#i think its actually The singular franchise i know most about

[strayheat]

portal is genuinely such a funny fucking game like holy fuck.this game is great

[onlyplatonicirl]

It’s so funny watching all of these people, usually in text posts or YouTube videos, complain about the “multiverse problem” in popular media, usually in reference to DCU and MCU, as a result of their recent storylines. And then we’re sitting here, in a fandom that is literally ABOUT the multiverse. I wonder what those critics would say about the UT multiverse and what its problems are (in terms of storytelling or science, not social issues). I personally think we, as the UTMV community, do pretty good in both storytelling and science. But I do see a large… difference (?) in how popular media handles the multiverse and multiverse stories compared to UTMV, which is literally made by random individuals who don’t know each other and is then built on the back of cooperation and communication.

I think one of the biggest differences between utmv and something like an MCU or another franchise with a canon established multiverse is just that:

MCU has a canon multiverse with established stories and a singular interpretation. UTMV doesn’t.

There are very few, if less, actual “canon” interactions between characters in the utmv. Seeing as there’s no source material to go off of and no actual established timeline, and each character exists in a void where it “canonically” hasn’t met the others (most of the time at least) it basically leaves all of the actual plot, character interactions, any sort of shipping, and any sort of laws and story completely at the mercy of every single individual and none of them are “wrong”.

UTMV is the taking of several different concepts, all created by different people, and then creating character relationships based on what they feel like they want to do. For example, bad sans poly is a thing. Some people write them as a family instead. Some people write them as a strict business type deal where they all hate each other. There is no wrong interpretation because a correct one doesn’t exist. There is no “canon” bad sans relationship unless the creators of the characters themselves explicitly write a solid plot. Which they probably aren’t lol.

That’s what makes this fandom so interesting. With so little canon information it leaves the artist to literally go nuts with how they want to fill in the rest of the gaps. No right answers and no wrong ones. You just have fun and make something YOU like. I’m a prime example of that LMAO

[rpking99]

BOOM! Megazords!

So BIG NERD TALK time!

Been a while, huh guys?

Well with BOOM! Studios ending their Power Rangers comic book continuity with Darkest Hour later this month (and seriously, they have a LOT to fix into this story. Like the arc has been dragged out so long, but now there's an ending they've just slammed their foot on the accelerator and it feels like some things aren't even close to being talked about elf alone concluded) I just felt... Time to do another one of these

Now some of you may remember on my old blog, where I did three big nerd talk posts gushing about BOOM!'s original ranger designs, a post Ill definitely want to explore and expand (and make a singular post) once the series is done. But right now? ... Time to be negative

Because while BOOM! has been nailing it with their ranger designs.... Their original megazords have been crap.

And I am not talking about the amazingness of the Gravezord. Ranger Slayer's baby is amazing since it's a stand alone robot literally made our if destroyed parts, it's design works and makes sense in universe

It is a literal scrapyard fused together. The main body is the White Tiger Zord with the Yellow Griffon Thunder Zord's shell as a claw on the left arm, the Pink Firebird Thunder Zord's wings as wings, Tor the Shuttle Zord's head as a helmet and face, the Blue Unicorn Thunder Zord's front plate as a shoulder pad for the right shoulder, and the Red Dragon Thunder Zord having it's head and crotch plate turned into a buckler/sword combo on the right arm, and it's warrior mode shoulder as a shoulder pad on the left shoulder

It is literally spare parts showen together

No

What I'm talking about... Is their combinations.

Now I'm gonna do a quick aside to explain what's wrong with BOOM!'s design philosophy.

Transformers. Gundam. The Brave Franchise like GaoGaiGar. Heck, Power Rangers and Sentai on TV. Why do these shows have good looking combinations in them?

Why does, say, the original MMPR Dino Megazord/ZyuRanger's DaiZyuJin work as a design? Because it was thought of TO combine. As "this part folds in like this so that part can connect there, this part folds around this, hands flip out, click that into place" and so on. Yes, a lot of this is because "toys" but because they are designed to be real machines, real objects, with limited mass and placement... It works

Even "Cluster Fuck combinations" like Go-Ongers Engine-O G12 or Shinkenger SamuraiHa-Oh work because they have to work with the real pieces that actually exist.

But this is where we come to a problem

BOOM!

BOOM!'s megazords... They treat every zord like putty that just merge together like silly putty into the final combination

Example A is the MegaGraveZord, a fusion of the MMPR Megazord and the Gravezord.

I showed the Grave Zord earlier. Where did most of its body go? Where did so much RED come from?! Like... Those knee guards are the shoulder pads of the Red Dragon Thunder Zord's warrior mode! Which they only had one of in the Gravezord. But they've also shrunk! ... And the actual shoulder pad on the Gravezord was put on this combo!

Where did the Unicorn's shoulder pad go?!

How did the head change like that?!

But the biggest issue... Where did 99% of its mass go?! It's got the tiger head and the upper arms, but the rest of the ACTUAL body has just... Vanished!

And this wasn't exchanging parts by the way, it was a full fusion

But you know what. At least this looked cool.

Next week have the.... I think they called it the MegaMegazord?

It is comprised of the Hyper Force Megazord. But also the Dolphin, Lion and Hawk Ninja Storm Zord's (yes, the full Wind Megazord is in there), the Purple Wolf Jungle Fury Zord (that's normally used as a leg), the Yellow Garuda Mystic Force zord (normally a backpack and wings), the green Minotaur Mystic Force Zord (which is most of its megazords body... That's in there to), the Violet DinoCharge Plesio Charge Megazord (Plesu-Oh for Kyoryuger fans) (yes that's ANOTHER full Megazord in this as well) and finally the Super Zeo Zord I Pink (which becomes a pair of feet)

Like... This is a cool ass design

But... Combining? No, not like this

Not at all

It's just a generic design robot design with random design details that imply the design but that's it.

And.. yeah. A lot of these don't work because they weren't supposed to. But that's where you could be clever. Look what what breaks into what pieces and how they could theoretically be used... Also using ones that COULD work together

And then there's.... This

We have all thought of this. The awesomeness of the Dragonzord fusing with the White Tiger zord. But....

No

Why is the crotch piece from the dragon zord (which is part of the chest plate) there? Why are the symbols from the Dragon Zord's KNEES and THIGHS taken OUT of its body and placed THERE?!

Why is the golden chest plate attached to the FRONT of the shoulders like that?! Especially when the MISISLE FINGERS of the dragon zord fold in there so they COULD have been used as shoulder canons!

Also why is the CIRCLE from the middle part of the chest piece removed to be a shield?! Can't get just use the whole chest piece?!

And how is the drill attached to the arm like that?!

Like... This fusion is super obvious! Drape the Dragon Zord over the shoulders like you do with the classic Megazord! Maybe have the hips detach and attach to the Tiger Zord's waist and thighs to bulk that up. Then combine the chest plate and drill tail and connect that to the arm, or use it as a hand held weapon!

But finally we get to THIS monstrosity

This is four of the MMPR Thunder Zord's combining together with the Blue Omega Zord and

....

Do....

Do I have to say anything?

The Red Dragon Zord has complelty changed texture! Where is the Thunder Bird?! This is basically the Thunder Megazord combination, so surely the Omega Blue Zord should just be replacing that! WHAT DID YOU DO TO THE LION?!

The only part of this combination that looks right is the left leg. Because the Griffon is the only one being used right. Which, ironically, makes it look out of place

Like... The lion is the big one. Because... You can see it in the picture. They've literally stretched and squished it like taffy. They basically painted small details of it only a leg hit

If you don't know how this combination works... The Lion becomes chest armour for the Thunder Megazord. The lions head hanging at the crotch with it's beard flowing down as a waist skirt. And it's two large paws unfold and become arm armour for the combination

But in this "Omega Blue Thunder Omegazord Formation" (the names for these things suck, by the way) yoh can see... The lion face is a complelty different shape and cut off, the gem that would be in the middle of the chest and act as the rangers cockpit has been cut in half and is near the knee, the paws are missing, it's much lomger ans thinner than it should be.

The underlying issue with all of these combinations is simple. They are doing generic robot designs using the Zord's as a paint by numbers thing with barley any cohesive thought behind the designs beyond 'robot good'

And to be clear. This is me just explaining why I do not like these original designs and what about them I do not like. If you do like them, awesome. Am honestly happy for you.

[avaisnerdytoo]

About TRON 3... But not really:

So I was rewatching TRON: Legacy as I usually do, and God to I love that movie...

As of writing this the blog look is centered around TRON, but I actually haven't talked about it much, I could say thousands of things of why I love that Universe, but with TRON 3... Or I guess... TR3N... Beginning filming, I wanted to get some thoughts out.

I think I speak for everyone, that I hope, I pray, I am down on my knees begging:

That movie is good. I must admit I haven't looked into the project much, so investigating could probably calm down my anxiety.

In a way what I am slightly fixating on, is that Jared Leto is on it... And I already don't like him much in general...

But one man surely can't be the singular reason for a bad movie you know?

I also realize there are some talented people involved here... But I guess... Well...

•

I don't like thinking with negative expectations, I don't like assuming things will go bad as the internet loves to say, and I most of all, don't like starting conversation with a negative lens.

But I am... A bit afraid 😅

•

I love this franchise with all my heart, I feel that everything TRON has always been special, unique in its own way, and valuable to the whole universe.

The first movie was a technological breakthrough, the second the creation of a whole New Universe, the kind that's filled with endless potential, Evolution made a lot of that potential tangible, and Uprising... Well, that masterpiece will have always deserved better, but in my opinion it's the top example of the potential of The Grid.

I am yet to read the comics, even though I am slightly embarrassed to admit, but I have heard good things.

I know Identity was also really well received, which so far makes for an excellent track record.

•

However I must also admit I don't trust Disney, or the big budget film industry right now, I don't know if I trust them to let the artists be artists, to let them experiment like they have always done with this franchise - especially after what happened to Uprising -, I don't know if I trust them not to rush the VFX's or the Story, I don't know if I trust them to expand the world in a satisfying way while also respecting what has come before like this franchise historically has done.

I don't want to live wishing the movie tries to reach up to my impossibly high hopes, because evidently that's very much a me problem, but I hope and pray that the massively talented creators behind these projects get to shine like they have always done. I know reaching the point of having TRON 3 even being approved was a massive undertaking.

Am I exaggerating? I probably am, trailer isn't even close to out yet...

Sorry about my rambles, but I needed to get them out, I just love this so much okay? 🥺

[canidaezy]

p1- "not much to say" YEAH theres fucking nothing to say about his character because there barely is any. we get the smallest glimpse into his mind and personality and it is entirely warped by the psychosis he is currently experiencing to the point where you cannot accurately extrapolate what he must be like outside of this specific point in time.

cannot stand the majority of p1-lovers for this reason. they love the IDEA of him in their head rather than the character that actually exists!!!

for what he is, hes a great and fascinating element of the game but 11/10? the CHARACTER? his character is *just* the story. he cannot stand alone because of that. you are referring to the story and atmosphere of the game. which is great! its a beautiful work of art! i love it! but youre wrong.

p2- 4.5 out of 10 for p2 fuck off honestly. the only reason given here is "got tired of seeing his design everywhere" uhhh he is from the most popular game in this franchise. he is THE character in the most popular game in the franchise, the only one with any personality, and he is popular because of that. i entirely understand disliking him, but god dislike him because hes a disgusting fucking freak or annoying or whatever like someone i respect would. "4.5/10" he has thousands of times the amount of character as p1. there is so much more you can do with him. because he is an entire character. whereas p1 *is* the story, p2 *is* the gameplay. and you play as him!!

p3- i genuinely cannot comprehend liking p3 more than p2. is it because hes more conventionally attractive? is it because hes more normal? whatever. this rating would stand whatever on its own honestly but paired with the others it drives me insane.

bd- "concept art version was way better" you mean the version from before he had a fucking personality?????!!!!!! man i bought the art book ive seen the concept art he looks exactly the fucking same. he still had the gown. do you mean the only piece of art where he didnt have the gown? the one singular image in which he didnt have the gown, the very same gown which was present throughout the rest of the design process? fuck of

"who gave him that gown? who let him walk outside like that" 1. its a DREAM its a DREAM did you play the game this was revealed in the first minute! even if you just looked at the art it *looks* like a dream because it is one! also the gown is based on the blanket hes sleeping under in the real world and its cute as fuck and such a good detail imo.

hes supposed to look silly sillyness is fucking awesome. this gane franchise is silly. p3 is silly. what do you even want....

and on that note personality-wise he is literally just a cross between p2 and p3.

genuinely convinced this person has NOT played or even looked at the game, and the lack of a rating for alt dude only supports this point.

again! it is perfectly fine to dislike him! but god! have a REASON for it, yknow? one that makes sense. like "hes insufferable and annoying and disgusting and the worst" or "hes just lame and boring honestly" or "i dont like his design/the game, because it doesnt appeal to my taste in art"

redux dude- HE IS NEARLY IDENTICAL TO P1 i cannot IMAGINE having this strong of a difference in opinion between them the changes between them are so subtle.

unless! its as i hypothesized and you only like the made up fanonized versions of these characters

movie dude- fuck you he is so whimsical and cute youre nuts not to find zack wards acting charming and silly....

p4- lower than p3 i fcuking cant. why. the shade to bd is what really kills me. i dont think youve played any of these games honestly. i dont think you know anything about them.

shtopor- i hate this so much "innocent trans icon angel" "bbg" im having trouble talking about how bad this take is on its own because of how violently disturbing it is to me.

c*rkscrew rules is such a garbage game with a shitty translation i refuse to belive this is your second favorite dude with that description honest to god. characterwise hes fucking whatever. hes fine. i love him so much. but 10/10? with that description? im fucking scared more than anything. i imagine it must be a joke but im so revolted i struggle to parse the purpose of it.

[canarydarity]

howdy! it's day 1 of MCYT fanfic appreciation week, and i was wondering if you had any future writing projects or other ideas that you wanted an excuse to talk about :D no pressure whatsoever to answer this ask, just thought i'd reach out ♡

HI :')) this absolutely made my day to receive, and also served as reminder to me that yesterday was that events start day!!! so thank you for that!!!!

i will always always always take an excuse to talk about the fic ideas that are rotting my brain <3

I'm going to talk about 3 projects; 1) yet another DL rancher one-shot 2) my current brain rot go to: speed racer au 3) and a worm tried and true classic: gay baseball au

cut here because....i am a rambler

I'll start with what y'all are most likely to see next,,,

After the second session of Limlife came out, I wrote a little vignette from Tango's pov that included a throw-away scene from DL where someone left a golden apple on the ranchers porch in the middle of the night as an extremely un-funny joke. And that. idea has haunted me since I thought of it,,, I outlined it months and months ago though never got around to writing it... but for some reason a few days ago I opened that doc again and it just sorta. happened.

it's only about halfway done right now, but if all goes well it might be up by the end of the week :)) small preview mayhaps:

The door not yet having been opened, the possibility of what was waiting for him on the other side yawned and stretched towards endless. In a way, not knowing but speculating was worse than just opening the damn thing and facing the one singular scenario that was, but that was why he struggled to do it. Schrodinger’s danger—this was stupid; Tango opened the door.  No one was there.  He blinked in the face of its emptiness for a moment. Of all the situations he had considered, absolutely zero of them included opening the door to nothing. The one definite thing a knock spoke to was the presence of someone—something. So, what, they risked the middle of the night in peace times to come to the ranch they all loved barging into any time regardless to ding-dong ditch? That seemed, like, a gazillion times more unlikely. 

---

Then...the thing that is currently carving out its home in my brain...speed racer au. Tango-centric, more tango & etho angst than it is team rancher tbh.

The au is based solely on the 2008 movie speed racer, not as much the rest of the franchise! I guess /warning for speed racer spoilers, but the movie came out 16 years ago and the anime is from the 1960's...............so like.............also come on

I...have absolutely 0 clue how to describe to you the plot of speed racer. imagine you drive a race car so good and look so hot while doing it that you take down the mafia AND defeat the evil that is capitalism. That's speed racer. Like most worm aus its...not a comprehensive story. it's mainly me taking scenes from the movie that i adore and reimagining them with life series characters in those positions.

Tango is our titular character, an up and coming, widely known and celebrated automobile racer. He's the only racer not sponsored by some big company, he'd rather his pals—his family—be in control of his car, the Mach 5, and his racing career.

This is so so silly to try to explain you have no idea. I'm just going to say it. So when Tango was a kid, his older brother Etho died in this really dangerous unofficial non-track race thing. Two years later, theres a new racer in the league calling himself Racer X. No one knows his actual identity, and, at all times, he is wearing this. mask. thing. umm. anyway so Racer X is secretly Tango's older brother who Tango thinks is dead. And he now races under a secret identity because he is trying to take down. the fucking mafia. who own a whole bunch of racing teams and do crime and things. cause why not. Im going to stop over-explaining speed racer, just take this snippet and go:

“Look, can we cut the bullshit?”  If Tango’s mounting poor mood had any effect on X, he didn’t show it. He maintained the stillness of a wildlife photographer, danger not a warning to flee but more the promise of a shot worth sticking around to capture. Tango had felt studied since they’d cut the engines, since X’s head had popped up over the wheel, smirking—but now he’d felt seized.  “Alright.” His mouth opened, all the energy to press on but none of the gall. As usual, he’d gotten too ahead of himself; clutch pressed to the floor, shift it into first gear, every intention to move with no promise to follow through. He didn’t ease off the clutch so much as he ran away from it; he’d stalled, his mouth shut dumbly.  There wasn’t the time to wait it out, and Tango didn’t think he’d afford it to himself if there were. This moment had been promised to him since Casa Cristo began. He might not have then, but standing here now he knew it to be true. He thought X knew it, too—this was inevitable. He knew it like you knew you had minutes before your mom found that thing that you broke, like you knew someone was about to walk away from you for good. It was no less natural to him than knowing he was going to be a driver, no harder to glean from his future than being able to picture Jimmy by his side. He wouldn’t squander the chance because he hadn’t been adequately prepared for it to arrive.  Tango choked, “Etho?” “You think I’m your brother.” When he said it it was a statement, not a question.  “Aren’t you?”

---

And lastly...gay baseball au :')) or rather, "against all odds"

yes I'm still stuck on that, YES I plan to keep writing it.

I posted a little bit ago,, beginning of January, that I wanted to post the first chapter of baseball au if possible around/on my birthday, which is the first week in March. I can't PROMISE that will happen, because I am working on grad school applications at the moment and I also. know myself. and want to have the UTMOST MAJORITY POSSIBLE of the writing done before I post it. otherwise. I won't go back. But...tentatively that is hopefully the plan <3

Once again: plot summary, snippets

Have another for free :))

“What about you, Jim Jam?” Jimmy frowned at Skizz, only somewhat confused and mostly sure that he shouldn’t have been. “What about me?” “The question—what would you do if you weren’t doing this?” With clarity came even more confusion. It had felt normal for the others to ponder what-ifs and other lives where they did other things, a rightness that immediately soured when the spotlight had shone on him. There were no alternate versions of Jimmy, this was the only one in existence; he was a model toy that had never made it off the drawing board, no plans for mass production—too little consumer interest.  “Oh…I dunno.” He thought baseball might be the only thing he was capable of, and even then that didn’t mean he was good at it. “I’d never thought about it, I guess.” 

Anyway, I will exhibit exemplary self control and stop talking now. Thank you again so so much for asking <33

[the-unending-journey]

I know this is most likely just your FFXIV blog, but I'd like that unskippable TF cutscene of yours :p

Yeah that's something I'd rather not congest this blog with lmao

And it really honestly depends on what someone wants to know about, especially since there is SO MUCH to this particular fandom, even right down to the timelines. Hell, Transformers is made up of many, many, MANY different universes and alternate variations of the stories and characters.

This is mainly due to the fact that Transformers at its very base was a franchise that existed to simply market and sell their toys to each generation, so of course you have to keep something like that fresh and new. And honestly, I think it's pretty astounding for something to still be popular and so widely loved by all to continue going strong even in this day and age. I'll even give Bayformers some credit in that iirc it was the first time anyone ever actually made a LIVE ACTION Transformers movie and I feel like it brought in 1) more new fans and 2) another fresh outlook on such a long-lived franchise. Still not a big fan of the movies, but they're not horrible either

And don't even get me started on the characters and how there's so many different variations of them because of the multiverse nonsense this franchise has. Though, they do always have similar bases to go off of, so they still remain fairly recognizable by most people for the most part

There was one character that existed as a universal constant through the entirety of the TF multiverse for a long while, and that was Primus' (Cybertronian creator god) evil twin, Unicron. He was a singularity right up until about... 2015 I think? Then some interdimensional time bullshit happened that Nexus Prime caused, which in turn made Unicron just exist in each universe as a separate entity instead of spanning across the entire multiverse

Hell, Unicron's singularity existence and universe devouring had such a profound impact on the multiverse, that varying problems caused by it was coined as the "Unicron Phenomenon". If you've ever seen the original G1 series and all its lovely little animation hiccups and such, it's been widely accepted that this too was caused by the Unicron Phenomenon. No I am not making that up

Hey did you also know there's a TF universe that exists that is the completely opposite of what we know? That the Autobots are the bad guys instead and the Decepticons are the good guys? It's called Shattered Glass and that's a whole other thing that would take forever to really explain

Alright this is already getting too long lmao

[ideahat-universe]

This is very disappointing news. Not only are flufflepuff videos in my personal archives but the brony fangame I've been working on has Flufflepuff type ponies as a playable class. There was even a planned Flufflepuff style NPC and maybe even Flufflepuff herself if the game really took off.

So what do I do? Do I remove this character now that I've been made formally aware of it?

I do actually believe in separating art from the artist. I have archives of Smorky Kay despite knowing exactly what he did.

I watch Rurouni Kenshin and consider it one of my all time favorite anime despite knowing what the creator was doing.

But that's consuming artwork. What about creating it? Well, a ton of artists were directly inspired by Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi (does anyone notice a pattern emerging?) and aside from hating what he did they all don't resent being inspired by his work, in fact for those who still remember Ren and Stimpy it's still considered one of the best cartoons of its era if not one of the most influential.

Sea of Stars at one point had Jirard the completionist in their game and removed him when he got in hot water, however Hat in game devs didn't remove Jontron from the game despite the hot water he was in at the time.

So what should I do? Well, let me think.

The whole idea behind my game is that you play various Pony archetypes, not just as teammates but at various points you change to different kinds of ponies. Artistic liberty had to be taken as some pony features over lap with each other with small differences through the generations of the franchise's existence as well as stretching

For instance, you can play as a fairy pony which is several different types of fairy like ponies made into a cohesive singular design and class.

A similar thing had to be done when creating Gem Ponies which are just different versions of a glittery, gem themed, or otherwise crystalline pony type.

I recently added Zebra as a class and it oddly enough has overlap with Flufflepuff in terms of theme (Manipulating chaotic power) except unlike the Zebra class which is fairly balanced, Flufflepuff is broken. The most recent direction I was going with the design was that Fluffpuff style ponies could pull things out of hammer-space or different effects would happen based on the use of items and what equipment they have on. You couldn't wear armor but the defense was really high outside of a 200% weakness to fire.

But here's the thing. There is nothing like Flufflepuff in the official Pony Archives. Every other Pony Class has official representation in the show and the game is generally about representing as much of the show's original IP through the 1-4 generations as possible.

There were never any frizzy hair pony toys. I'm not even sure if a Chia pet pony happened. That does mean I'm not obligated to keep this class in the game. If I had it in here because I wanted to include a popular non canon race, well, It's not going to be much more popular in the future.

But what if I changed it? If artists inspired by Jon K went on to make their own mark and not be weighed down by the source of inspiration. Maybe I can do the same.

Perhaps it's time for a League of Legends style rework....

[motherwasapapafucker]

You've obviously spoke about the Ghost as a Superman figure within the larger context of Doctor Who but do you think the opposite is possible? A Doctor-like figure within a larger superhero setting?

There's been a couple of attempts, never quite as....jarring as the Ghost but that’s pretty much down to mad scientists and time travel being far more commonplace in superhero settings than overtly super-heroic figures are in Who. To the point the handful of times Who has played with that (Conundrum, Starfall, The Return of Doctor Mysterio) all draw at least some of their story out of the jarring presence of a superhero figure within the narrative. There’s a really nice sequence in Conundrum where the Doctor “explains” the presence of the superpowered figures in a way that reads like he’s as much kidding himself because he would like to think it’s possible as genuinely trying to explain how these people have gained their abilities. Which really feels like a deliberate building on “I wish...I wish I believed in wishing wells” given how Conundrum plays out. There’s obviously the conflation of Captain Britain’s Merlin and Who’s Merlin a couple of times, but that’s really overstated even if only in terms of Britain’s Merlin functionally different beast to the point any doctor connection is largely a minor detail as any attempt at creating a Doctor-like figure. I think then, when it comes to your Doctor-like figure the big thing that would distinguish them from other standard mad scientists and science heroes is the face changing, and basically none of your overtly doctor-influenced characters actually do anything with? Your big one in a standard setting is Professor Gamble in Power Man and Iron Fist #79, who really stands out in terms of being the only doctor-lite comic figure overtly building on Classic Who rather than Cultural Juggernaut David Tennant Doctor Who. Some overlap with Dr. Mysterio’s use of the Ghost in the conflation of the real and fictional but in very different directions; Gamble writing a fictitious account of his own life, dreadlox a fictitious account of the Incinerators. Gamble’s personal Dalek-stand in born of rogue temporal cleaning devices that have decided destroying space and time is the only way to clean everything. Where the overlap falls apart is the fact that Power Man and Iron Fist is arguably a far more flexible book at that point in its history than Who is by the point of Doctor Mysterio. So #79 is less of an out of genre moment so much as just more weird shit happening to Danny and Luke. As far as I know Gamble has popped up here and there since then, and is one of a fairly sizable amount of Who references across Marvel/Marvel UK (Yeah yeah we all know about Death’s Head, W.H.O. and aw that pish) The other big, very very direct and direct to Cultural Juggernaut David Teannant Doctor Who is...weirdly…Qubit in Irredeemable. Which is barely relevant to this question because it’s really not a standard superhero setting beyond the superficial, but bares some comment given it’s arguably the most prominent of recent takes and really hard to ignore how much he’s just David Tennant with a James from Twin Peaks forehead and LEGION hair. Also worth commenting on how fucking strange his entire role in the arse end of Irredeeamble is given the final 20 or so issues largely devolve into “The Tenth Doctor fights Evil Superman.” Given how little that aspect is remarked upon, and how incongruous it is with the broader attempt at presenting an Evil Superman story that gradually pairs back to show that the character’s never really been evil superman because for him to have that “turn” you basically have to have it be the tip of an iceberg that sketches back decades and ultimate reveals the character was never really Superman in any way beyond the iconographic. So the fact that happens while he’s fighting David Tennant is really strange, though I do like so much of that spilling out of the Plutonian forcing Quibit into one of those big, painful NuWho moral decisions, but I really struggle to care about Irredeemable beyond thinking Incorruptible was generally the stronger book towards the end. You’ve also got things like the Allred/Slott Silver Surfer that overtly drew influence from contemporary

Doctor Who, but it’s building on an already distinctive character so it can never really function as a direct one for one. I know, vaguely, that Ben 10 had a Doctor Who figure. But having never watched the show I’m not sure how he appears within the show and tbh I don’t care enough to look into it. I suppose the thing is that Doctor-lite easily slides into a superhero setting without losing too much and without drawing too much attention to the homage while someone like the Ghost is, by basic nature, designed to be at least somewhat strange within the larger normality of the show’s present day. The closest point of comparison I can think of is something like Silver Sentry in TMNT; There’s really nothing in TMNT or Doctor WHo that precludes the existence of “proper” superheroes, nether show is exactly the height of realism but the sudden introduction of basically superman presents a fundamental shift in their respective idiosyncrasies. I imagine people would be tempted to draw a comparison between the Milligan Shade the Changing Man revamp under Vertigo and Who, and given it’s MIlligan I’m sure there was some influence their even if only in terms of an English-coded otherworldly figure who undergoes startling changes across the run, but tbh it’s basically a passing resemblance and kinda overlooks the fact that Shade kinda hilariously preempts a lot of where Who as a franchise goes during the 90s and 2000s. It’s presentation of Shade’s changes as far-more psychologically damaging than classic who’s regeneration compared to some overlap with how NuWho treats the event particularly, but also in terms of the EDAs there’s a fairly notable arc where Shade gives up his heart to cope with a torrent of emotional loss and devastated worlds. Make of that what you will. I still haven’t answered the fucking question have I, right since you’ve asked me you’re going to get my shite, because here’s how I’d do it. There’s only one way really, one word Metalek Because the fucking rule don’t they? Morrison’s first, best Dalek-homage. The Xenoformers from Galaxy X, sentient construction vehicles serving masters that no longer exist. Terraforming the Galaxy one world at a time. Bow before Metalek. So yeah, those guys exist and they’re fucking great. I have...more thoughts than I’d like to admit about the “Metalek Empire” that’s really just self-indulgent pish. But that’s DC comics. So they exist, and they present what’s probably the best approach to a Doctor-alike in a superhero setting. In the same way the Ghost might as well be Superman in a setting where he isn’t the soul focus, you’re Doctor Who figure might as well just be Doctor Who in a setting where, building on the fact the key elements aren’t that notable, they really don’t stand out that much, so what then? Well he’s the mad scientist, but a good mad scientist. Counterpart to all the lunatics and madmen with their metal monsters, who is he? Who’s the grant morrison character fighting the dreaded metalek menace when they aren’t intruding on Superman’s narrative? Who spent decades trapped on earth, leading a reformed STAR Labs into a strange, wonderful new world? It’s Leo Quantum isn’t it. Basically, Leo’s one of those characters like Lan-Shin in Smashes the Klan or John Henry Irons who click perfectly into place with the larger idea of Superman’s social network. And given I’m an egotist, I’m going to do what I like with him building out of that admittedly bullshit old idea he’s future lex back to repent. If the Ghost is a version of Superman who’s world exists in the shadow of the Doctor, Leo would be a version of the Doctor that exists in the Shadow of Superman. He’s not literally Lex, he’s your Kristin Wells/Legion/DC One Million figure, possibly a future Luthor, possibly the first child of the Luthor/Kent families coming together in the far off 42nd century. A temporal adventurer who’s early experiments caused all his potential futures to crash down on top of him, transforming him into a hypertime singularity. His technicolor dreamcoat crafted from fifth world

wondertech, regulating his body to ensure each hypertime strand gets its time in sun while keeping the darker fringes in line….most of the time. Or at least, that’s what I’d do, feel free to discard this as mental bastard bullshit.

[laur-rants]

Schrodinger’s Game Theory: The Fate of Daud

Ever come up with a theory, and then halfway through creating it, the evidence changes and so you’re stuck with a lot of well-put-together ideas but nowhere to go with it?

Anyway, I did that with Daud. Lol.

I just rediscovered a whole ass rant in my drafts (which is now in the link above for private viewing and judgement PLS read it, if you’re missing some context to this post) that I clearly spent a lot of time and energy on, where I came to the conclusion that Daud in Death of the Outsider is actually a imposter/doppelganger, and it was because of the writing from the book contrasted the writing in DotO so poorly, that I came to believe this. I was like, VERY convinced prior to Billie’s book coming out that this was, in fact, a viable game theory. !00%. There was a chance that out there, somewhere, Daud was still stuck in his mind, and needed someone to come rescue him. Stranger things have happened to explain characters coming back from the dead in a video game, okay?

Somewhere along the line, though, it stopped being game theory and was more like, a fan idea. I had collected enough evidence to come to the conclusion that my theory wasn’t sound. That, and Billie’s book released, and there’s no way I could argue that. Instead, imposter!Daud moved to Fan Theory, something I could fictionally, write about, put into an AU.

But... Just because it’s probably not true in the scheme of the game doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, from wanting to talk and share those ideas with others. Even if, at the end of the day, they hold no water and it wouldn't matter because, well. If Billie’s book is to be considered post-DotO canon, then there’s no reason to believe my theory would hold weight. It wouldnt matter, because Daud well, he was left for dead either way. Nobody was coming to rescue him. I’m sure there’s plenty of questions people have in response to this, the most chief one being

“If its not Daud how is he in the Void talking to the Outsider and Billie at the end of DotO??”

And my usual response is: the end of Return of Daud saw Daud becoming trapped within his own mind, through a trap laid by witches from the very beginning of the book. That meant, even if his physical body was still, well, physical, he was trapped inside his mind.

I proposed that out of survival, well, a sliver of his mind would hole itself up in the Void, maybe even be stuck there (this is not so uncommon as it appears; think of what happened to Jessamine in the Heart). Once the spell on his mind and the Outsider were gone, the sliver could return back to his mind. And he’d still be alive.

From a gamer perspective, looking at the mechanics of the game, and everything else, it makes sense. I’m sure some people would say this theory would ‘cheapen Daud’s death’ and I would refute that by simply saying ‘all of DotO cheapened Daud’s death, and despite being a playable character in the franchise he dies unceremoniously off screen and we just take Billie’s word for his death to heart.’ Nothing cheapens a death faster in my head than ‘time to renege on this character’s entire past arch and have him die off-screen.’ His death was ruined far before they went into the Void. If anything, this would give Daud a change to explain himself. 

But I digress. I actually did do a stupid amount of research on this. And what it all really boils down to is that there was bad writing involved in DotO when it came to timeline consistency and quality checkers not checking for that, + the book having been rewritten like, twice, to keep up with what Arkane was changing in DotO in real time.

That’s post marked 9/25/18. I’ve had this theory sitting around for a long time. I enjoyed it. I find it compelling. But ultimately, it was me trying to save Daud, in my mind. Would it be cool for the witches to have stolen Daud, replaced him with a dummy body Eyeless/Envisioned, given that dummy body his memories, and then, when it had outlived it’s usefulness of sending Billie astray, the magic broke and it perished? Hell yeah it would have been cool. and honestly, according to the books, it was a viable option! They could do all those things. You can’t tell me that

Billie can steal faces,

Emily can create copies and

They witches had access to a gemstone that can make prisoners of their own mind/see the thoughts of others,

and NOT immediately think that they’d try and replicate one of the strongest Marked to ever live. The one that TRAPPED DELILAH, no less. And because the witches messed with Daud’s dreams at the beginning of the book (it’s subtle, but its there, its like, you see it on the reread sort of thing), that’s the whole reason he thinks the Outsider is supposed to die, so of course the double would fervently believe the singular obsession that brought Daud into a trap in the first place...

I’m digressing again. Anyway.

What does this mean for Dear old Daud?

It means Daud canonically died, and it was shitty and poorly written and I’ll be salty about that until the day I die because some schmuck on twitter wrote one singular essay and Harvey Smith decided ‘you. you’re the one who needs to write this story’ and then we got Corvosider fanfic in a Dishonored game and I wanted to die. It doesn’t help that this writer was notoriously pretentious and shit-stirring in the fandom at-large BEFORE their hiring-- anyway, this isn’t a salt piece on that. I AM SALTY ABOUT IT, but I’m not the person to discuss it at length. Just know that that’s why some of the narrative decisions in DotO are so out of fucking whack, and we all have to deal with it.

MOVING ON....

There is still... a very slim chance. To save Daud.

Realistically speaking, this chance will never occur. It’s clear and obvious that Arkane has no plans on returning to the Dishonored universe, so despite all these loose ends that Arkane left and all these pieces that need to be picked up and all this lore that’s been reneged on, there’s really not much of a chance that we’ll see, say, Billie, return in a game that is specifically designed to save the timelines. Which, honestly, would be fucking baller. I want a game where I play as Billie, where the shattered timespace of Dunwall is saved by her capable hand, and Emily is free to rule for decades without having to fear that the Isles will fall into the Void like it’s Deimos falling into Hell in DOOM. We KNOW the timelines are saved because we KNOW that Emily has a long and Just (or unjust, if you went high chaos lol) Rule over the kingdom. That can’t happen if, just three years down the line, Billy is running all over the place trying to make sure time doesn’t break at the seams.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Because of how Daud meets Billie in RoD, we know that a Billie three years into the future (’YOUR future,’ she tells him) is trying to save his life. There are other timelines she’s saved already, for sure. Including saving Daud in the past, saving Corvo and Emily in the past, saving Granny Rags in the past -- basically, saving all the Marked from coming to an untimely end. And then, after all that, she goes back in time and tries to save Daud, tries to save him from being poisoned by witch magic and falling into a trap that is triggered when he touches her Future version of the Twin-bladed Knife. She goes through a sort of Groundhog Day scenario, where she confesses that she’s tried hundreds of times to save him, and she couldn’t save that Daud.

But why show us Billie failing to save Daud, if she was destined for failure? Because, eventually, she must succeed.

And therein lies Daud’s (potential) salvation. Is it realizing the other Daud is an imposter? Well... let’s think of it this way. Is the Billie who regained her arm and eye an ‘imposter’ where the ‘real’ Billie is in a timeline where she lost those body parts? Is the Aramis Stilton who went mad in the basement of his mansion the imposter? Or is it the one that Emily saved and was able to keep lucid? These people aren’t ‘imposters’ to their timelines, but they kind of are to the timelines that are saved. Which means DotO could be an entirely separate ‘timeline’, one that we manage to play through and see the ending of. But the ‘true timeline’ may never be known. But at least, we know it happens, and we have Billie to thank for that.

FIN.

[shihalyfie]

“The 02 characters didn’t get any character development”

Yes, they did.

“But -- “

Yes, they did.

Having had the gift of having rewatched 02 recently, I have to say that it still really, really confuses me how the hell people get this impression. It’s not even “I’m trying to see the best out of this” but that I genuinely do not get it, because as far as I’m able to see it’s pretty much literally right there!! This isn’t even tinfoil hat tier!

But in case you have any doubts, sit down because Shiha’s gonna sit here and write a meta about the 02 kids, and how they are perfectly reasonable characters that developed properly fine over the course of the series.

(All below translations of 02 dialogue are by PositronCannon.)

So the first thing to understand about 02 is that it is fundamentally made with a very different writing approach from Adventure in the first place, and therefore it is not meant to be compared in a one-to-one fashion.

This is a point I’ve said many times over and over, and I think it’s to the point where it shouldn’t even really need official clarification, but I’m just going to go ahead and bring up the words from Director Kakudou himself:

For instance, we had the prior series stick out in terms of its points about “what it means to be oneself”, and for 02 we made it so that you would pay attention to “the relationship between yourself and other people”.

Right, so: 02, by design, does not use Adventure’s character development methodology of “self-awareness”. It is built from the ground up by having its characters and character development predicated on relationships instead of singular characters. This might seem a bit odd on its face, but no man is an island, and, in fact, changing the way you interact with other people and with the world in general does speak a lot about one’s personal growth in its own way. And this also means that if you try to analyze 02 by holding it to Adventure-based standards of “character focus episodes” or the like, you’re already on a losing battle.

This means that character growth in 02 is not presented in a way where it’s up-front and center, but rather something you have to glean over the natural course of the series. We’re working off relationships, so you have to actually pay attention to the natural interactions between the characters or what they say even during “off-hours” -- the focus-episode format used by Adventure doesn’t apply here anymore. And it’s something apparent enough from how “evolution” is a metaphor for “personal growth” in this franchise -- in Adventure it was via the Crests, which meant self-awareness, but 02′s key evolutionary trump card is Jogress, which relies on the strength of relationships.

One thing I have to say in terms of my experience as a 02 fan is that I’ve found I actually appreciated it significantly more as an adult than I did as a kid, and that, in general, a lot of the things to appreciate about 02 are things that you really viscerally feel and understand when you’ve gotten that degree of life experience under your belt. Unfortunately, this is kind of a double-edged sword, too, because it ends up becoming the kind of series that often risks going over the heads of the very audience of children it was supposed to be targeting. It’s got a lot of very nuanced depictions of mental health and the childhood experience that are maddeningly subtle, to the point of possibly going over one’s head or even coming off as illogical without sufficient life experience, or simply just not being as visceral (the entire theme of “parents stroking their own ego with their kids’ achievements” hits the hardest when you’re college age).

So what this means is that 02 doesn’t exactly hand its themes or character development to you on a plate. But it is there, once you actually start looking for it.

Let’s start off by talking about our main core cast of characters. Adventure and 02 prided themselves on the fact that they tried very hard to not be adherent to anime tropes, but rather to portray well-rounded, nuanced characters that felt more like actual kids you might meet at school. So how does the 02 cast fare in not being pigeonholed anime tropes?

Daisuke: Even though official freely admits he has “the most anime-like personality”, it’s hard to say he actually falls that much into the generic shounen archetype. For one, he’s actually shockingly humble and polite in certain situations (he’s consistently polite with his elders, and is very quick to admit his own limitations). Actually, he comes off as a surprisingly friendly and deferential person -- it’s just that he happens to have somewhat of an abrasive exterior, and even then it’s implied heavily in the first half that this stems from a lack of validation and purpose. (He actually “deflates” really easily, so you can’t even say he’s all that arrogant past the surface.) Certainly he’s simple-minded, and kind of an idiot, but his abrasive exterior is actually pretty deceptive.

Miyako: Miyako floats an interesting duality of simultaneously being aggressively feminine and being aggressively un-feminine -- not necessarily in the sense she tries not to be feminine (on the contrary, she absolutely embraces it), but more that she’s also an aggressive, “inelegant” mess in ways atypical for a lead heroine in a shounen show, who are usually either cute or “badass action girls” and not...a mess. Despite that, she is also consistently portrayed as capable of heavy emotional depth and being very genuinely kind and concerned about others, which are not in any way diminished by the fact she happens to be an aggressive mess with a severe case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. It’s an interesting mix of character traits that you don’t see often.

Iori: “Designated young characters” usually fall into the “cute” archetype a la Adventure!Takeru or Tomoki, so it’s interesting that the youngest one is actually the most mature one, and impeccably polite at that (having been raised by a family that emphasizes formal manners and propriety). Even more interestingly, nobody actually treats him like he’s that much younger, and he’s given the weight of respect in a sense that has nothing to do with his age (think about how there are indeed quite a few kids who simply just get along better with older kids). Yet the series doesn’t shy away from his youth, and his overly black-and-white view of morality is portrayed as immaturity in its own way, along with the occasional “slips” in his facade or manners indicating that it’s still something he has to consciously focus on.

Ken: Ken’s development goes without saying (it’s one of the most consistently praised aspects of 02), but it’s also interesting to note the unusual way the series plays his redemption arc. Instead of making him a typical “jerkass anti-hero who learns to get a bit better”, the series completely blindsides you by revealing that Ken is, in fact, a naturally soft-hearted and kind boy, and then plays up the mystery of the severe kinds of trauma that would lead him down that path. And ultimately, even though the cause is revealed to have supernatural influence, the series also makes it clear that it doesn’t matter -- that, whether it was his conscious “fault” or not, he still is responsible for what he did. And on top of that, it also scorns the usual “redemption by sacrifice” mentality by pointing out that it’s a cop-out -- it doesn’t actually solve the problems that were caused, and, in fact, a much better way to make up for things is to fix them going forward.

Takeru: Takeru had the “designated young character” role in Adventure, and it turns out that once one of those gets a few years older, they’re naturally not going to be nearly as pure and innocent! The “sweet child” from Adventure has now grown into having slightly pettier emotions, even to the point of grudge, and things he won’t let go of. Oh, and also, trauma from three years prior is still going to have impact on an eleven-year-old kid. Who would have thought.

Hikari: Adventure’s most infamously inscrutable character also seems to have gained some individualized, not-quite-innocent traits of her own (observe how she deals with Daisuke’s advances), and, moreover, it turns out that her deferential humility and refusal to open up about her problems is...not a good thing! when it starts to actually bite her in the rear in front of her friends. Yeah, it turns out that being the “quiet cute girl” actually has its own mental health drawbacks. Oops.

We’re doing pretty well, actually! At the very least, they certainly feel like they already have the Adventure/02 brand of character nuance, where their personalities are inherently varied and nuanced enough that you may not quite find characters like them elsewhere. On top of that, we definitely get to see what makes these characters “tick” -- we get a lot of depth into their thought processes and what their likes and dislikes or strengths and weaknesses are, and that’s something 02 still completely beats out a lot of other kids’ shows or even certain other Digimon entries with.

But here we’re talking about character development. So what do we know about them at the very beginning of the series?

Having watched 02 in Japanese a few times and being very used to the core cast’s latter-half characterizations, rewatching the early episodes always strikes me really hard in the face with genuine shock at how shallow the kids -- especially Daisuke and Miyako -- start the series off as. It’s understandable in terms of the context of the series -- unlike the Adventure kids, who were thrown into a “survival, need to get home” situation off the bat and thus already understood the need to be wary, these kids started off having comparatively easy access to home at any time, and didn’t have a constant sense of danger and survival looming over their heads. It naturally took a lot of time for the gravity of the situation they were in to start really hitting them, and so even the relatively straight-laced Iori didn’t exactly take it all that seriously at the beginning.

Yet while it took them a significantly more delayed time to understand what they were dealing with and take it as seriously as they needed to...they started cultivating something else in the meantime.

02′s first half is especially full of “random banter conversations” that seemingly involve nothing in particular, but, in fact, that’s actually part of the point. One thing I have always been quick to point out in regards to 02 is that it is rather unique among Digimon series in how it goes out of its way to portray its core cast as having become friends even in pure daily-life social friend terms, even if it had absolutely nothing to do with Digimon incidents -- these are kids who genuinely enjoy each other’s company even in the most mundane of situations. This was something that wasn’t the case for the original Adventure kids -- having been a group of kids thrown together by necessity, even though they most certainly kept in touch and trusted each other as fellow Chosen Children deeply, they started floating back into their own different social clusters after the events of 1999. Relationships are multifaceted, after all; you can still have a deep relationship and bond without necessarily being friends on a social level.

But already, off the bat, Miyako brings food for her new best friends, and it’s implied that she’s the main ringleader behind holding the picnic -- a picnic that started off having no intended relation to the Digital World territory war -- in episode 6. And, to be quite honest, can you really blame these kids? Even the Adventure kids wistfully entertained the idea of a long-term fun adventure through the Digital World in Adventure episode 54, wanting to enjoy its beauty and fun in a situation where they weren’t constantly running for their lives. Now that this luxury is actually available, why not take advantage of it -- and bond further with the others in the process? And for the rest of the year, these kids actively end up spending mundane conversations together and bonding to the point that, by the time we get to the end of 02, these kids have just genuinely bonded so much that they really come off as a cohesive, inseparable unit that would actively choose to spend time with each other if given the opportunity. In fact, even going through all of the TV Digimon series that exist as of this writing, I would say Appmon is the only one that really competes with 02 in portraying its core cast in this manner.

Again, remember: this is a series where characterization is dependent on how the kids treat others and interact with them, so you do actually have to pay close attention to these interactions and see how they change over the course of the series.

So once the episodes start coming in play, we actually learn a lot more about what happens when the characters start breaking away from their shallowness. For instance, episode 8, one of the first key episodes to understanding Daisuke’s character:

Daisuke: He'll be a great opponent. We didn't face off in the last tournament. Takeru: If you had made it to the finals, you would have, right? Daisuke: Don't remind me... Hikari: Can you win? Daisuke: It's not about winning or losing. Right now, all of the boys who play soccer in this country want to be like him. Just thinking about playing against him makes me excited!

For all Daisuke initially seems to be arrogant, he’s actually not that incapable of humility. Far from it, actually; he does have a genuine love for soccer and the spirit of the game, and, when completely and obviously unmatched, fully admits he has no chance and is set on enjoying the most he can out of it anyway. I feel like Daisuke’s surface-abrasive attitude really does throw off the fact that he’s a lot more genuinely humble than he’s given credit for. In the end, he’s satisfied enough with the accomplishment of pulling off one sliding tackle against Ken, and is able to enjoy that -- a foreshadowing of how the latter half relies so much on the fact that he’s capable of enjoying simple pleasures and being straightforward about them.

I find that this scene is really underappreciated, too (mainly because it gets lost in all of the other major things in this episode) -- while Daisuke jokes about his accomplishment, it only takes a single comment from his respected senior Taichi to shut him down.

There’s a huge reason I constantly emphasize that Daisuke respects his elders -- this part tends to get lost in translation a lot (especially the American English dub, which just smashed this aspect out of him wholesale, among other things) due to it being a bit reliant on Asian senior deference and cultural propriety, but Daisuke is respectful not only out of societal obligation but also because he genuinely respects his elders! The way he looks up to Taichi and chases after his approval is genuine, and even his interactions with the other Adventure kids have a major hint of him having genuine respect and deference to them. Daisuke is just a deferential person in general -- note that while his crush on Hikari tends to manifest when he’s at his most shallow, he’s actually the one putting Hikari on a pedestal (considering it his own responsibility to impress her), so he’s not actually as assertive as he tries to come off as. The first half of 02 arguably has him deflating more often than he actually stands his ground...and this is a trait of him that starts to actually change quite a bit over the course of the series.

Miyako comes to terms with the fact that maybe she’d been taking this whole Digital World adventure thing too lightly in episode 10, indicating that she actually does have a good sense of priorities when they become increasingly clear! This is actually very important, because it fleshes her out as someone who’s emotionally sensitive -- too emotionally sensitive, to the point that “emotional sensitivity” is just as much of a driving point behind her later breakdown in episode 18, this time from taking her duties too seriously. Miyako is a very id-driven person, and so a lot of the early series is her struggling to find a proper balance on how to adjust her emotions in an increasingly escalating situation. Her heart is in the right place, she’s just not someone with an inherent sense of preparedness to deal with this kind of problem.

We get into the secondary Digimental arc, and there’s a noticeable consistent thread that all of them involve admission of personal faults. This is something that tends to throw people off at times -- wait, having bad traits about yourself is what awards you? -- but the point is that this isn’t like Adventure’s Crests, where things came from proof of exercising the virtue, but rather admitting that there are ways you need to improve, and showing a will to improve in that manner. In the end, people are not perfect human beings, and sometimes even understanding that you’re deficient is half the battle -- after all, the second half is all about a certain character named Ichijouji Ken coming to terms with some very, very serious personal problems.

In episode 11, Daisuke completely admits that he doesn’t feel he understands the concept of friendship the way Taichi and Yamato et al. see it, also latently admitting that he doesn’t see himself as worthy of the Digimental of Friendship. Beyond betraying a lot deeper issues within Daisuke that he seems to have actually had a background lacking in friends and sources of validation, he actually acts very self-effacing when admitting his issues to Taichi and Yamato, ultimately culminating in him calling himself pathetic. Or, in other words, he does want to be a better friend and to understand the concept better, and is harsh on himself for not doing better (which, of course, ultimately leads to how he eventually does gain better relations with the rest of the group and reaches out to Ken).

In episode 14, Miyako admits that she’s shallow and judgmental and tends to jump to conclusions based on first impressions. Recall that she’s comparing herself to Mimi in said relevant scene -- Mimi, whom she admires, and actually spends part of the episode trying to understand and empathize with the mentality of. This is not a statement of Miyako being proud of herself. Rather, this is Miyako being very straightforward about the fact that she needs to try harder to see through the essence of things and to see through to the emotional core of. Again, something she actually does start developing over the course of the series.

In episode 16, Iori gets his first major lesson on the limitations of being too stuck on principles in his attempt to be honest. Recall that Iori’s later character arc is very dependent on him realizing that his own view of the world is too black-and-white. It’s great if you could never tell a lie to anyone, ever, but in the end, that’s going to reach limitations of practicality -- after all, as Jou points out, what Iori did ended up not actually hurting Jou in comparison to the incredible amount of hurt it would have caused everyone by being too stubborn, and thus Iori would have failed to keep his responsibility to help the others because of one narrow-minded principle.

Hikari even gets in a bit during the infamous episode 13, where we learn that her “passive” attitude is biting her in the rear. In Adventure, Hikari’s passiveness and reticence had mostly been used as satellite development for Taichi (his insecurities as an older brother and his obligations to her), so this is actually the first time we get to see a proper perspective from Hikari’s side, and it turns out that his overprotectiveness has actually caused her to get dependent. But even though Taichi is the one the episode actually focuses on, the larger focus is more specifically on the fact that Hikari is too passive -- that she sees being taken by the Dark Ocean as an inevitable thing that’s just going to happen unless someone else steps in on her behalf. Takeru, of course, is having none of it.

Once that’s out of the way, we go back to taking a look at the subtleties of everyone’s interactions. While everyone generally tends to focus on the second half of episode 17, it’s also pretty interesting to see how the 02 kids react to hearing about their seniors’ adventure in the first half -- remember that this is the first time the 02 kids are actually given any real depth about the degree of 1999′s events that’s not just random points of hearsay, and the way the new kids react to it indicates that they’re thoroughly floored. It’s later established that they didn’t even get the full story (it may not even be possible, given that the Adventure kids’ experiences may well have gone even further beyond what we got to see in 54 episodes), and yet the new kids are overwhelmed. 02 itself does not shy away from the fact that the younger kids really have no qualms about deferring to their seniors if need be, and treating them with utmost respect.

Another minor note, which I pointed out in my Daisuke meta earlier, is that the beginning of this episode is pretty much the last time Daisuke ever shows outright hostility towards Takeru for his relationship with Hikari -- it’s something you have to glean by squinting, but the implication is that the insecure and clingy Daisuke actually got to learn this episode that the two of them had a pre-established shared experience that he himself may not understand, and that it wasn’t just Takeru randomly swooping in and snatching away the closest thing he had to a friend for no good reason.

Once the Kaiser infiltration arc begins, episode 18 ends up being one of Miyako’s funniest episodes, but it’s a bit distressing that a lot of people in the fanbase often never let Miyako live this incident down, when in actuality this was explicitly not a good mental health day for her. (This is basically the equivalent of pinning Mimi as a conceited, self-centered jerk based on the fact she was one for a fashion in Adventure episode 25.) The beginning and ending of this episode establish that this is basically a result of Miyako...trying her hardest. She’s scared as hell, but she also learned in episode 10 that this is something she needs to take seriously, and the stress puts her into a mental breakdown. This is why she ends up having a heart-to-heart with Hawkmon at the end; her heart is in the right place, but she needs to find a way to channel her emotional sensitivity in a way that doesn’t make her into a complete mess.

And note that her own voice actress, Natsuki Rio, even pointed out that Hawkmon’s actions had enough of an influence on Miyako’s character that she had to play her differently thereafter.

At first I always played her with Maximum Excitement, and I kept thinking “someone, please, stop her,” but the more straight-laced Hawkmon did his best to pull her in and hold her by the reins (laughs). Thanks to him, Miyako became a lot more of a put-together person…thank goodness Hawkmon is her partner!

Episode 19 has two interesting things of note that I want to point out -- first of all, starting from the very beginning of the episode, everyone ditches Daisuke because they’re independently going in to infiltrate the Kaiser’s base. Note the complete lack of a plan here whatsoever -- everyone’s just going in on their own -- and the fact that everyone expects Daisuke to come up with what he wants to do on his own. For all it’s worth, even though Daisuke may have a designated protagonist aura to him, within the story itself...nobody actually sees him as a leader at this point in the series (and, to be fair, he’s never really tried to claim the position, either).

It’s similar to how Taichi was never recognized as a particular leader of the Adventure group until Adventure episode 28, but in regards to the full team dynamic, it’s actually inverse -- the Adventure kids were capable of making tactical plans together as early as episode 20, but fell apart emotionally in short order as soon as Taichi was gone, whereas here, the kids are fond enough of each other to hang out socially and support each other emotionally, but they take a while to get any real cohesiveness as a fighting group.

The other is that Iori personally witnesses Takeru’s sudden whiplash into his grudge against the darkness and the Kaiser, and it scares the hell out of him.

Takeru eventually laying a punch on the Kaiser is a pretty awesome moment (and, really, Ken kind of deserved it, so it’s hard to not cheer for him), but it’s also important to note that within the context of the series, this is not a good mental place for Takeru to be in. Iori, the person who should by all means sympathize with hatred of evil things at this point of the series, is still extremely unnerved by Takeru’s actions here, because he’d always seen Takeru as a mature person who’d always kept his composure, only to show a drastically different side of him that he hadn’t even shown a hint of before. That kind of “two-facedness” and emotional repression -- and this way of venting trauma in general -- cannot be good for Takeru at this point in time, and it’s also an important moment for Iori when he later admits during the two’s Jogress arc that he’s having a bit of a hard time understanding him.

And so episode 20 comes, and Chimeramon pretty much takes out the entire party, leading to this conversation.

Takeru: Let's escape. Daisuke: Escape? Takeru: We can't fight anymore. Our mission has failed. We'll retreat and wait for another chance. Hikari: You're right. We have no other choice. Iori: Understood. Daisuke: No. Miyako: Daisuke? Daisuke: We can't just say "another chance" like that. If we leave now, they'll keep attacking anything in sight. We don't know if we'll be able to get into the fortress again. So this is our only chance! Hikari: That's crazy... Iori: Exactly! Miyako: They're all back to their Baby forms... Chibimon: Daisuke... Daisuke: But...didn't you all see it? Destroying those towns...and all we could do was watch quietly. I don't want to see that ever again. I won't let them do whatever they want! So I'm going, even alone. I won't give up now. After getting this far, all I can do is go forward!

Why is this moment important? This is the first time Daisuke has actually stood a firm ground against anyone else in the party -- and not only that, with the entire party standing against him.

Recall that I mentioned earlier that, in spite of Daisuke’s abrasive attitude suggesting otherwise, he actually has a tendency to “deflate” pretty quickly when people tease or criticize him. He spends the first half of the series having a lot more bark than he actually has bite. Earlier in the series, if the entire party were to go against him, he’d be more likely to begrudgingly go along (while complaining) -- in fact, he actually did just that at the beginning of episode 7! But now that push has come to shove, Daisuke’s own sense of morals and bleeding heart have won out. (While his decision here is definitely a bit reckless, he does have a point; if they’d retreated, they might genuinely lose any future chances.) Even with the entire party telling him to pull back, he refuses to accept what they want him to do, and pushes forward.

This is where Daisuke first starts to really make strides towards what becomes his eventual major role in the group as “the one who pulls people forward”. It’s a moment after which the rest of the group themselves also start to treat him with more respect now that he’s proven he’s not just a doormat, and that when it comes to there being a real problem with real priorities, he does have the resolve and initiative to keep going.

Also, a very important point is that he immediately says he’ll go alone if he has to. He doesn’t begrudge the others for wanting to fall back, and has no condescension towards them; he just can’t stand the fact that he himself is being asked to sit it out.

So, you know. Episode 21 happens. Ichijouji Ken goes through some real trauma as Wormmon dies in his arms. And all Daisuke has to say is...

Daisuke: You should go home. There are people who are worried and waiting for you! Go home!

Remember when I pointed out that 02 takes a very unique perspective on Ken’s redemption arc, pointing out the futility of being too trapped in the idea of symbolic penance and focusing more on actively taking steps in the future to make up for and fix things? Here’s our first major sign of this, and Daisuke’s eventual approach to Ken -- Daisuke does not choose to scorn or lambast Ken for what he’s done, even though there are a lot of things Ken deserves to be harped on for, but rather instructs him to take the first active step towards fixing his mistakes, in this case fixing things with his family.

Episode 22 is Daisuke’s own “fanbase will never let him live this down” moment, but there’s still some interesting things to note here. Firstly, Daisuke’s “relapse” happening exactly when it seems like his duty to the Digital World is done and there’s nothing to do besides community service doesn’t seem coincidental, especially when this exact episode actually dedicates a full scene to Takeru, Hikari, and their partners going “...now what?” Secondly, as I touched on earlier, note that Daisuke’s never really seemed to have any resentment against Hikari for not responding to his affections -- in fact, he still considers it his own (and V-mon’s, by extension) duty to be the one to impress her. It’s a surprisingly refreshing take on the “shounen hero with a crush on a girl” trope, because in the end...Daisuke isn’t actually all that possessive of her, he just really wants validation from her, and respects her a lot.

More importantly, though -- note the way Daisuke handles this topic. He’s not actually mad at or resentful of Takeru anymore. In fact, he’s mulling on the topic and wondering what he could do to be on that level. Yup, even when Daisuke’s being shallow and jealous, he’s still learned to handle this issue ever so slightly more maturely than he would have at the beginning of the series.

This is also important because only one episode later, once Daisuke becomes disappointed again at Takeru and Hikari walking off on their own, Miyako intervenes -- not only so that Takeru and Hikari can have their space, but also so that Daisuke can have some genuine fun and something to do. This is a very blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in episode 24, but it makes it very clear that Miyako was looking out for Daisuke’s welfare, too, and I think it’s very important in light of the events of the prior episode. Miyako, who had always been fumbling on what to do with her emotions, is starting to properly channel them into managing the dynamic between the team and checking in on how everyone’s doing, and that starts to guide her actions and relationships for the rest of the series.

The next episode (25) is where we kick off not only the Jogress arc, but also the arc where we start going into everyone’s attitude towards Ichijouji Ken. This is important not only because Ken happens to be the effective central figure of 02′s story, but also because -- well, remember, 02 is fundamentally founded on the concept of relationships, so it’s only natural that the other kids’ relationship with the “team newcomer” will be a key aspect of the second half, and in relation to their own characters.

Remember how I said that Daisuke’s first-half character involved him being extremely deferential and often deflating whenever he was criticized or someone stood against him? At the time of episode 25, once again, pretty much the entire team is standing against him -- he’s the only one who’s this level of open-minded about getting Ken into the group, and everyone else is showing differing levels of opposition. But while Daisuke doesn’t begrudge the others for thinking this way, he also doesn’t back down, either, and reaches out to Ken on his own because he still really believes in what he’s doing. Now that he’s settled into what it means to be a Chosen Child, he’s started to gain a proper idea of what he wants to do, and what he feels needs to be done.

So, let’s recap everyone’s stances on Ichijouji Ken at the time of this episode!

Daisuke: Forward-thinking and optimistic; willing to believe that Ken should be given the chance to make up for his mistakes and that they should put everything behind him, even to the extent of believing that there’s probably a good reason for the more suspicious aspects about him (prior to the events of episode 25, it was unclear whether Ken was being a bit too callous about killing Digimon). Also the most actively aggressive in reaching out to Ken and trying to get him to join them.

Miyako: Forward-thinking; she openly states at the beginning of the episode that she thinks Ken’s learned his lesson, she’s just worried about whether he’s going to keep doing questionable things in the future (killing Digimon). Once it’s on the table that he’s not just doing this callously, she immediately is on board with him (to the point of even being the first in the group to use given name basis with him), but her stance on what to do with him is more on the edge of “give him space and wait for him to come on his own terms” (she ends the episode saying she’ll be waiting for him to come).

Takeru: States in the episode that he does believe that Ken’s changed, but doesn’t really know what he’s thinking (i.e. too inscrutable to really be sure about). The later episode 35 implies that Takeru was inclined to be a bit more sympathetic than you’d think otherwise, because he understands the trauma of losing a Digimon partner.

Hikari: Wants to wait a little longer and see how things play out. (Remember that Hikari has a known, consistent thread of taking a very passive approach towards things.)

Iori: Absolutely against it on sheer principle.

It should be noted that none of these stances are wrong. Iori sometimes gets a lot of flak for being the one with the most infamously cold stance towards Ken, but when you really think about it, Daisuke and Miyako are very lucky that their hunch about Ken was right and that he actually did happen to be a very kind boy who had a little too much trauma and some supernatural influence. The fact that Ken is a very emotionally withdrawn person for the rest of the series meant that the two of them ended up breaking through to him the most, but there’s nothing wrong with Takeru, Hikari, and Iori’s skepticism; Ken did some pretty shockingly horrible things in front of their eyes for the first half, and it’s entirely within their rights to determine how forgiving they want to be with him.

In any case, we get to episode 26 (the first Jogress), and most of that episode goes without saying, but I do want to emphasize Daisuke’s lines right before it happens.

Daisuke: If you die now, you won't be able to accomplish anything...I don't want that! Ken: I don't want that...There are still many things I must do.

Daisuke urges Ken not to go for the “suicidal penance” route not only because it sucks, but also because, as symbolic as it may be, it’s also counterproductive to the whole point of doing penance to begin with. If Ken really wants to make up for his mistakes, he’s only going to be able to do that if he’s actually alive to do it! There’s only so much you can do by drowning in self-pity by going “because I did this, because I did that” instead of actually taking responsibility for your actions.

02 itself is deliberately ambiguous on how much Ken’s transformation into the Kaiser was Ken’s own conscious will and how much of it was Dark Seed-induced supernatural influence, but one thing it’s consistent about is that it doesn’t really matter. Regardless of what the cause was, Ken did what he did, and it’s his responsibility to make up for it, and the only way to actually do that is to keep moving forward. The fact that Daisuke is so able to viscerally and directly address what Ken needs the most right now is what fuels their first Jogress, and why Daisuke becomes Ken’s closest friend through the rest of the series.

People have pointed out that 02 has a lot of moments of physical hits, but, notably, other than Takeru punching the Kaiser in episode 19 (which he really deserved, honestly), all of these hits are done with the express intent of bringing the other person out of a very, very deep mental abyss (Yamato punching Taichi in episode 10, Daisuke slapping Ken in 26, Miyako slapping Ken in 30, and Miyako and Hikari’s mutual slaps in 31), because they were in a state where words would no longer reach them otherwise. These are all circumstances of the kind where the person on the receiving end understands that they really needed a drastic wake-up call because of how deeply they’d fallen (and these aren’t some average mental abyss problems these kids are getting put through, either). It’s actually hard to imagine any of the 02 group getting in the kind of genuinely angry and vicious fistfights Taichi and Yamato would in Adventure, because of how close they are (the closest being Daisuke and Takeru grappling in episode 11, but it never got near that level) -- in fact, these kinds of things are done with the implication that they’re doing it because they trust the other person to not hold it against them (and in fact, the fact Yamato does this with Taichi in this way is intended to be read as a sign of how much better they’ve come to understand each other).

So, moving on with the series! The Giga House incident in episodes 28-29 is the first time the group works together in an organized effort, which is notable not only because it’s their first time coordinating with Ken, but also because it’s their first time properly coordinating at all. Remember when I mentioned that, back in episode 19, as much as the kids were pretty fond of each other and were great friends, they still hadn’t figured out how to actually fight as a team? Here we are, with them actually having started to figure that process out.

We then get to episode 30, where there’s actually quite a lot of interesting things to unpack.

Miyako: What's wrong with you? Daisuke: E-Eh? Mi-Miyako-san? Miyako: It feels weird when you add the "-san". Daisuke: Shut up! Man, you're all the same!

Miyako and Daisuke’s relationship is often misconstrued considering that they’re the two most chaotic in the group (their temperaments are very similar at times, which causes them a lot of friction), but I also think this blink-and-you’ll-miss it moment is pretty much their actual relationship in a nutshell. They fight a lot, and they’re ostensibly vitriolic, but they’re actually two of the most like-minded in the group -- they banter because they’re comfortable with each other. Recall that I mentioned that Daisuke is normally respectful with his elders, yet he’s the only person in the group who won’t use the -san honorific on Miyako (even though she’s the oldest)...but the one time he gets flustered and uses it on her, she tells him that it’s weird and he needs to cut that out. Or, in other words, “it’s not like you to be weirdly respectful of me like that, we shouldn’t have that kind of distance between us, stop it.”

(It’s also pretty notable that Miyako has never seriously used -kun or any other honorific on Daisuke, even right after meeting him -- the only other person she dropped honorifics on was Iori, whom she’d known prior to the start of the series, but she seems to have deemed Daisuke enough of a fellow disaster child that he merited dropping it.)

This is especially because, right after that, she recruits Daisuke into her plan to get Ken and Iori to get along -- in the end, when things really get serious, the two are incredibly like-minded (look at how in-sync they are when they scheme together).

30 is actually a surprisingly Miyako-centric episode, despite not ostensibly being one. For one, it says a lot that right now, her biggest priority is to get Ken and Iori to get along -- something that has absolutely nothing to do with herself. In episode 14, Miyako freely admitted that she had a tendency to jump to conclusions about people, and that she was shallow about aesthetics, but this is a very different Miyako from the one who harassed Daisuke for Ken’s autograph in episode 8, or immediately became distrusting of Digitamamon in episode 14. Instead, she’s simply just genuinely invested in seeing people she considers friends get along, and in a selfless manner -- one that has nothing to do with herself. She just really, really cares, a lot.

After all of the first-half hubbub of Miyako really having no idea of what to do with her emotions, the second half has her start channeling that energy into what’s always been one of her biggest strengths: checking on, connecting with, and caring about her friends. Daisuke may be an aggressive forward-thinker who can push everyone in the right direction, but unlike his predecessor Taichi, he doesn’t actually have particular charisma or leadership skills that can necessarily hold everyone together. In the absence of that ability, Miyako fills in for him, checking on the moods and feelings on everyone in the team and making sure everyone’s doing well. And that’s why she loses her temper and slaps Ken late in the episode -- because, really, she’s reached her limit on her “give him space” philosophy when he’s abusing it to be standoffish in a crisis situation, and, on top of that, she really, really did have a huge emotional investment in him.

Moving onto more Miyako in episode 31, her Jogress episode with Hikari, we get to see a little bit of the old emotionally compromised Miyako again, but -- much like the second Digimentals arc -- it involves the two of them acknowledging that both of them are not going about things the best way, and that there are things they can learn from the other.

Hikari: Miyako-san, you're a handful sometimes. Miyako: I knew that's what you thought of me... Hikari: But...I've always envied that. Miyako: Huh? Hikari: Because I can't be honest and say I'm scared or scream like you.

Miyako’s tendency to lose control emotionally results in her being insensitive much of the time, which she calls herself out on multiple times during the episode, and she can’t always be as “kind” as Hikari is -- but, on the flip side, her antics are something that can be a “light” (pun not intended) towards those who are falling in a bad mental state or into the darkness, and Hikari even acknowledges this when one of her trains of thought makes her break out into laughter. Miyako ultimately manages to get through to Hikari this way at the end of the episode, which results in a Jogress and mutual growth for both of them -- Miyako puts more thought into how to approach others (it’s pointed out at the end that she’s still thinking about understanding Ken and Hikari better), and Hikari gains more resolve and determination to fight against things instead of passively accepting her fate (she tells Takeru very directly at the end "I’m fine now. I’ll never go there again.”).

Iori and Takeru's Jogress is a little more complicated to the point where it spans multiple episodes, but a lot of it ends up having to do with the fact that the events of the BlackWarGreymon arc start really putting Iori's black-and-white principles into conflict -- it's wrong to kill something that's been proven to be alive, but it's also wrong to be evil. Putting a huge nail in that is that there's a stake in him forming a relationship with Takeru, but he doesn't really understand Takeru either -- the "two-facedness" he witnessed back in episode 19 scares even him, and he's so intimidated by Takeru that, in episode 35, he goes to approach Yamato about Takeru's past instead of asking the person directly. Takeru, hearing about this, complains that he could have just asked directly, but admits he understands why Iori did so.

By the way, I should point out that episode 35 is the last time within the TV series that Daisuke is portrayed as having a particular interest in Hikari, and it’s just in terms of being slightly more excited that Hikari is joining his meeting. At this point, there are actual important things happening in the Digital World, and he needs to take care of Ken, too, and so...in the end, once again, Daisuke proves that he’s actually capable of putting aside those kinds of more shallow things when he really needs to.

On top of that, this is when the kids start actively working with Ken in the real world (and, if post-02 materials are any indication, continue to hang out with him even for social outings). The choice to have Ken live in Tamachi instead of Odaiba facilitated his isolation from the group during the Kaiser arc, and during around the third quarter they were all grouping up in the Digital World anyway, but the fourth quarter actually has the kids make an attempt to include Ken in their real-world outings despite the distance. Tamachi is not temporally far from Odaiba (approximately half an hour by train), but it’s a bit of a nuisance to get to, requiring crossing a bridge to/from the Tokyo mainland and paying extra for the Yurikamome. But at this point, he’s an important enough friend to them -- and them important enough friends to him -- that they’ll make it work.

At the end of episode 35, Iori finally decides -- to the point of recklessness, something that would have been previously very uncharacteristic of him -- to try and appeal directly to BlackWarGreymon to get him to stop destroying the Holy Stones so that they won’t have to fight. It’s emblematic of Iori’s heart being genuinely torn, because he’s having such a difficult time rationalizing all of these conflicting feelings. This comes to a head in episode 36, when Iori loses his temper at the rest of the group for “playing around”, but Armadimon snaps him back to reality to remind him that they’re tired and hungry, and this can’t be neglected. Iori himself ultimately becomes the one to proactively suggest that they take time to sit down and eat, indicating that -- little by little -- he’s starting to shift his thinking a bit, after being so incredibly stubborn for much of the series.

This is what leads to Iori and Takeru’s Jogress at the end of the episode, now that Iori is flexible enough in thinking to understand the emotional id behind Takeru’s mentality. And likewise, Takeru’s started to loosen up by 36, too --

Takeru: Sure, darkness is frightening, and we would feel at ease if we could get rid of it completely, but I'm sure that's impossible. Ken: Impossible? Takeru: Where there's light, there's always darkness. Hikari: The brighter the light, the darker the shadow, right? Takeru: Yes. That's why I think it's important not to lose sight of the light inside you, no matter how dark it is.

The thing about Takeru is that while he deceptively seemed more open and playful than Hikari for most of the series, he was actually bottling up a lot of emotions in a way not entirely different from the way she did. (Note how, despite how tied at the hip the two constantly are, they almost never actually talk about their thoughts on each other; it feels like a relationship where they implicitly trust each other but are practically reliant on that implicit trust to maintain that close of a friendship at all.) And he’s been keeping those emotions bottled up until they exploded in less-than-healthy ways, initially distancing himself from Iori. But being a lot more open about his thoughts on the matter allowed them to connect better, and eventually Takeru came to embrace a somewhat more reasonable stance on the matter after observing Iori.

It also doesn’t seem like coincidence that this is the episode that ends with Takeru’s first major act of goodwill towards Ken.

This leads into episode 38, the Christmas episode. Fun things to note!

The episode opens with Daisuke and the other younger kids giving a “Christmas present” to their seniors in the form of letting them reunite with their partners. Remember how I said that the 02 kids always admired their seniors and looked up to them? Even this late in the series, the series does not shy away from the fact you’re supposed to see the 02 kids as their deferential juniors.

The Christmas party is, of course, notably, the first major moment of reconciliation between Iori and Ken, with Iori having gone through major harsh lessons about morality in the last few episodes, and Ken opening up more to the rest of the group. Said party is also yet another notable example of how much of a priority it is for the 02 kids to be “social life friends” and not just friends working as a Digimon incident team -- after all, having genuinely emotionally present friends is what Ken needs most in his life right now, considering that the party is treated as the first time he’s been truly happy in a long while.

This is followed by episode 39, which is notable as the time when Daisuke finally commits to switching to given-name basis for Ken, and actually opens the episode standing against Taichi -- because he's so worried about Ken that he needs to go join him. This is something that's lost a bit in translation, but although Daisuke stands down against Taichi, he's not rude nor does he overstep his boundaries with his respected senior (he even opens his statement in polite-form Japanese) -- he's just saying, firmly and politely, "I'm sorry, but I can't go, I have to go help my friend." It’s a notable moment because while Daisuke has been becoming increasingly assertive and aware of what he really wants to do, this is the first time we’re actually seeing him refuse to defer to the very senior he’d spent so much of the series idolizing and looking up to.

We get to episodes 43-45 (the Demon mini-arc), which is also the culmination of the 02 kids having to face the limits of pacifism. This tends to throw off people who are coming in from Adventure, since the Adventure kids ended up killing Digimon with a lot more ease in the original series, but it’s also important to make note of the fact that the episode itself deliberately portrays a gap in mentality between the Adventure and the 02 kids -- with Hikari torn between the two. It also creates an interesting subversion of expectations when Hikari, the one you’d expect to be more on the pacifist side, is the one who’s already accepted that it may be inevitable, whereas Miyako, the more aggressive and belligerent one, is the one staunchly against it.

The reason for this “paradox” comes out of a single line from Hikari in episode 44:

Hikari: You’re the one who saved him, Miyako-san.

The Adventure kids never liked killing. They were never enthusiastic about it -- it was just that they were almost immediately put in a situation where the entire fate of the multiverse was at stake thanks to some unambiguously evil Digimon who wanted nothing but wanton destruction. Even then, it was pretty clear that they never enjoyed it -- Takeru professed a desire to avoid fighting in Adventure episode 12, and the pacifist Mimi went through a breakdown in Adventure episodes 45-50 trying to avoid casualties. But one of the most important lessons Mimi learned at the time was that pacifism has its limits -- there’s no point if it ends up in more deaths than it saves, because at that point you’re adhering to moralistic principles more than you’re actually saving lives.

The fact that the Adventure kids and the 02 kids have a “different mentality” isn’t just happenstance, but outright embraced. Daisuke, Miyako, and Iori never had to actually deal with a conscious Digimon that was unambiguously evil for most of the series, and Archnemon revealing that her motives were pretty much nothing but wanton destruction in episode 29 was the first major warning signal to Iori that his pacifism might have limits. And during this Demon mini-arc, it’s not like these Digimon are threatening multiverse destruction or anything -- it really does seem like a constant “glimmer of hope” that maybe, just maybe, they can save people non-lethally. Alas, they can’t.

Daisuke, being someone who’s inherently practical-minded, starts entertaining the idea that push may come to shove as early as episode 25, and finally makes his first statement about practical limits in episode 43. But the more emotionally caught-up Miyako and Iori end up taking another episode to swallow it, and they don’t take it well. Most of the attention in 44 is given to Miyako, and it reconfirms that, despite her aggressive exterior, she’s emotionally sensitive and empathetic -- and while killing LadyDevimon is framed as truly the only thing that could have been done in that situation, Miyako is not faulted for being emotionally compromised, nor is Iori likewise when he faces a similar situation with Takeru and is forced to confront the people whose lives were at stake.

Episode 45, when Ken opens the gate to the Dark Ocean, doesn’t really have much to add on top of what’s already there, but this is basically “the point of no return” when everyone confirms their own emotional investment in Ken and understanding that he’s not just reformed, he’s genuinely struggling under the pain of what’s been happening -- and this is before they find out about the truth behind the Dark Seeds, and that Ken’s transformation into the Kaiser may have been supernaturally influenced, too.

It’s also interesting to see the different ways each kid reacts to Ken as they support him:

Hikari, the most outwardly compassionate, goes to support him the second she notices him in physical pain; Takeru notices that it might work, realizes Ken needs the support, and joins.

Iori and Miyako reflect on how Ken’s putting all of his efforts in, and lambast themselves before joining. Interestingly, given the circumstances behind what’s happened up until now, Iori and Miyako criticizing themselves take a different meaning -- Iori, who’d been scornful of Ken until recently, seems to be regretting that he distrusted him when Ken had been trying so hard, while Miyako, who had been open to him since episode 25, seems to be upset that she’s sitting there and not doing enough when he’s in all of this pain.

And Daisuke, of course, the most “forward-thinking” of them all, gives Ken a speech about what he’s done so far and reminds him that he’s already done more than enough for “atonement” -- which is, of course, what directly reaches Ken the most.

And when we get to episode 46, and the kids, now knowing about the Dark Seeds, hold a roundtable (and emotional support group) to discuss what to do about the Dark Seeds, Daisuke’s the one with the most spirit and energy about it, but...

...the one actually leading the roundtable? Miyako.

Miyako: Sorry, that's all I can think of. Ken: Please don't worry about me. Miyako: (nods)

It’s subtle, but the scene in question does actually make a deliberate move in indicating that Miyako’s continuing to channel her emotional sensitivity and desire to go out of her way to help Ken -- of course, they all know how traumatic this is for him, but she’s the one who’s actively calling attention to how he must feel about it first and foremost.

Episodes 47 and after end up becoming yet another major wake-up call for Iori (seriously, I do not understand why people claim he had no character arc when this wasn’t even remotely subtle) when he learns that Oikawa, whom he’d pinned as “evil”, has a deep relationship with the father he’d grown up idolizing so much, and it completely flips his world around -- even though he had started to get a bit more open-minded, he’s still trying to rationalize what should have been, in his mind, two diametrically opposite things. It fuels his confusion and desperate desire to understand more, not just about Oikawa, but about everything he’d thought about morality and why people turn to evil.

So we get to the final arc of the series, and it involves a confrontation with BelialVamdemon -- but said finale is heavily dependent on talking to the Dark Seed children and inspiring hope back into them. This results in a conversation where everyone talks about their career dreams, and Daisuke admits that he wants to be...a ramen chef, which completely blindsides even his friends.

What’s with this arc?, you might think. And moreover, why is Daisuke ending the series still kind of an idiot? Even Miyako still seems to be a bit of a mess and chaotic. Weren’t they supposed to be growing into dignified heroes, like Taichi and his friends were last series?

Well, here’s the thing -- the fact that the 02 kids end the series comparatively “undignified” is actually very inherent to the core theme of 02 itself. There were more than enough episodes that established that said kids are heroic in their own way -- caring about others, fighting on others’ behalf, and learning important lessons about what’s important to fight about. That doesn’t mean they don’t get the right to continue being disaster children while they’re at it.

Why?

Let’s look at a few official statements behind the creation and intent behind 02 as a series. From producer Seki Hiromi, from the Digimon Animation Chronicle:

That came from an idea I had while reading a newspaper article. I read a story about a nine-year-old boy going to Columbia University, and I thought, “This boy is going to college because he’s considered a genius, and everyone around him will be in their twenties, and he won’t get to have any friends his age. What kind of life would this boy end up having?”

Or some very interesting statements from head writer Yoshimura Genki from the 02 Blu-ray box:

When I was writing Ken Ichijouji, the main idea for him I used as a basis was the conflict between “the self that has to be a well-behaved child when adults are watching” and “being able to be oneself”, and the pain that came from it as a result. So for instance, in the same way as the Pinnocchio fairytale, or the short story A.I. that was adapted into a movie, or many other works, there are probably universal worries that all children feel as they grow, but also, there were ongoing unimaginable, atrocious incidents happening with children at the time, and perhaps it was those social conditions that gave me a hint on what to do. I think I had some thoughts that I wanted to convey to the children who were living through that time. I was given the opportunity to put those kinds of feelings, as much as I liked, into episode 23, and I am truly grateful to all of the staff, including the director. ... Also, this is about Daisuke’s character, but I believe I paid particular attention to making him “a child who could be himself”. He has no special talents, and although he’s clumsy and scatterbrained, I wanted him to be someone whose strength was in his straightforwardness, and wrote him that way. 

Lying underneath the entirety of 02 itself is a theme about “children who are not allowed to be children”. Or, in other words, the pressure placed on children to be “talented” and “dignified” and “well-behaved”, often imposed on them by well-meaning parents who are unfortunately taking the opportunity to stroke their own ego, robbing them of the happiness and mental freedoms they should have as kids.

Ichijouji Osamu and Ken, who were placed under the pressure to be “genius children” and cracked under the pressure to please their parents. Oikawa Yukio, who was cut off from the Digital World in childhood by a well-meaning Hida Chikara, worried about his son getting into “foolish” talk. The Dark Seed children, who also fell victim to similar pressures that Ken did, and lost hope for life unless they could force themselves into that mold.

Takeru: If you want the Digimon to exist, if you believe in that, they will. Just like our feelings...Just like every child having the power to make their dreams come true. Keiko: That's just childish. Daisuke: You all have dreams for the future, don't you? Noriko: Dreams for the future? Takashi: I've forgotten that stuff. Daisuke: No way! You must have one! Takeru: It's nothing to be ashamed of. Takashi: Then, what's your dream? Daisuke: Mine? Mine's a ramen shop. I love ramen! I'll become the world's best ramen maker! Ken: I had no idea... Noriko: Well...actually, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. Hikari: Me too. Daisuke: What about you guys? Takashi: A baseball player! Keiko: I really want to be a pastry chef. Hiroshi: When I said I wanted to be a manga artist, everyone laughed, so I gave up... Takashi: We all had aspirations, and at some point we thought that wasn't allowed...But we were wrong, right? Daisuke: Let people say whatever they want! Noriko: You're right, we should be free to dream. Miyako: Not just dreaming. If you work hard, your dreams will surely come true!

Notice something about all of these careers mentioned? They’re all the kind of “overly childish” “wild dream” “undignified” “too simple” kinds of dreams that an average parent might be uncomfortably quick to shoot down because that’s “not good enough”. These are the kids who willingly accepted the Dark Seeds; they, much like Ken, probably grew up under parents who prioritized school performance and other “societally dignified” things that ended up eating away at their happiness.

02 has a lot of different themes, but the one that lies in its undercurrent from start to finish is “so why does a child have to be this way? As long as they still understand what’s important, do they have to be dignified people? Why can’t they just be free to have dreams and be themselves?” And Daisuke and his friends are there specifically to stand up against this mentality, and to remind Ken and the other victims of it that it doesn’t have to be this way -- that it’s okay to be your true self, and be a child, and not succumb to all of those arbitrary, shallow standards people put on you. Even if that means you’re still a bit of a chaotic disaster at the tender age of eleven.

Digimon, in the Adventure and 02 universe, have always been treated like a part of the self (they were literally conceived as a physical manifestation of the soul), but in 02 they gain an extra meaning of representing “the inner, deepest part of yourself that represents your wildest ‘childish’ dreams”. The symbolism of Ken spending the first half of the series trying to reject Wormmon for being “weak” -- in other words, rejecting his own kind-hearted self for not being the kind of “strong” entity he was pressured and groomed into being -- is not lost, nor that of the Dark Seed children gaining partners when they reconnect with their dreams and wishes, nor Oikawa finally, finally meeting his partner when he comes into contact with the past he’d really lost (and especially not the fact that his attempt to reclaim shallow reminders of said childhood involved trying to make his own Digimon).

And notably, the series’s finale (prior to the epilogue) ends not on Daisuke but on Iori, escorting Oikawa to the Digital World despite how completely impossible it would have been for early-series Iori to even entertain the idea, finally coming to truly understand what happened with him and being most personally impacted by his death.

But in any case, where are we with the characters? We’re here to talk about how they’ve grown and developed over the course of the series. Let’s recap:

Daisuke: Started off the series as an abrasive kid with more bark than actual bite, constantly deferring to others and easily deflating, relying on shallow sources of validation like wanting attention from Hikari; gradually gained an ability to identify what was important and put his foot down for it, embraced his forward-thinkingness to reach out to a heavily troubled child as a friend, and ended up surrounded by a friend group that loves and respects him.

Miyako: Started off the series as a shallow, flighty girl with poor control over her emotions and difficulty in appreciating the gravity of things; came to channel her emotional range into empathy for others and compassion, bringing other people together and taking care of them.

Iori: Started off the series as a straight-laced but too principled child who stuck to “rules of what’s right” not only in morality but also in way of acting; started to appreciate the emotional nuances and heart behind why people do what they do and how it’s possible to be more flexible in “doing good”.

Ken: Well, his character arc is pretty obvious, but -- again, while his arc of learning to forgive himself is well-known, less often pointed out is that it centers very heavily on not only having penance but also not being too hung up on the past, and the futility of drowning in self-pity and regret instead of choosing to take responsibility and act more productively going forward.

Takeru: Started off the series as a seemingly mature but deceptively inscrutable character whose duality made him hard to approach; eventually opened up with the help of others and showed a capacity for being more flexible with his personal grudges.

Hikari: Started off the series emotionally repressive and passive to the point of self-destruction; eventually embraced connections with her other friends and became more active in taking a stand for herself.

Hey, not bad!

And, again, this is not a series you should be reading in terms of “self-awareness” in the same way Adventure was, but in the sense of their “relationships” and how they interact with others. By being less abrasive and more assertive, Daisuke gained the respect of his other friends. By putting her emotional capacity into caring about others, Miyako became someone who holds the group together. By learning to think a little more flexibly and be less stubborn, Iori arrived at a position where he could more easily sympathize with others in the group. Takeru and Hikari both moved from their previously relatively inscrutable positions to ones who could more effectively interact with and open up to others. And Ken, of course, became someone who managed to integrate himself into a group of true “friends” despite everything he had done against them in the first half.

This, in the end, is how you get what’s one of the tightest friend groups in Digimon history. In the end, the relationships themselves are almost like characters of their own that got development -- I say very often that you could take two of the characters and have an excellent scope of how they’d interact and play off each other by the end of the series. And although they end the series as possibly one of the most shameless, undignified disaster groups out there...they’re certainly still heroic, and in any case, given the lessons they learned throughout their own series, they probably wouldn’t have it any other way.

[hydraulicfluidinmyteapot]

Pirates of the Caribbean

This is an ask from @shrigma-male​, but i accidentally deleted the ask.. so sorry! I am high key excited to get an ask about this topic, as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is probably one of my earliest animatronic centric obsessions. not only is it one of the earliest and most impressive feats of Imagineering, it also remains solid to this day. it houses a great many iconic animatronic figurines, all of which work together in perfect harmony to capture beautifully life filled scenes of a cohesive storyline. Its individual ride concept was so strong that it birthed a line of clones and even a famous movie franchise. isn’t that sick? a RIDE was the key source material for a whole movie series! but it’s unsurprising, with the time and care poured into the ride. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you think about it, the ride is JAM PACKED so there is a LOT to talk about. This will only be a super brief post information-wise, but who knows? There may be more to come if this performs well. Apologies, my life’s not going great at the moment and i don’t have a lot of spare time so this is not as high a quality as i would like it to be.

Here’s my fast fact file on it!

Debut: March 16, 1967

Withdrawal: All rides are still operating

Attraction: The Pirates of the Caribbean 

Locations: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Shanghai Disney (but this one’s heavily modified)

Attraction Type: Dark ride

Riders Per Vehicle: 23–24

Number of vehicles:  50

Animatronics: 119 ish but it depends on the ride version

Ride videos: The entire ride varies from version to version and different people want to see different parts. i’m leaving you guys to find your own ride videos. it’s a very popular ride, just type on in to youtube and you’ll find heaps of nice high quality ones. 

The thing that stands out about this ride is the theming and the sheer amount of effort put in to creating an immersive environment. the ride houses an impressive 119 audio animatronics, 53 of which are animals. There are 630,000 gallons of water in the ride (original Disneyland) and takes three whole days to drain. there are over 40,000 gold coins in the treasure room scene alone. It holds what could possibly be considered Disney’s first themed restaurant which can be seen at the start of the ride. It is objectively one of the coolest things I’ve ever ridden. I want to call specific attention to the boat scene, where cannons fare at each other from opposite ships, creating glowing impacts and throwing water about. the first time I rode it it ensnared my attention and completely suspended my disbelief.The ride system is based on the one used in it’s a small world, due to that rides incredible success in debuting a boat-based transport system. Although I hate it’s a small world with a burning passion and refuse to write anything on it, I must be forced to admit that it did wonders as a test on how to create a good dark ride, emphasising key features such as a high rider capacity, boat-based transport system, and proving that animatronics are an incredibly attractive key event. Since the 60’s when it debuted, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride has gone through many changes throughout its location, including entire scenes being added and removed. but what it has maintained throughout its historic run time is its notoriety and splendour. the key change that I will bring up is the 2006 and 2007 renovations that include more theming from the very successful movie franchise. slightly unrelated, but the song “Yo ho, a pirate’s life for me” was actually first written for the ride. The rides are all being constantly updated in minor ways whether it’s slightly improving the animatronics, touching up background details or changing costuming. I’ll attach here a brief sort of timeline of the ride that I’ve whipped up here, but it only touches on the most notable modifications. sorry about how crap-tier it is..

Now, to talk more specifically about animatronics. The animatronics used on this ride are some of the earliest made by Disney. some are really quite basic, with their full range of motions being a singular full body action such as raising and lowering out of a barrel, but others move heads and arms in (sort of) lifelike actions. Some are newer, (specifically captain Jack Sparrow), but most are the original ones from the 60’s. One of my (and everyone’s tbh) favourites is the redheaded lady. She is (very originally) named Redd. Previously she was being sold off for auction, but in 2018 she was swapped to being an auctioneer. She has stunning red curls and a beautiful dress to match, and now holds a gun. here’s a little before and after.

 in the same refurbishment that changed her the mist screen in the tunnel before the fort battle was removed and replaced with a pirate in a cage who turns into a skeleton via an optical trick as well as an octopus playing with some medallions, along with the original 1967 narration about cursed treasure being restored. Her new version is based off none other than Anne Bonny herself (worth a google, she’s a fucking BOSS (like seriously!! Queer history icon!!! LOOK 👏 HER 👏 UP 👏 )) . She’s also displayed in dead man’s cove in a portrait, which I think is kinda neat. Her Paris version is completely silent, but the others yell about selling rum. Sadly I have never actually seen the new Redd in person, as I have only ridden the ride in Tokyo (where she is still being sold).

Now, the barker bird! oh how I love him so <3 he’s a little green pirate parrot, who spent his days crying about the ride. he was originally in the queue area but got kicked outside eventually to help deal with crowd control. he was then gotten rid of in 2006 in the big movie refurb. He was remarkably similar to the original barker bird who resided outside of the Enchanted Tikki Room; however, the pirate version has a peg leg, eye patch, tattoo on his chest and wondrously villainous hat. he was originally based off of Captain Flint, the parrot from Treasure Island. It is theorised that he has a skeletal clone inside the ride; the parrot belonging to “the Dirty Feet pirate”. 

When you first get on the ride, the first animatronic you come across is Old Joe. he is an animatronic character used in multiple different attractions, including Liberty Belle Riverboat, The Western River and Mark Twain Riverboat. in each version, he lives in a shack and is associated with the banjo. I say associated because it is actually a really common misconception that he actually plays the banjo. he does not, it is just a dark scene and there is banjo music playing around him. you can see the tip of his pipe glowing as you approach it in the ride, lit up alongside the fireflies. he is a small taste of what is to come.

Barbossa replaced the original pirate captain of The Wicked Wench in the boat battle scene in the mass movie renovation. he is my tied favourite with the redhead, as his dialog adds so much to the scene. his character moves in a beautiful fashion, lit up by a spotlight. His face is artfully painted, capturing what I believe to be the most human expression in the entire ride. His boat is fighting a Castillo del Morro fortress of Isla Tesoro, whilst busy searching for treasure and presumably captain jack sparrow. in 2011 his WDW version’s outfit was swapped over to his privateer uniform from On Stranger Tides, to keep the ride tied to the movies. What can be considered quite odd is that in Paris’s later renovation, the Captain did not replace the Wicked Wench captain, and was rather added in to a scene at the end of the ride, in the skeleton grotto. he is standing on the shipwreck beside the skeleton helmsman, carrying a lantern. 

The auctioneer. I don’t like him. greasy man. his eyes are wild. He’s originally voiced by Paul Frees (an icon, a legend) and is inspired by Captain Bartholomew Roberts (considered the most successful pirate in the golden age of piracy. He is also a pirate from the ship The Wicked Wench, and his auction is set up near a canteen called "La Cantina”. very creative. He was originally selling brides (human trafficking, not very snazzy) but now he sells chickens he stole from townspeople. however, this is unsuccessful. In the Paris version, instead of the chickens he is trying to sell a painting of Jean Laffite. Funnily enough, Jean is one of Disney’s sort of “stand in” pirate characters that they frequently just use whenever they need a pirate to slide in. Unfortunately, the auctioneer is always kept relatively up to date with the shiniest, newest technology that Disney can spare, and is always one of the most advanced figures on the ride. doesn’t deserve it, he’s slimy and I don’t like him. I should probably mention that he doesn’t actually have a name other than the auctioneer. There’s also a clone of him used in the haunted mansion for the duelling animatronics. loser. 

This is a very long post, so I shall cut it here. I will leave you with an image gallery, further reading and a possible promise of a part two if this post does well. Thank you!

(ok so i actually haven’t got any further reading gathered yet. give me like 6 hours and ill fix it in an edit. i promise. i just want to get this post out asap)

[eclectic-feathers]

Hello! Here’s my submission for @50yearsofqueen’s event. Posted nearing midnight for the drama. It’s a Doctor Who crossover that doesn’t really have much to do with the franchise other than in concept. It’s a very complex show, but canon’s already constantly challenged so I might as well challenge it even more. Thanks to my partner @bananavarina who made the art for this chapter and other chapters to come. Special thanks to @anne-white-star for helping me with the concept. Hope y’all enjoy!

———————————————

Humans succumb rather easily to trickery. After all, an unfortunate amount of them lead such jaded lives to the point they gradually lose the ability of thinking outside the box. This particular box is all these humans have ever known, yet, still, it serves as a case study in the development of claustrophobia. It’s stuck moving at a steady pace in a singular direction: forward. No turning back, no jumping ahead. Worst of all, the box never takes you anywhere. You need gasoline for that and gasoline, as you may well know, is expensive.

And if you don’t prefer a cheaper alternative for transportation, you’re either very well off or there’s something terribly wrong with you.

Thus, when presented with a different box, a time-traveling, space-hopping one which happens to accommodate much bigger dimensions on the inside, humans are easily fooled into stepping right in, putting aside all reasonable caution.

It’s for this reason that The Doctor recruits folks aboard his TARDIS with relative ease. It’s an art form he has nearly mastered, effectively trapping starry-eyed wanderers under the guise of adventure into a lifetime’s worth of the terror they least expect upon boarding. This terror had plagued dozens of Earthlings whose narrow understanding of space and time rendered them rather clueless as to how they might defeat it. This entity was, as brave Jamie McCrimmon ever so rudely proclaimed, a threat less comprehensible than Cybermen. This threat was unwanted exposition.

(Which is more commonly referred to as rambling.)

Countless humans have fondly (and exasperatedly, as certified human, Tegan Jovanka may attest) listened to The Doctor ramble for hours on end. It was a familiar dynamic, one The Doctor found comfort in. Perhaps, most of his companions never truly understood what he would be rambling on about, but it was, and still is, part of their exchange. The Doctor finds joy in showing such excitement, such beauty and wonder, to his friends. In return, his friends put the fun in his travels and gawk, accordingly, to all that they witness.

The Doctor always expected his companions to marvel in the sights and let him ramble on and on from topic to topic. What he didn’t expect was for them to stop marveling and start rambling back.

-

“Your mama loved scarves. They were all she had managed to pack from home when she was taken here.”

Brian slipped on his rubber footwear, his feet secured by tiny pieces of braided cloth cut from a scarf threaded through unevenly punctured holes. Haru had called them flip flops although he wasn’t quite sure whether it was a name he’d invented to cheer him up when he was little (like when he used to call lightbulbs fireflies) or if it happened to be the effect of inherent human silliness, thus making it the correct term.

“This is your papa’s favorite pair of pants. Your mama doodled stars and planets on it for his birthday. He loved them as he loved her...you love them too, don’t you?”

He pulled the pants up and fastened it with a belt. It was rather long and baggy for a ten-year-old. Still, Brian tried to make it work, bunching up the cloth and standing as tall as he could. He wondered if his father was out there, unaware of the existence of a son, finally home among the stars drawn daintily across his trousers.

“We all had to wear long sleeved shirts back in the metropolis. I wore green. He wore white.”

Brian put one on accordingly. The sleeves flopped and swallowed his arms as the shirt engulfed his skinny frame.

“Your mama had sewn him a vest. He wasn’t particularly fond of vests but he was very fond of your mama.”

He put on the black vest

Little Brian stared at the mirror in front of him, unsure what to feel. He felt tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, yet he wasn’t quite sure if it were right to mourn for something he’d never known.

“Bri?”

Brian looked up to find Haru standing at the doorway. His face was blank, yet a storm seemed to brew in his eyes. Perhaps, he was upset that the child he’d loved and raised as if he were his own was wearing the painful reminder of his friends long gone. Or, perhaps, he was disheartened that said child wasn’t satisfied enough with his care to stop yearning for his parents’ presence. Perhaps, he was neither of those. Perhaps, he was angry.

Brian hoped he was angry.

A moment of silence passed between them. Then another. Brian had read about moments like this in fictional Earthling books. He was steeling himself for those angry outbursts he always read about. Haru rarely got upset, yet Ian had never messed up this terribly before. So he braced himself…

Only to be engulfed in a bone crushing hug.

Brian quickly hugged Haru back as the latter trembled. He felt the pitter patter of tears falling on his shoulder and for the first time in his life, he felt the crushing weight of loss.

“You deserve to know your father,” Haru croaked as he regained his composure. Brian merely buried his face in his shoulder as he finally let his own tears flow.

“I already do, Dad.”

—————————-

“Doctor, your library’s collection of medical books is incomplete,” proclaimed Brian, a young man clad in white, signifying his status as an esteemed astronaut of Planet Rhye.

The Doctor gasped theatrically, startling Deacy, a man from 21st century Leicester, younger and less knowledgeable than Brian, yet seemingly much wiser. He’d been tinkering with a malfunctioning lever for about an hour now.

The Doctor merely smiled in apology to which Deacy responded with a fond shake of his head.

“Oh the TARDIS hasn’t been fixed yet?,” Brian inquired as he sank into a lavish red sofa situated in the console room.

“Not to my knowledge, no,” Deacy replied.

The Doctor laughed.

“Cheeky now, aren’t we?”

“Well, I deserve to be cheeky. After all it wasn’t me who busted the wiring in the butterfly room for a photoshoot.”

The Doctor scoffed as Brian let out a snort of his own.

“I’ll have you know, darling, that we’re perfectly safe and untarnished. I managed to avert the crisis by rearranging the wires before anyone could get hurt.”

“Did you, now?,” Deacy asked, his confusion evident.

“Of course I did!”

“Then how come the wires here are all mismatched and tangled up?”

A sudden silence swept across the room.

“Oh! You managed to rearrange them well enough for the TARDIS not to combust but they still weren’t in the correct order because based on the times we were on Itakam and the time we went to Roman occupied Greece, you’re no good at technical repairs,” Brian piped up, rather satisfied with himself. Deacy chuckled as The Doctor gaped at his lack of tact.

“Brian...do tell me about the library,” The Doctor muttered, as Deacy amusedly returned to his work.

“I’ve searched high and low in every single shelf of your library and found references to every single medical lung condition I’ve read of back home. They were all there...except for one.”

“Well, that’s silly, darling! The book dealer had been very sincere. I couldn’t have been tricked!”

“Perhaps, you’d simply been gullible?,” Roger suggested as he entered the room. He was exceptionally beautiful with no trace of wrinkles, pores, or even a philtrum. His skin was smooth as silk save for a pair of gills which rested on either side of his neck. He sat next to Brian and plopped his feet on the former’s lap. It was no secret that this Doctor, unlike the last two of his incarnations, was reserved around strangers. That being said, soaked up every last trace of physical affection from his friends like a sponge. Yet, even he chuckled at the display of such disregard for human manners.

Brian was human. However he’d been raised far from Earth, isolated from society with no one but Dad for company. Etiquette was unimportant in his little world and Dad hadn’t known enough about human custom to teach him anything of substance. Brian hadn’t known touch for years and he embraced, quite literally, its sudden return in the form of team cuddles. It seems rather funny, doesn’t it? That there are things you never realize you lost until you find it and cherish it once more? Ian seemed to believe so.

Roger was a fish.

“That’s impossible, for how all that pretentiousness my sixth face had, he simply wasn’t one to be tricked.”

“I beg to differ,” Roger countered. “I’ve met him. You’re absolutely rubbish at spaceship maintenance, I give you that. But you’re actually quite clever...very creative even. He was witty and creative too, but he wasn’t clever. He was mostly a bumbling fool.”

The Doctor didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.

“What medical condition were you looking for anyway?,” Deacy inquired as he rolled up the sleeves of his turtleneck and took off his spliced button up.

“Hanahaki disease.”

At this, Roger quickly turned away from Brian, trying to hold in his laughter. The Doctor buried his smiling face in Deacy’s shoulder as the latter forcibly schooled his expression into one of nonchalance. He was well aware that Hanahaki disease was fictional, after all, his girlfriend, Ronnie used to write fiction in her spare time and he’d be the beta reader. He nodded politely, as Brian happily hummed a little tune, oblivious to his friends’ antics.

You know you’ve got a terrible grasp on human custom when even a fish is more culturally aware than you.

“Well, either way,” Brian piped up, still blissfully unaware, “your collection’s incomplete. Maybe we should go look for the missing volume after Deacy repairs the console?”

“I reckon we need another adventure,” Roger agreed as he set his legs on the floor and yanked The Doctor towards the couch. Brian scooted closer, letting his head rest on Roger’s shoulder as The Doctor climbed in and rested his upper body on his companions’ laps.

“I’m afraid we’ll be stranded here for a little while,” Deacy remarked.

“Then what are you waiting for?,” Brian asked as he beckoned Deacy over to the couch. The latter smiled as he joined in what he believed to be the best part of traveling with The Doctor: cuddle piles.

—————————————-

“Are we gonna tell him…?”

“No!”

“How dare you?! I invited you onboard expecting a starry-eyed audience to gawk at everything I do but instead I got someone who seems to know my TARDIS better than me!”

“There’s no point in complaining about free maintenance.”

“You’re one to talk, fishman. There’s no point in bringing you along with me to witness the universe if you’ve already seen it all!”

“Yet you still keep us around.”

“...I suppose I do. Now wipe those smug looks off your faces. We’re going to 2012. Just to appease him.”

[akampana]

Actual question. What do you think of Schehezarade? I've seen mixed opinions about it and ultimately the consensus seems to be that Agartha sucks and type moon are assholes for treating her like a joke character.

I have her, and I like her, but I have some issues with Scheherazade's treatment in the game. And actually, unless you play her interlude, I get why she receives a lot of mixed opinions. More under the cut.

Before we start, I just want to briefly talk about *sigh* Agartha

Let's begin with, yes I agree that Agartha sucks and my god, I legitimately do not think I have read anything so atrocious in a long while. I hated everything about it and I lamented that you as the player were forced to pick between lecherous choice A or lecherous choice B when selecting dialogue. It forced the player into the incel mindset and I legitimately feel sorry for every Servant that was in that story. The whole thing from start to finish was uncomfortable at its best and plain triggering at its worst. I wish I could erase the entire experience from my mind.

Onto Scheherazade, who I really wish wasn't introduced in that Pseudo Singularity.

Character

I find it difficult that although Scheherazade did tell 1001 stories to avoid dying, they make 'not dying' the end all be all of her character in Fate. I feel like the focus should have been more on that she was eloquent, learned, and creative, not to mention a person brave enough to volunteer to be the king's next bride plus definitely a little more on how wise she was in escaping death. She literally kept the stories on cliffhangers and made sure to start a new one before the night ended to keep the king curious. That and because of her clever manipulation, she charmed the king early on and stopped all that ridiculous unreasonable killing of young women. She was a hero.

Making thanatophobia everything about her is just another questionable outcome of the franchise's distillation process.

But still, if that is such a central part of her character, why poke fun at it when it is, oh you know, a legitimate traumatic concern? Especially when the story reiterates that her experience with her king as something so absurdly terrifying. Sometimes, it feels like you're supposed to think she's funny to be afraid of dying cause she's a Servant and already dead. And...no??? Why would that be funny?

Apart from that, I think that Scheherazade in Fate is hypersexualized and fetishized (which apparently pretty common for dark skinned ladies), and I wish she was wearing something more. I think Scheherazade did have children with the king, but its not important at all compared to her wit. She was a hero because of the stories she spun, not her body. I know fate takes a lot of creative liberties with character design but...they definitely could have done better.

Onto the positives, If you squint enough during the singularity and the Ooku event though, there is evidence of her command over words. She is still a storyteller, and people listen to her. Heck, in Agartha, you trust her easily because of that, and in the Ooku event you get to see more of it. It's just so drowned out by everything else. But honestly, you only do get the most out of her Fate character through her interlude.

Interlude

Taking into account the way she is characterized in Fate, her Interlude is actually good. It's kind of like a recap, where you tell her your story and Romani's thus far so that she can learn from it.

I find her fascination with learning about your story to be quite endearing and very fitting for someone like her. But it is kind of funny to relive the battles cause that's a very method, first hand, experiential kind of learning. And I love that she tries to experience everything that you did in the past to try to understand you and Romani better.

She then realized that for her, stories were just a device to help her escape dying for one more night. A survival tool so she could escape death. (she apologizes for what she told you in Agartha, I think, since after hearing Romani's story she thinks he was able to die without regret, and now she too, wants to be able to do that if she were to die at all.)

But she came to the conclusion that stories were actually meant to entertain the audience. So she begins to see her stories in a more positive light. Then she seems to be more assured that Ritsuka won't outright kill her and she doesn't have to worry about dying all that much. And by the end, Sche decides she will remember your stories and continue to tell them, even if what goes on in Chaldea will be kept from the public eye.

I personally think NP is cool as hell and I love that its effective against "Kings". Characters in her stories are effective against kings. It just ties up to her story really well. And I also love her regular attack animations.

Overall, Scheherazade is another character that I think people were hoping to be more representative of who she really was, considering how widely known and influential Scheherazade is in Asia. I wish more of her character can be explored (not the way ooku did it, but adding to the way she came off in her interlude).

thanks for the ask.

[arlenwolf]

Most of the men I know are rugged, outdoorsy professionals and they do not dress traditional preppy.

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[littleeyesofpallas]

Bleach - Name Games

Continuing with the zanpakutou posts... One that seemed to get broadly misinterpreted is,

Katen Kyokotsu(花天狂骨)

...written as 花: “Flower,” 天: “Heaven,” 狂: “Madness,” and 骨: “Bone.”  Viz translated this as "Flower-Heaven Bone of Madness," and later changed it to “Flower Crazed Heaven Bone Spirit.”  But what I keep seeing overlooked is that Kyoukotsu(狂骨) is the name of a youkai; a white haired elderly man emerging from a well to act upon a grudge, cursing people who would drink from its well. (It’s also a homonym with the word for Kyoukotsu(胸骨) “Sternum” written “Breast”+”Bone” which is played on in Kyokotsu’s design for the anime as a skull-clad busty woman.)  “Bone-Spirit” actually does seem like it’s referring to the youkai, but then it scrambles up all the other adjectives and nouns. 

Kyoukotsu(狂骨)  is also a slang term in some regions for someone in a state of looking wild and and in noisy disarray --which basically refers to either a a mentally unstable person, or a raucous drunkard.  I think the logic in that might have to do with the idea of the Kyoukotsu cursing its well, and the idea that a belligerent or gibbering drunk being that way from having drank something evil... i.e. from a cursed well?  Given the nature of zanpakutou as reflections of their wielders’ inner-selves and Kyouraku’s disposition as a frivolous drinker, it may have been meant to imply a darker side to that.

I’ll be honest, I can’t tell if Katen is supposed to evoke “A Flower (from) Heaven” or “A Heaven (made/full of) Flowers.”  They more or less imply the same tone, but it’s the difference between a singular item or a whole landscape.  The only more specific phraseology I can find that would point in one direction over any other is katengecchi(花天月地) which refers to a scene of flowers blooming in moonlight, and kind of makes me lean more toward the landscape imagery of a field of flowers so beautiful that it is like heaven.  But I don’t know that those terms are even really related.

Together, at least to me, it seems to give off the impression of getting sloppy drunk in a field of flowers, which seems pretty in line with his general vibe.

But adding to these themes, his release call is notably longer than most, and appears to be specifically split up into one call for each of his two identical swords (and Ukitake’s the same, but noticeably Ukitake’s sword can’t be interpreted as two different names, like what they did with Katen and Kyoukotsu).  These and Ukitake’s, more than any other zanpakutou calls, and more like the hadou spells, lean into Kubo’s affinity for poetry --something he also indulges in in his tankobon poems.

花風紊れて, 花神啼き: “Flower-Wind* in disarray, Flower-spirit(s) call out/cry/wail”

*I think... think... maybe...  this is supposed to be an abbreviated form of Kachou-Fuugetsu(花鳥風月), written “Flower, Bird, Wind, Moon” which is a term used in classical Japanese art to refer to “the beauty of nature” as subject matter.  It doesn’t have to literally include Flowers, Birds, the Wind, or the Moon.  Basically, it just refers to a nature scene meant to display the beauty of nature (as opposed to being a slice of life or a strictly historical depiction, or other non-aesthetic-primary focus.)

Also the construction Kashin(花神) here written as “Flower kami*” doesn’t seem to refer to a specific deity, but worth noting is that it’s a homonym with Kashin(歌神): the kami* of Waka and of song --Waka being a traditional Japanese form of poetry, which are also sometimes translated as “muse” if that gives you a better sense of what they are.  Functionally they are closely related, because it’s the spirit of nature that inspire poetry/song about the beauty of said nature.  Moreover, as discussed previously, Shunsui has a distinct theme of both flowers and of music, so both feel kind of relevant here.

*I feel like this is kind of a Japanese mythos 101 thing to point out, but if you’re not aware, Shinto being an animist religion means they believe in an innate spirit in basically all things.  The word kami does not mean “god,” it refers broadly to that innate spirit that all things possess.  The most powerful kami are analogous to gods in other religions, but a kami’s only real definitive quality is that it is a spirit and that is exists...  the spirit of a flower has no power nor grand design nor will, nor any other quality that would make sense attributing to what we call a “god” in the West.  But that doesn’t make it any less a kami.

Also the naki(啼き) here is the same root as the nake(啼け) that Urahara and Benihime uses.  It can, in this context, read like “yelps” or “wails” or even “screams” but all in the tone of, “cries of distress.” (As opposed to quiet weeping; it’s “cry” as in the sound, not the tears.)

Also it’s kinds awkward but the verb midarete(紊れて) is the conjunctive form of the verb “to disturb” but I don’t know how to say that in English without throwing a lot of extra words into it, and I didn’t want to imply that there were more words and their implicit meaning involved.

And then...  

天風紊れて, 天魔嗤う: “Heaven-Wind in disarray, Tenma* laughs/sneers/ridicules”

I feel like “Heavenly Wind” here is supposed to refer to something more specific than just the two words mashed together, but I can’t really find anything that clarifies this for me...  But my first assumption is that like kamikaze(神風) “Divine Wind” it’s meant to describe a favorable wind, sent to protect or relieve someone in need; hence it being “spoiled,” “thrown about,” or “dispersed” being a bad thing, in the same tone as the Flower-Wind phrase above.  It’s the same verb, but i feel like “disarray” of something like “a wind” doesn’t visualize clearly.

And the specific term Kamikaze went from a general term to a specific title to refer to the two notable historic typhoons that coincidentally sank invading Mongolian fleets in the 13th century.  For their immense power and convenient timing they were attributed to acts of the divine defending Japan.  In turn it’s why the Japanese kamikaze pilots of WWII were so named.

*Tenma is the Japanese name of the Hindu Mara, of Buddhist mythos.  He is a kind of temptor figure presiding over both lust and desire as well as hesitation and fear such that they interfere with a buddhist's ability to meditate, focus, and adhere to their virtues.  In particular he's responsible for having tempted Siddharta Gautama Buddha with beautiful women. (in some iterations said to be the deva's own daughters.)

Yes, it’s the same Mara as the SMT franchise, but the giant penis monster Mara isn’t based on any real mythology, it’s actually a pun on the Japanese Mara(摩羅), written as “chafe/rub/polish/grind (against) thin-silk,” and used as a term meaning “obstacle to Buddhist practice” in accordance with the actual Hindu Mara’s role in mythology.  I’ll be honest though, I don’t know if the construction is supposed to reference masturbation or dry humping.  Maybe both?

So, trying to work all this into something a little more readable in English, what I think the overall vibe of this is, is...

“The-Beauty-of-Nature is being thrown into disarray, and the Flower-spirits wail;  Saving-Graces aren’t going to arrive, and ‘The Devil’ laughs(mockingly).”

The theme here is that the beauty of nature suffers, a heavenly blessing is interrupted, and a demonic figure laughs at it: There’s nothing to sing about, there’s no relief, the tempter wins.  It’s actually a little weird because thematically it feels very much the opposite of what his shikai actually does.  I feel like he wanted Shunsui using his shikai to be that moment of serious-ing up, but by the time he came back around to actually using it, he wanted to keep Shunsui’s powers more in line with his personality and save the change of mood for his big bankai reveal instead.  but we’ll get to that in a bit...

For context, Kyouraku Shunsui’s own name reading as “Capital(City) Music, Flower Water” points to his lazy personality: he’s a big city type who’s all about lounging and luxury and sweet indulgences.  So, his sword release by contrast is those declaration that playtime is over, Kyoraku is done being lazy.

Broadly speaking I never really liked Masashi Kudou’s anime-original designs for most of Bleach’s filler arcs, other than just not really aesthetically fitting with Kubo’s design sensibilities(all Kudou’s designs look like bad cosplay with big swatched of empty solid space, flat colors, no color balance, and no implicit weight or texture) they don’t really gel with most of their names and themes, but Katen Kyoukotsu in particular got kind of tragically reduced to a generic waifu design.  I honestly really hate that Kubo went and ran with that design for Shunsui’s bankai.

And speaking of bankai...

Karamatsu Shinjuu(枯松心中)

is tacked onto the end of the same name as the shikai to make the new bankai name.  Kara(枯) and matsu(松) just read as “Withered/Withering PineTree.”  Fun fact: when chapter 647 first ran in Weekly JUMP, the title was Kuromatsu(黒松) which is the specific species of “Japanese Black Pine,” Pinus thunbergii, which is the specific iconic tree used in Noh theatre.

And Shinjuu(心中) is written as “heart”/”mind” and “inside,” meaning “inner thoughts/feelings” but in the context of the bankai’s theatre theme refers to a “double suicide”/“lover’s suicide.“  It’s a theme in classical Japanese theatre and literature (but notably in Japanese puppet theatre) that when lovers, or sometimes parents and children are unable to live together due to social restrictions, they will tragically but nobly opt to die together with the expectation that they will be reunited either in the afterlife or in the next life via reincarnation.

I like the idea behind his powers and the progression of forcing people to play by the rules of children’s games, to forcing people to play by the “rules” of theatre plots.�� But I was surprised his bankai didn’t come with the drawback of forcing himself to abide the same limitations: they both get sick together, they both drown together, they both hang themselves, etc...  The initial scene’s power walked right into this, but then the effect disappeared with the subsequent scenes...

All in all there’s just a lot going on in these names despite how little most of it ever really got addressed or elaborated on in the series.  Like a lot of stuff that got sort of awkwardly shoehorned into the final arc it feels like it wasn’t really played out to its fullest potential, but it’s still a super cool assortment of themes and motifs to think about.