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adelrambles · 9 months ago

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You have a really good grasp on Bishop (TMNT) character. I really like your analyses on him. But I was wondering something; how does Bishop views each turtle? Which one do you think Bishop believes is the most dangerous? How do you think Bishop will take down the turtles individually? Of course you don’t have to answer this! I was just wondering for my own writing project.

Thank you, I'm very glad to hear that! I'm also quite happy to get questions on him, so much appreciated haha!

This is an interesting one, because we don't really see Bishop do much one-on-one interaction with each turtle, so we're going to have to do a little bit of speculation, based the encounters we do see. I will say that Bishop treats them all as proper threats, (if nuisances,) never letting his guard down even when he has the upper hand. His thoughts on others also tend to begin and end at "how useful are they to me" and "how do I kill them." Also keep in mind that Bishop is known to have been surveilling them before, and might know more about them than we saw him divulge.

If I were to pick one he'd consider the most dangerous, I'd probably say Don, which I'll justify below haha. But honestly Mikey has the possibility of being a close second, more based on speculation than anything we actually see on-screen.

After some review of the scenes where they interact, here's my best approximation:

Donatello

This one is the simplest to figure out, I think, because we already know Bishop holds scientists in much higher regard than most people, even when they happen to be non-human (see: his (granted, taunting) praise of Leatherhead's work during the Good Genes arc.) I think Bishop is aware of Don's genius and most likely finds it a shame he can't make use of it, himself.

It seems like Bishop dodges around Don's bo the most out of any of the turtles, never outright stealing it like he's done with the others. I suspect this is because Don has the widest reach with his weapon, and Bishop is more likely to dodge away than go for a counter, when it comes to him. For this reason, Donny might qualify as the one Bishop deems the most dangerous. He's also the one who takes Bishop off-guard during the fake invasion, twice! First sneaking up on him to get the first attack, and then intercepting his lunge at Raph, ultimately knocking him down one of the tunnels and winning the fight.

If approaching him one-on-one, I think Bishop would try to keep the environment tight and cluttered, to make it harder for Don to use his weapon. He needs to even the field (by which he means, of course, giving himself a dominating advantage,) by ensuring Don can't make use of his weapon's extra reach, which will allow Bishop to counter more freely.

Michelangelo

This dynamic starts off with a mutual underestimation. Mikey attacks Bishop after being freed from the surgical table, assuming he's just some government lackey, only to be taken off-guard when Bishop dodges and counters-- enough that he immediately gets pinned again. Bishop, for his part, seems to have singled Mikey out as something of an easier target among his brothers, and is blindsided when Mikey himself is able to get free from being held hostage.

Bishop seems to be comfortable with-- even possibly has a preference for-- chains as weapons, so he tends to try make use of Mikey's nunchaku, tangling his siblings' weapons in them often. Mikey seems to have caught on to this in subsequent encounters, though. There is the potential here for something of a rivalry; though the show doesn't push it. With both having underestimated one another, and taking one another more seriously after the fact, and taking into account that Mikey is noted to be the most skilled of the turtles when he really tries, there's certainly real estate for an escalation in this dynamic.

One-on-one, in that same vein, I think Bishop takes Mikey seriously, as someone who has proven to be difficult to predict and someone who learns and adapts (like him!) Bishop's superior speed will be his friend, here. Even if Mikey takes him by surprise, it won't be a big problem as long as he can keep on his toes and get some distance.

Leonardo

Bishop is probably aware that Leo acts as the squad leader, and that can be pretty useful information, though I don't think he ever really makes use of it that we see. What he does seem to make use of is Leo's honor and loyalty, leveraging family or allies more than once to trip him up in combat (Usually as in taking a hostage, i.e. Mikey and Karai.) There's even a chance he was banking on Leo's loyalty to coerce a deal out of them during Good Genes.

I think Leo gets his sword stolen the most out of all the weapons Bishop yoinks. Other than that, there's not much unique to how Bishop approaches him as he does his brothers, that I was able to see. One-on-one Bishop's probably more likely to try some mind games, knowing Leo's buttons already. If he's aware of the shoulder injury, he'd definitely target it. And steals his swords, of course.

Raphael

Turns out I have the least to say on poor Raph. He clearly hates Bishop with a burning passion, but Bishop doesn't seem to think all that much of him. His sai are made use of to catch his siblings' weapons second most often after Mikey's nunchaku, though!

Raph's also a prime target for mind games one-on-one. His emotional reactions make him unfortunately easy to rile up into tunnel-visioning. This means he's also really easy to use the environment against, which happens to be one of Bishop's fortes. Bishop also seems pretty comfortable stealing his sai. Essentially, Raph's less of a threat to him the more emotional he gets, so Bishop will certainly be pushing all his buttons.

Fast Forward

I don't know if this is as relevant to you, but it could offer some insight into the trajectory of these dynamics, perhaps? In any case President Bishop's first appearance has him calling them friends, which implies that eventually he and the turtles form an allyship (probably years down the line.) He also seems to be taken off-guard when the time-traveling versions don't want to work with him-- presumably he assumed they were further down the timeline than they were.

Now again there's not much one-on-one, but we know Bishop seems to get annoyed at points with their general... teenager-ness, lack of focus, perceived unprofessionalism, all that. He gets sarcastic with them plenty of times during Head of State. He does appear to obfuscate the information he allows them access to, as well, (you cannot convince me he actually dismissed those Sh'Okanabo reports. He was trying to redirect them away from it for whatever reason, I think,) which suggests to me he's trying to control where their attention is pointed. But he also clearly considers them capable, mostly contacting them to contract them as a sort of personal black ops assassin team.

We do get a clear dynamic in how each turtle approaches Bishop! Leo seems the most convinced of his redemption, interestingly enough, and is shown willing to jump to his aid in moments of crisis. Raph is least convinced, taking any opportunity to needle Bishop about his past actions. Mikey and Don are more neutral, but Mikey leans closer to the distrusting side, while Don leans closer to the trusting side (or at least, the "being polite" side.)

Finally, it's worth pointing out that Bishop does have a something of an established rivalry with Splinter, who has proven capable of keeping up with him one-on-one. Don't know if that'll factor in for you, but it warranted a shoutout!

Hope some of this helps, at least, and have fun with your project! It sounds very intriguing heheh

#agent bishop #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2k3 #asks #teenage mutant ninja turtles #we might be able to use our own knowledge of each turtle's fighting style and try speculate what Bishop would think of it #like Leo fights more traditionally right. which I think would make him a lot easier for Bishop to handle #if Bishop can predict you you don't really register as very dangerous to him #whereas Mikey seems to have a lot in common with Bishop in terms of fighting style. a lot of dodging around and using the opponent's-#-strength against them. He's also the one to accurately analyze that Bishop makes great use of his speed in combat.#this makes him a more difficult matchup in combat #I tried to keep this mostly to just what could be gleaned from observing their interactions in the show tho

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tarisilmarwen · 1 year ago

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Rebels Rewatch: "The Last Battle"

Well TCW fans were happy lol.

It's weird to write these as someone who has very little emotional investment in TCW.

Okay, full disclaimer, I have seen quite a chunk of the show, the husband showed me several of the best arcs, I've seen scattered bits and pieces here and there so I know who a lot of the key players are, a lot of the important events and everything but... I dunno the whole Clone Wars era has just never been a big area of interest for me.

Happy for y'all tho?

Anyway.

[Insert commentary about how this show has really gorgeous environments and y'all sleeping on this work and effort.]

Kanan lampshading the tendency for missions to go sideways ha ha.

Ooof this verbal stumble by Rex is painful, he doesn't know how to act in a scenario where a Jedi is not his commanding officer, ouch.

Oh wow, just like Ezra, Rex shields himself inside his helmet.

Ezra messing with the B1 head awww.

Side note: I LOVE how stocky the model for clones is in Rebels. TCW clones always felt too tall and thin to me, Rebels clones look way more like Temura Morrisan's actual physique.

Ezra accidentally being insensitive about the Clone Wars moment number 1.

Kanan's comment about "scars you can't see". Something the animated shows have always excelled at is showing the genuine aftereffects of PTSD.

Ezra's been playing the Watson role for the past few episodes and it is adorable.

Rex's initial panic when he thinks he's back in the war. :(((

I understand that TCW fandom cried a lot about Rex calling Cody's name unconsciously here.

*sobs* Ezra still looks so TINY compared to everyone else.

Kalani assumed the shutdown order was a Republic trick lol.

Lasats not being part of the Clone Wars is an interesting detail. Obviously, Doylistically speaking, they couldn't have been since they weren't created yet, but also I like the idea that Lasats were adamantly against participating in the conflict and the Separatists took one look at them and decided invading them anyway wasn't worth it.

Ezra maybe naively jumps into things feet first, to Rex and Kanan's consternation. They both already know that War Is Hell. But they also have the best chance of getting out of the situation if they relive their collective war experiences and face their past by fighting one last Clone Wars battle.

Oh hey! It's the shuttle they'd repurpose later as the Phantom II!

Hera and Sabine's small B-plot is very brief, but hilarious.

I think Pryce must have pulled a LOT of political favors in order to be granted occasional command of her own Star Destroyer. She's apparently allowed to lay a trap for the Spectres specifically and has the authority to deploy local Imperial outposts, too.

Not bad for a planetary governor. But then, Pryce was always ambitious beyond her station.

She attached herself to Thrawn primarily for the advancement opportunities, I think.

The sex was probably good too I mean what?

The boys be looking good.

Lol Kanan can hear the cacophony of clanking droid footprints.

Poor Ezra is so lost with all these references.

This is just a fun adventure for him, he doesn't have the frame of reference to know just how harrowing and dangerous this could be for the average Clone Wars Jedi commander and clone unit. So he doesn't know to keep tighter formation and wants to keep charging ahead instead of waiting to assess.

Rex casually calling his training and conditioning and genetic modulation his "programming", directly comparing himself to the droids. Ow. Ow ow ow ow. Hurting in "Central thesis of TCW, that the clones are not just identical mindless meat droids but individual and free-thinking men" feelings.

Kalani and Zeb's exchange here is hilarious.

Chopper jumpscaring Ezra lol.

Just wholecloth grabs his wrist like an excited kid trying to show their parent something.

He's come so far, I'm so proud. All he needs is the slightest gesture.

OH HEY IT'S MY FAVORITE SCENE.

Rex is... I think a little rattled by getting hit. Sure, the armor protected him, but you know it can't have been fun and he probably thought for a moment he had gone down for real. So yeah, Ezra's innocently flippant attitude about things upsets him.

"A good soldier follows orders!" Ouch. Ow ow ow ow that phrase, Rex, please.

You know it's something that's gotta echo inside his head constantly, his programming won't let him forget it.

Eternally a fan of the kicked-puppy flinch Ezra gives here.

Kanan immediately reassuring Ezra that it's not him. <3

The beginnings of a realization.

I slowed this sequence way down to check where Ezra got hit (for... reasons) and from what I can tell, it looks like Ezra didn't quite manage to block a shot and some of it fritzed past his blade and hit his right collar, right where his armor is.

Rex gets dinged in the helmet moments later, but as he said, "Gen 1 armor always holds up." Once again, Rebels showing off the importance of good armor. :)

<333333

The group get up to the command center and Ezra starts to live up to his name as "bridger" between disparate groups, first pointing out that by all rights the droids should have won their skirmish, they were just too old to actually function correctly. Kalani agrees and claims victory, but Ezra also pushes against that, pointing out that none of them actually won the Clone Wars. It just... ended.

The more techie side of Star Wars YouTube have analyzed both sides and concluded that, absent the obvious direction and self-sabotage by Palpatine, the Separatists would have eventually won the Clone Wars. But of course the sabotage and playing both sides was the point. No one was supposed to win the Clone Wars because it wasn't a real war, it wasn't naturally occurring or organic, it was a massive artificial power play by Palpatine, who instigated, incited, prolonged, and manipulated things so that whichever side "won", he would come out on top as the victor standing on the corpses of the Jedi.

Palpatine set both sides up to fail.

This is something Star Wars fandom repeatedly fails to understand, there was no winning in this whole situation. The trap was too carefully set, nothing the Jedi or the Senate or the Separatists did could have prevented the war from happening and nothing they did could have stopped its ultimate endgoal, which was the destruction of the Jedi Order and the consolidation of power under Palpatine as sole ruler of the galaxy. That's the whole tragedy, that they tried so hard, got so close, but ultimately could not prevent that awful fate from happening.

Barring Anakin sitting his ass down for just five more minutes or slashing through the correct party in Palpatine's office, there was no narrative escape. The choices were damned if you do, damned if you don't, and either way you're ending up dead.

Anyway, Ezra's armor-piercing questions absolutely stun Rex and Kalani into silence for a moment before Zeb points out the Empire won. Because they decided to conveniently show up just in time for a good Enemy Mine situation lol.

Kalani resists the logic at first since he's not at war with the Empire but the Stormtroopers casually destroying his scout unit probably helped change his mind lol.

Ezra Persuasion Checks both Kalani and Rex into accepting the team-up, like the budding little diplomat he is. :)

"Well this takes trust to a whole new level." Lol.

Nice to see the B1s retaining their status as hilariously abused butt monkeys.

Rex praising Ezra for "ending the Clone Wars" ahhhhh.

Sabine's eyes lighting up when she sees the shuttle they're bringing awww.

And TCW-inspired credits as a nice little homage.

Predictably this is one of the husband's favorite episodes. It's a fun little romp, pays some love to TCW and develops Ezra's character a bit. It doesn't really affect the larger story outside of that so I guess it could be called filler, but it's a fun filler.

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #space dad and his precious pumpkin child #rebels rewatch #liveblog

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pokidot · 2 years ago

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cani pls have a one shot with heizou @ the soulja boy concert

ANON PLEASE IM SCREAMING

wc: 1,359 note: this is my first time writing a kiss with my stories on here lol

You were having the time of your life, even though you had no clue where your date, Heizou had gone.

Granted, you tried looking for him as soon as you realized, but the crowd had packed you in and forced you to stay there within the seat. You were subjected to just letting someone else take Heizou's seat, since they were struggling to find their own.

Even with the discrepancies of him suddenly disappearing, out of sight out of mind, you felt a sense of pure elation even being at the concert. The stage ablaze with lights and pyrotechnics, dazzling display that reflects the fervor of the arena's compassion, it was making you dizzy.

The experience was electrifying; the music pulsates through the air with a final song. An old classic you knew too well to let go in memory, reverberating through the audience's bodies and igniting especially you with amour and excitement.

You almost didn't want to leave.

The final verses, and a dance break from the team that came out from stage left had the crowd hyped on adrenaline. The last song came to an end quick before the crowd had began to dissipate.

You left out the door to the auditorium halls with an indelible impression on just how fun a Soulja Boy concert could be.

But even as you had so much fun, you were confused on where you date was during the whole concert. Did he really just pay for two tickets to a concert that reached it's crescendo and then ditched you before the actual act can start? What a way to put breadsticks in your purse and run.

Your sense of gratitude and appreciation fizzled out on your tongue, leaving you with slight irritation and faint confusion. The feeling of trepidation creeped in your heart as you walked around aimless; not too sure where Heizou could be, but staying vigilant in your search.

You passed the merchandise, and the food court, and even the little Soulja Boy keychains you desperately wanted to buy because of how ridiculous it looked. You looked nook and cranny for him, desperately hoping to reunite. Because if not...you definitely were going to block him after this.

Despite your best efforts, you remained elusive right up until you saw a crowd at the end of the hallway. You blinked out of your transfixed state, walking towards the noise, only to see your very own date swiftly roundhouse kick someone with a mop in the face.

"Please! Get that psycho away from me!" The cleaner had shouted, their eyes almost blazing with fury, one that echoed even throughout the halls and bared attention from the people exiting the auditorium still.

"Playing innocent again, huh." Heizou squinted, his fingers curled and twisted under his other hand, the joints of them creaking within his control. "That's fine, the police are coming anyway. What are you really cleaning? Huh? The money you got from child exploitation?!"

"What...are you even talking about?!" The cleaner's face raged on, his voice growing stronger with his question.

"Yeah, man. This is a little..." The exhilaration still had some of the concert goers confused, because they had no idea how to even respond to this. "I mean...I personally wouldn't assume he's..."

"Do you even know who he is and what he's done? He is Mr. Satoshi Ueno. Slimy bastard had his hands on Watatsumi Island stocks at one point! He's a pimp under the scene!"

"I'm not! I'm just a cleaner with laundry to do after my shift!" The cleaner cried out.

"Still, even if he's charged for something, it's not ethical to fight with the janitor at a concert."

"You don't think I know that? I was helping Soulja Boy, this is the last thing I want to be doing on my day off. While he was cranking that, I was cranking necks." Heizou whistled. "I think I deserve some gratitude."

You tried processing the gravity of the situation, but your mind was struggling. Heizou...was interrogating the cleaner. Cool.

With a sudden fierce determination in your eyes that was as fiery as your lack of substance from tonight, you drew quickly near to the fight and grabbed his arm. "What are you doing?"

You seethed with anger. How dare he even waste your time? The date was literally over, and you hadn't seen him for the majority of it. Was he even thinking about you at all?

But...as Heizou looked down at you with his emerald eyes that sparkled and shimmered regardless under the dull lights, his lip slowly curling once he realized who it was into a charming and disarmed smile, your anger smoothened. It faltered harder than Soulja Boy's new songs. "Oh! Hey, (Y/N)!"

His voice was pure, honeyed sweetness against your ears. It was like dulcet liquid gold was pouring from his lips.

You became overwhelmed, buffeted on all sides of emotional waves that threatened to engulf you if you didn't get out of this situation with him. "Haha.." Your tense arm relaxed against his hands, intertwining them with his and waving at the audience, a faux smile planted on your lips. "Sorry, guys! He didn't take his meds today...you know how it is! Dementia and all...heh...bye."

Disgruntled that you were forced to bear witness to a merciless scrap while the police enter the room, you looked at your date with a complex stare.

You were almost convinced that he did this to himself out of sadistic pleasure. "What in the actual hell, Shika."

His hand rose up to scratch the back of his head, fingers fumbling nervously through his burgundy strands while he watched the police help the poor cleaner up from afar. "Heh," His eyes darted away, "To be fair, I really did think it was Satoshi Ueno."

The tenderness of your heart clouded your vision. Just enough for the wind to be knocked out of your lungs, but not enough to assess the situation as you cleared your throat. "You missed the Soulja Boy concert to assault some rando."

"Hey, hey! Not assault! Defense!" Heizou lifted his hands up, unwavering in his look towards you. "He had a clear reason why he thought that he was being attacked, and I have a clear reason as to why I think he's a dirty piece of garbage and he should be locked up. It's an equal bargain."

"An equal bargain?" Your eyebrows furrowed. "You did martial arts for five years and had no lead. He was a loser with laundry, what equity was there?"

Heizou couldn't help but give you a goofy grin. "Everyone gets a happy ending. He gets to go home and possibly get 3 days off from injury! And I," He paused to place his arm over you, a sense of warmth emitting against the chill you felt from the outside, "Get to prolong our date."

And even in this situation, with absolutely no concern for him kicking a guy in the face with the most ridiculous rhyme and reason to exist, your heart swelled at his words. "Did the date even start..? I went to a Soulja Boy concert all by myself."

But you couldn't be mad at him, because he got closer to you, leaning closer to meet eye level with you. "How ever can I make it up to you, (Y/N)? Dinner?"

You were struck by the sheer bond you had to his actions, a sense of wonder crashing over you. You practically had hearts in your eyes. "Italian."

Heizou's lips curled into an even wider grin, effervescent with delight as he suffused his triumph with a press to your lips. His touch against you was soft, gentle enough that it pricked at your heart like needles. The palpable love exuded from the two of you, and once he pulled away, you had practically melted.

"Let's go, then. You can tell me what songs Soulja Boy played." Heizou locked his hands with you tighter, as you two walked out of the building.

"Are you sure? You don't even know what the songs are." You smiled.

"Yeeeah. I can't name a single Soulja Boy song."

"Uncultured."

#✮ emily writes #✮ emily’s asks #genshin fanfic #genshin modern au #shikanoin heizou #heizou x y/n #heizou x reader #heizou x you #genshin oneshot

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omgitsaime · 6 months ago

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Movies I'll Probably Never Make: Open for Business

Three quirky best friends go against their principal's wishes and open up an anonymous advice column in their high school's dying newspaper.

Written: 2015-2016 (I was 14 and 15, y'all!)

If you liked these, you'll probably like this: Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Sixteen Candles (1984), To all the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy (the books especially, given the time this script was written), Paper Towns (2015), Pitch Perfect (2012), Pitch Perfect 2 (2015)

Characters: Allie (14, Not Like Other Girls, always knows the right thing to say, aimlessly in love with Brad, clueless about Peter's feelings for her)

Peter (14, video game enthusiast and definitely smarter than you, fiercely loyal, always coming up with new ideas, has a crush on Allie)

Trevor (14, class clown, golden retriever boyfriend, the only things in life he takes seriously are Brianna, the advice column, and his friends)

Brianna (14, rich girl cheerleader with a heart of gold, fashion forward, always trendy, Allie's soon to be step sister, Trevor's girlfriend by the end)

Brad (15, popular football player of the junior varsity team struggling to find himself, well meaning but easily influenced, big heart, Not Like Other Jocks, redeems himself by the end)

Callie (16, lead writer of school newspaper, book smart, but not all that street smart, determined and not afraid to break a few rules to get what she wants)

Ben (17, editor in chief of school newspaper, quiet, reserved, a little more reluctant to break the rules, but will do anything to get into a good college)

Principal Cochran (late 40s, principal of the school (guys, it's been almost a decade, I don't remember the name of the school lol), stuck in his ways, overly strict, money obsessed, think Principal Rooney)

Why I stopped writing: I literally lost the script. I know I sent a draft to an old friend of mine, but that email has been lost to time, and now that I don't have the base, I can't remember which direction I was going in with the story before I stopped writing.

Themes from this story that appear in my other stories: Found family, platonic love, individuality, fighting manmade systems, lots and lots of 80s pop.

One interesting plot thread/character arc is that almost a full decade before the likes of Andrew Tate came onto the scene, telling young boys to be "alphas" and that they need to discard "low value women," Brad's plot was that he felt guilt over the prank he pulled on Allie to secure a spot on the varsity team, and over the course of the film, decides that being a man lies not in who he hurts, but who he helps. I was literally a fourteen year old girl writing this. I don't know what prophecy came to me in my sleep, but...holy shit.

Would I revive this story: Hell yeah! This is such a cute and solid story, with 80s influence, sweet moments, and honestly, the kids need a fun high school romp that is just about enjoying life and being 14. @sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog, I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry for the abuse we put you through back in the day. We really took you for granted.

Fun Fact: The one and only surviving artifact of this film is the Spotify playlist. It is peak mid 2010s quirky teen comedy, and if you're old like me, this'll take you straight back to high school. I think you guys will love it.

Let me know if y'all think I should make this a series! I have a lot of scrapped scripts that I lowkey still think about lol

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bornincaldecott · 8 months ago

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X-Men '97 | Episodes 1 & 2

X-Men TAS has always had a special place in my heart. That, along with the Dark Phoenix Saga (granted it had been out for awhile by the time I was able to read it), was my introduction to comics. I love everything X-Men, but TAS is special. So, like a lot of people, I went into this feeling several types of ways. When the intro started, I got chills.

All-in-all, I really enjoyed the first two episodes. I'm not super crazy about the animation style (why are all the ladies wearing super thick eyeliner a la the Scene Era?), but it's fine.

Crop Top Gambit in the first five minutes? Incredible. I wasn't crazy about his new VA initially, but he grew on me pretty quickly.

I actually liked Scott's voice the best. I think his new VA did an incredible job channeling his original VA.

The writing was clunky at times, but I get why (like when Rogue is moping about her powers at the rave, or when Jean is explaining to Storm about the Phoenix). First, they're trying to capture the essence of TAS, 90's cringe and all (nailed it). Second, this show isn't necessarily meant to bring in new fans. It's a happy by-product, sure, but not the intent. That said, they still have to ensure that things make sense (as much as possible) to any X-Men newbies, which means we gotta endure some awkward exposition.

Also

ALSO

I fucking called Rogueneto. When the first trailer dropped, and we got the last clip of hunky Mags, I was like...oh, they're doing Rogueneto. And honestly? I'm here for it. Do I like the pairing? No, it's not my cuppa, but what I do like is the angst it presents for Romy. Rogueneto also helps set Rogue and Gambit up as a foil to Jean and Scott's established relationship, and then they're the mid-point between Jean and Scott and what I am guessing is going to be Jubilee and Roberto.

This broke my heart though. UGH. I know it'll be alright in the end because the show's already said Romy is their OTP but stiiillllll.

AND I CALLED MADELYN?! Okok we won't actually know until next week but ?!?!?!?!?!

I could go on and on about the first two episodes, but instead I'll highlight some of my favorite parts.

Storm turning the desert to glass. JFC. Even the sentinels were like "danger Will Robinson!" And the quiet piano sound during the scene? MY GOD. CHILLS.

"He's here!" / "Apocalypse?!" / "THE BABY!" & Wolvie got a convertible.

Mag's monologue in the sky. Fucking wow.

The sentinel fight. It was so cool seeing them fight as a team.

And not to end on a bummer note, but...they introduced Genosha...did a whole bit with Mags saving the Morlocks and sending them there...and with what Jean saw in Cerebro in the first episode...yeah...I think we're getting that story.

Anyway! Loved the first two episodes. Super jazzed for the rest.

Have one last Remy gif for the road.

ffs I want him to look at me like that.

#xmen 97 #this is not a spoiler free zone #i really need you to watch it so i can reblog with reckless abandon #hh xx always

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playertwotails · 2 years ago

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Okay I got thoughts about Tails and how much of a little badass he is and this is gonna be a long ramble with spoilers for like most everything I can think of so buckle up if you keep reading.

The villains of the Sonic universe are doing themselves a disservice by only seeing Sonic as a threat and that if they take them out they’re good to go. But Tails is arguably the main problem to all their plans going south and none of them have really taken that into account in any media that I can remember.

Like okay Forces didn’t do a great job of portraying this side of Tails and they murdered his characterization in that game. Frontiers had to backpedal hard to try and fix it, I think they did a pretty good job for the the band-aid they had to slap on for an explanation as to why Tails was like that in that game honestly. Saying he was essentially overwhelmed and couldn’t be brave and fell apart cause he is you know still just an 8 year old child, is a pretty solid explanation honestly. But still Forces really didn’t know how to write Tails around the Sonic OC monstrosity I know most of us made. If they wrote Tails with his previous characterization in mind there wouldn’t have been a point to the player character cause Tails probably would have kept Eggman at like 50% and saved Sonic. (side note making the OC player character lowkey terrify was hilarious in cut scenes if you went that route and if you didn’t go back and play the game and just make the most terrifying creature game lets you trust me it’s worth the laugh).

But stumbling off my Forces soapbox, none of their rogues gallery seems to put two and two together that they’d probably win if Tails wasn’t there to come up with a counter plan to theirs.

Just to like build on why Tails is such a threat the their villains I’m gonna start with just Tails’ physical traits:

To start, Tails can keep up with Sonic. Very few characters are listed as being able to do that (granted most game mechanics have to make it so other characters can also keep up with Sonic). But in all the written out lore and characterization it's usually mentioned that Tails is an outlier in how he can keep up with Sonic and that's part of the reason they became friends.

Obvious one, Tails can fly. Meaning he has a whole other terrain he can fight in and leaving it to gravity in a fight with him will fail. And combine that with his speed being up there with Sonic's and now nowhere is safe from him.

Tails can pack a punch. He's been fighting since a young age, younger than most of the older characters even, and is best friends with Sonic and Knuckles so of course the kid knows how to hit something and fight.

Tails is really strong. I know that one twitter take over has a joke that Tails is ripped but like he'd kinda have to be. We've seen him able to carry both Sonic and Knuckles at the same time and not to mention all the heavy machinery he works with regularly. That 8 year old is pure fluff and muscle.

Now here's where Tails goes from menace to threat for their rogues gallery:

To start with Tails is a super genius. At 8 he's on par with Eggman in intelligence, a man with a doctorate and who's been at this for years, and at times out out classes him (i.e. see the zombot arc Tails figured out a cure when Eggman couldn't against his own virus)

He's made a fake chaos emerald that was next to indistinguishable from a real one. Like I might make a whole separate post about this one later but this child made something that was essentially close in power to a god-like entity, like what the actual fuck.

He's defused a nuke. Eggman did not foresee a baby that apparently has a part time job as a one man bomb squad wrecking his plans.

Ace pilot skills. Wasn't sure if I should put this here or the list above, but I'm putting it here cause my list. But just any sort of air battle Tails has covered either with his own tails or a plane, the sky's are his.

No one really talks about this from Sonic X but Tails built a whole ass functioning space craft Star Trek Enterprise style that they all lived on for months, had artificial gravity, and fuck you levels of weaponry. I know nothing is really canon from that show but I mean how could I not list it.

Tails is the one that comes up with the plan or invention that Sonic and gang use to win (usually he is...Amy seems to have taken over the more plan side of things in IDW comics during/after Forces for big battles, and we love this for her in this house). But like Tails is the one whose invention or plan usually ends up being the main reason they win.

Tails has a super form and can use chaos energy. Like despite what the line up of the cast who can go super form would have people believe, this is actually stated to be a rare trait that few have the ability to actually do. (it's like going super saiyan, cause it ripped it off, stated to be rare then everyone can just do it cause plot)

Tails is just such a one man army at 8 years old that I see him just becoming an even bigger threat as they get older. Cause he's canonically 7 years younger than Sonic and one of the youngest characters in the cast. Meaning he's got room to grow still and if he can keep up with the older character at 8 how strong is this kid gonna be by the time he reaches Sonic's current age of 15.

Like I see it that as they get older Sonic will still be the main protector of the planet and a thorn in all their villains sides. But like if Tails walks up that's it..fight over..you lost..don't stop at go to collect $200 just do your self a favor and go straight to jail.

Out of the whole cast, though they are all young and could only get stronger at this point with age, Tails has the most potential out of all of them with just how many skills this kids has on him.

Also throwing this in here cause I can, Sonic is one of the few if not only person who recognizes this about Tails. It's why he trusts Tails so much and falls back on him when things go bad (also trusts him cause Tails is his best friend/little brother/family figure). Sonic is well aware that his little brother will more than likely one day surpass him and he's proud of that. Sonic pretty much raised Tails so he has a weird combination of proud older brother/almost-parental proud feelings about it. They're brothers you honor.

Welp this is my ramble about Tails cause he's one of my favorite characters ever. Feel free to add on to it if anyone else thinks of anything that I missed. This was all 100% rambles from memory and I have shit memory so I know for a fact I missed something.

#tails the fox #miles tails prower #sonic the hedgehog #I just love tails alright he's fluffy and adorable and can kick ass #all the best traits #wrote this cause it's been on my mind and I called out from work today cause I feel awful #instead of 10 hours of paper work today I'm writing this #but yeah Tails has been my favorite character since I was still in the single digits of age #so it's been a while of him at the top of my list considering I'm closer to 30 now than I am my teen years #time may be an unstoppable force no one can fight against in terms of aging but fav characters are forever #spoilers #just a general spoilers tag cause we'd be here all day if i listed each spoiler individually

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babacontainsmultitudes · 2 years ago

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Heya Baba! <3 I remember you mentioned Lark and Grant recently and I would love to know more!! So Lark/Grant for the ship bingo :)

😊🌸 Hiya Countless!!! Eheh y'know, I have this awful habit of putting off answering your asks specifically because I want to be especially thorough with them... And consequently not getting to answering them 😅😓. Like, I HAVE NOT forgotten about the music one LOL one day I will answer it I fucking swear!!!

Anyways, oooh, well rad of you to express interest in this one! I'll try my best!

(eheh also fair warning I'm a tad drunk eheheh but hopefully this will still be reasonably comprehensible? Just to say that I might be a bit extra all over the place but I'm trying my best ahaha. Also cheers lol 🍻💜)

(My second bingo I think? I'm too lazy to mark them lol)

Okay so the thing is, in my head I know exactly how I want this ship to play out and what it means to me... But putting that into words? Quite difficult actually!

I've been like, silently obsessing over these two for the past few months actually. I did this to myself? It was an accident?? I have this non-magical AU road trip fic for them that I've been rotating around for the longest time and have been *dying* to write, so I guess that's what a lot of my thoughts have centered around! That said, if I could explain the appeal more generally...

*Well*, as far as ships I feel strongly positive about go, this one is... Definitely one of the most unapologetically toxic ones tbh? Not as the end game for them! Rather, usually when these two play out in my head it sorta starts as two people with a lot of conflict between them (perhaps cause they're so similar in a lot of ways), who ultimately come to understand each other very well and grow as a result. Does that make sense? I think they make each other worse, and *then* they make each other better.

So what is it about them? Well... It's a bit hard to place actually! I would say that near its core, their relationship to me is very much defined by its physicality. Which I guess I mean from a number of angles (eheh including the sexual side sure but I'll spare you that dw I'll spare you from that LOL). For one there's... Something very physical about both of their most core traumas (the pyramid, the chimera) that to me separates these two from the rest of the other kid(dad)s? Similarly, and perhaps related to this, they certainly have a relationship with physical violence that is unlike the others as well, wherein it tends to be more of a pleasure or source of catharsis rather than purely being a necessary evil. Obviously in Grant's case this takes on a particularly dark tone, but still I think Lark's violent disposition is apparent and important enough.

I'll go back to all of that shortly but as a side tangent, they both have similar (albeit not identical) habits of shutting down and pushing people away as well? There's a lot of self-loathing, a lot of not believing oneself to be worthy of love, and so on and so forth.

SOOOOOO... I think at first they could be very cold and mean with each other! (Cue that scene in The Staircase when Lark body checks Grant to push past hm like ouch ooo my feelings but also *go on*). Verbal communication only goes so far with either of them, seeing oneself in the other and projecting that self-loathing onto them in the form of hate... It's a recipe for disaster tbh.

So... They fight! Especially like, physically, they fight. And... It's great? For both of them. It's an outlet, it's cathartic, and when it's just the two of them like this they can be shameless about it! <- That last part is important, for both of them but especially for Grant I think.

>> Now playing: "A Kiss With a Fist" by Florence and the Machine >>

And I think with time they learn to be more open with one another in other ways? As I mentioned earlier, their traumas bear a lot of similarities, among other things, so I think that once they reach this point there's this level of understanding between them that they haven't really been able to find elsewhere, and in that, probably some comfort. And trust!!!

So they're not really a couple sorta deal for me even if some of the feelings present might ultimately be romantic? It's more like, they let off some steam, they kiss a bit (or a bit more than a bit), and they love each other in a way that is deep and personal but doesn't require any sort of label, cause words were never what defined them in the first place.

Does any of this make sense??? Did I mention I'm drunk???

Not that this is exactly how it needs to be play out in every iteration of them, either. I guess there's also a lot of hurt/comfort for me with these two. A lot of that has to do with my own headcanons of Lark having PTSD and related symptoms that are quite similar to what Grant goes through, and the mutual understanding that comes with that (in short). And hey, for all the cuts and bruises from their training sessions (and/or consensual roughhousing), there's just as many carefully applied bandages and ice packs afterwards eheheh.

AHA okay this was long oh my goodness. And I still don't feel like I really got what I mean across!

🤔 Honestly, if this explanation turned you *off* from the ship more than anything, that's pretty fair tbh! They're really difficult for me to put into words haha, maybe in fanfiction it would be less off-putting!

Regardless, thank you very much for the ask :3 💜

#I'd have more to say but it would never come out the right way #dndads #I hope this kind of made sense????? Gee I really don't know #dungeons and daddies #grant wilson #lark oak #lark oak garcia #grant x lark #tw ptsd #tw violence #there's lowkey way more wholesome shit for these two in my head than this description would lead one to believe I think #gee why is it so hard with them haha #I hope this was kinda interesting at the very least Countless!

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pnwdagnabbit · 8 months ago

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Hello hello!!!! Im really curious to know more about your wild west au🥰 I have two old west oc myself and love hearing about other people's oc!👀 are you gonna do a world setting too??

Hey, Mariam! Sorry for takin' so long to get back to you. Things have been a bit all over the place on my end lately, but thank you for the ask!

I don't wanna give too much away, cuz I have some fun connections that I'm gonna bring to the table. Mainly, I have my three boys. Christian, Jimmy, and Matthew. The first two (my Charlie Hunnam and Garrett Hedlund muses) are brothers. Matt (my Boyd Holbrook muse) is Christian's best-friend that he meets in his unit while fighting for Ulysses S. Grant. That puts them around 21 yrs old during the Cold Harbor War, which was in 1864.

From there, the details of their timeline and story is getting worked out, but eventually, they start traveling across country. Putting the boys around 35 years of age once they do get to where they're going. They're set to be in Santa Fe around 1876. Eventually ending up around Pendleton, Oregon in 1878-1880. That's altered, too, cuz the Pendleton Round-Up was founded in 1910, but I'm changing that timeline to fit my story a bit better.

There are variations to actual events and people from that era, keeping this more AU, but some very well known ones are going to be added. I will say that I know, for sure, that Josiah "Doc" Scurlock will get tossed into the mix. He'll be a big influence on Christian and will end up joining them in Oregon after leaving Billy the Kid's gang after the Lincoln County War. It'll be a bit different from history, but also similar, since Doc did leave Billy's crew after that with his wife. He'll also be somewhat similar to how he was portrayed in "Young Guns". I know those films are inaccurate to the actual history of who that guy was, so I'm stealing a bit of both fact and fiction.

I have plans for all kinds of people to throw into their travels, because the places they'll end up, along with the timelines of their journey's, will put them smack dab in the middle of some of the most notorious showdowns and bumping into some of the most infamous outlaws of the Wild West.

I'm not able to sit and write very much these days, just because I don't have a good computer chair and am constantly busy. Plus, my health (mainly my brain from epilepsy) has been draining me more than it used to. So sadly, I don't know how soon I'll have anything substantial to post. I'm just playing with outlines, research, and setting up a basic timeline for now.

One thing I can tell you for certain is that my title of my Wild West AU is "There Have Always Been Crows". It's both giving a nod to Charlie Hunnam's "Jax Teller" character from Sons of Anarchy, as well as to my muse, Matt, in his biker AU. He's obsessed with crows in that verse and feeds them regularly. There will be different references to crows off and on in the Wild West AU, starting with a battle scene and then crows bein' brought up at various moments down the line. For instance, Jimmy mistaking a raven for a crow; having the birds steal food out of the guys' packs while they go take a leak while riding across country; random stuff like that. Eventually, the crows will have a deeper meaning and significance for the end of the storyline. Already got that scene in my head.

As for world building, I'm sticking to as much of the legitimate history as possible, but bein' careful with specifics. Especially, where the Chinese immigrants and Native Americans are involved in the creation of Pendleton, Oregon, as well as bringing in more women farmhands. There's a lot of misinformation and hidden truths that the settlers tried to cover up, but also some very cool factoids that were written into the history books. Like that it was much more common for women to be working ranches by themselves, because the men were off at war, or helping to mine and work the steel mills in order to create more guns and supplies for troops.

Also, Pendleton was one of the first, colonized towns in the Pacific Northwest that had Chinese immigrants running their own shops. I'm having it set that Doc Scurlock's wife ends up opening and running her own clothing store in town, since he's friends with the boys who are helping to make that town become a wildly huge success story with their assistance in building up the rodeo.

I should probably stop, cuz I'm giving a lot of info away. LMAO! I get chatty when I get passionate and giddy about somethin' like this. Heh! But thank you for the ask and I hope this helps answer some of your questions! Feel free to DM me or send asks anytime! Even if I'm slow, I will respond, eventually. XD

#Budlit inquiries accepted!#Thank you darlin'! This was fun to talk about! <333 #There Have Always Been Crows spoilers #THABC spoilers #headcanons #Wild West AU #pnwdagnabbit

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seyaryminamoto · 1 year ago

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When you posted the first chapter of Gladiator how far ahead were you in terms of planning the path the story would take? Are there any great changes from the original outline?

Uuuuuh... X'D

For me, planning stories isn't a linear journey. I DO write linearly as best as I'm able, because if I don't, I'm going to fuck up the continuity of my stories. I really am not good at just writing the big moments first and stuffing the rest of the content in later. All the power to the people who can do that, but the few times I've tried, I fucked up so badly that I always end up having to rewrite the scene I wrote beforehand anyway! So, yeah, I build up on things and try to have all cards on the table by the time I write the big stuff.

But planning? Oh boy, planning is WAY messier than that.

Let me see if I can illustrate this properly:

The core idea for Gladiator was suggested to me by a reader over at FF.net back in February 2013. One day, a month later, I gave the idea a little more thought than I had when he first offered it and my brain went into overdrive when I concocted these specific concepts that, at the time, were the very core of the story:

Azula and Sokka as partners with thicker sexual tension than anything I'd written in my life until then, in a will-they-won't-they situation that, of course, results in "THEY DID". In this setting, the war didn't end on time, meaning that a lot of things changed, including that Azula's got a blank slate in a lot of regards, so both her and Sokka need to be developed from scratch. Initially, I wasn't sure of where exactly I'd take the relationship aside from knowing that they'd obviously get together, but the specific concept of what I'd do with their relationship only arrived sometime later (as in, when I realized I was too addicted to this story and had too much to do with it to "cut to the chase", unlike what certain people wanted me to do). Also, of course, major potential to make them an epic battle couple, something I'd never gotten the chance to write them as until then, so big plus there!

Their biggest rival throughout the story would be Toph, banking on a very different portrayal than the fandom usually likes in Sokka and Toph's dynamics: she would be the big enemy inside the league that he struggles the most with defeating because, let's be real, it feels like no one could have ever imagined that Sokka could ever beat Toph in a fair, one-on-one battle until I outright wrote it in the final arc of Part 2 X'D Hence, I figured that giving him that HUGE initial goal to pursue (defeating Toph) would give us a solid story thread to follow for a long time.

Iroh as Toph's sponsor because of The Chase and their canon bond, with Toph basically being Iroh's biggest fan in the Gaang due to their bonding scene in that episode. I would then be expanding on a bond that, back in the day, was a fandom favorite and that, these days, seems to have gone completely under the radar because it feels like nobody even TALKS about it anymore. It's kinda taken for granted, I'd say?

Combustion Man as THE TOP DOG of the Ranking. The final hurdle both Sokka and Toph need to outdo to become the best gladiators in the league. Why are they trying to do that? In Toph's case, she loves fighting, this story basically gave her a chance to go wild in that sense and measure herself against all kinds of enemies. In Sokka's case? As proposed by that reader's initial pitch, he'd be forcefully taken from the Fire Nation and would want to go home: his deal with Azula solidified then as the reason why he wants to be #1. Once he wins and beats Combustion Man, Azula will consider their contract fulfilled and she will let him go back to the Water Tribe.

Zhao as Combustion Man's sponsor because I needed someone relevant to do it, it didn't feel right to just make an OC for a role so important, back in the day, and in this setting, Zhao wouldn't have died/vanished in the NWT so he was available for my needs -- all of which then led me into building a backstory where Azula held some manner of resentment towards Zhao that pushed her further in her need to find a gladiator and become the best sponsor in the league.

These five story elements were the first things that came to mind. As I liked the idea of Azula and Sokka having an immensely conflictive relationship at first, where they couldn't trust each other 100% but they LIKED each other way more than they wanted to, I switched the "Sokka gets captured by randos" from the original pitch to "AZULA captures Sokka", and that resulted in a LOT of extra chaos than what was part of the story's original concept :'D I'd dare say the main positive element about this was that the story felt more dynamic in the second chapter (when they meet for the first time) than it would have if Sokka had been caught by any other Fire Nation military officer. It even puts forward the deepest layer of rivalry in the story too: the one person in the Fire Nation settlement who could have outdone Sokka is Azula. If he had faced anyone else. he might have had chances of success... but not when he faced her.

This, then, means that Azula HERSELF is a big goal and hurdle Sokka has to overcome. Partly, their relationship would've granted Sokka the means through which he could achieve that goal, but the point is that, from very early on, I realized that I wanted the story to chronicle the gradual journey of how Sokka went from... uh, a hundred to infinity X'D because no, he wasn't a zero, he just wasn't THAT good just yet. I wanted this journey to become a full exploration of Sokka's potential as a warrior until he was strong enough to go toe to toe with Azula and defeat her one day...!

... And once I realized that, one of the first core scenes of Gladiator came into shape. As in, the day Sokka finally defeated Azula.

Also known as chapter 96 :')

On the day Sokka beats her, EVERYTHING changes. This change is primarily fueled by the fact that he DOESN'T want to defeat her, at that point. He is so done with their frequent conflicts when the one thing he REALLY wants is... her. And Azula wants HIM. So when he impulsively kisses her instead of dealing a killer blow...! Yeah, uh... pfft. God, I had done so little plotting of their character arcs that I ACTUALLY thought, back then, that there'd be tension in terms of the readers thinking "omg, is he going to kill her?!" ... yeah, that was dead in the water so fast x'D I sincerely doubt ANYONE ever imagined that he'd do that when that scene came around, but you asked about how the plotting went in the initial stages of the story, pretty sure this specific hilarious tidbit illustrates that fairly well x'D anyway, Azula surrenders and the whole underlying theme of a war between them finally gets resolved in the best way it could! :'D

But... how would THAT particular fight sequence come about?

And that's where the lead-up to the scene started to take shape! Sokka has been trying to beat Toph, but he can't! She beats him when it FINALLY looks like he might win. When that happens, Sokka seems to be ready to give up on everything, and Azula lashes out at him because she won't let him quit on her just like that. BINGO!

... And that, dear asker, was the first genuine scene and arc plotting that I did for Gladiator.

After this? I thought Sokka would go on to fight Combustion Man after a final fight with Toph in which he finally beats her. This fight with Toph, back then, was bound to take place within maybe a few months of his last defeat at her hands, I thought, but with the power of getting laid, Sokka was totally going to kick ass this time and then go on to defeat the BIG DEAL, COMBUSTION MAN HIMSELF.

And then he'd kill him. Paying a bit of homage to canon :')

It slowly came together, however, that a fight against Combustion Man quite so soon after defeating Toph was probably not going to be... well, completely reasonable unless the situation REALLY called for it for... some reason. While I'm not entirely sure that I came up with this right away, it probably wasn't over a week after I started plotting the story that I figured that Iroh would vindictively tell Ozai about Azula and Sokka's relationship after witnessing what he shouldn't have witnessed when they celebrated their triumph over Toph a little more enthusiastically than would have been appropriate :'D Then, since Combustion Man would be serving, in a sense, as Ozai's executioner of bad gladiators for sponsors who need a lesson, he'd be the one tasked with killing Sokka only for Sokka to kill him right back (?)

At this point? There was no Xin Long. The idea of Sokka killing Combustion Man through a volatile bomb predates Xin Long! I boldly snuck in a reference to how Sokka would defeat Combustion Man as early as chapter 2 because I'm crazy and wanted to make it a useful callback in future chapters, unaware that "future chapters" meant ALMOST 250 CHAPTERS LATER! X'D Anyway, point is, I wanted Sokka to defeat Combustion Man through different means than in canon, seeing how in canon he had advantages he wouldn't have had in this story (this is a controlled environment, a one-on-one fight, there's no cover where Sokka can objectively hide, he wouldn't have the opportunity to just fuck up Combustion Man the exact same way, he's not going to fall to his death, for there's no abyss nearby...). So, I came up with the volatile bomb for that purpose, and that tells you that I spent around 7 years with the image of Combustion Man burning to his death living rent free in my head before finally writing it :'D

OKAY! So! What else did I come up with...?

I think Sokka and Azula's first kiss was relatively early plotting too. The idea of Sokka carelessly flirting with Suki in the ring came to mind, and Azula being Azula, she wasn't going to appreciate that at all, so she would have kissed him recklessly in a very inappropriate and territorial bid to stake a claim over him that she really shouldn't have... but Sokka would've thought it was hot and gone with it anyway (?)

Funny reveal time here: back in the day, I was determined to ensure that they wouldn't kiss again after that first kiss, not until they were ready to bang in chapter 96. Can you believe I thought I'd have the self-restraint to pull that off? x'D I laugh at my innocence in those regards to this day.

The second kiss I planned, probably MONTHS later, was actually the one on the way to the Slate. I wanted them to go out of control at one point and for them to be like "omg that was very inappropriate of us! How could we! But omg does that mean you like me tooooo?"

And isn't it HILARIOUS that my plotting was soooo naïve that I STILL didn't realize how far the early chapters would take them in their relationship? x'D

This, in a nutshell, is the exact reason why I CAN'T write out of order: if I'd written the Slate's trip situation as early as when I first thought about it? You can bet it would've made zero sense with all the character progression we saw through the rest of the story. And then I would have had to rewrite it anyway :')

Xin Long, I won't lie, was a bit of a whim on my part, no doubt motivated by my frustrations with canon and how Azula seemed to only get screwed over. So I said "she gets whatever the hell she wants in Gladiator because I hate the world" and once the idea of helping her find a dragon came to mind, I just rolled with it (?) It took me a while to actually integrate Xin Long with the Rough Rhinos arc, I wasn't sure about when I'd introduce him once the idea came to mind, but there was no better chance than to do so while Sokka and Azula were lost in the forest.

About other stuff, I liked the idea of Piandao training Sokka more extensively than in canon, but I didn't want him to be Sokka's host FOREVER because that meant less chances for Sokkla interactions. So... I had to get rid of him.

Believe it or not, I didn't sort out the in-world reasons to explain why I'd gotten rid of him until well around 3-4 years into plotting the story :')

Piandao's connection to Ursa felt natural after I really started thinking about it, but that took AGES to properly plot. Initially? I just needed him to go away. And in a sense, the excuse was that Iroh was on his way home, meaning, there was a Grand Lotus near the Fire Lord's court, way closer than Piandao ever was, so he didn't NEED to be there anymore.

... And that kind of led into Zuko.

While I was absolutely overtaken by the wild plotting involved in soooo many other aspects of the story, my good friend @jordanalane, no longer active on tumblr or the fandom, put up with my rambling about ALL THESE IDEAS and went "Yay! This story sounds fun! What's going on with Zuko here?"

Me, internally: "... Well shit I forgot about Zuko."

I won't say that she singlehandedly set up Zuko's journey in Gladiator, but saying that she gave me about 65% of the ideas for what I'd do with him would probably be fairly accurate, unless the percentage is larger than I thought. I actually toyed with the idea of setting up Zuko and Aang on a way bigger, political journey that we'd only occasionally glimpse while we focused on Sokka and Azula's partnership within the Fire Nation culture and all the gladiatorial chaos. Very early on, the plan seriously wasn't for Sokka to become... well, what he is now xD So I was genuinely going to leave all the heavy lifting of the war to Aang and Zuko because, ultimately, the Fire Nation has to be defeated and they're the ones who usually get up to that, right?

I think I've mentioned that, post Combustion Man's death, I had no idea wtf I was going to do. Like... I knew that was far away. I knew I'd have the time (or at least, I faithfully believed I would) to figure out what I'd do before we got to that point. I absolutely knew the story could not possibly end there.

So at this stage of plotting, I toyed with Blue Spirit Zuko joining the Gladiator League briefly as a destabilizer within the system (and then I started writing Zuko in the story and realized that... no. There was just no way this guy wanted anything to do with the Gladiator League as a fighter or even as a sponsor. Nope). Then, I thought he should go south (though I had no idea how I'd get him there!), where he'd find Aang eventually! There was a veeeery small window of time in which I considered keeping Aang at 12-years-old, which would've made Kataang waaaaay too unsettling since Katara would've been over 20, and I thought maybe Zuko and Katara could be a thing? But the idea never really solidified into anything I wanted to write between those two, it felt like an older Katara would've focused even more on protecting Aang (becoming the actual mother figure the fandom and even canon are obsessed with adultifying her into at 14) because she'd be too aware of how young and fragile he was...!

... But then? I thought it would've actually made sense for Aang to be more than just the little boy who saves the day and everyone protects:

Why not make him an opportunity for Katara to learn her Tribe's traditional and lost waterbending styles?

If I aged up Aang, and made it so he had been frozen in the South Pole, not out of sheer chance but out of him actually BEING IN THE AREA when the storm struck him? That could do the trick! If his journey as a waterbending master was already underway by the time he was frozen, then he'd have two elements down... and he could be Katara's teacher instead! While there were downsides to this decision, of course, it actually made a ton of sense to me mainly because I don't love the way it feels like Katara, in canon, never truly reclaimed the traditional southern style of waterbending. This, then, meant that Aang could provide her with a connection to her own people and their past, something he can't offer her in canon.

So! With that in mind? I aged up Aang and made him 19, and Kataang could be preserved and be developed this way. Part of it is also motivated by my genuine confusion, when I first watched the show, over the old Air Nomad leaders deciding that Aang, already declared an airbending master, "needed to master more advanced airbending techniques" right after revealing that he was the Avatar. I mean... if he's already a master, doesn't it make more sense to send him to the next element he's supposed to learn? Especially considering it's water? And considering that the storm clouds in the horizon were coming from the Fire Nation, so the more water to fight them, the better? :'D

So yep, that was another reason why I made the choices I made.

Lo and behold, slowly and surely, the core bones of Gladiator were starting to take shape: Azula and Sokka start as contentious allies, joining forces for a common goal and very different motivations, all of which would lead them into falling in love over time. Their biggest threats in the league are Toph and Combustion Man, but perhaps bigger still would be Iroh, who would rat them out to Ozai (I'm 100% serious when I say this specific element of the story has been part of Gladiator's DNA since the very start, the whole journey I threw Iroh into was basically "how do I get him to the point where he would be THAT pissed off as to do something like this with no regard as to the consequences of his own actions?"). Zuko, Katara and Aang would more or less stick to being involved in fighting the war, they wouldn't be all that connected to the Gladiator League or anything to do with that.

Worth noting that my friend started to come up with ideas for Zuko and Suki to get together and make sense as a couple in the story, and while at first it was just a casual thing that I figured would work alright, her ideas became... so much more poignant than I ever imagined they would be.

About one year, maybe a year-and-a-half, after I started plotting Gladiator, I actually figured out what my endgame would be.

At that point, I actually knew where we were going and I started to focus my attention on plotting how to get there. New concepts started to pop up, things that I absolutely hadn't thought about from the get-go: I DID have my alternate idea on what was going on with Ursa since ages ago (the swamp concept, as you'll likely have read already...), and after The Search thoroughly disappointed me, I chose to stick with that path without looking back. But while this was in the background, something I knew had happened but that I doubted I'd be able to work into the story productively, I realized it would actually be something I could explore IN the story once Part 3 stopped being a big nebulous blob of mystery for me. I decided that Sokka and Azula would be torn away from each other, that HE would be the one leading the war faction out of the South Pole and into the chaos of war, that Piandao's tile for Sokka, mainly done as homage to canon back when I wrote that, could actually represent something FAR GREATER if Sokka joined forces with the White Lotus to fight the Fire Nation and return to Azula...!

... And one of my most evil advisors of those years also very casually inceptioned into my head the very wicked idea of pregnant Azula in the middle of this mess :'D

I could go on and on, honestly! I have one funny thing to bring up, and it's that the scene from the Northern Air Temple arc, where Sokka tells Azula his true fears and feelings about his family, how he doesn't think he's worthy of going home and is genuinely apprehensive of returning because he thinks his dad will be disappointed in him? That... was repurposed from a very early idea I had for Sokka and Azula, once they were properly together, traveling to Whaletail Island, and spending a casual day/night in bed talking about a lot of things, which then led into Sokka talking about his family and what he actually felt about them, which Azula wasn't supposed to know about until then :'D That was, ironically, the origin point for the Whaletail Island arc. The scene that originated it just... never happened x'D

As you may be able to tell... the progress of their relationship, the evolution and development of the characters, caused a LOT of things to move forward way faster than I thought they would. Hence, Sokka wound up telling Azula about all those things WAAAY sooner than I originally envisioned. By then, Whaletail's scene was kind of broken down and spread into other situations and arcs instead! Again: this is why I can't write out of chronological order xD

One funny thing to look back on was my confident belief that Sokka and Azula would spend the bulk of Part 1 doing a mutual pining thing where neither one realized the other felt the exact same way about them... when I was in the middle of their best conversations in the Rough Rhinos' arc, the THIRD ARC of the entire story, I was like "yo... they're 100% aware of the fact that they're down bad for each other already. There's literally no mystery about how they feel, THEY OBVIOUSLY ALREADY KNOW." And that hilariously changed A LOT of how things developed later, because I sure as heck didn't plan for them to kiss in the Rough Rhinos arc at all (it kinda happened on a whimsical plotting session, a few days before writing it :'D). I did NOT plan for them to kiss at Ty Lee's backyard, either (oh, this one was basically them getting out of my control and doing whatever they wanted, same evil advisor I mentioned earlier told me to go with it while I cried to her about how I apparently just COULDN'T STOP THEM FROM MAKING OUT???)...

Ember Island's arc, so poignant and crucial and such a KEY element in their relationship, was probably plotted well after... six months since the original idea of Gladiator came to my head. I did not think about this one until A WHILE into writing the story already. I was probably almost done posting the Rough Rhinos by the time the full concept of that arc materialized in my head! The beloved Pairs Tournament arc? That was 100% a reader's suggestion, from an ask I got one day! x'D I told them that sounded like a fun concept, and then, once I pondered it some more and fleshed it out, it ended up becoming a highlight for me, it's gone on to become a fan favorite arc of the entire story, as well as The Arc where Toph finally became friends with Sokka and Azula properly!

So. Yep. Basically... I do not plot anything linearly. I can't. If I did, I wouldn't have a clue of where I'm going and I'd lose my steam so fast that I would just crumble under the weight of not seeing the point of what I'm doing. I think I can write without a huge endgame, to a fault, with less demanding stories... but Gladiator was ALWAYS so much bigger than anything my brain could wrap around back when I first started to plot this story, and it's no joke to say that it's really taken me ten years to not only write it, but actually plot the story as thoroughly as I can (hell, only a few months ago I got struck by lightning with A PLOT TWIST that I just wrote yesterday! A crazy development I absolutely HAD NOT thought about, and that I fell in love with completely when it came to mind!). The amount of threads and possibilities and ideas that I've been juggling for AGES is probably a little crazy, honestly.

But yeah, in short, it's wild to think that even though I absolutely planned several things YEARS before they came into fruition, ultimately, the final arc of Part 1 came together before the first one, in many senses. It came together before every arc, basically, and all the material in between was just a matter of building a huge, solid bridge to the point where Sokka and Azula would finally act on their feelings. The process through which I got there absolutely changed me in a thousand ways, my ideas and my plans often wound up switched up whenever a random, crazy idea came up, and I thought to myself "... and why not?" after a few moments of indulging it and being on the brink of discarding it.

As another fun tidbit of information? That's kind of what happened with something as vital to the story as Rei has been, throughout Part 3: she is a character I came up with, not really on the fly, but at relative random once I was planning on having Azula seek Zhao for help over Toph's predicament back in Part 2. I loved the idea of a teenage, dorky maid who had NOT expected to meet the Princess, but initially? She's nothing to make a fuss over because we've been seeing heaps of people who are starstruck by Azula by then. She only stands out for having the dorkiest reverence ever x'D and part of why she stands out too, instead of getting written off, initially, as Zhao's nameless, aimless home staff, is because I had thought about the potential of making her Zhao's illegitimate daughter at this point in time! But I DIDN'T go all in with it on her first appearance... because I wasn't sure. Because I didn't think I could juggle ANOTHER plot point and new character on top of everything I had to set up (at this point I was particularly preoccupied by figuring out how to establish Shaofeng and Renkai as important characters for my future purposes with both of them :'D). So I said "nah, you know what? She's just the cute and quirky maid. We like her. Zhao is decent to her. He doesn't need to be her father."

... About two weeks before going all in on the Hahn's Gambit arc, I was pondering Part 3. The idea of Rei being Zhao's illegitimate daughter returned to mind. My impulse was dismissing my own thoughts, frankly, along the lines of "I mean, wtf would she even do once Zhao becomes Crown Prince? She'd be abandoned in the estate anyway, like, what, she would inherit it or something?" and then... then it struck me. I realized that she could very well just come with him. As his maid. And then, she could become Azula's maid...

... What followed was about three days of plotting that suddenly brought LIFE to Azula's Part 3 early storyline and I suddenly could not BELIEVE I had ever let myself think I could let go of this character and make nothing of note with her x'D

The situation with Rei is, indeed, something that happened often throughout Gladiator. Some ideas I've clung to, some ideas I've dismissed, some ideas have terraformed the groundwork I'd already set up... and instead of panicking about it? I've done what I could to work with it. Hence, that the will-they-won't-they did NOT include the agony of "but would he/she return my feelings?!" wound up being a result of the build up, something I didn't plan all along but that worked perfectly for my purposes. The idea of making Sokka and Azula's relationship not be just some powerful high, the be-all-end-all of the story once it was crystallized and once they were together? That wasn't immediate, either... but it certainly came along as a result of my greed, I'd dare say x'D

When I realized how long this story was going to be, I told myself this fic was basically the landscape upon which I could very well turn all my Sokkla dreams come true. And it wasn't ONLY the Sokkla dreams related to their fluff, or smut, or angst... no, it was even the fact that, for ONCE, I could build a story where Sokka and Azula were NOT the B-story to Zuko and Aang's A-story, unlike how it might have felt in most any other story, hell, even in my long defunct plans for how to conclude the story (and thank God that I dismissed that mess, honestly). Suddenly, I realized I could bring the ENTIRE Avatarverse together, reconfigure every character, repurpose as many of them as I cared to... and create a scenario where the story, every single major beat of it, was connected to THEM. Where the battle against Ozai was no longer some distant conflict with unexplored emotional stakes, it's a PERSONAL one, not only for Azula but for Sokka as well. And while I'm not going to pretend that I'm the only person who has ever rewritten ATLA to this extent without centering the story on Aang or Zuko, I can certainly say that I've never seen anything of this scale elsewhere (... which can be kinda literal too, considering this is, indeed, the longest fic in the fandom...).

But I REALLY didn't start out with that idea in mind. Back when the concept came to me... I really didn't know where I would be going, honestly. I knew this would be a HUGE commitment, but I didn't know how big, exactly. Now that I do know, that I have the full scope of the story in my grasp... I can tell you that yeah, I had no idea what I was getting into and I'm glad I jumped in anyway x'D

If anyone gets all the way through this long post and wants advice on how to cope with ridiculously long stories that are that difficult to plot? I think that my advice would definitely be to give it time, let it simmer, find the moments, the scenes you REALLY look forward to writing. Don't settle for powering towards the endgame without advancing the story beforehand: push things at other points of the story and if, when you reach your big story climax, you find that the leadup is different from what you were expecting you'd have in your hands, once you got there? ... Roll with the punches. Reconfigure the scene in your head. Improvise, to a fault, and build up FURTHER on what you already had... because the likelihood is that the outcome is going to be a thousand times better than your OG plans were. Don't let yourself get lost in enforcing a plot stubbornly: nothing makes a story come to life as vividly as surfing along with the new highs and changes that hit you at the spur of the moment, figuring out how to make your story the best it can be. I won't pretend Gladiator is anywhere close to perfect... but after just looking back on everything that has led us to where we are? I can definitely say I'm very proud of this story's journey, very proud of having jumped into this madness even when my vision of it, at the time when I started plotting, could have never informed me of every crazy thing I'd end up achieving with this story. While some important elements of the story 100% stayed true to my OG concept... I'm really glad that I let myself change certain aspects because it enriched everything I was doing well beyond the scope of what I could grasp back then.

Anyway. Sorry for the long rambling. I got a little hyped haha. Thanks for the ask!

#anon #gladiator #this is a LOT of words too #look this is break day #I finished arc 23 of part 3 #... I only have 10 left to write #*panics*#*hyperventilates*#*gets hyped*#so yeah I answered a few asks and I have a bunch more left #I am sorry to everyone I haven't answered yet #I'll try to get to it soon!#but honestly anon thank you for that chance to ramble about the past #that was a real fun trip down memory lane

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skania · 1 year ago

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Replies to ONK Asks

Gathering everything in one place so it's easier to find! If you've sent me an anonymous ONK-related message this past week, the reply should be below the cut!

As always, thank you to everyone who dropped by to share their thoughts with me! ❤️

Seeing their dynamic animated will make it more hilarious than ever, I'm really looking forward to S2! 😂

Anon, I get the feeling there's been a misunderstanding here. When I said "most obvious", I didn't mean "best written and best for the story". I just meant "most predictable" lol

You bring up some really nice observations anon! In particular, I really like what you pointed out, that during the Baseball Catch date and the Brazilian BBQ date Aqua's feelings for Akane were discussed! It also makes for a nice show of their progression, because during the first one he dismisses his feelings for Akane while in the second he has come to develop enough feelings for her that he is considering falling for her altogether.

You're right that people do tend to interpret anything and everything Aqua does towards Kana as romantic. I think it's because it's what people have come to expect when it comes to dynamics with their tropes (light to the darkness, etc.), but I'm with you on the fact that they could easily be platonic.

I also agree with you on Aqua and Akane having a better developed relationship!

I'm so sorry anon, even leaving the rude people aside, the Twitter character limit is way too short for how much I type and the 4 image limit per tweet doesn't help either 😭 I may go for it one day though! If Aqua and do Akane happen, I'm 100% joining the Twitter fight to prove wrong the inevitable 'it's coming out of nowhere!' etc we're bound to get 😂

No? Where do people even get this stuff from? 😭

I LOVE Melt! Love him! But I have no thoughts about any potential ship between him and Kana, there isn't enough development there for me to form an opinion it lol

Ohhh I hadn't thought about that, you're right that Sarina idolized Ai in a similar way to baby!Akane's idolization of baby!Kana. I'm not sure I see other parallels between them though and here between us, I'm not very inclined to look for any because I think that the fact that Akane doesn't remind Aqua of Sarina or Ai or anyone else is a great thing. The less he projects on her, the better!

You know which parallels I did notice, though? Goro's presence brought Sarina salvation much in the same way Akane's did for Aqua. The wording used is the same in both, too! I'm keeping that thought in mind to follow it during a rainy day 😂

Exactly!! During my first read, I had pretty much no expectations for Aka's writing so I didn't really care about getting to the bottom of Aqua's psyche, I just found him boring. It was through rereading his scenes with Akane that I realized that the explanations the fandom kept feeding me didn't add-up, so I started thinking about Aqua's character more seriously and I liked what I found. Now here I am lol

I completely agree with you anon! I acknowledge that Aka is free to do whatever he wants with the manga and that sometimes, the better ship loses. Regardless, I still hope that he will deliver on the development he has given Aqua and Akane and grant us a satisfying ending, because it is the most developed Aqua ship and I'd love for something to come out of it. I'm glad you now think it's possible!

Clown behavior, I tell you! I'm praying Aqua will keep pulling stuff like this during the movie recording, it's so hilarious 😂

Thank you so much, anon!! I got you, it's a small flashback from Chapter 96!

They're adorable 😭 imagine all the moments they had during the year they dated for real

#onk asks convos #chapter 123 anon I didn't forget you!!#I'm up to date with the leaks but I'm waiting for the official release to discuss the chapter

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ideahat-universe · 7 months ago

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You love and hate too much.

Whenever I think about how liberal or conservative something should be I think of this clip from Best of the Worst. Granted, I am not talking about political liberalism or political conservatism. I'm talking about being artistically liberal or artistically conservative.

When you are artistically liberal you let the mask slip and you share innermost thoughts and feelings in your artwork and just give people only what you want to see which for art is the point but if your art is part of or is a product to be bought and consumed, being overly liberal pushes patrons out of buying your artwork because they disagree with what you created and why.

When you are artistically conservative you withdraw or hide your innermost thoughts and feelings in exchange for a more guarded and in some cases a more inclusive form of expression. You reign yourself in and in exchange you give others a piece of your work to take as they wish.

Lets go back to the clip. The Killer Eye is the focus of the film, but Mike states that just because the film is about the Killer Eye, the entire film doesn't need to have the Killer Eye in every scene and in full view.

It would have benefited the film more to restrain how often the Killer Eye appeared but they loved the prop too much and as such they were liberal with its usage and it hurt the film from a patron sort of view because Horror has a formula that optimizes audience impact.

That being Less is More.

However, what if Killer Eye was so conservative that the eye is never seen? That wouldn't be better because it would deny a payoff and it would bring into question on whether or not the prop even existed or if in fact, the prop did exist but it was so horrible looking and poorly made that it was cut entirely.

You need that balance. Balance in all things.

So lets talk about Eve's big ass!

The Stellar Blade discourse is absolutely bonkers. If you asked me, there's no difference between Sybil and Eve. And the sexiness of Sybil is not understated.

You mean to tell me that because one is an Asian Woman and the other is a Goat Anthro, we're talking about different forms of sex appeal?

No, I don't think so.

If you get rid of the people talking about the culture war and focused on the reviews about the gameplay. You'll see two of the same things.

Thirsty users making single sentence reviews where they extol their desire for sex with the character.

Normal people who actually liked the gameplay.

And that's fine and I won't lie, Sybil and Eve are Sights for Sore Eyes.

I do think they are overly liberal designs though. Although saying that, there is a option for Sybil to wear pants. For Eve though there's an option where her outfit exposes even more of her body.

Furries: 1 Otakus: 0

Joke aside though, it's just a point of fact, Stellar Blade loves the female form just a little too much. I get it. You base the design off a model who is sexy for a living which by extension makes the main character in your game a sex model cyborg that fights weird monsters and the gameplay is. Well it's fine. There are a lot of games that play like this. I would rather play Kingdom Hearts myself but maybe someone else would just play Elden Ring. It doesn't look special, so it feels like the hook really is how sexy Eve is.

And to be fair, it's not literal porn.

But still, this is very liberal.

Now lets talk about conservative artwork.

I have a hot take. I think Frey from Forspoken is attractive. Her mouth (The way she talks, not her literal lips which are quite pretty) is an astronomical turnoff. She's riddled with stereotypes from growing up without proper parental figures, being a black person that steals for a living, and always talking smack while spending a lot of time around people who will slap you for talking smack to them.

But that's all a matter of writing. Frey is perfectly average in terms of body types and if I was on a dating site looking for Ms. Right I'd be fine with Frey based only on looks.

Lets look at Mary Jane.

This. Is also fine. But Mary Jane is supposed to be above average because she's made to be the Girl Next Door which is a level of attraction that is very high but not lewd and often paired with a seiso personality.

The face in particular isn't very feminine, it is a trait you could easily inherit but it's not a heart shaped face which is more optimal for a classically pretty female.

So she should have been designed with a Heart Shaped face given that Mary Jane is supposed to be beautiful and is Spiderman's most prominent romantic interest.

To design Mary Jane like this, is a very conservative move because with just one change you've stripped a lot from that character to be inclusive to anyone that is offended by a trope that the character was originally designed to have (above average sex appeal).

Now this.

We might have a problem here.

Okay so, we already talked about the heart shaped face. I don't think we have that here.

There's also an extreme lack of breasts. She isn't wearing body armor so we really should see a prominent chest. Breasts are mostly fat and while this is a fictional setting, the average breast size of a western woman is C-34DD. The above character is A maybe B but probably less than A which is common among Japanese women (yes, that's right. Mature Japanese women occasionally have the body type of Young or immature woman, at least in regards to breast size).

But like I said. Breasts are mostly fat so if the character is in a setting where acquiring a calorie rich diet is difficult they could have a breasts that are very small, additionally, this could also delay puberty.

I don't know how old the character is but if they are under 18 and don't eat meat then this is possible. Knowing how tall this character is would help as well but we're probably looking at around the lower end of 150 pounds and if this person is below 5'8 they would have to be very thin to not have at least B cup sized breasts.

They have a weapon, do they actually see combat? While being skin and bones? Okay, I mean high fantasy but also Fable is known to have characters bulk up when they have a strength focused design and breasts don't have fat in them so this character could have more muscle on them and the design would make more sense but even then those women still have bigger boobs than the above character.

This design is very conservative to the point of looking like it objects to seeing the female form.

I see this sort of thing in children's cartoons where the cast is anthro and the art designers don't want to draw boobs on the female animals for whatever reason.

But those are cartoon animals. This is a character design based off of a real person.

It's way too conservative.

Yeah, so. Okay Oda. Maybe the lady from fable has the body of a young male protagonist and Stellar Blade is just Kingdom Hearts with titties.

Whose side are you on in this culture war?

This side.

#video games #fandom #controversy #stellar blade #sweet baby inc

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