#every other character has to come to terms with their deaths realistically

[fencecollapsed]

I absolutely hate it when any show is canceled before getting the chance to tell its full story, it's a deeply unfair thing to happen in any case

but I will admit. there is sometimes a TINY element of relief I feel when I hear what the plans were for the followup that never got to be and the plans were. bad.

[theblogwithoutfear]

karen page is so annoying in the show...is she better in the comics somehow or is she just like that

So I've actually wanted to talk about this forever, but I kept forgetting to make a post about it. Your ask is a perfect opportunity to write down all my thoughts. Brace yourself, because I have a lot to say. Sorry in advance lmao

I actually prefer Karen in the show. To be fair, I have not finished all the comics, but so far I think her TV counterpart is a lot better (I still like her a lot in the comics tho, don't get me wrong). The NMCU version of Karen Page also has a lot of Kirsten McDuffie (another comic book girlfriend) in her, which is great in my opinion.

A lot of people find her annoying, but to me it's her flaws that make her such a fantastic character. She isn't a caricature, stock-girlfriend character pulled from a box of tropes; she's a well-rounded individual, extremely realistic, a mirror of Matt Murdock, and a woman with real agency. Her actions have major consequences on the plot. In my opinion, a lot of superhero girlfriends (in comics, movies, TV, whatever) are written more like props than characters, and they don't have any agency or actual plot relevance. Which is why, when a lot of them die, their deaths feel so cheap and inconsequential. That's where fridging comes from. It's been a problem with superheroes since their very inception; and a problem in storytelling at large. So often in fiction, women are flat and unrealistic.

So to me, Karen's heavily-flawed character is refreshing. She is extremely impulsive; she's deeply intelligent, but makes such stupid decisions; she can be hypocritical, self-destructive, and petty. Sometimes she manipulates people, even unintentionally. She's very well-meaning, but constantly makes mistakes. And it's these mistakes that move the plot forward, and reveal important things about both her and Matt. Her actions have real consequences for the story, and she undertakes her own journey throughout the narrative. She is almost as much a protagonist as Matt is, in terms of her character development and growth.

For that matter, every one of the flaws that I listed are things that Matt does too. They are almost perfect mirrors of each other; people who are immensely concerned with justice and compassion, people who care for the truth, and people who want to make their city a better place. However, as they go about it, they stumble and make mistakes and endanger other people. They're hypocritical and contradictory and impulsive. They constantly have to call their own moralities into question, because they almost never live up to their high ideals.

(Also, as a side note, I think many of Karen's flaws—as with Matt's—come as a direct result of all the trauma she's been through: her mother's death, her brother's death, her alcoholism and drug addiction, her dad cutting her off, being framed for murder, almost getting murdered in prison, etc. So I think it's fair to give her some grace.)

But what makes both Karen and Matt so lovable, imo, is that they keep trying. No matter what mistakes they make, they get back up and try again. They do everything they can to atone for the blood on their hands.

I think also (and I'm not accusing you of this, just a certain subset of people in the fandom) that people are more willing to accept Matt's flaws than Karen's—because there's a lot of misogyny built into our society, and there's this ingrained idea that women have to be paragons of virtue. Women, both in fiction and in reality, tend to be put under a microscope and dissected, while men can get away with a lot more. So Matt and Karen have identical flaws, but only Karen gets hate for it, which makes me very sad.

It may be the writer in me, but imo flaws are what make a character—and a story—meaningful. A well-flawed character can take a ridiculous, implausible story and make it feel grounded and real and impactful. A well-flawed woman even more so. I love Karen for the same reason I love Jessica Jones and Wanda Maximoff; or, to go beyond Marvel, for the same reason I love Jo March and Katniss Everdeen and Miss Haversham and Katherina Molina. They all elevate their respective stories beyond the initial premise and plot. Flawed female characters are realistic and impactful, and therefore empowering.

Obviously, to each their own. Some people just find her annoying and don't like her personality, and that's fine. But for me, that's what makes her feel real, and that's why I love her.

[whetstonefires]

I was really enjoying the recent 'Amanda Waller vs the Entire DCU' Justice League storyline, because Waller is one of my favorites and this story just kind of pulled out all the stops on her.

Sad her Brainiac Queen Oracle-bot 'daughter' didn't get a longer run; kind of like Slade Wilson the fact that Waller is a middle-aged parent who has not done any actual parenting for a long time informs her character in fun ways imo, so the superbot calling her 'mother' was great. Waller is so much fun, and very like with Lex Luthor it's always a delicate balance between letting her be cool and letting her eat absolute scenery. (Before inevitably eating floor.)

Her premise is very much like. What if Batman was just some guy, where 'guy' is gender neutral, and the terms are set that by 'just some guy' we don't mean sane and normal, we mean not in a position to become a fulltime superninja.

Her chosen weapon instead is bureaucracy.

Her backstory, which as far as I know is still current, is she was a normal middle-class citizen whose husband and one of her kids went out one evening and got shot to death in a Random Gun Crime.

To which she responded by going back to school, getting a doctorate in Political Science, and seeking employment with the federal government. Because this trauma led her to crave access to power.

(Because she spends so much time mixed up in questionable scientific research etc you'd think her 'Doctor Waller' was because she's in STEM, but no. Polisci.)

Also more like a normal person and less like Batman, she is not particularly hung up on protecting other people from suffering the way she did, except on the most abstract level where if the world is reordered to her schema, this will stop the Bad Things.

I love this. I love how much of a brass-bound bitch she is. How impossible she is to intimidate or convince to look 'up' to anyone ever. Every time we get to see Waller up against some objectively more powerful baddie and she cleans their clock or just ruins their day I am hooting and hollering. She's fantastic.

But. Just like with Lex Luthor, it is very important that she also sucks. She's selfish. She overreaches herself. Her plans get the people who trust her killed; she cannot resist taking advantage of her position for personal advancement--never anything as trite as embezzlement, either, it's always about power.

She has taken the Suicide Squad down with her so many times and yet she keeps getting appointed to head it up again because she Has Experience (and other people who try to do the job tend to rapidly get eaten by a sharkman or whatever), which is not exactly realistic but it's an exaggerated parody of how management positions do tend to work, so it feels believable.

She has so much contempt for supervillains, and yet whenever it comes down to the punch she falls into the lure of that same megalomania, and then things blow up in her face.

Is there something distinctly Problematic about the character whose destiny is to be repeatedly destroyed by her own hubris in seeking access to specifically institutional power a black woman? Little bit, yeah. But it also works so fucking well specifically because her lack of perspective about when she's gone too far becomes so much more sympathetic, when you know just from looking at her how many bullshit barriers she had to burst through to get where she is.

Anyway I always get excited when she's in things.

[ninainthetardis]

Just something I need to get off my chest

I really think that series like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, fantasy novels with high stakes focused plots addressed to children, should be romance free. They would be so much better without any romance in it.

I mean, as a young reader, I was just there for the action, the magic, the adventure, the plot twists, the plot itself, the characters as individuals, some of their friendships... that kind of stuff in general. I didn't give a sh*t about romance, not even when I grew up and became a teenager. And those are books meant for children and younger readers, right? So, I'm going to share the opinion I had when I was younger (the one I have now would be much harsher, not to mention much longer).

Now, all the romance in HP bored me to death; most of it didn't even make sense. I just wanted to know Voldemort's back story and then proceed to see how they were going to destroy the horcruxes, you know? And yes, I get it, they're teens at that point and it's realistic they have love interests, etc etc etc, except it felt like that author (*insert disgusted emoticon here*) only chose those couples to make all the characters related by the end of the series and none amongst the relationships was really developed to make any sense or look good. Take Hermione and Ron. They'd have zero chances to work irl. Be honest. But mostly, they're lame, boring, casual, rushed pairings with no development whatsoever (thankfully, I dare to add), usually involving characters who are not compatible at all/in the long run.

This is about the canon, but moving on to the fanon ships (Dramione/Drarry), I don't think that that author would have been able to write enemies to lovers properly (I'd add the plus: involving an LGBTQ+ couple, for the Drarry). The sole idea of any of it gives me the ick. Like no. Thanks, but no thanks.

About the PJ ships, on the other hand... they are a mess. None of them is even remotely good. They're all just a total mess, featuring the following problems:

Weird/creepy age gaps

Toxic behaviour

Emotional abuse

Physical abuse

Disrespectful behaviour

Judgemental behaviour

Disregard/dimishment of other characters' trauma

Isolation of characters from other characters they care about/may meet and befriend

Pairings of characters who are not exactly compatible/would never work in long term relationships

Glossing over problematic stuff, which is a big problem considering the audience the books are aimed at

Also, when they get together, some of them are still KIDS. KIDS!

(Fanon ships also fall under some of these points)

In both cases, it's not even like they are necessary to the plot. The funny thing here is that these stories would flow much better without those parts. What's the point of forcing romance into a story where so much is already going on, which leaves little to no space to develop things properly, and in which such romance has actually no purpose?

No romance at all is better than sloppily executed romance. And not every story needs romance in it to be compelling. Especially if they're meant for kids and are full of magic, action and adventure.

A better exploration of the characters and their trauma would have been much more interesting for me to read as kid who became a teenager while the series were coming out, instead of reading cheap romance while the characters were, well, you know, fighting wars and dealing with tons of sh*t.

[000marie198]

In some media that have found family and then the friends go their own ways at some point later on, find their own paths, I've noticed the aftermath in sequels that come after time skip of several years is not always... the best. As if the once closest friends, the family, has drifted apart. I mean sure, friends do sometimes drift apart but that separated found family trope creates a rift between friends too and like- I understand that people in real life can be like this but from my personal experience and observations, this shouldn't be, isn't, the case with family. This isn't the case with a group of people closest to you who you grow up with or who supported you in your hardest times and vice versa, who helped you find yourself.

Personal observation, I've literally seen best friends or childhood friends meeting after decades and acting like they just met yesterday. There's no rift, no reserved behavior out of politeness, they literally let go of everything and let out their inner child. They laugh and tease and joke wholeheartedly, are comfortable around one another, rile each other up for funsies in a heartbeat, throwing every piece of maturity out the window. And that's not counting my own personal experience of meeting any of my best friends after several years, we didn't even realize until my mother pointed out that we were acting like we just saw each other yesterday even though it's been years.

Anyways, I'm getting off track here. Point is, I've seen many pieces of media that always create a rift between closest friends or family or found family after a long time of being away from each other and it adds drama and all but while I've seen it excused as being realistic, it isn't. Not in my opinion. Which is one of the major reasons why it always breaks my heart to see this happening and why I hate the Separated Found Family trope. I mean, why even form it in the first place if you're just planning to tear it apart in the end? What's even the point?!

So, whenever such a thing is built up in any franchise, I develop a sense of dread. I'm internally going "plz don't separate then plz don't separate them" about characters I've grown to love. And part of the reason is how media usually handles it, extremely poorly in my honest opinion.

But this didn't end up being the case with Team Sonic when Sonic's closest, life long friends decided to grow and find their own paths in life. Go their separate way. He was happy and proud to see them grow, a little reminiscent and a little sad (though he didn't show it to them) but ultimately happy for them. Would the empty nest syndrome even be a problem for someone who considers the whole planet his home? Perhaps. He respects everyone's boundaries and understands their wishes to not randomly show up whenever he misses them. (Extra bit of angst that when he was setting them free from Cyber Space and becoming increasingly infected in the process, his friends were forced into a situation that got them in a very introspective mindset and each one of them individually decided to go out on their own, leaving him, and he didn't show the literal hell of pain he was being put through that was caused by the Cyber Corruption. He was losing himself with it. He had to come to terms with all his closest friends leaving him after that adventure while he was pushing himself to the brink of death, not even knowing if he'll come out of this in the end, just to set them free. And he didn't let them know so they wouldn't worry.)

Tails, Amy and Knuckles went their own separate ways to grow and find their paths. This looks like it advanced into the separated found family trope, right? But no. The thing is, while many other media used that trope to create rift and drama or something (I'm sure there are good ones out there which didn't do this, honestly kudos to them), this one didn't play out as such. In the latest TailsTube episode, that is proven and shown beautifully. They've all met up before on Amy's birthday and there was a quick visit Sonic gave to Tails in an earlier TailsTube ep and their dynamic remained the same in both, their friendship was just as strong as ever.

But episode 5? God, I'm in love with that episode. Team Sonic coming together after months and nothing has changed. In fact, going their ways and finding their paths in life to grow didn't create a rift between them or anything, it only made their bonds stronger. It made them even closer than they were before. Like how you grow to appreciate and treasure something more when you don't always have it.

This is how found family should be depicted. That's how it actually is in real life too. Found Family doesn't mean you have to stay together 24/7 or you can't grow and find your own paths. It means that even with living life, finding yourself, growing, these people you have come to love will be connected to you just the same. Distance doesn't create rifts when the bonds are so strong, it only ends up strengthening them even more.

[soul-dwelling]

How Would You Design a ‘Soul Eater’ Theme Park?

Enough of my friends who are Soul Eater fans are theme park nerds. 

And I’ve watched enough videos by David Ganssle (Patreon / YouTube) where he imagines hypothetical theme parks and their rides. 

So, what would you put into a Soul Eater theme park? Share your ideas in comments or reblogs. 

Under ��Read More” is my idea…

For my idea, on the spectrum of “the sky’s the limit” to “let’s make this realistic,” I am far more “the sky’s the limit.” I am not going to worry here about logistics: I am not concerned about the feasibility of location or its environmental impact, I am not concerned too much about target audiences so much as what I as one fan would want in the park, I am not concerned about profitability or budget, and I am not concerned with how to build the ride or how it would work. 

What I am focused on are eight (for the sake of Kid) of these categories for a theme park: the one symbolic building, location, lodging, dining options, one major ride, one smaller ride, one ride for children, and merchandise. 

Let’s start with the building and the location…

One Symbolic Building and the Location: The DWMA in Nevada

Of course a Soul Eater theme park is going to be shaped like Death City, so of course it has to be situated in Nevada. I am not imagining this theme park as in Las Vegas proper--you would really need this building to look as if it is the one and only city anywhere in sight. 

(Again, I am not concerned with environmental impact or logistics: I don’t know whether such a spot exists in Nevada, and as much as I enjoy theme parks, this is just imaginary, I would rather this be the equivalent of a Theme Park Tycoon or Sim City construction than something I would actually put down in the middle of the desert and threaten the ecosystem and the public trying to get through the desert to see it.)  

We’ll get to what the DWMA has inside when talking about rides. Otherwise, this is pretty much a literal city in terms of size, shops, restaurants, even services like the barbershop where Excalibur shaved Hero’s head. 

Lodging: Dorms and Apartments

Guests would have options for where to stay, some less expensive than others, with the trade-off being the size of the room but the experience you get. 

We know from NOT that there are dorms for students. We only ever saw the dorms for the main trio of girls, and that one was presented as pretty upscaled compared to how others in Death City were living. Maybe one dorm is more expensive for guests and duplicates the NOT look, although the size of rooms may be limited and still require three to a room in some cases. And maybe other dorms are less attractive: this can be a worldbuilding exercise to emphasize that, yes, there were some pretty bad dorms at the DWMA. 

The more expensive experience at this theme park would be recreations of the homes of the main characters. The apartment complex where Soul and Maka live is pretty much going to be a hotel where every room looks like the one Soul and Maka lived in in the anime, including the color scheme, posters, even an animatronic Blair Cat napping in the living room. Black Star and Tsubaki’s home is a more traditional Japanese apartment. And the most expensive option will be Gallows Manor, with just a handful of rooms duplicating what we are left to imagine the bedrooms of Kid, Liz, and Patty look like. 

Dining Options (and Live Performances): The DWMA Cafeteria and Deathbucks

I’m cheating here throwing in a live performance, but that’ll make sense below when we get to the DWMA Cafeteria. 

There have to be more dining options than just these two. And the manga had other options, some that are more open to lawsuits for intellectual property violations such as Death Robbins. But aside from coming up with clever names for typical shops (a pizza place called Tombstone, a candy shop called Death by Chocolate), let’s just stick to these two. 

Deathbucks is going to look like what it did in NOT, including the same type of foods, drinks, and outfits for the (adult, not teen) staff (albeit more suitable to what the employees want, given how problematic it is that it was Spirit designing these clothes). What will make this Deathbucks different from the NOT anime is the holiday offerings. We already saw what the place looks like during Halloween, but how would Death City celebrate New Year’s, Valentine’s, Saint Patrick’s, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas? 

The Cafeteria is like the first anime, and as established in NOT offers a range of dining options from all over the world. But there is one major difference: there is a stage at the cafeteria, similar to how some schools, at least the public schools I went to in the US, would combine the cafeteria and the auditorium--a “cafetorium.” The curtains are closed at the 30 minute mark, but at the top of the hour they open to reveal…an animatronic Excalibur, ready to begin his five-hour recitation. But, no, it won’t go on that long, as the Moomin knockoff with the short attention span will bounce from topic to topic, with a performer operating the animatronic to even remark on specific people in the audience. And of course the event has to start with Excalibur singing his song--and for the finale, a far more impressive big band iteration of his song. 

For other live performances, maybe Hook Cemetery is a stage area. We already have “Thriller,” the old Beetlejuice show at Universal Studios--of course a graveyard is going to be a spot for live music featuring performers dressed as corpses and zombies.  

There can also be dining options that build upon what we know about characters already. Mifune likes candy--maybe he and Angela are alive in this timeline and run a candy store? 

One Major Ride: Asura’s Revenge

This hypothetical is less engaging than the smaller ride, if only because I haven’t figured out what to do with it beyond location and title. 

Maybe it’s an indoor coaster at the bottom of the DWMA? Maybe it’s a maze? Maybe it has a ride component where you have to pick your team--”Meister” or “Weapon”--and whoever gets the most “points” slicing apart Clowns wins? 

In any case, you can’t have a Soul Eater theme park without a recreation of the Kishin Shrine. You can even start the ride with the bag containing Asura ripping open, re-enacting his resurrection as his body regains its shape. How do you stage this with animatronics? No clue--but it’d be fun to have it. 

One Smaller Ride: Dr. Stein’s Wild Ride

This is not the most creative option, I do not like simulator rides, and ripping off of that unfunny fink Jimmy Fallon makes me want to vomit. But this is what I’m stuck with…

Along the hallways of the DWMA are numerous classrooms. Guests enter Class Crescent Moon for the pre-show, staged as that day’s lecture. You hear the familiar “Ding-Dong-Dong-Dead” chimes as you turn your attention to the front of the class and the chalkboard, in this case a screen, and using animation and image mapping enters the teacher for the day. (Which one? More on that in a moment.) 

The lecture continues, pretty much introducing you to the kind of ride this is, only presented in lecture format: “Classes at the DWMA are not for those faint of heart. Therefore, if you have a medical emergency such as high blood pressure, or if you are pregnant or have back injuries, we do not recommend you join us on this ride--er, lecture.” 

But then the class discussion is interrupted. And here is where “re-ride-ability” kicks in: the teacher lecturing and the students interrupting changes each time you enter the pre-show. Maybe the lecture is by Sid, who gets tired of Black Star’s antics. Maybe it’s Azusa who keeps getting interrupted as Marie comes in to ask a troubling question--”How fast do oily rags burn?”--before escalating into utter chaos--”THE BUILDING’S ON FIRE, AND I CAN ONLY SMASH SO MANY TOILETS TO PUT IT OUT!” Or it’s Spirit--and Maka just has enough. In any case, whatever happens leads to the entire class being sent to detention--because Sid thinks Black Star goaded the class, because Azusa just takes it out on the student, because Maka smashed her poor father’s head in with a book and has to pay penance. 

You are escorted by the teacher aides to smaller classrooms serving as detention. This again is a screen-based room, where at the front, asleep with his feet propped up, is Stein, animated like the teachers were in Crescent Moon. When it is time for detention to start, he wakes up, stretches, and instructs you to buckle up your seats. Why do you need to buckle up your seats? Stein has created a mobile detention room--and to keep you from screwing up again, he’s going to scare the lesson into you. He pulls lever and spins out on his rolling chair, with your chairs now propelled forward on a tether after him, smashing through the wall of the detention room and into the hallway. You speed down the hall, you do a sharp turn at the corner, you probably run over Hero along the way, you head down the stairs and bounce up and down each step. You just avoid the Kishin’s Shrine. You head back up to the spires of the DWMA, where you’re just hanging over them before you descend down! 

How do you avoid dying? …I haven’t thought that far through this. Maybe Gen has a new drone to haul you up. Maybe Granny ropes you up and swings you back with her incredible weight. Maybe at the bottom Tezca opens a mirror that sends you into the Death Room, where an animatronic Lord Death greets you and asks you to enjoy the rest of your visit--before asking you to sign a waiver so he doesn’t get sued. You exit out the Death Room and through the guillotines before ending up in a gift shop. 

One Children’s Ride: Patty’s Carousel of Nutty Animals

It’s a children’s carousel, only the animals in it look like something Patty would draw and design, including ones that are mythological and incredible. Instead of trying to catch the ring, you have to aim to crack the giraffe’s neck. And as much as I loathe Fire Force, it is not as if you can’t pull from designs from Vulcan’s taxidermy to really amp up how creepy-cute the animal designs are--or even strongly hint that Patty did use taxidermy to make the animals you’re riding, to Kid and Liz’s disgust. 

Merchandise

There has been plenty of Soul Eater merch over the years, so enough of that can be sold or made again to sell here. You’d have the typical anime fan stuff: figures, shirts, cosplay outfit kits, replicas of weapons, plushies. 

But what can be sold here that is not available anywhere else in the world? Just having “special edition” keychains, shirts, food, and other merch is kind of disappointing. 

Or, since this is an entire city, maybe the merchandise is just stuff you would typically buy in Death City? Soul buys albums, so maybe there is just a regular music store there. You can have loads of bookstores, maybe even literal libraries--with lessons on how to properly use a book as a lethal weapon. Maybe expensive speciality shops to “forge” your own weapon? 

Or is the point of the merch here supposed to be about unique activities, not tangible products? Do you have Tsubaki doing a cooking class, only to be interrupted by Black Star? Kid trying to teach painting--only to get disrupted by his insistence on symmetry? 

One Last Thing: Immersion and Cosplay

One other detail I’ll add: since this is unrealistic and more about being “the sky’s the limit,” you would have guests encouraged to show up in cosplay and act out who they want to be as a meister or a weapon. I am not worrying about security having to check the replicas of weapons being brought in, people hiding their identities in their outfits--this is not about realism, this is just imagining what could be if all things were ideal. 

Thoughts? 

So, those are my quick ideas for a Soul Eater theme park. Which rides would you put in your version? Let me know in comments or reblogs. 

[niko-jpeg]

hi. merhog silver artist here and sorry for suddenly appearing in your asks but PLEASE feel free infodump about benthic areas in my tags. if you want. no pressure (⁠◕⁠���⁠◕⁠) (I think learning about the environment/planet is cool) (and i will use this knowledge to think about merhog silver in Situations™️)

MY TIME HAS COME :D!!!! Thank you so much, I would love to talk about the bottom of our oceans. I love mer aus because I have a special interest in the ocean and it’s biosphere, and I’m glad you’re open to my insanity fhskbslauslsj!!!!

So the ‘benthic zone’ is really an umbrella term for the sea floor, or the floor on any body of water. In this case in the Mariana’s Trench, the bottom layer would be below the “Abyss”/abyssopeleagic zone, in a zone called the Hadal Zone. That’s where Challenger deep is!

Deep sea zones are always very full of life, even if it doesn’t look it. Because of the extreme pressure, in a fictional setting Silver would have to spend a lot of time repressurizing and whatnot on the way back to the surface to not accidentally kill himself with the expansion of oxygen in his blood and also his tissue could turn to mush (I mean, take a look at the blowfish). Realistically, an animal that can go that deep probably can’t go to the surface, but since this is a fictional hedgehog mermaid, creative liberties can be taken out the wazoo. So feel free to pick and chose which details you keep and do away with for plot or situations ™ reasons!!

The ecosystem on the benthic areas of a body of water can vary, depending on how deep the water goes. In a No Light zone, as I like to call them, you begin to see animals with bioluminescence, and this luminescence can vary in color, as it serves a different purpose for each animal. Some may have red, which they have developed a special eye to see (as red is the first color to fade when you start to dive. I did a fun little activity showing this off in my marine science class, it turns almost a brownish), or the bioluminescence may be blue, which is the color that sticks around the longest. It depends on the animal and purpose, and for a character like Silver, maybe if he possesses bioluminescent traits (like in his hands, quills, where ever) it’s for warning off anything that may try to eat him. Though, in a real setting, a creature as big as him down there may be the apex.

Speaking of apex predators and whatnot, I’ll talk about the ecosystem! Most food is provided to the animals so deep through marine snow (excess nutrients that have fallen to the floor from the surface) and whale falls, which are when whales die and drift to the bottom. They will then be a source of food for months, and every creature, from the initial fish who get the muscle tissue to the bacteria that eat the bones, everyone benefits from the death! In a fictional setting, there is a chance you could have creatures in the deep terrorizing Silver, or he could be from an are with a lot of hydrothermal vents, which have their own ecosystems as well, though mostly of the krill and plankton variety. But they are EXTREMELY hot.

Silver, by the looks of it, may eat the flesh from the whale falls, other fish, crabs, and scavenge whatever corpses he may find. He also may be a slightly slower mer to begin with (which kind of matches his in game lack of speed in his levels in 06), as energy is a rare and valuable resource. If he continues to have psychokinesis, he may use it to speed boost and defend himself, or not understand the extent of his own abilities until in a photic (light) zone, like in a reef, which I’d imagine is what Green Hill would be. He might make himself sick hunting and eating whatever he can find in a safer environment, because wow! So much food, so much energy.

The deep isn’t quiet either! It has the echos of everything above it, and though the sand may cause a little dampening, it’s certainly not silent. I think he could probably be able to flare his quills too, as well as flatten them to streamline. But it is lonely down there. Animals don’t cross paths too often outside of hunting or going to a whale fall, and Silver may be on his own a lot of the time, which is sad :( hopefully he makes some friends closer to the photic zone. Maybe light may hurt his eyes a little? He’s spent his whole life in the dark with a limited color palette, so it’s a possibility! If you have any questions about anything ocean related, feel free to ask!! I’d love to share. The ocean is a wild and fun place, and mer aus make me so happy because it shows that people are willing to give it a chance, and by extension, spread knowledge and an adoration with the ocean.

Thank you for letting me ramble <3

[jetwhenitsmidnight]

Take All of Us by Natalie Lief

Publisher: Peachtree Teen / Holiday House

Release date: 4 June 2024

Genre: young adult apocalyptic/dystopian horror

If you like:

Unbury-your-gays

Disabled kids surviving an apocalypse together

Found family

Zombies 🧟‍♂️

Some light cannibalism

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️���/5

Synopsis

Five years ago, a parasite poisoned the water of Ian’s West Virginia hometown, turning dozens of locals into dark-eyed, oil-dripping shells of their former selves. With chronic migraines and seizures limiting his physical abilities, Ian relies on his best friend and secret crush Eric to mercy-kill any infected people they come across.

Until a new health report about the contamination triggers a mandatory government evacuation, and Ian cracks his head in the rush. Used to hospitals and health scares, Ian always thought he'd die young... but he wasn’t planning on coming back. Much less facing the slow, painful realization that Eric left him behind to die.

Desperate to confront Eric before the parasite takes over, Ian joins two others left behind—his childhood rival Monica and the jaded prepper Angel—on a journey across town. What they don't know is that Eric is also looking for Ian, and he's determined to mercy-kill him.

Content warnings

Death, violence

Ableism

Blood, gore, body horror

Cannibalism (but its not super graphic imo)

Vomiting (but descriptions of vomit is minimal)

Abandonment

Past medical content

Epidemic

Hallucinations

Mentioned physical/parental abuse

Review

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC!! 💀🧟🛢️

There's a post about how if people became zombies they would just continue going about their day-to-day lives because that's what their bodies remember. That is literally this book.

I found the synopsis to be rather misleading. It gives the impression that this book is a scary survival thriller, where the characters have to fight to stay alive, against terrible odds with heavy angst. While Ian, our main boy, does do some angsting, for the most part, this book feels really cute and cozy to me. The begrudging-allies-to-found-family pipeline is real and I eat it up every single time. The characters initially beef with each other upon meeting, but quickly bond over their shared circumstances (being abandoned, chronic illnesses, being outcasts). I liked how the author quickly established their personalities and circumstances, making it clear how their dynamic works from the get-go.

I'm sleep deprived and running out of steam so the rest of this review is in bulletpoints.

The Romance

Cute!

It's giving 😳👉👈

I didn't expect it to turn out the way it did, given the synopsis, which made it sound very ominous.

The Chronic Illness Rep

idk how accurate it is, as I have no first-hand experience

The synopsis says that Ian gets chronic migraines, but he is dead for most of the book, so he doesn't have any migraines in the story, but he also doesn't mention it ever

He does talk about his epilepsy though, but mainly in terms of how people react to him (staring, calling for an ambulance when he doesn't need it)

The synopsis says that Monica is chronically ill, though the book doesn't state exactly how, and she also uses a cane

Character Arcs

Ian's arc is mainly about how, as a chronically ill person, he struggles to take up space because of the guilt he feels from needing people to help him

I think Ian's arc was well-executed, but the arcs for all the other characters were lacking

I wish Eric could have gotten his own arc, he has a bunch of stuff that goes unaddressed

The Premise

The most unrealistic part of this book is that the dead people have oil for blood and the US government didn't round them up and throw them in the Oil Extractor 3000

The most realistic part of this book is that the government (belatedly) discovered a parasite in this town's water supply that turns people into zombies and instead of trying to clean the water or evacuate the townspeople, just told them to drink filtered water

Amount of Horror

Most of this book didn't read like horror to me, other than the light cannibalism

The last 10% is the most horror-y part, very trippy and strange, with more gory bits

Overall

This wasn't the best written book, there were some minor plot holes, and the character development could use some work

But! This was so entertaining and so much fun to read so 5 stars just for enjoyment reasons

[rewritingcanon]

i would just like to SPECIFY and go into a bit of detail about what each thing actually means:

this may not seem so bad, but when i mean they will comment on anything, i mean anything. it doesnt have to be marauder-related. it doesn’t even need to be related to harry potter. i saw a tiktok on a gorilla eating a banana and someone deadass commented “thats cool and stan james potter 😝” and lord FORBID if you include anything with snape in it. want to make an edit of him? backlash. want to talk about how you like him because hes interestingly written? backlash. want to deconstruct his character due to how badly fanon twisted him and actually analyse him? “anyways stan james potter” may be the dominant response to that, just so you know.

“sirius would never say that about mary!” said the marauder fan, heartbroken. “canon sirius would hate himself in atyd!” i respond usually with “canon sirius is a white boy in the 70s, hes not the ‘slay feminist yass 😍’ king you think he is.” this elicits quite a plethora of negative reactions, and i understand why. misogyny is stinky, no one wants their favourite character to be acting like that. so this option doesn't mean "fans who like a characterisation of sirius black that isn't necessarily time period realistic," but rather "fans who deny canon evidence for a fanon conception and then hate on things that expand on the canon evidence provided to them." "they are wizards, which isn't realistic, but you choose the time period misogyny as a hill to die on?" the marauder fan replied to me (and im quite literally quoting on what a creator said to me, this isn't an exaggeration). meanwhile canon sirius black: *harrasses snape for dressing more femininely/more outside gender norms* yeah and you think that boy would be a feminist...

you may think to yourself: when did [insert ship] become a thing? why is this happening? who even is this person? most of the time, it's all in good fun, sometimes, however, ships are created that purely contradict the entire point of said character. snily was criticised for doing exactly this, and now look at where we are.

after reading these points, you may come to the conclusion: holy shit the problem is just marauders fans. in fact, you may take it one more and remember more shit that had occurred due to this sub fandom of the harry potter universe. ever been criticised for not characterising purely fanon (dorcas, marlene etc etc) characters properly? ever been attacked for calling out the hypocritical stanning of barty, evan, regulus and peter whilst piling all blame onto bellatrix or snape? yeah me too babes.

i know we've talked about tiktok a lot, but i raise one more thing: the inescapable hell that is dracotok. this usually consists of those young teenage girls thinking they are very hardcore for participating in death eater practices despite its mirroring of being violent oppressors on a discriminated group so they can impress none other than draco malfoy. this, or they're the badass 'girlboss' that can change him. completely and ironically misunderstanding the point of his character aside, every cringey POV/thirst trap you have EVER seen on tiktok is probably replicated and 10x worse on dracotok.

i swear i haven't heard the term "gryffindork" since 2016, but alas, there has been a comeback. i call hogwarts legacy fans 'baby' hp fans, because i seriously do believe that these people have not interacted with the fandom until now. that would be okay if they weren't regressing everyone to early 2000s discourse. are gryffindors not being invited to ravenclaw, hufflepuff and slytherin raves that deep? no. but those three houses wouldn't be having raves in the first place

we've all seen them, need i explain or go into detail? "b-but harry doesn't have any chemistry with ginny!!" so he does with DRACO of all people? "b-but lily and james are basic!" dont forget the roots from whence you came. its misogyny within the fandom disguised as allyship or whatever the hell this is. ship your ships, but leave the gals alone

this didn't get on my nerves until i suffered from years and years of randoms going into detail about why slytherin/hufflepuff was the best harry potter house and then getting genuine mad when idgaf. maybe you have experienced this tragedy too. there are grown people getting into genuine online beef with others because they made a joke about slytherin being evil or hufflepuff being useless. makes me think you are just evil and useless (just kidding, but please wake up and realise that slytherin & hufflepuff quite literally do not exist)

i sympathise for people who like snape, i do. i do not sympathise for those who attempt to justify or excuse his actions. this normally comes with a side dish of misogyny, because more often than not they will find a way to blame it on lily. other times, they will blame his trauma. i want to be clear: his trauma explains his actions, it doesn't excuse them. that is the whole point of him ruining his chances with lily (not even as a lover, but as a companion). you are doing your own injustice to his character by trying to make him innocent, please stop

it's understandable why the cursed child is so hated. it's meant to be seen, not read, in my opinion. there's a lot of things in it that i too wish didn't exist. but that doesn't make it "not canon" because it upsets you. and of ALL the things that these types of people would choose to complain about, these are the things they chose: albus potter's namesakes (we've been going on about this for years like can we stop now please), harry being a 'bad dad' (think about his own upbringing a tiny bit more and maybe your brain can make a little more sense of his actions), delphi being voldemort's child (probably the only thing that i agree with these people on), and albus' name again because they REALLY hate it (but then they will counter this by saying "james sirius" is a good name, when it's still mid asf). anyway, it doesn't matter how much you squeeze your eyes shut and writhe around about it, the cursed child is canon. soz lol

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

something i love about your aus is how (almost) every character has a bad ending/fate for them

alt mark, alt thatcher, alt jonah, and alt cesar are doomed to an eternity of suffering. cesars mom was crucified, sarah got a chunk of concrete slammed into the back of her head, seth is all alone after finally getting close to people he considered his family.

prophet adam lives with crippling anxiety that the parasite will decide to come out and kill everyone he cares about, just like it did to jonah. thatcher's parasite breaks his bones, practically mangling him every time it comes out. evelin lost herself(?), becoming one with her parasite.

im not educated about the lab rats au so ill avoid commenting on it

guest mark is part of a house he hates, nobody listened when he said something was up with it, not even his own best friend. cesar is stuck all alone in the reflection of a mirror. guest jonah cant move at all, completely stuck in a wall. guest adam can move, but he cant ever leave.

spirit cesar literally got erased from existence by his best friend. shadow mark has to live with the guilt of that.

the characters lives get absolutely wrecked in ways that could never happen in reality but you write their reactions so realistically that it feels natural. their pain and grief and trauma are so realistic that its easy to have sympathy for them, even alt mark. alt mark is an absolute asshole but i think anyone would be if given his fate.

you can see how the characters got in the messes they did. its easy to be like "oh, theyre so dumb, i would never get myself in a mess like that" but you write the characters so realistically that it doesnt feel like a silly horror movie.

something that really stuck with me is the part in the alt au prologue fic where mark runs upstairs and quickly realizes he made a mistake just like so many characters in horror movies did. that detail made it feel so much more real.

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOUUU I LOVE THIS ANALYSIS /GEN

AND YEAH. I want to make it clear that. these characters are. well. human. at least in how they act and react. No one is perfect, with even the most moral and understanding characters having flaws that can lead to bad things happening, or simply being doomed to begin with. Even the villains have motive, and aren't your typical cocky, one note evil bad guys who just want pain on people for no reason.

These characters get bad endings not because of who they are or just for fun. but because in that scenario. A good ending would be. bittersweet at best. And the most likely scenario, taking into consideration the characters and how they act can be. bad.

For example, the alt au has that ending because of the fact that Mark refuses to let go of the past. the bad ending is his fault, and not because he's a one note villain but because he's just. unable to come to terms with what he is and the circumstances of his "death."

The MP Au gets that ending due to Adam's lust for knowledge he shouldn't have, and he is suffering the consequences for it. Not only he drags himself into damnation, but everyone around him as well. All because he was too focused on his own goals to care about those around him.

The HSH au ends up there due to cruel circumstances. Home used Mark and Cesar's poor friendship to its advantage to make them drift apart, feeding off of their negative feelings towards each other. Were either of them in the wrong? no. but neither of them were in the right either.

The only au I can say has a pretty good ending is the lab au, where the patients eventually escape. but. it's not all sunshine and rainbows cause. the damage had already been done. they can't magically reverse the mutations or mental fuckery they've gone under. They're like that for the rest of their lives, but. they're free. Bittersweet, really.

But yeah, the point is. the MAIN goal with these characters is to be. realistic. No one has magic plot armor where no harm can be done to them, no one is the perfect person who can easily be framed as the hero, no one is necessarily absolute pure evil as they have their own motivations and in some cases believe what they're doing is right. They're people. And their actions lead to scenarios that sometimes lead to horrible endings. It all depends really.

[tired-fandom-ndn]

heyo! any opinions on the new scott pilgrim show on netflix? or general thoughts on the scott pilgrim series?

Overall, I enjoyed the show a lot. It was funny and well-made and more true to the heart of the comics than the movie.

WITH THAT BEING SAID, it completely neglected the twins yet again (you can literally count their lines on one hand) and got weirdly preachy in a lot of places, especially in the finale. Its intense focus on its messages of self love and healthy relationship communication felt, well, childish, like it was intended for a much younger audience than the rest of the show.

It felt a lot like it was trying to challenge the perception of Ramona as a manic pixie dream girl but it did that by softening her edges A LOT and making her just. . . better than she is in the comics. Which sounds like a good thing but a charming part of the original series is that every single person is a realistic asshole; Ramona is selfish and has a bit of a cruel streak, she has a history of ditching her partners and cheating on others, and she runs away the moment things get tough. A lot of that was missing in the show. A lot of Scott's asshole-ishness was missing too because HE was missing for most of it.

Also this is kinda nitpicky but (spoilers) Scott "dies" in the first episode, like everyone genuinely thinks he's dead and there's a funeral and everything, but no one seems especially bothered? Like I know it was a comedy, but the aftermath of his "death" is that everyone just. . . moves on like he never mattered to them. No one actually grieves him, not even his sister. It was kinda fucked up.

In terms of my thoughts of the overall series, I think the comics are a hell of a lot of fun and they get into SO MUCH MORE than the show and movie ever did. The worldbuilding is absolutely fucking wild and the characters are realistic in how they're complete messes and just trying to struggle through surviving and growing up while being huge assholes (because EVERYONE is an asshole).

The development is less obvious than it is in the show, but it's also better for that and it doesn't come off as the characters reading a bunch of self-help books. The relationships are messy and difficult and dysfunctional; characters enable each other's bad behaviors and lie through their teeth and distance themselves without communicating with each other. It's less of a romance and more of a coming-of-age, a story about people figuring themselves out in their early 20s and all the awfulness and difficulties and hurt feelings that come with that.

Also, not to talk about the twins again, but I really do feel like their exclusion from the movie and show was a deliberate attempt to make Ramona "nicer"; it's during their book that we really get a look into how mean she can really be BECAUSE SHE WAS TWO-TIMING THEM. It's mentioned very briefly in the show but not actually touched on in regards to how it affected Kyle and Ken and what it means for her relationship with Scott (another cheater) like it is in the comics.

Also Wallace and Scott's relationship is ridiculous and amazing and the teasing we got in the show was somehow less gay than a lot of their interactions in the comics.

[roobylavender]

in terms of character deaths i know youve spoken about bruces death but who else do you think will also pass for a reason other than old age and how will they die? in my head everyone lives (except technically jason who then obv gets revived) in order to see bruce die because i want them to grapple with that <3 but thinking about a batkid dying early as well is too painful…. even though its definitely more realistic

i'm sure this is a severely unpopular opinion but if we're talking about the bats specifically i think for jason's death to have any kind of gravitas it has to be the only one of its nature. which is to say that it has to be the defining moment for bruce through which he realizes he can't prioritize the emotional whims of a child over their actual safety. and i think that's still something you can rationalize tim's subsequent indoctrination—for lack of a better word—within bc at the moment tim becomes robin it's not that bruce doesn’t recognize that tim is delusional—he does—but that everyone around him believes tim is rational in comparison. which is a bit silly bc anyone looks rational compared to bruce following jason’s death. he’s in a crazed state of grief letting himself get beat up all around town. and obv that situation changes over time and bruce processes his grief about jason and his own inability to save people, and that presumably sets him up to be.. somewhat more sensible. enough that he starts to visibly care about the impact of being robin on tim's personal life regardless of how the latter actually reacts to that interest (eg blowing up at bruce when he tells steph his secret identity). in an ideal world that leads to a tim retirement arc bc there really is no way to rationalize him being robin. he doesn't need to be robin. that's never been true. the takeaway from his 90s arc regardless of however chuck dixon (or anyone else) wants to rationalize it is unmistakably that entrusting robin to a kid as some kind of legacy deal that comes packaged with being batman is absolutely absurd and it has to end. permanently. that much i agree with starlin on albeit for obv wildly distinct reasons and to different ultimate effect

but to circle back to the original point. all of this is to say that i don't think tim should die, nor damian, nor cass, nor steph, nor anyone really. cass and steph i don't treat the same as robin bc there are very distinct reasons as to why they do what they do. spoiler is to steph the way robin is to dick in that they are distinct identities birthed of their own experiences (which is why i am personally neither a fan of steph being robin nor batgirl). cass is a legacy character in the truest sense of the word in that it's less about trying to stick someone into a mold where they won't fit (robin) and more about truly rising to the occasion of espousing the same principles and values as your predecessor bc of shared experiences and subsequently birthed ideology. there's not really a narrative purpose to killing either of them if that's understood about their characters

the idea of bruce dying an early death stems from the fact that he carries too much of the burden on his own shoulders and it is realistically not possible for him to do that forever. it’s likely denny o’neil understood as much when he posited the idea. but the kids’ circumstances should be different. in an ideal world where the purpose of the batman mythos isn’t to drive its every character into an inescapable prison of everlasting trauma, there's every reason that the kids should get to live in comparison. and if anything an early death for bruce should only emphasize on that further, bc they won’t make the same mistakes he did

[ladynamida]

DMC Questions Anon here!

Take every character you wish to and tell me what you think is the most emotionally devastating situation they could be put in and how they would react to it.

Oooooooh... hmmm....

Dante first... I think if he were to ever lose control while triggered and kill his family - this includes Lady and Trish as honorary family members. I don't think he could (or would want to) get over that. I think that would be the end of the road for him... doubly so, since he wouldn't have people there to try pull him out of his pain.

Vergil... losing Nero and Dante to Mundus. Not to death but to the Angelo armour and being in a position where he is unable to help for some reason... perhaps being placed back in the armour himself? Eternal torture for those for those he cares most about... A fate worse than death. Sprinkle on top a situation where he blames himself and.... voila! Orrrr maybe the disappointment of Eva if some crazy time travelling event were to somehow occur, especially as he is still coming to terms with the fact that his mother didnt abandon him afterall that fateful day - quite the opposite.

Nero... first I thought about losing Kyrie because she was killed but then I thought he is such a good kind person that he would eventually try to carry on in her name and protect the things she loved and valued. But if Kyrie were to permanently reject him due to hate and fear that would hurt him more... telling him he is the monster he always thought he was... no idea how that could ever realistically happen in canon though.

Trish... being manipulated into believing that she is still a servant of Mundus. She has learned nothing, gained nothing, her friendships with the crew are a lie. Bonus angst points if Mundus somehow turns her freedom into a crucial part of some bigger evil scheme to which she is (unknowingly) instrumental.

Lady... I think she cares a lot for her older friends, and even Nero (who by all accounts she doesnt know very well) as she makes herself emotionally vulnerable as the van tries to escape the Qliphoth. But I think the worst thing for her would be the apocalyse to end all apocalypses (apocalypsi?) where the human world is overrun by demons. No post apocalyptic survival in a mad max style world - an actual game over. I think she is so strong willed and determined to protect others from demons wearing demon skin and human skin that if there were nothing left for her to fight protect, she would lose all meaning in her life.

Another good question DMC Questions Anon 😈

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Yukari Takeba (Persona 3)

Y'all Hate Teens propaganda

Persona 3 spoilers; cw child death

-

The majority of Yukari hate revolves around her actions in Persona 3 The Answer, which takes place after the main game. She's mourning the death of the MC (who she was in love with) and her attitude becomes worse, but she has every right to act that way! She's faced many tragedies in her life and she just lost another person she cared about, of course she's not going to be in the best state. At some point in The Answer, Yukari almost made the decision to travel back in time and save the MC at the expense of the world, however she ultimately learned from her mistakes and comes to terms with the MC's sacrifice. People hate her because she was grieving someone she loved and almost made some irrational choices, but they ignore her character development that came after it.

-

(p3 spoilers obviously) shes a triple threat shes a teenager shes a girl and the shit people get on her case about is specifically a blend of trauma (homelife got significantly worse after her dad died n the mistreatment she and her mom received due to the incident that Literally Killed Her Dad being viewed as his fault being bad enough that they had to move) and completely reasonable things to do in her situation (like looking into what is being hidden from her by someone she has to trust while fighting actual monsters that can kill people). i havent played the answer in full yet but i will defend its premise and specifically yukari's actions cause It Hasnt Even Been A Full Month Since Her Friend Inexplicably Died and unlike the other character deaths in the game it was seemingly completely random and intangible and (at the time) without meaning of course shes not gonna react well to that even in the best of circumstances and its extremely not the best of circumstances

-

"God forbid a teenage girl have unhealthy trauma responses and not immediately try to be besties with the Male Characters, when those same male characters are objectifying and sexualizing her. 

Guys, she saw a video of her dad DYING, and you expect her to immediately go ""Okay. That sucks, but we have to move forward."" NO! shes GOING to freak out!!! And of COURSE she would be all over the place during the answer, HER FRIEND/BOYFRIEND LITTERALLY DIED SAVING THE WORLD! UGHHH. 

(And now theres the whole Homophobic Yukari shit going around. Maybe I'm just weird, but I don't find it funny? ""It's stopping the Yukari hate"" it's just a new wave of Yukari hate don't kid yourself)"

-

People call her a bitch for grieving realistically and not constantly capitulating to the player's waifu-sim ideals. one of the last persona girls who felt like she had a purpose as a character other than pure player appeal, and she's ridiculed for it. she's honestly very likable, realistic, and well-written. 

[textsfrombeybladers]

Kai’s first plot line in V-Force absolutely fascinates me and I feel like no one ever talks about it.

Here me out: Kai’s plot primarily involves his relationship with Wyatt and the grief he feels after losing him, but why? Sure, he believes himself at fault for his death, but have you ever noticed how strange Kai behaves during this period? The season goes out of its way to acknowledge that Kai has a tendency to just leave while his team is talking, never giving us a clear answer as to why. It’s literally never even brought up, even though the time is taken to show the audience that it’s happening. Kai is also the only one to genuinely appear affected by what happened during Wyatt’s battle with Dunga, enough where he not only begins to hallucinate, but also seems to have a rather genuine PTSD episode. If Tyson hadn’t yelled at him, he literally would have walked right off of the ledge of the beydish. If Wyatt died in Kai’s arms that day, why is he the only one having such a strong emotional reaction? Realistically, all of them would have some sort of trauma regarding seeing someone die and yet the rest of them never seem to even slow down afterward, let alone take time to mourn. It isn’t until Kai opens up during the tie match that Tyson seems to understand what sort of pain he’s in and yet, even as a typically emotional character, Tyson’s response is to smirk at him and accuse him of going soft, taking a minute to tease him instead of immediately acknowledging his pain. Tyson is one of the most emotional characters in the show, regularly allowing himself to cry in front of his friends and shown in seasons 2 and 3 to have anger issues. He should completely see where Kai is coming from, not tease him for it so why does he?

Because Wyatt was not originally supposed to die in Kai’s arms, he was supposed to be an implied love interest.

Let’s begin by discussing some tropes that were rather common during the early 2000s that Kai and Wyatt as a whole, or in some cases just Wyatt or just Kai, seem to fit into. The main one I want to discuss is known as the secondary love confession. This trope tends to involve a secondary character, usually of the same sex, essentially doing all but confess their love to a main character. In order to avoid the controversy of the relationship being canonically depicted as gay, this trope tends to be played in a way that instead depicts a budding friendship that before the confession, did not exist. Characters can either be depicted as enemies who suddenly need to confess they don’t hate each other, or a more cold character suddenly allowing their guard down in order for the person they’ve been originally pushing away to come into their life. Kai spends most of the scenes he has with Wyatt avoiding him. He does not want to talk to him, does not want to be his friend, and does not want him following him around. Yet when Wyatt comes back to him, Kai seems to have an oddly content relationship with him. He doesn’t say anything when Wyatt introduces himself as his friend, he does not appear annoyed at seeing him again and in fact, the way that it’s portrayed (primarily in the Japanese dub) it seems as though Kai does not want Wyatt to actually stop trying to become someone he views as worth his time in battle. He wants Wyatt to continue training, he wants him to come find him again someday, but it’s done in a very ‘Kai’ way. Furthermore, every other character on their team is also given a version of this trope! The only difference is that the remainder of the team is given this trope with a member of the opposite sex. Ray has a similar confrontation with Salima when he learns she does not want to continue working with Team PsyKick, Tyson has one while coming to terms with Hillary being a part of the team and being useful despite her lack of understanding regarding the sport as a whole and Max is given one while trapped with Miriam, proving to both her and himself that she is not their enemy. So is it a coincidence that Kai’s person who he needs to open up to in order to develop his character also happens to be a member of the same sex? Gay characters, especially before the 2010’s, have typically had to remain hidden, their sexuality merely implied instead of outright stated.

This brings me to my next trope, the one we all know as ‘bury your gays’. This is where is gets more complicated as I stated that I don’t believe Wyatt was intended to die in Kai’s arms, but I also don’t necessarily believe he was meant to live. This is a very well known trope in regards to gay characters and I won’t go into as much detail with it, but I do want to explain why I think it was thrown in at the last minute. As I explained before, Kai is regularly shown leaving during scenes where we see the team as a whole, not only that but the way the animation pans makes this very clear and obvious to the audience. Kai leaves, we’re directly shown this, yet it’s never acknowledged. So why does the show go out of the way to make this known to the viewer? Because Wyatt is not dead. At least not yet. During Kai’s final battle with Goki we are shown what’s believed to be Wyatt’s spirit guiding him, causing Kai to have hallucinations and flashbacks. Originally this hallucination is depicted as Wyatt in the Team Psykick uniform in a state of psychosis before changing to the Wyatt we know as an audience who insists to Kai that what happened to him is not his fault. This is our first instance of believing that Wyatt might no longer be alive. The one thing that strikes me as odd, though… if Wyatt died in Kai’s arms, why is he depicted in what seem to be either pajamas or hospital clothes? Not only that, but why do we suddenly get a flashback of Wyatt falling from something and holding out for Kai’s hand in an outfit we have never seen him in before? I know this may get me mocked, but I firmly believe that there was a plot line for an episode that was not made, and I believe that episode involves Kai visiting Wyatt in the hospital and something happening which causes Wyatt’s death. What this something is I can’t be sure, but one thing I do believe is that Kai is the only one who was there when Wyatt died and that his teammates do not know this. (Personally I’m still hoping for a more legit love confession but I understand that Beyblade avoids romantic relationships with the characters and instead only implies relationships or crushes, similar to how no one seems to know for sure if Ray and Mariah are dating or not). Had Tyson not known of Wyatt’s fate, his reaction to Kai makes more sense. He isn’t viewing Kai’s reaction as him mourning, he’s acknowledging that his emotionally constipated friend has developed his first crush.

This brings me to my last point, Kai leaving. This is the main reason that I believe Kai was visiting Wyatt in the hospital. Even if we didn’t necessarily have an entire episode showing a blossoming relationship between them, what if it was supposed to play out in smaller scenes where we followed Kai as he went to see him? Thus making it necessary to show the audience that he is walking away from his friends and going to do something on his own. There’s only one time we are ever given an explanation to where Kai goes when he wanders off and that’s during the scene where he’s laying on his back in the middle of the woods like the little weirdo we all know and love. This paragraph is going to be shorter than my other two because I’ve already explained this belief in a less drawn out way in a different paragraph and because I’m not being graded on this essay. Also I’ve been writing this for over an hour and I’m tired but can’t sleep until I get it out of my head and on paper (digital paper, that is).

In conclusion, it is my belief that Kai was intended to be portrayed as an early 2000s version of an openly queer character. Not only does he fit more than one trope from that time period but he also has several scenes that we are not offered explanation to, has what seems to be a PTSD episode that his teammates never acknowledge, but it also seems that his relationship with Wyatt was meant to play a larger roll in his overall character arch of that season. Ya boi is gay as hell and in love with a posh little brunette and ya essay author is tired and doesn’t actually wanna make this sound like an essay I would have written in school anymore. I will ship these two until the day I die and really hate that they’re of such little interest in the shipping fandom.

Kyatt 4ever

Peace out

[thekawaiibutterflygirl]

I can't believe I had to hear stupid criticism of these things in review videos of season 3, but I'm out here willing to defend my homies to the death and giving my own two cents on things

I'm somewhat okay with Sarcastic Chorus, but his criticism of the "hero doubting themself trope" pissed me off so goddamn much. I know it's not specifically canon that Luz is ADHD, but I literally relate in every way with her symptoms. That includes something that's known as Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). It's not Luz doubting herself in terms of normal sort of doubt, it's not that she believes she can't do it or deal with things, or doesn't think she's strong enough. She is deathly afraid of her friends abandoning her because of something outside of her control. Just because of a little mistake, she thinks the whole world is going to fall apart because of her. And this extreme reaction to something outside of her control is a pretty common reaction in those with ADHD and to those who experience RSD. She wants to punish and she actively blames herself for things like that because of the way she's been judged so harshly due to being different. This self criticism comes from other people blaming us as children, from calling us lazy to punishing us for causing trouble because we weren't accommodated properly. It is so normal for children with ADHD to grow up being traumatized by the world. This is shown both in her mother, Camila and somewhat within Eda. Camila shows symptoms of inattentive ADHD, while Eda shows symptoms of hyperactive ADHD. And they both have trauma. So they definitely have different ways of reacting to that trauma, Camila being protective and Eda repressing a lot of the things that make her different. Luz's experience is so real and common, and people ignoring that and writing it off as a trope, boils my damn blood. Maybe don't act like it isn't realistic, just because you don't experience it.

The other thing is that it is SO WEIRD people hate Willow?? Like man, I didn't think she was a boring character at all. I guess y'all just don't understand feeling insecure and learning to glow up and be more confident. Willow is far from my favourite character, but people doing her fucking dirty in the review videos. Willow has had a character arc of being a doormat to being a badass plant witch. And that comes with being the therapist friend and repressing all that shit inside. Having to deal with everyone else's bullshit and being the sensitive person she is, she wants to help. And she couldn't accept people back into her life because of the way she was mistreated. She was tired of letting people walk all over her, and was super cool for eventually getting boundaries. Willow's character arc is small in comparison to others, but she deserves more credit for being a damn cool and relatable character. I can't believe people called her boring, just because she's a side character. I like her a lot, and there's nothing that any of you motherfucking reviewers can do to change my mind. Willow doesn't deserve the criticism, she's a well-rounded and complex character, actually.

I can't really remember much else, just more so how it's weird people have viewed things in their reviews. I'm definitely confused. Like,, it feels like people are upset because some things just weren't written for them or they just made a weird reach for something.

Anyway, I'm glad most people like this show regardless. Reblog if you agree or wanna add your own thoughts!!!!!