#i dont know if people still do that like randomly make a character a bigot for plot

[radrobotz]

i keep thinking about the transphobic cishet maga sonic from a trans girl tails au i found in 2017 why did they do that to him

[irradiatedpiratebooty]

fallout tv show ghoul discussion

the only thing i dislike about the show is their retcon of ghoul lore- everything else is a banger i had a great time but the lore changing the ghouls baffles me, as it retcons and changes literally every other game in the franchise. its funny, im not mad about it, im ok with the show having different lore than the games. i just hope they make it clear that its an AU kind of thing haha mainly because if someone gets introduced to the series from the show, and they go off to play the games, theyre going to be confused. so, what are the changes? well-

in fo3, theres an entire side mission involving the underworld, where the ghouls there really hammer in that the rumors like; that they regen and so can only be killed by headshots, that they eat people, that they can go feral at any point, and that they're zombies.

all of this is just propaganda spread by the brotherhood and bigots to justify murder and genocide.

none of it is true. they bleed and die like anyone else. but in the show, these things are not rumors, and they are completely true. cooper constantly has to take this drug from a vial that prevents him from going feral. theres no explanation on where this medicine came from, who makes it, whats its made out of, etc.

so, while in the game, turning feral is unknown, seemingly at random (theories range from genetics, lack of socialization, insanity, radiation exposure, and time) and ghouls dont just- randomly turn feral. but in the show its enevitable and therefore the hate towards them is justified. the only things that are special about them is that they; age much, much slower than non-ghouls, that they can heal faster using radiation. (to my knowlege, they still need to be patched up. they do not just regen. they can still get shot to death, or maimed. they just heal a little faster.) and they need more potent drugs, as it doesnt affect them as strongly (mentioned in fo3 by some ghouls in a subway) the changes made in the show heavily changes the stories of a few characters and places in the entire series.

for fo3: changes the entire underworld. these ghouls cannot leave this place. if they do, they're shot and killed immediately by the brotherhood nearby. they discuss how they're discriminated against. in the fo3 dlc, point lookout, the ghoul there presumably hasnt left the manor he lives in for well over 200 years. he wouldnt have access to these vials. tenpenny tower. their ban on ghouls would be justified then. the entire narrative involving the water purifier and putting the serum in that will kill off all mutants. with the changes the show makes, the decision whether or not you do this has no weight and eradicating mutants becomes justified. for fallout new vegas: dean domino. he hasn't left the Sierra Madre in over 200 years. he wouldnt have access to these vials either and would have probably gone feral a long time ago. for fallout 4: diamond city. diamond city's ban on ghouls wouldnt be an issue anymore. since in the show, ghouls cant die aside from headshots, the ghouls being thrown out into the wastes to the elements wouldn't really be as heavy of an issue.

(i cannot comment for fallout 1 and 2, as i am not as knowledgable about the ghouls in those two games. feel free to add on in reblogs if you know more about them than i do)

i love the show, i think its awesome. im basically consuming it now with the idea that its canon -within its own story and lore- and is separate from the game itself. cooper is a badass and the changes work for the show itself, not so much the entire series. which is fine in my eyes.

[vtori73]

I SO want to do a review on this kind of mediocre manga I was reading because of just how AWFUL most of the people's reviews for it were (most of them also just sounded like your garden-variety bigots tbh) BU I also don't want because it really wasn't that good of a story.

My main critiques would be without going into too much for my sanity (lol) is that it was kind of boring at the beginning and writing choices felt a more forced then natural, the boyfriend character is basically a bisexual stereotype (and yes, comes off as a bigoted portrayal of bi/poly people). Sure, it sort of helps that they explore his character a bit more with his sexuality and why he is the way he is BUT the damage is kind of done with how he is portrayed in the beginning and so most people afterwards are only willing to analyze the superficial surface of the story and his character.

Also, before continuing I have to state... it's a drama, it literally in the title about a woman her husband and her husbands boyfriend... this was NOT NOT going to be a messy story and I find it HILARIOUS people take issue with the cheating and the boyfriend character (& not for the reasons I listed, they literally hate him lol which Im not going to say I dont get BUT to me this isn't exactly the issue to be hung up on, because again, it was the bigoted portrayal of the character I took more of an issue with BUT... not going to lie and say I was expecting much different because I have BEEN down this road with these types of stories they tend to be trashy and that is WHY I decided to try reading it! I can't help looking to see just how exactly trashy something might be).

Again, I took more issues with it being kind of boring because honestly I was expecting MORE drama. What I found interesting in those terrible reviews and comments on the series also was that most 100% hated the husband because he cheated but never had any issues with the wife character basically trying to trap her newly out gay husband (only 1 brought this up, thank you, you give me faith that there are still people with reading comprehension). I'm not saying cheating is okay and that people shouldn't be upset about it BUT this isn't a simple situation.

Look, to me at least, there are only 2 situations in which I find cheating to not be such a cut and dry bad thing and that's A. in abuse situations, because, YES, abuse victims tend to not really have any safe options when it comes to leaving their current partner (who is abusive) & well... shit happens and B. when someone didn't know they were x sexuality or gender before commiting to the relationship because I know this is going to be SHOCKING but bigotry & heteronormativity are a thing and it's not exactly SAFE to just randomly come out or to randomly leave your partner, sure you could make an excuse but then where do they go from there? Do they even HAVE anyone they can actually turn to to safely be open about themselves or do they just have to live the rest of their life as a "straight" (now) divorced person? I mean, there is probably a reason these people tend to take longer to figure out who they are and in the husband's case in the story it was having an abusive homophobic father & homophobic mother.

Like I'm sorry, but seeing comments that rail on the husband but then uncritically go "he could be spreading diseases to her" just... yeah because we all know how filthy and disease riddled gay and bi men are (HUGE eye roll). Sorry, but yeah that's just homophobia and i would argue that not giving the husband any bit of leniency for his cheating is also actually kind of homophobic because again bigotry is a thing, and can be made harder by where you are in the world and I'm sorry but unless your queer you won't get what's it like to be a repressed closeted queer person and so have no real room to judge.

Alright, well... I ended up getting WAY more into it than I intend to but to summarize, for a drama it was kind of boring but picked up a bit later later in the story. I don't think the author was or is necessarily trying to do something trashy though because the main couple do actually come off realistic (messy but realistic, lol) in how they react and go through the infidelity and with one of them being gay BUT the problem with that is that then the boyfriend character comes off WAY too unrealistic in comparison. Again, a very stereotypical portrayal meant to create drama and a rift at the beginning but ends up making things feel so forced story and character dynamic wise and give us no real reason to like him or root for him. Sure he's fleshed out a tad bit more later but not enough to be satisfactory or really fix how unrealistic he still comes off which I think is why he is still unliked despite the story progression with his character and no longer is framed as this manipulative predatory bisexual (mostly). I'm HOPING they do more with him and that he gets a happy ending because honestly? If you create bigoted portrayals of a group of people, whether intentional or not, you should work on that and make it better and give that character a happy ending at the very least!

[idk-my-aesthetic]

a concept

U know how in the comics Aang starts rebuilding the air nation with ppl who are basically converts to their religion? By like teaching them about the air nomad’s ways and stuff?

What if he gave some of them air bending using energy bending? And they could start re-building the air nation and it’s culture by teaching them everything!! They could even start moving back into the temples now that they could fly and rebuilding

They’d even have the bison!! According to the wiki aang found a living herd after the war !!

Idk just. As a Jewish person genocide stories are really really personal to me. And the thought of being the last of my people is terrifying

I just really want the air nation to have a chance to rebuild in a natural way. And I think that like letting ppl choose to convert and gifting them with air bending would probably be the best way

Ik aang’s kids and grandkids have air bending but trying to rebuild an entire nation from one bloodline is.... not the best idea

And I also know that in lok a bunch of ppl are given air bending, but that whole story really rubs me the wrong way (no hate to lok though!! There are parts I like!!)

Under the cut is basically an explanation as to why I take issue w/ it and find it mildly offensive/an essay about cultural appropriation in general lol. but i don’t wanna kill ppl’s dashes so if you wanna see the explanation check there 

but i really think that aang like.... allowing ppl to convert, and teaching them, and gifting them w/ airbending in the most natural/best way for that story to go and i wanted to share that!! :) 

anyway time for a whole essay because i.... apparently need to explain and justify every single one of my opinions. i’ma blame the adhd. 

I have 2 main issues w/ the new air bender plot. a) the air Nomad religion/culture is pretty explicitly seen as a closed one and b) it’s sort of a cop-out.....

so... first:

 Air bending is pretty explicitly a huge part of the air nomad culture and religion and is extremely spiritual. bc of how religious and spiritual it is the idea of ppl just.... randomly being given it really rubs me the wrong way.

It’s really really hard for me to explain this or come up with an irl example, bc these ppl didn’t ask for air bending, or try to gain it in anyway. So it’s not really their fault. But to me it feels almost like accidental cultural appropriation? If that makes sense

Which like. cultural appropriation is obviously bad. Even in the comic I originally referenced (the promise) Aang is initally really really offended by the people practicing the air Nomad religion when he first finds out!!! Which he should be!!!

There’s a difference between cultural appropriation, culture appreciation, and sharing culture. The first is bad, and the second 2 are good when done correctly.

Ima use an irl example w/ Judaism just bc using this personal experiences is apparently the only way my brain knows how to explain things

Scenario 1: Amanda (who is xtian) decides to research the Jewish holiday of Passover and the traditions behind it just bc she’s interested in it

This is cultural appreciation! She’s just learning about smthn she finds interesting. This is generally ok! although in some cultures there is knowledge that you are not supposed to know or discuss if you are not part of that culture and you should 100% respect that if it is the case 

Scenario 2: Amanda learns about the Passover seder and decides to throw one herself

Dont fucking do this omfg. This is cultural appropriation. Passover is a super important and religions holiday! It’s one of the high holy days and celebrating it on her own isn’t ok! 

Scenario 3: Amanda asks her Jewish freind Alex if she can come to his Passover seder

This is cultural appreciation and cultural sharing!! It’s totally valid!! She respectfully asks to join in and be included! 

it’s diffrent from cultural apropriation for one huge reason. she is joining in, rather than celebrating it on her own with no jewish ppl present 

Scenario 4: Amanda eats gefitlefish just bc she likes it 

this is appreciation! even though there are no jewish ppl involved! bc gefiltefish isn’t a holy/religious/spiritual thing. 

different aspects of different cultures have different levels of importance. as a general rule, if smthn is holy/religious, you should not do anything with it, unless invited by someone of that culture. if it’s not then you can generally do it on ur own (though there is some grey area there. ie, moccasins are smthn that aren’t religious to native americans, but if ur not native you shouldn’t be producing and selling them. if you want moccasins by them from actual natives) 

scenario 5: amanda contacts a rabbi and starts the conversion process 

this is...... just conversion lol. when she is finished with the process (which can take months/years) she’ll no longer be xtian and be jewish!! just as much as anyone who was born into judiasm. she’ll be able to host her own seders and any of her children will be jewish as well :) 

sorry for the really long thing!!  but i felt it was necessary to show the difference between some concepts that seem similar but are actually vastly different!! 

anyway, i hope y’all understand the difference between cultural appropriation/appreciation/sharing. if ur asking urself “ok why does it matter tho” friendly reminder that alot of irl ppl have been murdered for trying to peacefully observe their cultures/religions :) 

including the air nomads! (hey segway...) 

they are literally hunted to extension because they are part of one culture/religion. you could argue it’s a racism thing (which it is) but race, culture, ethnicity and religion are all inherently tied. see: almost every non-xtian religion worldwide 

SO. when you consider that a) the nomads were killed for their religion b) airbending was incredibly significant part of that religion, isn’t it weird that random people who have 0 connection or interest in that religion suddenly have airbending?? 

again it becomes like accidental cultural appropriation. which you can’t really blame the characters for in-world

but, these aren’t real ppl. they’re characters in a situation that was written by real ppl, real ppl who can and should be criticized 

not that i’m trying to call the creators bigoted in anyway! this dosn’t seem like anything that was meant to be offensive. and it’s not really that offensive unless you think about it. to me it just seems like a plot point that wasn’t fully thought through. i don’t bring it up to shame the creators, just as a way to show others why it’s smthn not to be repeated 

and, to show a better way to do a similar story 

the reason i went so in depth w/ the explanation of cultural appropriation vs appreciation vs conversion is bc i wanna show why a different way of approaching a similar story would have been better

the reason i think my whole idea (of ppl basically contacting aang or the air nomads, converting to the religion, and then being gifted air bending through energy bending) is better than ppl being randomly gifted it is bc conversion takes work 

to convert to any culture or religion you a) need a connection to someone in that culture (usually made by reaching out to a religious leader) and b) need to actually be accepted by that group in order to be considered one of them. it takes work and dedication. it’s a literal transfer of culture!! it’s just... ack i’m not good at explaining it 

but dosn’t it make so much more sense that ppl who actually worked to integrate themselves into the culture and become one of them are givin airbending? not because it’s a privilege but bc they need to first become part of the culture in order to have any right or claim to it 

but by just giving it to random non-benders it’s basically the reverse!! yes they later learn the culture and religon, but???? thats not how that works??? wtf??? 

i feel like i’ve been talking in circles and i’m sorry if i’ve bored everyone to death but i hope u understand my point. 

anyway! next thing! (i swear this part will be way shorter) 

by just making a bunch of random ppl airbenders it basically retcons one of the longlasting effects of the 100 yr war and almost just... erases the impact of the air nomad’s genocide 

which. is gross and uncomfortable. genocide stories are touchy subjects and smthn that need to be treated with respect 

just giving random ppl airbending it’s almost like the genocide didn’t matter at all. which i take a huge fucking issue w/ ok and i don’t feel like i need to explain why 

instead of a natural rebuilding of the air nomads it’s just fixed with spirit magic. it’s just... an insult to the really compelling and well written genocide story that was in atla and an insult to the irl ppl who related to that story 

so. yeah.... again i’m not trying to call out the creators, i again think this plotline was more accidentally insulting than purposefully 

i already propsed a better way to do it by allowing converts to gain the ability to airbend. (hell it dosn’t even need to come from energy bending or aang. the air nomads were incredibly spiritual, maybe a spirit gifted it to the ppl who earned it instead of random fucking ppl) 

but the other reason that converts instead of just.... random ppl gaining the ability is better is bc there aren’t gonna be that many ppl to convert!! there’s not gonna be some sudden boom in the airbending population!! theres would still be a story of the nation slowly healing and rebuilfing itself instead of the insulting sudden magic fix

oof. sorry for the long freaking thing. i literally went into this just wanting to share an idea and instead spent over an hour analyzing this stuff lol.... 

i hope this was coherent but if anyone’s got questions about anything i said feel free to @ me or shoot me an ask :) as long as ur polite and stuff i’ll answer to the best of my ability 

[tumblunni]

Randomly, i do like the misdirect involved in Kaine's backstory. Like you think that the people of the Aerie hate her and treat her as a monster because of her Shade-arm, but no that all happened AFTER they treated her like shit. They were just bigoted against a small child for being born intersex. She only got her Shade powers as a consequence of this shit village pushing her and her grandma to the edge of the forest and doing nothing to help when they were attacked by shades. Kaine was treated like a monster, so she became one in order to live. And she used that power to help people, even as she was treated as EVEN MORE of a monster because of it! kaine is so damn strong. She has every right to be a goddamn tsundere when her life was so shitty, god...

Tho i still kinda dont understand what exactly happened with Tyrann, tho? Like at first i thought the shade that possessed her was the same one that killed her grandma, but no that was apparantly the lizard boss you defeat shortly after meeting her. So where did Tyrann come from and why did he decide to save this kid and possess her body? I hope its not something like 'oh she was indeed born cursed and he was always trapped in her soul until that moment awakened him'. Like i mean that could have a bit of problematic connotations since i mean this is a male character possessing a female one and itd be messed up if they said she was only intersex because of the possession or something. Instead of just the fact that many women across the world are born this way and it doesnt make them any less of a woman.

Anyway its still not exactly a good representation of intersex people because of the whole fetishization of her and the DAMN STUPID excuse that she likes wearing lingerie 24/7 because it makes her feel 'more like a real woman'. :P But still man its literally the only case i've ever seen of an intersex character who's just intersex, yknow? Like not a 'magic alien whose species is always like this' or 'a magic fusion of a cis man and cis woman' or some other fantasy excuse to portray a real person in a way that validates that they dont exist in real life. Nonbinary people often get the same treatment, since conflating gender and biological sex is a big bigoted cliche, sigh. Like man intersex people have the exact same rates of being queer as anyone else, there is literally no correlation between genetalia and being more likely to be trans. Execpt that intersex people end up with very similar types of predjudice and hell, because of the way society treats them. The absolutely disgusting medically accepted practise of amputating functional genetalia and tertiary sexual characteristics from LITERAL ONE DAY OLD BABIES because they're intersex is just so fuckin messed up! And most of the time these kids are never even told by their parents that this was done to them, so they just grow up with all these health problems and dysphoria while being gaslit about the cause of them. Like seriously when you're rolling a damn dice on which gender to turn your kid into with goddamn invasive plastic surgery, of course its gonna be wrong half the time! You're just picking what they fuckin 'look like', before theyre even old enough to know! Its so relateable to the trans expperience yet EVEN WORSE because you know your parents knew ALL ALONG and they consented to mutilating you to try and "fix" it! There's so much real life predjudice against intersex people and honestky i would say there's even less awareness or acceptance than for trans and gay people.

So yeah its REALLY IMPORTANT to have positive and realistic representation of intersex people. And not just lame corner-cutting where the character is technically intersex yet the story treats it like an impossible fantasy thing and refuses to address any of the real life issues these people face. So yeah man at least Nier does indeed have an intersex character who is indeed intersex and is canonically stated to have been born this way and also canonically stated to be a real woman and only villains treat her as anything less. But it still sucks that the positivity about her also escalates into gross 'lol f/uta sex object' stuff. *sigh* Again, another way the predjudiced depiction of nonbinary trans people gets mashed into the same thing by bigots. And hell there's also the conflation of cis gay men with trans women, because seriously bigots have no damn concept of any sort of reality, apparantly...

Gah the whole thing pisses me off! It also sucks how its hard to represent intersex people in anything except an M-rated game like Nier. (Tho kinda ironic that they can show all this gore and sex but still dance around in metaphors when explaining this..) Like I mean its absolutely possible to talk about being intersex without talking about how people have sex, like seriously saying otherwise would be just as bigoted as saying trans people or gay people are inherantly sexual. But to an audience of cis people who dont know much about LGBTQ community terms it would be kinda hard to make it clear when a character is intersex rather than trans or nonbinary. Like before i read the artbook details i thought Kaine was just a DMAB trans woman based on how its described ingame. And saying 'someone who is both a man and a woman' would be implying intersex and nonbinary people are the same thing, when most intersex people still identify as male or female rather than nonbinary.

Like the only time i've seen intersex representation handled more clearly and more canonically confirmed than Kaine was Angel in DDS2. It was a really good way of explaining it respectfully to a cis audience, just "Angel is a woman but she's both Sera's mother and father". (Due to some complicated in-universe sci fi science where she could extract both her sperm and egg cells and use them to make a clone of herself that could telepathically communicate with the sun. This story is kinda weird lol.) But on the other hand i dont really count that as much of good representation as Kaine, since this one singular sentence about her being intersex is very hidden in an optional area. Aside from that all you get is characters mentioning how she has an 'androgenous beauty' and her boss battle transformation is designed to look 'half male half female'. (Tho at least its 100% tasteful and just a nonsexualized monster vaguely shaped like a dress and a trenchcoat split down the middle, with half lipstick.) Oh and yeah also she's a friggin villain and a manipulative abusive parent, so yeah. She is a synpathetic villain and she's apparantly reincarnated into a happy life with her dead boyfriend at the end, but still she's the primary evil force for 75% of the whole series and never atones for what she did to her daughter.

So yeah sorry this just turned into a rant about how the Two Only Intersex Characters In All Of Fiction So Far are kinda not perfect, and also both from pretty old games too. I really hope i can find some more representation someday, sigh...

[tumblunni]

like.. i mean.. its not even a Huge Bad or anything, like it doesnt seem like the creators were intentionally bigoted but just that they wanted to do ~historical accuracy~ but this kinda bugged me in The Banner Saga its not even anything big but it really stacks up??

like i mean there’s loads and loads of scattered lines that’re all ‘oh no the women and children’ and thats pretty much the only way they appear as like ‘oh no.’ the main female character in the whole game is your protagonist’s daughter who you ~have to preserve the innocence of~ by not letting her fight when like she’s fuckin 18 and she’s ONE OF THE BEST UNITS IN THE DAMN GAME her, and oddlief, and yrsa. ALL THE DAMN ARCHERS cos btw all women are archers and we only have three of them across two armies and there’s like fiddy other classes for men and also a species of all male giants and also the enemy stonemen are assumed to be all male and then seeing one female one is meant to humanize them just because ~oh the women and children~ and ~women don’t fight in war, they must be really suffering to start doing that~ WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR THREE FEMALE PARTY MEMBERS RIGHT THERE

and seriously fuckin ~PRESERVING HER INNOCENCE~ she’s 18 you get an achievement for either not using her in battle, or using her but never having her deal a killing blow she’s ffffuckin 18 you’re supposed to just see her as ~oh poor boo~ who i should want to protect, and ignore her own wishes when she keeps saying she wants to fight universally, allowing her to do what she asks to do will get nothing but bad results in random events and stuff first time you do it it gets a man killed man also did I mention how annoying it is that you can just randomly lose units forever if you pick the wrong dialogue option in random events?? I lost gunnulf and yrsa and i’d wasted SO MANY UPGRADE POINTS ON THEM so yeah there’s only three female characters and two of them can die in these random events and dont really have much of a plot role and then the last one is ~preserve her innocence plot~ and gets kidnapped or whatever to motivate her dad, and then even badass Oddlief gets kidnapped too to motivate protagonist and like SUDDENLY OUT OF NOWHERE becomes a love interest for him right before this happened like seriously where was the fucking chemistry

oh and oddlief also has another fuckin wallbanger scene cos she’s the wife of the village chief and she comes out and tells you that you have to be the next village chief when he dies, because “nobody would ever follow a woman” and “i would ruin the village for the sake of my selfishness, everything would fall apart into riots” if she tried to be the new chief like.. youre just... a random fuckin hunter??? oh and blablabla oddlief is apparantly ‘barren’ so she’s a dead end to the chief line and you could provide a heir blablabla. that just makes it even weirder that she suddenly gets a romance with you out of nowhere prior to her potential death scene, when youre like.. you’re just chief cos you’re taking the role of her son... oh and then she goes off on a tangeant about how being seen as a strong woman is super bad and she wants to be ~allowed to cry like a real woman~ and its just really fuckin stupid and never gets brought up again this is what i mean about games with ‘historical accuracy’ about predjudice or whatever not having to.. like... AGREE WITH THE PREDJUDICE AND PRETEND EVERYONE SUPPORTED IT INCLUDING THE VICTIMS thats such a fucking LAZY way to handle this kind of plot

and then seriously if they were trying so hard to limit all women to one class then they shoulda tried harder to not make it THE BEST CLASS IN THE GAME that repeatedly solo’d the entire board for me while protaggy mcdad went down like a sack o bricks if i’d been able to keep all three archers instead of RANDOM FRIGGIN DEATH EVENTS, I coulda had a much easier time! seriously daughter character had a shitty unique ability that I never used once in the game, and she was STILL better than everyone else the only people who were even better were the other two archers who had a good ability too

also like.. seriously.. you could have at least tried to establish that daughter character was in need of protection... at all?? like she’s just introduced going “dad i wanna fight to defend my own damn life and home” and then he says no and THEN SHE KICKS ASS WHEN SHE ACTUALLY FIGHTS TO DEFEND HER OWN DAMN LIFE AND HOME and we know NOTHING about these characters really, except that the guy we’re supposed to like has been introduced going all ‘blablabla dont fight for literally no reason except woman’ and then his motive for the whole game is about sheltering someone who doesnt need it and never asked for it and notably he has no fucking arguments about his daughter’s childhood friend fighting in the same fight just cos he’s a dude. even though theyre a fuckin HUNTER FAMILY and he’s been fighting alongside his daughter every damn day and should know what she’s capable of. And this is just a random village kid! who predictably dies in that same battle! and gets completely forgotten about! tfw ur shitty sexism plot is wreckin things for the male characters too lol

oh and then THE FUCKIN ENDING the big gimmick is that one of the characters has to sacrifice themself to kill the big bad and they have the fuckin GALL to make this THE ONLY TIME you’re allowed to let her prove herself! the choice of letting her be the one to die is presented as “but dad i can really do it” and her proving she’s better than him so if you dont want her to die you have to shoot her down and say she cant fight cos she’s a girl and blablabla i will protect you even though you dont need protecting AGAIN when really my fuckin motivation was more like “fuck u maybe if you dont exist then her plot won’t be blablabla protection every five minutes” I REALLY WANTED THIS PROTAGONIST TO DIE i’d say its cruel of me to blame him for bad writing choices, but really he didnt have much personality outside of the sexism. just generic 'for some reason you are our leader now and we all trust you’ type hero...

and like.. this put everything all into perspective?? like her WHOLE PURPOSE IN THE GAME has been to make you wanna protect her, and then ~oh tragedy~ she gets fridged in the end to fuel our protagonist’s character growth and again its a case of the bad outcome whenever you choose to agree with her. and like it “proves” the whole thing cos her big hero moment of fighting gets her killed. (even though it does the same to the protagonist too...) and then if you choose the dad to be the one who dies you’re forced to agree with his protectiveness thing and he dies and now she’s left believing he’s right... I mean I’m at least happy they gave us a choice here! But i’m not really very confident in how they’ll handle her as the protagonist in the sequel, considering how they handled all the female characters here. or they might just have some new character take over the protagonist slot instead...

oh and also its weird that every female character is basically a different hairstyle/hat on the same model like.. a super super thin modern ideal of a supermodel character, too its not super fanservicey or anything but its weird with how all the dudes vary wildly in body build and like.. the typical viking wife character in anything ever is usually chubby, and here you cant even tell which one is supposed to be older than the other two. and they all wear robes despite being archers?? also why is the varl race all male, except from just “because theyre strong and nobody wants to see strong women” the jotunn/giants in norse myth were never all male, and that seems to be what they’re based on. tho i mean this is a world where greek centaurs and weird biological statue robots are also here, so they might not be based on anything, lol

[tumblunni]

Digimon frontier ocs?

Randomly started rewatching CactusCasual's great Digimon Frontier critique series. He's leaving youtube soon and making the weird decision to delete his whole account and everything he's ever done. But he's uploaded a bunch of his best stuff to google drive so if people wanna keep.it they can. Still i think its a lil dumb to not just leave the account open even if you're not using it? I dont know anything about why he's quitting the site though so maybe he has his reasons.

ANYWAY this got me thinking again about how Frontier is so goddamn boring and weirdly cliche and badly paced, and like everyone just focuses on "but they changed how digivolution works" and ignores all the actual reasons its bad. Like, kids have fused with digimon in previous seasons too! And haven't we all wished we could be the awesome characters like angemon and etc? A digimonny power rangers henshin thing isnt an inherantly bad idea, it was just executed badly. I dislike it cos it meant we completely lost any sort of digimon and human bonding experience plotline. They gave us two recurring digimon characters but they were just basically a pokedex and the world's least funny comic relief. Gimme a version of the show where the kids actually talk to their "spirit evolutions"! Like maybe they have a digimon partner but its forever stuck in baby form or spirit egg form and cant fight without fusing with a human host? Or just give us a better non-combat digimon pal like bokomon and neemon but like.. Fully developed with their own character arc and relationships with everyone else. Maybe ophanimon could have been around the whole time and been a mentor and parental figure? And we could actually explore her moral ambiguity, cos seriously the show makes her kind of a "ends justify the means" asshole and just NEVER AKNOWLEDGES IT. Wtf was up with that scene where she illusions Cherubimon with a fake dream of him being purified and getting to just go back home and be friends? And then she just backstabs him and we never mention it again. Like seriously even if she couldnt actually cure him that scene at least revealed that he WANTED to be cured and it made him so much more sympathetic! If he can be reasoned with, maybe they could have talked him down and then gone on an adventure together to find an actual cure for him? Also seriously what is up with his entire plot! Cos he just gets 'infected with darkness' cos he 'had darkness in his soul' but its just cos he thought the humanoid digimon were being racist against the beast digimon? And like.. The council was 2/3rds humanoid with him as the only beast representative and since he got infected by evilness they never remotely tried to recruit a new one or listen to what beast digimon have to say. So he was kinda right, yo! Also wtf with the reveal that actually no everything we just said is pointless because his REAL motivation was just blindly obeying ANOTHER humanoid digimon that comes out of nowhere to be the final boss. Also what is up with all the increased sexism in this series!! Its so weirdly worse than even adventure which had the excuse of being "a product of the times" yet still had way better variety of female characters and less bigoted stuff! And frontier came right after tamers which was one of the best series for gender equality and even used the medium of the setting as an opportunity to talk about the subject. Shame they censored that in the dub tho, Renamon talking about how digimon have no biological sex and how she only came to think of herself as a girl when she came to the human world. And rika's family accepting her and inviting her to family girls's night and stuff! Like as a metaphor for transgender issues it really worked to try and explain it to a younger audience in a natural way. And then one season later in frontier we have ONLY ONE GIRL IN THE CAST and wah wah whining about fashion and oh no she cant ever win a fight and her goddamn spirit form is in skimpy lingerie despite her being 12, and the show is always perving on her! And then she loses her powers halfway through the first season without winning a single fight, and has to be the damsel in distress to motivate the dudes in a stupid love triangle. And even when she does get to fight she's only allowed to fight the ONE SINGLE GIRL ON THE VILLAIN TEAM and they have stupid slap fights and "who's the most pretty" and BEACH EPISODE and GAHHHHH

...anyway as you can see i have a lot of reasons why i didnt really like the series. But what i meant to make this post about (BEFORE I GOT DISTRACTED) is that the fundemental concept itself isnt bad, they just wasted all its potential. And its a really good concept for ocs! Make your own digi superhero person and explore the fragmented world doing stuff offscreen during the series! Like they left so much open?? We know that other kids also got on other trains to the digiworld and they all just failed or gave up or got captured by the bad guys. And we know there's a bunch of spirits that the heroes never use because the villains got them again, so its cool to imagine an alt universe where the roles were swapped. What if different kids became the chosen heroes? What if different spirits were corrupted by the villains? What would a good guy Grumblemon be like? What would the kid be like who got that spirit? Would their evolution form be wildly different from grumblemon? Do the villain forms and purified forms look as different as Duskmon and Lowemon did?

SO MUCH POTENTIAL!!!

So yeah i wasted so much space here blabbering, so i'll probably make a separate post about my oc ideas lol. But i'd love to see other people's ideas for ocs/reinterpretations/other ways to fix that wasted potential!

So! Digimon frontier oc ideas!

To start off,have an undeveloped idea of someone on the team having Angemon as their spirit evolution. Cos it would have made the transition to such a new series a lot easier if they had some sort of "hey this is for you" to the fans of the previous ones. And angemon is the Adventure digimon that already looks the most like a regular human in a weird mask.

SPEAKING OF WHICH! less regular humans in weird masks! Whats the point of "you turn into a digimon" if you dont turn into a digimon? Like i know the whole gimmick is "humanoid mode and beast mode" but even the beast modes often look like humans in a costume! And there's been so many humanoid digimon before who actually looked like HUMANOID MONSTERS rather than just normal dudes cosplaying! There's literally nothing "monster" about agunimon, he's just a guy in some knight armour. Like the most you can do is charitably assume maybe the horns are his own and not just attatched to the helmet. And its annoying cos the villains have way cooler evolutions! And also double annoying that they always bend the humanoid/beast rule in such transparently self serving ways. Tommy gets two beast forms cos he's meant to be the cute mascot-looking character. Zoey gets two human forms cos she's meant to be grossly sexualized all the time. When kouichi turns from bad to good he loses his interesting looking actually monsterous evolutions and just becomes another dude in an armour. A friggin palette swap of his brother!

Anyway anyway LOL IM RAMBLING AGAIN yo...

Ideas for ocs!

I was thinking of a main girl character who's basically just a "fuk u" to all the stereotypes they did with Zoey. Actually gets a monster lookin beast form and a warrior lookin human form and actually gets to goddamn fight! Maybe her name is Hilda or Hildegarde? And i'm imagining her as a chubby nerdy kid with glasses and curly hair and a super cute oversized sweater kind of fashion sense. And her main spirit form would be this super badass lady knight giant orc thing who can Protec All The Peoples! Maybe earth element or the irony of being light element but she's this big ol monster goblin with just a tiny pair of angel wings on the back, lol! And then her personality is normally super shy and socially anxious, but she actually finds the digimon world kind of freeing? She's a total badass in battle and acts like a big ol powerful protector of all her friends! And she's always super excited aboyt adventuring and gets carried away comparing stuff to her favourite books. And now we must learn everything about this new place!! TO THE DIGI LIBRARY!!! So she's able to be confident and bubbly when it comes to actual adventure stuff, but she's still shy about regular life and anything social. Maybe its her weakness? Like she's scared about going home because she thinks she'll be "just a nobody" again, and lose all the great friends she made here. And also maybe a backstory of her heroic side still existing even before she got magic powers, but in the most tragic way? She managed to fend off a burglar once all on her own, she just snapped and did everything possible to defend her family, even though this was a man three times her size! But instead of being seen as a hero it just made all the neighbours and kids at school spread rumours about her being dangerous. Oh she must be in *a gang* if she knew how to fight like that! Oh its so *dangerous* for a kid that age to have such anger inside! Maybe she's a *scary mentally ill person*! So the whole situation ruined her social status even more and made her retreat even more inside her shell. And this is why the circumstances of the digital world are such a wish fullfillment for her and she's so scared of just waking up and it all being a dream. I think the villains could manipulate her fears, and it could maybe lead to her Skullgreymon Moment?

And then another idea i had was for a trans boy? I just thought this would be a good framework to explore LGBT stuff. He'd maybe be the wind element? And his personality would be very "classic shonen hero" but without the "dumbass" part, instead he's the cynical planner type dude while Hilda is the "i didnt even think, i just wanted to save everyone" type. But he's still super peppy and tries to be the class clown all the time so people will like him, and loves to climb trees and stuff. I think maybe his fighting style would be all about trickery and random chance? If there was such a thing as an element of surprise then he'd have that one! And then his story is that he doesn't have anyone supporting him for who he truly is at home, and he's afraid that his new friends will call him a freak too if they find out. He took the opportunity and cut his hair short as soon as this adventure started, and just introduced himself to everyone as a boy. But he's scared that people will find out he "lied" even though he didnt, he's just been so beaten down with the idea that he's not allowed to be himself and he has to pretend to be everyone else's idea of an ideal cis man or else they'll reject him. So maybe he starts off a bit obsessed with cliche masculinity and has low confidence about himself? And this could reflect in his digivolutions actually changing! He starts off with a really over the top buff warrior dude form, even though his fighting style is entirely about speed and trickery. So he tends to get into trouble with this fake form getting in the way of his ability to fight. And then when everyone accepts him he gets all powered up and changes into a new form! A way less "cliche macho" dude who looks like a stage magician instead and actually synchronizes with his element to become super powerful! And he's all like "oh no i became less manly" but everyone is like "wtf dont let yourself believe you're any less of a man because of dumb stereotypes!" And Also Big Friendship Hugs.

And then maybe this provides a resolution to both him and Hilda's plots? Like when the story is over they still stay friends in the real world, and having a friend who supports them gives them enough power to withstand all the haters and stay confident in themselves. But itd be kind of a coincidence for all the digidestined to live in the same city lol! So maybe in real life they live at least a few towns away, and they become long distance pals who send letters/emails. Because I LOVE ALL MY LONG DISTANCE PALS!! Also itd make sense to have a Internet Good message in a digimon show, lol.

And then i dunno about the rest of the team yet but i thought itd be good to have a sort of moral divide? Like these are the two who have a shitty home life and dont want to leave the digital world. But then the other half of the group has big reasons to wanna go home. So the villains could play on this difference in goals and make them fight amoungst each other. Just generally make the villains more actually competant, yknow? Oh also if there's a Dark Agunimon on the villains he needs to be EVEN MORE of a boring human in a costume! Cos it sucks that all the villains have better character designs and the show seems to think theyre worse ones. Give me one case of more boring not meaning more heroic!