't care what you call their relationship. You can call it professional, platonic, familial, just please don't call it romantic.

Semi-canon het ship. Again, completely unnecessary. God forbid a man convince a woman to become a villain without there being ~attraction~

Fanon het ship. She is 14?? And he is like 30??

Semi-semi-canon het ship. He did have a crush on her when he was, like, 14 but he's a grown adult now and she's the most lesbian-looking woman to ever exist and they're the most found family siblings to ever find a family

Fanon het ship. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE FRIENDS. LET MEN AND WOMEN BE PLATONICALLY MARRIED.

Fanon mlm ship. I personally see them more as brothers. But whatever floats your boat.

Semi-canon het ship. Just really shoehorned. I don't like the woman very much. I liked her more when she was allowed to be a badass without being a ~flirty badass~

Fanon mlm ship. Again. Adopted brothers. Gross.

Canon het ship. I've seen many things from this director. He's a creative man. He couldn't think of a way to move the plot forward without a smooch?? He couldn't create a series that didn't have an unnecessary love triangle??

Semi-canon het ship. The man isn't coming back for S2 and boy golly gee am I glad

Fanon het ship. Not my cup of tea. Just let them be friends

good lord I have a lot more ship tags blocked than I thought

anyway, this is your daily reminder to just block stuff you don't want to see and move on

[aihoshiino]

chapter 136 thoughts

before i get into the sad stuff i need to say that ai eating ice cream with her head empty no thoughts expression blasted ten hundred million billion tons of dopamine directly into my brain. thank you.

This chapter is interesting for a lot of reasons but I will say up front that I'm really glad the story is taking the time to humanize Nino and to flesh out the absolute mess that are her feelings towards Ai. I was really excited when she entered the story because I had always wanted to know more about the 45510 narrator (which this chapter basically unambiguously confirms even more strongly than before — we get the 45510 drop again!) but I was worried after meeting the real Nino that she would be painted as a black and white villain. Through Kana's empathy for her and the movie's portrayal of her though, we get to see her as just a normal person.

Because like… I'm gonna be honest, I feel so deeply sorry for Nino! Like, Jesus Christ, don't forget that she was anywhere between twelve and sixteen when all this was happening. She was just a kid being brainpoisoned by the entertainment industry and held to impossible standards. She had no power and the few things she felt she had any control over were being ripped out of her grasp. Is it any wonder she reached a breaking point?

Not just that but… man, B-Komachi gen 1 just seemed like it was an utterly dogshit experience for everybody but especially anyone who wasn't Ai. Both Nino and Kyun have said it explicitly: they did not feel like valued members of the group. Saitou pushed and favoured Ai to the extent that everyone else in B-Komachi felt like backup dancers who were just there to make Ai shine brighter. We see this pattern repeated in B-Komachi gen 2, as well! I've already talked about how in a very real sense, the group only exists for Ruby's sake and Kana and Memcho really are just there as her accessories but Miyako herself is favouring and pushing Ruby for work to the extent that even Ichigo points out that she needs to give the other girls more jobs. No wonder Kana empathizes with Nino so deeply.

Something else really interesting about this chapter is getting to see what dealing with Ai is like from someone else's POV. Understand that I'm saying this as the Internet's Foremost Ai Wife Guy but oh my god!!! I think this is the first time we've gotten a really good understanding for how deeply, deeply frustrating Ai really must have been to deal with as a person only allowed to see the perfect 'Ai of B-Komachi' mask. Nino is all but breaking down in front of someone she considers a friend, begging her for the slightest bit of honesty and authenticity, for Ai to just show that she cares about Nino in the least… and Ai just gives her a bunch of blithe, noncommittal answers. Even knowing Ai as well as I do, I could almost feel a ghost of Nino's desperation and frustration pass over me as I read that exchange.

With that in mind, Nino's outburst at the end of the scene here doesn't feel like pure nastiness - it feels like desperation. It feels like her lashing out with the worst possible thing she can think to say because if she hurts Ai, if Ai actually shows that Nino's words reach her at all, if Ai's human enough for Nino to hurt then…

But, well. We already know how this all turned out. Even so, like Kana said… Ai's smile is suffocating.

Speaking of Kana, this was a damn good chapter for her. A lot of people seem to have interpreted her as getting 'lost' in the role of Nino but going by this chapter's portrayal, Kana seems to have a much healthier distance from her than Ruby does to Ai right now (BUT WE'LL GET TO THAT….), being literally portrayed as viewing the scene as if from a distance. I do think her empathizing with Nino is allowing her to examine and get out some of the hurt and resentment that's been bubbling away since Black Hoshigan Ruby but things are being so infinitely more complicated by everything else going on around this split.

Speaking of which… whoooooooof, Ruby. Her levelling up her understanding of Ai was uh, not quite as good for her as I'd previously thought. It's important to note that this is pretty clearly Ruby's feelings that she is projecting onto Ai: in 45510, Ai herself explicitly says that she never hated the B-Komachi girls and Ruby blurting this out here feels like a very pointed contrast to that. It's pretty clear to me that we're coming back around to something established during the preproduction phase: that this material is quite literally triggering for Ruby and it's damaging for her to be engaging with it.

… which is why it's so, so scummy for Gotanda to be pushing this. I'm holding back on really going into what I'm thinking of Gotanda right now because I want to see if/how the manga addresses this but I'll just say that I'm coming away from this part of the story feeling much more sour about him than I think I'm intended to. It's possible that this is just because I'm fresh off hearing Jeanette McCurdy's horrific account of how damaging this kind of acting was to her as a child but… I find it really hard to like and get behind a director who is purposely letting his actors endure intense psychological suffering for the sake of His Vision lol

After all, like… for all that he talks about wanting to film 'the true Ai', this Ruby freakout is not that! That's Ruby, snapping under the strain of the pressure put on her. Even if you want to argue Ai felt similar strain… is her restraint and her grace and patience in not giving out under it not also 'real'? Why does authenticity necessitate turning Ai's ugly feelings into a spectacle? Why does Gotanda think he has the right to make calls on what is 'authentic' here?

I'd say "who died and made him king" but that's the point, isn't it? Ai died. She's not here anymore to make calls about her identity and the people who are here and who are in a position to do so aren't actually doing it with care and consideration or proper respect for her memory. This movie has been touched by so many people who have their own agendas, who did not know anything about Ai and quite frankly have no right to be making calls about who she really was and what she really felt. 15 Year Lie is an utterly ghoulish production and nobody is coming out of it clean.

[rockybloo]

As I’m doing this ask, I’m just watching Jack the Giant Slayer and making me SEVERELY wanna read Beanstalked, I’d love a passion fueled essay/reason from you why I should read it! (I’m gonna ready it anyways)

OH BOY I GET TO DROP MY LIMITERS

For starters, Beanstalked is a fantasy slice-of-life with a sprinkle of adventure and action. It does feature swearing, violence and gore as well as some body horror and existentialism. So just a heads up.

The main plot is basically that Lore, the planet that Beanstalked takes place on which exists directly parallel to Earth, has an event every 100 years where individuals are selected to become Bookmarked. This is where they are assigned roles from fables and legends from our world and gain secret weapons known as Märchen for self defense. This event has gone on practically forever under the watchful eyes of the Sun and Moon, the gods of this world.

But that all gets disrupted by an evil fairy called Nevermore who is bored of witnessing the same fairy tales happening over and over again. She has rounded up Bookmarked villains and the occasional misled protagonist to assist her and her army of ink stains as she aims to rewrite the world and rid it of happy endings.

The newest generation of Bookmarked are very unlucky as it is their turns to live out their assigned tales due to their stories all having been screwed up due to Nevermore's interference. Jack is one of these unlucky Bookmarked, who has just recently come to learn he has been assigned the same Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. Much of Beanstalked follows hm as he learns about the magical side of the world he lives in, how to use his own Märchen, his own family history, and what exactly a "Happy Ending" is.

Beanstalked is meant to somewhat explore fairy tales and how suddenly becoming a figure in one can affect one's life-whether it be good or bad. It's also, at its center, a story about learning more about one's self and figuring out what truly makes you happy.

If you are a fan of fairy tale retellings then Beanstalked is a good pick for you. Especially if you are a fan of retellings that:

Aren't just mean spirited spins about the original tale

Aren't completely dark and gritty retellings of the source material for the sake of being edgy

Aren't just rip offs of Disney designs and characters

Or if you are petty like me, don't want to read another story about a protagonist having fallen into the land of fairy tales

Every Beanstalked character is meant to be based off either a direct character from a fable or a stock character. And for each fable, I try to bounce off the original story if there is an author (Like Pinocchio novel) or the oldest retellings as many fables don't have direct authors and simply have collectors that put their own spin on things.

So if you are worried about another fairy tale retelling story where each fable is just based off Disney's spins-DON'T WORRY BECAUSE ROCKY GOT YA' COVERED!

Beanstalked also contains a lot of found family elements, such as the entire village of Briar Patch being a community of Bookmarked who watch out for one another.

There are also cool af battle scenes due to the existence of Märchen (because Rocky grew up watching too many shounen anime and now has to put battles in everything), a ton of world building (I've had this story for nearly a decade now), a lotta characters with melanin (many being black), and a cast comprised of bi and pan characters.

ALSO ALSO...if you are a fan of pretty black girl love interests that kick ass (and may also be a monster girl with sharp teeth and claws and whole big monster form) then you will enjoy Beanstalked as Jack's love interest, Nana, is all of said above mentioned things.

SO if any of this happened to catch your attention-GO READ BEANSTALKED! As of right now I've rebooted it from the original 2010s version I had so it currently only has chapters 1 and 2. Which means you don't have a lotta catch up to do!

I have also handcuffed myself to this story which means I will be working on it till I finish it. I am on a mission. So if you want a webcomic and don't wanna worry about it suddenly being cancelled or disappearing one day-DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF CITIZEN as I am unhinged about my fairy tale babies and am in for the long haul.

[non-plutonian-druid]

[ID: 11 doodles of Umbrella Academy characters in a style imitating the webcomic Paranatural. Allison, Luther, Diego, Klaus, Viktor, and Lila are drawn as kids, approximately 12 yrs old. Ben is a similarly aged ghost. Hazel, Cha Cha, and the Handler are present as well, all looking vaguely villainous. Five is drawn to be maybe in his twenties. All of them have colorful smoke rising from them indicating the powers from Paranatural, except for Viktor and Lila, for whom the smoke is white. End ID.]

Look, a Paranatural au! I wish I had been hit by this muse in time for Masked Author/Artist, but alas it was not to be. If you've read Paranatural is you can probably guess.... basically everything there is to know about this au. If you haven't read Parantural, you should!! It's a wild ride! But also I rambled for a super long time about it under the cut

Everyone has cool spirit powers and can see the dead, so Klaus isn't special sorry Klaus. I'm making up for it by making him directly possessed by a spirit that gives him superpowers, instead of everyone else who has to use a possessed object to get superpowers. I didn't put a ton of thought into what Cool Accessory (possessed object) to give the kids so I could change that later, but for now Allison has a megaphone, Diego has a yo-yo, Viktor has his violin, and Luther doesn't have anything because his dad thinks he needs to learn to control spirit energy on his own. Klaus doesn't have any either because he's possessed directly. I adjusted the rules of Parantural slightly because [Paranatural spoilers!!] in the comic someone with white energy can connect with spirits whose energy is any color. Viktor's should absolutely be white by show rules, but that power set suits Lila a lot better. So in this au, the rules are adjusted so that white can only connect with white, and Lila's is actually colorless (IE, it only looks white now because the background is white). She can't bond with any one spirit for long, but she can bond with any of them for a short time.

Hazel, Cha Cha, Five kind of, and the Handler are all members of a version of Paranatural's Consortium, which I'm just going to call the Commission again because why not. As you may be able to guess, it's slightly more villainous in this au than the Consortium. I wanted AJ to be a high ranking member, but if I made him the Handler's spirit then we wouldn't get to see him ever, so I made him Five's. This was before I remembered that people possessed by spirits look more and more like their spirit over time so the fish head thing could still totally work, so I might revisit that. Hazel and Cha Cha's spirits look like thier masks, of course. I didn't spend much time on the mask/spirit redesign so they're not as fun and funky as I'd like, but they're still reasonable stand-ins. The Handler is this version of the Boss Leader because.... duh. If you've been keeping up with Parantural and are wondering about how That One Thing About Boss Leader translates... I haven't decided yet.

Five is the Mr. Spender of this au. He is possibly the least Mr. Spender-like character to ever exist, but look me in the eyes and tell me that acting as the teacher-supervisor of a club of unruly kids that can see ghosts who is secretly part of a nefarious (?) organization is not where he belongs.

I have a few more doodles of this waiting in the wings! Mostly of Five because I love him. But also if you have stuff you want to see, send it in. No promises I'll draw your suggestion, but the main obstacle between me and drawing more of this is not having concrete ideas for situations to put characters in

[silly-salty-utdr-rants]

an unnecessarily in depth analysis of my take on underfell papyrus

before we begin: let it be known that none of this is properly confirmed or canon, this is all based on the version of underfell that almost solely exists in my brain. also the quality of grammar, spelling, and translation of brainrot to coherent essay is not guaranteed. also uf!papyrus belongs to underfella

to start lets look at the very basics, what would it take to turn papyrus, the only person to believe even the worst of the worst can improve, the causation (however indirectly) of the true pacifist route, the only monster that will never kill frisk, the sole creature in the entire world of undertale to be dubbed the sadistic fuckface flower's favourite, that the world is kill or be killed? allow me to spin you the tale of how i think it happened.

maybe once upon a time when uf!papyrus was just a kid, he wanted to be a hero. he wanted to be a pacifist in a kill or be killed world. maybe, even unintentionally, he constantly put both him and his older brother in danger. and one day, he tried to spare the wrong people, so both he and his brother were scarred in the process causing a crack over the eye for papyrus and a lost tooth for sans. and on this fateful day papyrus was faced with the choice, kill the attackers and survive or spare them and be killed. and maybe since he's still alive as an adult, he chose to kill, thereby gaining his first LV.

at least thats what i think happened. this traumatic event would cause a number of changes in his life, including, ditching his former obsession with "being a hero" in favor of being a villain, on several occasions being peer pressured to murder, and being more harsh to sans.

BUT. as i have said before and will say again, papyrus' soul is almost definitely bravery and integrity so his preference for pacifism isnt going down without a fight! maybe his whole "kidnapping and torture chamber" schtick is an excuse to not have to kill someone while not being seen as weak. maybe he lies about how many people he's killed or how much LV he has when in reality both numbers are shockingly low. maybe he wants to be captain of the guard so he can delegate the killing to others. maybe he hates asgore because its because of him that their world is like this. maybe he never kills the human. one thing i've never understood is whether or not he kills or spares the human or if he does the whole "OOP YOU'RE AT ONE HP! TIME TO GO TO THE CAPTURE ZONE!" thing. i like to think that he does. hell ive already done a whole damn drawing on what i think it would look like.

⬇️

so yeah. he spares frisk. and maybe adopts them

one last aspect of this guy that intrigues me before i go! what is underfell papyrus' dynamic with flowey? maybe he respects flowey a ton. maybe papyrus is envious of flowey's courage to run away from fights and defuse them instead of hurting the opponent. maybe they're the only one that the other truly opens up to.

but these are only my thoughts on the dude because frankly, there arent enough character analysis about uf!paps. feel free to add your own! or not! i dont care!

[cairavende]

Worm Arc 14 thoughts through 14.7 (there is too much for one post, I mean I could probably get four to five posts from 14.11 alone):

The team figures out Siberian's whole "is a projection" thing pretty quickly. Good for them.

I really want to know who ripped out page 325 for the "how horrible of a thing have I done that I don't want shared" check. I strongly lean Trickster but I'm not sure. I want more details on the Travelers and TiaV dammit!

Amy is having a bad day. Probably really a continuation of a bad few days. She probably didn't really need those fingers right?

Skitter criticizing Amy in her head for not being "creative" enough with her power is so on brand. Of course my daughter has already detailed out the complex ways she would use a power she doesn't even have. I love her.

I really wish the Undersiders/Travelers combo would stop splitting the fucking party. If they had just sent everyone after Siberian I bet the could have gotten the dude.

I do have have Skitter has gotten to a point where one of her "start of combat" actions is to just make a fuck ton of bug decoys. Almost without thought at this point.

Have I mentioned how much I love the "writing words in the air with bugs to communicate with people"? Cause I do. It makes sense. It would work. It lets her communicate long range. But it's also very silly to imagine. Very Silver Age in the best way.

Then it gets even better! Skitter makes a full blown animation to tell Amy that Siberian is trying to drop a building on her. Absolutely fucking perfection.

Tattletale maybe misjudged ever so slightly in what she revealed to Siberian. The combo of Siberian just flickering out of existence and everyone being like "oh fuck" was very good.

Amy trying to do her bullshit again and Tattletale having none of it, just destroying every argument before Amy even makes them until Amy agrees to come and help. More than makes up for any mistakes Tattletale made with Siberian.

The relay bugs are super neat.

Fucking high speed mutant dog/car chase. Absolutely fucking AMAZING. I loved every part of it. Ending with Sundancer just dropping a 50 foot wide sun on the road.

Tattletale trolling the shit out of Piggot and the heroes gives me life.

Also, Piggot's phone conversation with Tattletale was basically a villain monologue. For Piggot. Just all the shit about why she was doing it, why it was for the best, the coy little "sorry your teammates are gonna die, it's just an unfortunate side effect". All of it. This bitch is evil.

My daughter fucking tying up Crawler with spiderwebs. HOLY SHIT KID. God damn.

Very Mulan "Get off the roof, get off the roof, get off the roof" energy as they all run the fuck away from the bombing zone.

BUG HORSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BUG HORSE BUG HORSE BUG HORSE BUG HORSE BUG HORSE!!!!

AMY MADE MY DAUGHTER A FLYING BUG HORSE I'M DYING!

TAYLOR CAN BE THE (BUG)HORSE GIRL SHE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE!

It rescues her and she has to teach it how to fly and they form a bond and she saves it and it saves her and and and she gives it a NAME! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

She's only had Atlas for a day and a half but if anything happens to him I will burn the world to the ground. Then I'll find another world and burn it to the ground too.

Firebombs don't really do shit but destroy a chunk of the city, probably kill some civilians, and make the heroes lives pretty fucking hard as they have to rely on the randomness of Clockblocker's power.

Also weren't there supposed to be a bunch of Nazis also getting hit by the bombs? One of the only somewhat maybe kinda almost decent parts of the plan Piggot and they aren't even here!

Piggot's plan is terrible and evil is what I'm saying.

The only reason nearly every hero doesn't end up permanently trapped or whatever inside Cache's bag of holding is cause Skitter was there to keep him from being crushed by a car. Well, Skitter and her bug horse (BUG HORSE!)

Skitter got to shoot Mannequin in the back. Very satisfying even if it didn't do long term damage.

Sucks to be Cache. He's . . . probably fine? I mean at least he got everyone out as he was melting.

Really sucks to be Glory Girl. She is . . . uhhh . . . hmmm . . . not dead. I can at least say that.

I mean Skitter got her to Amy. And Amy did stop her from dying. So like . . . she's probably going to be fine. Yep. Juuuuuust fine.

(Look if Amy wasn't a bitch about giving Atlas a digestive system I might be willing to forgive a lot. My daughters (bug)horse comes first. But Amy didn't so I won't. At least Grue was able to help. He gets a lot of brownie points for that.)

Anyway, Victoria needed to take some time to heal the rest of the way so she left completely under her own free will. And it will never come up again.

Bombin' 2: Electric HOLY FUCK PIGGOT YOU REALLY ARE CRAZY Bombgaloo

Kill a few more civilians and maybe Crawler and Mannequin. Destroy more of the city (including the library!) in a way that will probably never be salvageable (I mean at least some of it is stopped in time for god knows how long). Jack, Bonesaw, and Siberian escape. And because of what was done Bonesaw is going to activate her bio-weapon.

Great job Piggot. Gold star. You fucking did it. You saved the city. You motherfucking idiot.

[alpaca-clouds]

Why is it so hard to deconstruct Magical Girls?

As some might have noticed, I have recently been rewatching a lot of old anime from my teen days. And something I cannot help but think about while doing this is: "Why is it seemingly so hard to deconstruct the magical girl genre?" Because here is the thing: I know several attempts at genre deconstruction for this specific genre... But none of them are actually what I would count as a genre deconstruction.

Basically, deconstruction of a genre usually means that a genre is played straight. Like, you take the usual tropes of a genre and play them straight or with some sense of realism. Which we have plenty of in a variety of genre. I mean, with the rise of the superhero stuff over in the west, we have a ton of superhero deconstructions (like The Boys or Invincible), that mostly go for the most obvious issue with superheroes: "What if Superman was evil?" While also dealing with some other stuff, like how superheroes might be organized and controlled, how this would work with capitalism and so on and so forth. Now, a lot of folks are bored with "Superman, but evil", but yes, it is a very clear deconstruction.

In anime/manga we also have a ton of deconstruction going on. I mean, by now it should be fairly clear: Yeah, my original fandom obsession was Digimon Tamers, which basically deconstructs the first two seasons in many regards. And when it comes to the monster taming genre, there is also Narutaru, which is a deconstruction of the genre. And I might talk about Narutaru on another day.

There is also a ton of really great Mecha genre deconstructions - though ironically speaking, I feel like most of the Mecha genre is already deconstructing itself. When your biggest franchise (Gundam) in a genre frequently is build around the premise of: "You do realize, that this is about child soldiers, right? RIGHT?!" then maybe deconstructing the genre is not that hard.

But somehow... magical girls are different.

Like, there is a variety of shows that are kinda attempting to deconstruct the genre, but... Well, if you look on TV Tropes for the Genre Deconstruction Trope, it explicitly calls out that a Genre Deconstruction is "playing the tropes of the genre straight and more realistic", and it is explicitly not "some tropes of the genre, but darker and edgier".

And here is the thing: Most of what I know as Magical Girl Deconstructions, is actually "darker and edgier", not a straight up deconstruction of the genre. Which is not to say that they are bad! Hell no! I enjoy most of them. But they are not deconstructions.

Let me go over the three that left the biggest impact on me. Though first maybe we should define what makes Magical Girls?

I mean, the genre has changed a whole lot ever since Sailor Moon appeared on the scene. And maybe that in itself is a thing, because in some regards Sailor Moon - like Gundam - was fairly good at deconstructing itself. Never the less, I will go with the ideas that have been prevelent in the genre since Sailor Moon, even though there was magical girl media before it, that worked by different rules.

One or more girls usually between 12 and 17 years of age get a magical power to transform into super heroines.

The story usually is set in the real world.

Usually they will draw those powers over some sort of mascot character or multiple characters.

The shows usually mainly exist to promote merchandise, which is why the magical girls will usually have a ton of magic items and weaponry.

Almost always there is gonna be some fetch- or collect-quest involved for powering up those items.

The power of friendship!

Romance might or might not play a role, but it will always be secondary to the aforementioned power of friendship.

Usually the magical girls will fight "monsters of the week", that often are normal everyday things that get filled with evil magic by the villains.

The villains often are some sort of otherworldly empire, that has come to earth to either take over or collect items of some sort.

My Otome: Now, some people say that MyHiME is also a Magical Girl Deconstruction, with which I absolutely do not agree, where the fuck are my cute costumes and transformation sequences? MyHiME if anything to me reads like a monster tamer deconstruction, really. But MyOtome? MyOtome is a Magical Girl Something for sure. But... Well, it does not really deconstruct the genre, does it? This already starts with the story being set in a different world from ours, and with the girls not really being "chosen", but the setting being a school for magical girls. While some of the first half of the show does play with some of the typical tropes (monster of the week and such), the story fairly quickly goes to deep into the politics of its fictional world and the war story. While yes, technically you absolutely can argue that magical girls are in fact also child soldiers... They are not usually soldiers in a literal war, and the entire fantasy politics stuff - while I absolutely loved it - does not really feel like a real deconstruction. Instead it feels more like a fantasy war story, that you also put magical girls into. Yes, those magical girls behave a lot more like realistic teens, but that does not make it a deconstruction.

Uta~Kata: Alright, let me talk about my favorite of these, despite me being rather disturbed at some of the fanservice considering the girls are like 13. In Uta~Kata we have one girl, who gets magic powers, which is fine though, as several magical girl shows actually have just one main character. It is also set in the real world. However, this is where it ends. Because... Well, there is no fights. There is no evil. There is no weapons. There is none of the usual tropes. It is basically just deities mindfucking with this one girl to find out something, that I shall not spoil, given that nobody knows this series for some reason. But basically the only deconstruction in it is: "This is a girl with magic powers, and the girl works more like a realistic teenager would." Which... Uhm, yeah, no, does not really make it a deconstruction, does it?

Madoka Magica: Madoka is probably the one really well known Magical Girl deconstruction, but I once again will argue that it does not really qualify much as a deconstruction - because the thing that makes the entire draw of Madoka Magica is that it does not play the tropes straight or realistic, but rather subverts them completely. The entire concept of Madoka Magica is build around the idea that the girls are supposed to die/be corrupted by design, which is a twist on the usual magical girl formular, not a deconstruction. While Madoka Magica is good at playing around with the aesthetics of the genre, the show does not really play any of the tropes straight, but rather puts in completely new tropes in that place. Sure, some of those tropes (teenage girls being moody and this makes them so great for corruption) are kinda based in what the genre offers in itself - but it also does not feel like a straight up deconstruction.

Again, nothing against any of these shows. I love them dearly. I do. I just find it... interesting.

And I am honestly starting to wonder at this: Why is there not a straight up deconstruction of a Magical Girls show? And be it just as a manga or comic or something along the sort.

Sure, the shows above do deconstruct single aspects of the Magical Girl genre, but never the whole thing.

Like, thinking of deconstructions of other genre, there is like a ton of stuff I could see as a deconstruction of the magical girl genre - without actually going into fully subverting it and twisting it around. I mean, especially Uta~Kata and Madoka go more into psychological horror than actually into the deconstruction, right?

Something I would more expect to see in a genre deconstruction would be:

Magical Girls actually running into issues in regards of keeping up performance in school/clubs while also saving the world.

Magical Girls running into issues keeping their identities secret and actually facing consequences because of this.

Yeah, obviously, I also could see "Magical Girl, who gets bullied, uses her powers on the bullies" (or, depending on how harsh you wanna go with this, you could also go for more severe scenarios like: "Magical Girl who gets sexually exploited by a teacher uses her powers against teacher".)

Something in regards to: "Well, what if the power of friendship starts to break?" As well as actually kinda deconstruction the entire "friendship and love" dynamic that Magical Girl stuff does play around with a lot.

Given how prevalent sapphic subtext is within the genre, one could probably also work with that.

The entire merchandise/weapons/item thing is also so ready for deconstruction - something that could go in a variety of directions. Either with how unpractical the actual stuff is, or just how it does hinder plot.

And of course the other prime thing ready for deconstruction: You usually have a fucking alien invasion of some sort in these stories with monsters, and people getting hurt, buildings being destroyed and what not... and nobody from any government gives a shit? No, but really. I would assume that some sort of government would try to get involved here.

There is probably a million other subtropes that one could deconstruct about the genre, but that is some stuff I could think about.

Ironically it would not even need to go fully into horror for that, even though deconstructions will probably always have a slight horror-sensibility about themselves. But... you know. I think if I look at the Magical Girl deconstruction stuff at large (aka the shows that I did not name here), a lot of it is built way too much around shock factor of the violence that one gets shown. And that... is not really interesting deconstruction, right?

Sure, violence can absolutely be a part of deconstruction. And I do not think a proper deconstruction should be anything less than PG13, if not R-Rated. But... Why make it all bloody? Like the main things that one can play straight and realistic, do not need blood. It needs ore like characters being more... batshit.

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

I Can't Stop Thinking About Mr. Grizz In Space

I'll preface all that I am going to say with the fact that Return of the Mammalians as a story has a lot of problems. Its pacing is kind of wack and basically all of the actual plot happens literally at the end. I think I like it more than most, certainly more than a lot of other high-profile Splatoon blogs here, but there's no denying it has a ton of flaws.

It did, however, leave me with a lot to chew on, and perhaps one of the things it has had me thinking about the most is actually just a little gag in the credits

About three minutes into the credits, Mr. Grizz is shown slowly orbiting around earth, given so little thought that the credits roll right over him, but I genuinely think this is one of the most poignant and evocative images in the whole game.

Now, Mr. Grizz wasn't handled very well in this game, primarily as a consequence of that whole "all of the story happens in the ending sequence" thing, but I think that conceptually he is about as perfect of a villain as they could've made for the supposed "finale" of the story they've been building up to now.

One of Splatoon's primary themes, especially with its villains, has been the dangers of clinging to the past. Octavio is a bitter old warlord stoking the flames of a long-gone conflict mostly to satisfy his bruised ego. Commander Tartar is obsessed with an idealized version of the past and seeks to remake the present when it can't live up to that ideal, even when that ideal never existed. Splatoon 3 even went further, revealing that inklings, octolings, and all the other land-living sea life are in fact humanity's truest successors, and Tartar tried to wipe them all out anyway.

Mr. Grizz continues this trend and takes it maybe as far as possible because he doesn't just want to reshape the present, he sees it as something unnatural and wrong on a base fundamental level, a mistake that can only be resolved by restoring the status quo, giving the planet back to the mammals. Coming as close as possible to literally turning back time. With Splatoon's focus on youth culture and pop media, it's hard not to read this theme as an allegory for the ways that older generations can cause immense harm in rejecting the new and in making futile attempts to grasp a world that once was but never can be again.

But Splatoon isn't trying to tell us that the divides between us are unmendable, far from it. Over the course of the first two games we see how inklings and octolings grow closer and closer until it's a complete afterthought in the third game, and even Octavio, when push comes to shove, is willing to bury the hatchet for the greater good. Calamari Inktantation 3MIX is perhaps the purest expression of this, a mix of old and new, a traditional folk song turned into a pop song, complemented by three artists that each pull from completely different cultures (Frye = India, Shiver = Japan, Big Man = Brazil) all mixed together by a 100+ years old DJ. Calamari Inktantation is old and new, pop and traditional, Inkopolis and Splatsville, octoling and inkling (and manta ray), in a chaotic, messy, beautiful swirl of sheer ecstatic joy. As a song, it is peak Splatoon, clear and simple.

But this isn't about Calamari Inktantation 3MIX, as excited about that song as I am, this is about Mr. Grizz, and after spending so many games exploring the dangers of clinging to the past, Splatoon 3 uses him to show us what happens when you cannot let go.

Mr. Grizz could not accept the present he found himself in. To him it was wrong, it was offensive, and he fought tooth and claw to bring it back with him, into the past, to the glory days, and he fails. Of course he fails, you can't stop time, much less turn it back, and the people of the present will always fight to protect their future. So where does that leave him?

Alone. Gazing down at a planet he was born on but can no longer recognize. From his orbit, he can see thousands, maybe millions, of little lights along the coastlines, each one an entire city, buzzing with life and all of its eccentricities. It's a world that would probably welcome him, if he gave it the chance. But he didn't. He rejected it and sought to return to a time and a place that no longer existed, and in so doing, all he achieved was isolating himself. And now, as he circles the world, all he can do is watch as it moves on without him.

[coralinnii]

The lost child in me has been discussing with the adult-child that is currently me with the idea that won’t leave my head. I know they are probably tons of people that already made thoughts about this idea but I wanna jooiiin~

Everyone is my real life can tell that I’m a Pokémon dork. I have lived as a Pokémon fan and I will most likely die as a Pokémon fan. So…why not combine my childhood game obsession with my current obsession and make my own Pokémon x TWST collab?

I’m not dropping my villain/ess au series if that’s what any of you are worried about. I just really like Pokémon.

My question is what kind of au should I go for, because I’ve thought of two ideas for this collab combo

1) It’s the Pokémon world! With the TWST boys.

Basically PokéTraveller!Yuu meeting the TWST guys with different jobs, positions, and lifestyles in the Pokémon world. Very Pokemon anime vibe.

2) It’s Twisted Wonderland, but with Pokémon!

It still follows the story and vibe of Twisted Wonderland, but Pokémon exist! Just cute guys going about their day with cute Pokémon. Probably similar vibes to the premise of the school life of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.

I’m the type to go with whatever I’m given for the fun of a challenge, so I want YOU (insert Uncle Sam recruitment poster) to decide what I end up with. But don’t feel to pressured or worried tho about the end results, in the end I’m just excited to think of ideas with my two fav games <3

Looking forward to the results, Imma go hyperanalyze some Pokémon theories now~

[itsangelicasworld]

i love your teen titans dr so much!

what’s the lore behind it, if you’re comfortable with sharing? how’d you get into the group? what was your life like before it??

ahh, sorry for the random questions, i’m just in the process of scripting my own tt dr, and i don’t know anyone else who shifts there too! :((

OMG TYSM FOR THE ASK ANON!! It surprises me just how many people like my TT life, and it makes me SO happy to see other DC/TT shifters!! I'll answer the questions you listed here, and if you have any other ones, feel free to DM me/send in another ask <33. Though I'll try to keep it as quick as possible, get ready for a long post ahead tgyhugfgh. (Oh, and I'd love to hear about your DR👀)

Before I begin, I'd like to note that trauma doesn't really exist in this reality. Bad events still happen, and those emotions are still very real, but they can't have a negative lasting impact on me or the people I love. I JUST WANT MY FAMILY TO BE OKAY AFTER ALL THIS FTGHGFGHJ. So anyways, I was actually a kid villain before I joined the Titans! It's a long story LMAO. But in short, I was adopted by an underground crime group known as "The Syndicate" (work in progress title) when I was a kid. They trained me and used my powers as a weapon in heists. But they were really the only family I had. Until they betrayed me and I was sent to juvenile detention💀💀. After that experience, I hated anything that had to do with villainy, so I tried out being a hero. Not a total hero, but the effort was there. I've never looked back since!! In regards to how I met and became part of the Titans: we had actually interacted a few times before I joined them. I did have a record as a villain, but they stayed out of my business and I stayed out of theirs. UNTIL I HAD MY MAIN CHARACTER MOMENT. Basically, it was a normal day. The Titans were fighting a villain on a high rooftop in the city. There was a crowd below them (which included me). Just as the Titans secured a victory, Robin was caught off-guard, and ended up falling off the roof. Before the rest of the team even noticed, I jumped into action and saved him🤭🤭. Still stands as one of the coolest things I've done so far ngl. The Titans saw my skills, and said, "now wait a minute.. she might have potential". A few days later, they recruited me into the team, AND THE REST IS HISTORY!! Star was the first one to accept me into the group wholeheartedly, I love her beyond words😭🫶. There is a TON of lore to this reality, whether it's about me or the other team members or the general worldbuilding. So I will HAPPILY rant about it any time. Tysm for making it this far!! <33

[fantasygerard2000]

WISH and Classical Disney Tropes

With Wish discourse not slowly dying out because people refused to not be angry for stupid reasons, I wanna discuss more about it, especially the actual existing positive things about it.

So, there's this saying from a very few people saying that "Wish is an INSULT to the Disney formula" or "Enchanted could've been a better love letter to Disney". Now, as much as I would say that this take is complete butt, I somewhat understood, but not in a way these people think.

Wish is pretty much a by-the-basics Disney animated movie; female protag, animal sidekick, power hungry villain, musical, all that shindig. It's also an original story, something that Disney detractors claim they wanted after a butt ton of sequels and remakes being made and released recently, not just from Disney but from Hollywood in general. Then again, these cretins would call anything woke bad regardless if it's original or a remake.

However, these people didn't like Wish because it was "not enough". Again, I legit understand this complaint of Wish being half baked, but my gripe about it is that it's pretty much what they claimed they wanted and yet they still complain. Same way how with even if they kept the Starboy and Villain Couple draft, they'll still say Wish sucks and want the Startwink and Bonnie and Clyde to be in a different "better" movie.

I noticed that Wish has problems similar with Princess and the Frog, which are coincidentally similar if you think about it. After their renaissance period, Disney made some non-fairytale films that are experimental during the 2000's. These films, while decent (except Home on the Range) weren't well received, largely because they deviated from the traditional Disney formula, which was being mocked by films like Shrek. Not helped that hand drawn animation was slowly dying out as 3D animated family comedies were the hot topic of the time.

After this period of failing hand drawn films and experimenting 3D films, the returned to formula with Princess and the Frog. Despite this film's popularity and love from fans, it didn't make as much as the previous renaissance films. Largely due to numerous causes like hand drawn films don't make as much money as they used to back in the late 90's and that it was released alongside Avatar (not that one). Princess and the Frog, while a good film, has problems similar to Wish; and that it has a great story but was held back by being a formulaic Disney movie. Let me explain.

Tiana's story about valuing the people who love her (Naveen and Charlotte) to the point that they themselves gave up their own dreams so they can help her achieve hers. This is a pretty heartfelt story Disney has ever made. The main issue, apart from Tiana being a frog for most of the runtime, are the fact it has to commit into being a formulaic Disney movie. Hand drawn animated, villain, magic. Things that on the surface seems good, but are just purely used as a wallpaper to cover an already good story.

There's this thing in fandoms where they don't care how a trope is executed as long as the trope is present. It's this thing as to why people like characters like for example Rasputin from Anastasia, a traditional villain with green magic and a funny sidekick. The thing is that Rasputin is so unnecessary to the point the broadway musical removed him entirely. If you watch the film back, he's mostly irrelevant to the plot about Anya discovering her past.

And that's what Princess and the Frog does with Dr. Facilier. He's cool visually and Keith David is a blast, but he's so unnecessary to the plot that his scheme to marry Laurence to Charlotte so they can Eli's money is pretty plain compared to the previous villains before him.

As for the Enchanted "comparison", I find this rathe funny because Enchanted is a parody to the Disney formula. Like Shrek, it makes fun of the tropes Disney is known for but does so in a affectionate parody. It knows it's ham and cheese and does not hesitate. However, a film spoofing the Disney formula wouldn't be as well received today as it was back in the early 2000's. Heck, Tangled was supposed to be a Shrek copy before they went into a traditional Disney fairytale adaptation.

This ties to when other studios try to copy the Disney formula but they weren't as successful. Heck, Don Bluth himself despite his quitting Dinsey was still committed to the formula. Even films like Happily N'ever After and Charmed try to cash in on the Shrek formula but failed because it's formula has been done once Shrek starts to become more than a jab towards Disney.

So, Enchanted being "better" than Wish is hecka dubious. In fact, if Enchanted were to be made today, it would very be not received because it had "Giselle, a woman, fight the dragon instead of the man." Enchanted wasn't good because of being formulaic, it was good because it subverted a lot of these tropes. It acknowledges the issues people had with classical Disney movies, especially with the unrealistic romances.

It's pretty on par with Frozen, which is known to subvert these tropes. Hans, despite what people say about him, is quite memorable for being a subversion to the "Prince Charming" caricature as he was actually using Anna to get to her thrown. And the curse was not broken by a kiss between two lovers, it was broken by familial love.

Heck, an even better example of subverting these classical Disney tropes is Maleficent of all movies. Maleficent was a large deviation from the Disney formula, even by live action remakes standards, by making her the real hero who briefly turned evil after the real villain betrayed her to make himself look like the hero. It's only when she becomes a mother to Aurora that she redeems because she has learned to love again by her. It was her kiss that broke her own spell. It's also a touching story about found family.

Coming back to Wish, the film does the by the numbers formula but doesn't include the major ones, like the romance. Romances in Disney are notoriously known for being unrealistic that it was being made fun by Disney themselves in Enchanted and Frozen. Of course, Disney improve these romances in their later films with Tiana and Naveen, Rapunzel and Eugene and Anna and Kristoff. So, "why Disney didn't include romance in Wish if it wants to be a basic classical Disney movie?" The real question is "what would the romance contribute to the plot".

In several if not a few posts an even one singular video I can find about the Starboy misconception, the romance between Asha and Star would be unnecessary to the story. Especially since the main priority is about returning the wishes so people can achieve them themselves. Yes, I am aware that there are Disney romances that aren't important to the plot but if they're not then why are they kept? If you think about other movies that have unnecessary romances, you'd probably say exactly that, the romance is unnecessary. Even classical Disney movies aren't about a romance has included them because, "male and female characters? Of course they'll get together in the end". Even Princess and the Frog, falls under this. Despite that I like Tiana and Naveen's dynamic in complementing each other, their romance together can often feel forced because they're in an animated Disney movie that's calling back to their well known formula, so they have to. The "getting together" as a reward in a story is old as heck and I'm honestly tired of seeing this story numerous times.

And if you wanted Asha to have a romance, Dahlia is right there. They already have an established friendship so why not have them be established girlfriends? Disney's actual first gay character Ethan Clade has brief scenes with his male crush and even gets together with him in the end. These two are adorable together despite their brief scenes. So, why not have Asha and Dahlia be the same?

And like I said before, even if Starboy was kept, he and Asha would've stayed platonic. Wish was written by Jennifer Lee, and the films she worked in Disney tend to acknowledge and subvert these tropes. And just as they would've stayed platonic, audiences and fans will still ship them because they're just too comfortable with the old Disney, and that what this whole things is.

The non-fairytale experimental movies Disney made weren't well received because people are just so used to Disney making fairytale adaptations so a film that isn't that made by them feels like a pack as been broken. And even their later films post Tangled that are successful, people still favored hand drawn animation, romances, villains.

And when Wish was released, they're still not happy. Now, this is due to Wish not being fully committed to the darn T, but it's still a Disney movie with stylized animation with hand drawn elements, a traditional obviously evil villain and an original black female lead.

But yet, they still look for reasons to not like this movie. Reasons that some are just beyond unreasonable that they should just stop consuming media they didn't like completely instead of complaining how it isn't what they imagined in their head and are better off watching the content that's catered to them and their specific tastes.

Animation fandom is terrible because they contradict themselves. They claim they wanted hand drawn animation back. Despite that there are still hand drawn animated films made today to the point of nominated for an Oscar, that doesn't count because it's from oversees and not mainstream Hollywood. They wanted an original movie, but praised a sequel that ended on the cliffhanger and hope the follow up comes sooner.

Even if your version of Wish was the official version, other people will still be angry at it.

[twistedcollective]

autism rambles

headcanons i yapped to a friend (@herconfuse im so sorry buddy)

theres a shit ton, some tdas but most are metal family. also these are copy pasted from spacehey, in parts cause i hit the character limit. four times. if some make more sense reading them as a dm, thats why. im so autistic about this show bro.

tw for various types of abuse when talking about glam and his backstory and family, also superrr limited mention of sh there too

theres probably gonna be another part to this at some point

tdas: - mal acted like a villain for the show bc fans enjoy drama and on my LIFE chris is rigging votes based on fan popularity and who he personally likes. so mal was just being overdramatic so he could stay on longer. two steps ahead frfr (ok nikocado pack it up /silly) - vito x anne maria. idc that the show tries to make her look bad, those two are so cute and systems can date different people bro - mike x zoey, obv, but also svetlana x zoey. shes poly for her partner sys ur honor. also, bi zoey. and super supportive singlet zoey. idk i love zoey sm shes so sweet - dawn is pagan, probably works with gaia or some other version of mother earth - cameron is autistic as hell bro thats not even a headcanon thats basically canon atp. that boy has so much tism in him - B is transmasc (yes this is tdroti not tdas. shush.)

metal family: - i think dee listens to white girl music sometimes - he picked it up from ches, who would blare 2000s white girl bangers to annoy his mom during fights - gustav has been to prison and had his record cleared via shady payoff to the govt - mary was married to gustav via some sort of arranged marraige (possibly a forced taxes and traditional conservative values thing cause he absolutely would [i hate gustave with a passion]) - gustav died believing that glam got fully possessed by the devil during that one scene - glam gets nightmares about his dad and/or about becoming like his dad and hurting his wife and kids. his sleep schedule is still ass to this day - nobody knows the full extent of glam's childhood, not even ches - ches probably assumed glam's scars were self inflicted due to location, and he hasnt asked to clarify bc he doesnt really know how - hes absolutely noticed tho - lif and dee consider the rat their adopted son and his theme song is rats by ghost since they both canonically like that band - heavy prefers the metallica version of enter sandman, dee likes the ghost cover better - vicky listens to viking metal and aggressive sea shanties - glam would love chappel roan - ches would love sabrina carpenter - dee would unironically like taylor swift and would tell NOBODY - dee is not only a brony (canon), but also a furry. he has a fursona and a ponysona - dee would be a reality shifter but he doesnt believe it exists - dee does NOT like cats. heavy absolutely loves them. lif likes them, but also draws gore of them (not in an edgy way but she thinks the biology is neat and has an art style where it works) - lif sits in graveyards in her spare time

metal family part 2: - heavy is a theistic satanist, dee is an atheist (canon), lif is an atheistic satanist but likes theistic satanism quite a bit, glam is an atheist, vicky is a norse pagan, ches is in tune with the universe and just calls himself "spiritual, not religious" - dee writes fanfic - i love headcanons where dee is just an absolute fucking nerd cause its SO ACCURATE bro that boy is a GEEK - dee knows the basics of chemical warfare from his chemistry phase - he could and absolutely would nuke someone if he had good reason

metal family part 3: - dee is a controlled pyromaniac - dee steals from big businesses and never from small/independent ones, he taught heavy who only steals food (candy, drinks, etc) bc anything else makes him feel guilty - dee has a spacehey account - hes also very active on the dark web, and holds a paywall on hacker services for people - he has sent things to people who wanted him to hack for shitty reasons. by things, i mean animals. not alive ones. also, small pipe bombs that arent quite deadly but will still hurt pretty damn badly - dee will jailbreak people's school devices, for a fee - hes such a con artist except hes not cause he actually pulls through - his stalker thing with lif was purely genetic, idk how but it was (see: glam stalked vicky too) - both relationships are super healthy tho dwdw - heavy cant work the internet without dees help, but is very active online where hes allowed to be - dee is a dipper personality type, heavy is a mabel personality type, and lif channels bill cipher without the,, yknow,, pure insanity - that one pink haired girl whos name i cant remember is super nice but super sheltered from alt subcultures and queer people, think caitlyn from my creative writing class (ik you dont know her)

metal family part 4: - lif had a dsmp phase and was an e girl in 2020 - she also has a scene phase shortly after - goth isnt her only style but its def her main and shes super good at the makeup and also the dancing - heavy would pierce someone for enough money - dee would give people tattoos at school for money, but he refuses to do stick and poke so he cant (doesnt have a machine) - lif draws art commissions online - dee and lif are both huge creepypasta enjoyers and have loads of ocs - heavy knows the basic ones (jeff the killer, toby, ben drowned, etc) - heavy and dee would write and produce films with shitty production quality thatre somehow really good and post them on youtube - dee takes college level classes and is aiming for his two-year by graduation (omg look its ollie projecting onto his fav characters again) - glam is pan, dee is demiromantic ace, heavy is straight as a fucking board, vicky is straight but was bicurious at one point cause lesbians absolutely love her (anna has a one sided crush one her rip), ches is gay but doesnt date much anyways, lif is bi with a preference for girls (although technically she has a preference for dee) - lif had a pink and girl phase in elementary, complete with the justice and claires stuff - lif is a demigirl (our lif is transfem i think iirc)