#im learning im even more opinionated than i originally thought.

[chesthighwater]

Asking you about a character! And it's gonna be... the Outsider!! Yippee!!!

LA CREATURA!!!

First impression: Who's This Douchebag. why are your arms crossed and why do you feel the need to share facts about my life with me i already know all that. oh you're branding me? to give me supernatural powers???? okay. so that has. Undertones.

Impression now: oh, that's tough. i mean he's a very interesting character- i know some people who would have VERY insightful things to say about him- but i feel like i don't rotate him in my head nearly enough to achieve that level of knowledge. i mean i know some people who swirl this man around in their mind at mach speeds. my meagre opinions couldn't begin to compare. i like the potential chaos he can cause- just his existence by itself sometimes puts a spanner in the works. and the void is also a FASCINATING concept to me. i think he's tough to get right in general- there's a reason why i don't write outsider dialogue even when i think having him show up to taunt people would be cool and fun. mayhaps i should rotate him in my head more

Favorite moment: im gonna be real with you chief so many of my most memorable moments with the outsider is me wanting to strangle his smug ass. especially since my first playthroughs of dh were very influenced by like. me feeling like no matter what i do, i can't possibly do anything right. and him showing to be like "MY DEAR CORVO YOU SURE FUCKED UP AGAIN BIG TIME" didn't exactly help. but one thing off the top of my head- his little speech about lady boyle. i found it very intriguing because it was the first time (if i recall correctly) that we were shown him giving a more specific prediction of the future (beyond like, Ah Yes My Dear Corvo You Will Change The World Or Whatever). it made me really curious about the extent of his "clairvoyance".

Idea for a story: i'd love to hear some takes on the Other marked. like not the known marked i want you all to make shit up. give me insight into his psyche via the people he chooses to bind himself to. also, i'm always down for explorations of weird void shit and how any of that works. what does he even do all day? how does the way he "sees" the marked/the world manifest? what are whales? please let me know.

Unpopular opinion: now i know some outsider scholars debate his morality a lot. like, is he "evil"? does he even have anything resembling a moral compass at this point? i don't think this is an unpopular opinion at all, but to me he is just creature. sort of blue and orange morality i think. its not about good or evil or whatever he just does things. i find it quite difficult to imagine that he is trying to provoke a "net positive" change in the world. he is just doing stuff

Favorite relationship: hmmm corvosider? again i don't rotate them in my head nearly as much as i should, but it definitely has the uh. well certain Characteristics and trope potential that i could very much get into LMAO.... those who know me (and probably those who dont i think im very obvious) could easily pick out a few i imagine

Favorite headcanon: this isnt even a headcanon but dont you think it would be fun to see your own reflection in his eyes. theyre like a phone screen when you shut it off accidentally and have to see your own face. like would you not get distracted by that. hed be telling you some important shit about the future and your failures in life and youd be like fighting the urge to wave/pull a face just to see what it looks like

ask me about a character <3

[localicecreambiter]

demi god LU time

the law of hyperfixations says you must combine interests at every given chance

adding a cut here as to not clog feeds!! its a real long post

i wanna hear thoughts too! so dont be afraid to comment. these are my personal opinions and i wanna hear if anyone agrees or disagrees :D (apologies for all the tags btw)

edit to add the stupid doodle

the gods all have favorites, and ironically none of them are their own kids (save for hades: he loves his kid. doesn't make him a good parent, but you know?)

In a more Zelda timeline abiding setting; Originally they weren't all at camp halfblood at the same time, but time shenanigans decided they were to be brought together

Imagine Chiron’s surprise when 7 of his dead campers waltz into camp (this happens EVERY SINGLE TIME they enter camp. Dionysus is completely unfazed, knowing the bs time shit the gods are dealing with atm)

By the time they enter camp in Wild’s Hyrule for the second time he kinda understands (Wind and Sky didnt have a Camp Halfblood, for the record, for obvious reasons)

Alternatively, its some form of modern au where they’re just from different parts of Hyrule (skyloft, downfall, ordonia, windfall peninsula, hyrule town (different from castle town), the list goes on) which would make a lot more sense for this kinda au (the world would’ve just had a LOT of calamities within the span of a few years, some of the heroes knowing about camp and others not so much)

(i think Legend, Wars, Time, Wind (post WW) and Four would’ve known about Camp Halfblood while the others were just kinda on their own until after their quests) meaning over half of them didn’t have prophecies and just went to deal with the issue themselves, possibly meaning on their journey they learned of camp

Ok well, all of them but Wars, who grew up at Camp Halfblood

All Zelda’s are children of Athena, save for Skyward Sword Zelda since she's the reincarnation of Hylia (yeah, im keeping the original Zelda goddesses! What of it?)

At some point fairly early on, a Zelda only had a son, who got together with Athena at some point and boom

Sky: child of Zeus 

self explanatory 

God of the skies? his name is literally Sky

not to mention how fucking powerful he is?

he was the "first" Link; Zeus was technically the first God, it makes sense (this is such a stupid reason)

The skies are his home, Zeus finding someone on Skyloft and “falling in love” with their love of the sky too results in this bad boy right here

The demise fight? Only a zeus kid could harbor lightning like that

A camp counselor in the modern setting (ik typically once you’re 18, you’re no longer a camper really, but shhhh)

Wind: child of Poseidon 

Don't roll your eyes, i've got a reason!!

the 4 wind gods throw a fit anytime he's sent on a quest (they all love him even if they won't admit it)

A world purely ocean and islands? Poseidon would have a fuckin ball

The Great Sea needed a hero, Wind was brought about more for necessity than out of the want to have a child (this leaves a hard disconnect between wind and the gods, knowing his dad didn’t really have him out of love for his mom but because the world needed to be saved)

The irony of Poseidon being the patron of pegasi and horses and Wind not knowing what a horse is will never not be a funny thought

Has more control over the wind than he does the sea (for now) 

he, like Legend, pointedly ignores that he's a demi-god, especially since he comes after the Hero of Time (kinda hard to live up to that, even outside of a demi-god au)

The ocean and winds are his mood ring: you upset him the wind gods are after you

In a modern setting, the same reason applies kinda; a quest under the sea would be virtually impossible for anyone but a child of Poseidon, and hell knows a cyclopes isnt gonna be sent (gotta love those prophecies) 

OR!! OR AND HEAR ME OUT

Wind isnt a demigod

The wind gods still adore him, but he doesn't have the hero’s spirit and i think that’d kinda translate to not being a demigod, yet still being the one who was destined to go on the quest because there just weren't any demigods to do it

Still not set on which id go with

Legend: child of Hades 

Ah yes, child of the big three goes on so many quests trope. Love to see it

he's Apollo's favorite favorite (Warriors is jealous as hell. Thats his dad! Wdym he likes Legend more????) 

Pointedly ignores the fact he's a demigod (at least, he definitely tries to)

Blessed by (and beefing with) so many gods from his quests

probably one of the few heroes who's spoken to their godly parent (trust me, it was out of obligation rather than free will)

Prefers helping out the more minor, underappreciated, and not as needy or bitchy gods (like Hestia, for example)

curses the Olympians constantly, they've learned to ignore him, hes their best questing kid

Sort of a general camp counselor since Hades doesn't really have kids (its technically his last year but hes been there the longest out of everyone)

Managed to block the oracle over iris message

After his trip to the dark world and lorule, the gods go haywire around him, much to his delight (because it means they leave him alone)

Hyrule: child of Hecate 

adopted by Hermes (much to the dismay of all the Hermes children)

I was on the line between Hecate, Apollo, and Hermes; Hyrule’s affinity for magic and the blood curse resulted in Hecate to win 

Very detached from the gods, the help he receives is never outright but more subtle blessings

The gods like to ignore Downfall after Legend died tbh (outside of modern, obviously)

Well, they still ignore Downfall as a city/country. 

Only learned of camp thanks to Legend, otherwise he wouldn’t have had a clue it existed

Wild: child of Athena 

Also adopted by Hermes 

One of the more chaotic children of Athena

The idea of Athena being his godly parent sourced from his resourcefulness and quick battle (or just general) strategies, along with his pre-calamity self being stoic and more on the critical side

Completely forgot he was a demigod and just let loose, Athena is more than slightly perturbed by him and yet so infatuated

Supervises archery at camp

Warriors: child of Apollo 

exemplifies almost 0 traits of his father other than his looks and his affinity for medicine (shit archer, shit musician, can't write poetry)

blessed by Athena during the war since he was struggling so much, she always has a soft spot for the heros since they fight to protect her daughters so hard (aka pity blessing) 

Actively beefing with Ares 

Aphrodite likes to keep an eye on him, mostly for entertainment (she woulda eaten the whole Cia debacle UP)

Very notorious in camp considering he was a war captain at the ripe age of 17; once learning of the whole Camp Jupiter has apartments and college for half bloods insisted and led a project at CHB to get something similar built (which is where he, Sky and Twilight stay after turning 18)

Twilight: child of Demeter

His love for ranch animals and caring for his farm lead me to this decision

Also the whole wolf thing, that also counts

Appalled by the fact Wind doesn't know what a horse is considering he's literally the son of Poseidon (jealous the kid can talk to Epona and he can't)

After his journey to the twilight, the gods kinda flicker between Greek and Roman around him so they tend to avoid him like Legend

blessed/cursed by Lupa, hence the wolf thing

Teaches foraging lessons at camp

Four: child of Hephaestus

He's the smithy, I couldn’t not say he's a Hephaestus kid

received a lot less help from the gods since he was one of the first 

started advocating that heros receive help from the divine after LU concludes so those after him have a fighting chance (not in the modern setting)

I havent played many of his games, but the kinstones sound like a thing Hephaestus would scatter across the earth as scrap from his creations

Not one of the fire wielders (the only one that can wield fire is Red when split, mostly because of the elemental bs in minish cap)

After drawing the Four Sword, Janus (despite being roman (i like to think the four sword would be a roman artifact, it just feels right)) was suddenly pretty interested and bestowed what wisdom he had for the demi-god

Vulcan, Neptune, Aeolus, and Ceres all came together to forge the elemental stones; the Minish were still the ones to bestow the sword to Hylian people

The gods tend to avoid him too, for the same reason they avoid Twilight and Legend (dark world shenanigans and the Four Sword)

He loves the damn forge at CHB, and was ecstatic seeing the one at Camp Jupiter

He was asked by Chiron if he would be interested in running a forge class for young demigods (be it his siblings or anyone interested) but sadly declined 

Has that air of responsibility to him, being a seasoned quester (and while his 3 doesn't stand to Legend’s 6, its still pretty sizable) hes looked up to by the younger campers

Time: child of Demeter Kronos? 

The Kokiri were so Demeter core dont even tell me they werent

I guess they’d kinda act like nymphs and dryads in a sense??

His abilities use to relate to his mother until the events of his first quest: the Ocarina of Time was designed to slowly corrupt the user, being a creation of Kronos’

However, it wasn’t really designed with a demigod in mind sooo…

Also self explanatory, the titan of time? Duh… huh?? what do you mean he was taken over?? What do you mean he was a child of Demeter?? No he wasnt lol that Neverrr happened

the reason he's the only “child” of a titan is mainly because of the fierce deity mask literally making him god-like, meaning he has a lot more power harbored in him sooo (the second he dawned that mask he discarded his old identity for that of a titan’s child, since it was also cursed object)

Don’t ask how he came to being Kronos’ kin, no one knows, not even he does (I do) (no, it does not imply a Hylian wandered into Tarturus and got out alive to have the baby)

Avoids interacting with the gods at all costs, he's weary of them as they are of him (even if he saved the world twice)

Extras :)

Ravio: child of Pluto 

blessed by Minerva for his natural quick witted nature and clever war strategies, if her own daughter can't succeed she might as well make sure ONE does

can tell if a rupee is real or not by glance alone

Sheerow scares the fuck out of the gods, which in turn means Ravio puts them on edge, a thing very few can achieve

the gods never gave him much thought until the events of albw, to which he suddenly gained like four pair of godly eyes on him

can and will plan one of the worlds most successful heists, refuses to participate 

also beefing with Ares (not Mars, Ares)

Based on my personal HC that Ravio’s some sort of artificer (be it replicating magic dungeon items or just flat out creating new ones) i think Vulcan has his eyes on him too

Hilda: child of Minerva 

by far the strangest child Minerva ever birthed

exemplifies the traits of a hero rather than a ruler

a little jealous her mother likes Ravio more than her

gods be damned, she's not going to let them neglect her kingdom anymore 

a force of fucking nature that single handedly forced a meeting with the gods and somehow forced them to agree to start restoring Lorule (she got the idea from Legend, who has done this multiple times for multiple different reasons)

[irishmammonagenda]

Types of Dogs I Think The Obey Me Brothers Would Have

Disclaimer: i know nothing about dog breeds other than my dog is better than every other dog in the world because i said so. this is all obviously my opinion because im 100% not holding off looking at my inbox for requests rn 😰

(wee emo anon + réalta and then the other random one ilysm for not doxing me fir being atleast a month late and not having even started with your reqs yet🙏🙏🙏)

post dividers by @saradika-graphics, images of the brothers below the divider are from amias on pinterest + all animal photos found on pinterest

LUCIFER

Irish Wolfhound

He already has a dog who he obviously loves very much (Cerberus) who is a hellhound, so he thought to himself that another hound would be a good idea since Cerberus gets lonely sometimes :(

He calls the dog 'Tuireann' because he thinks he's fucking funny.

You know that stereotype of the dad not wanting the dog but the dad ends up loving the dog like its his own child or something?

If you do know, then you know Lucifer.

Tuireann gets on very well with Cerberus. Lucifer makes a commitment to taking breaks more often and taking both out on walks, which terrifies his brothers, but has made Diavolo very happy with him. (Yay Lucifer taking care of himself for once!)

He cuddles up to both of them more often. Both dogs are very happy.

Will kill for his dogs btw :)

Laughed one time when Tuireann saw Solomon as a threat.

MAMMON

Golden Retriever

Someone told him he could win 'gold' at a casino. So he gambled, ended up winning (for once) and got his 'gold'.

This man was almost outraged when the 'gold' in question was a golden retriever puppy.

He was about to say something in outrage, then the witch plopped the little guy down into his arms and her little nose started sniffing at his exposed collarbone. He closed his open, outraged mouth and pet the little thing, blinking back small tears because it was so cute.

Mammon would like to argue that this did not happen but it did. The witch in question has proof and has sent Lucifer the video in apology for trying to summon him. Said witch is now a good acquaintance of Lucifer's, and has not been punished brutally. She has learnt her lesson and will not attempt to make a pact with the Avatar of Pride ever again. *Unlike Solomon. That bastard never learns.)

Mammon probably calls the dog something like 'Bailey'

He was originally going to call her 'Goldie' but then remembered that was his credit card's name. So he thought about the name 'Retrievie' but even to him that sounded fucking stupid.

He loves this dog so much and buys her so much dog toys and treats.

Gets his crows to play with her.

Mammon basically is a Golden Retriever if you think about it. (A Golden Retriever with mental issues that thinks its an awesome scary dragon or something, but a golden retriever none-the-less.)

He buys Bailey a bed but she literally only sleeps on him or on his bed.

When he lets her out into the garden while he's busy he always has atleast 2 crows watching her/playing with her.

He tries to train her to dig for buried treasure. Instructions unclear, they both dug up the whole back garden. He now has to fix the garden.

They say that a 'Dog is a Man's Best Friend', but this dog is Mammon's whole life.

There is dog hair all over this man. Atleast he's not an emo and doesn't wear all black.

Hair rollers are a must.

He cries when they're separated for more than a day in case you were wondering.

LEVIATHAN

Kokoni

Lucifer gave him it in an attempt to get Levi to touch grass once in a while.

At first Levi was scared of the dog, then he decided she was cute. Watches an anime about a dog and realises he should be a responsible owner and take her out on walks!

Leviathan has now touched grass. I repeat, Leviathan has now touched grass.

Calls her 'Ruri' you know he would.

He almost called her Henry 3.0

He has to make sure Henry 2.0 is unreachable to Ruri. He's scared Ruri might eat Henry 2.0

He's still kind of scared of Ruri but loves her.

Since getting Ruri he's actually been remembering to take care of himself. As a reward, once a month for a day or two, Lucifer will take over taking care of Ruri so Levi can have one of his gaming marathons uninterrupted.

Levi plays the Devildom equivalent to pokemon go while walking Ruri

Levi rants to Ruri about the anime or manga he's currently obessed with while playing with her with some chew toy or something.

She lays beside him in his bathtub sometimes and lays her head on his lap while he watches anime.

Lucifer is very happy with this outcome. So is Levi.

SATAN

Rottweiler

He originally saw something in some article or whatever he read about Rottweilers being aggressive, possibly saying that they weren't a 'good' dog breed.

Satan knows what its like to be labelled as aggressive and unsafe, so he has sort of a soft spot for 'bad' dog breeds.

So one day, he's talking to one of his various acquaintances, and for whatever reason, they visit an animal shelter.

Satan hears another couple say they wouldn't get a dog because 'isn't that breed really aggressive?' and he feels sad, he's not mad at the couple, it's a reasonable concern, but poor dog :(.

He approaches that worker a couple of minutes after his acquaintance leaves and asks them about the rottweiler.

Long story short he walks out with it on a leash, standard food, and a bowl courtesy of the shelter.

Calls the dog 'Julie' because he had just finished pirating a preformance of Romeo and Juliet. (which he enjoyed criticising, but he liked the name Juliet and also Belphie likes the band Julie so)

He makes sure to take the time and effort to socialise Julie with cats because this is Satan we're talking about for fuck's sake.

He takes Julie on walks before stopping at a dog-friendly café in the Devildom.

Julie also sleeps on Satan's lap when she's tired and he's reading.

Satan gets a lot more into audiobooks after he adopts Julie so he can still technically 'read' without having to ignore his new pooch.

Will write several books on why she's the best girl ever, and will make you read them.

ASMODEUS

Westie

A fan gifted him a dog for his birthday for some reason. At first he accepted the gift and devised a plan to give the dog away but the shelter was closed over the weekend, so he elected to let the dog stay with him until then.

Ends up getting attached. This is his baby now.

Calls her 'Angel' because he thinks she's an angel. She also kind of reminds him of Luke so.

This little rat is all over his Devilgram.

So much so there are fanclubs for her now.

This little rat has fanclubs.

Angel gets walked everyday. Asmo loves the excerise and says its done wonders for his skin.

He doesn't like when she digs, but oh well.

Loves grooming her.

Cuddles galore.

He trains her how to do tricks.

His excitable nature really goes well with hers, and they really bond.

The fan that gave her to him is now one of his friends.

He loves that rat.

BEELZEBUB

Bernese Mountain Dog

Two words. 'Gentle Giant'

He probably names her something like 'Bernie'

Bernese Mountain Dogs are massive, I feel like Beel would be the type of guy who loves big dogs. Given how big this Demon is, I feel like he'd be scared of hurting a smaller dog. He probably got an already adult rescue from a shelter.

It was one of those cliche things, meeting eyes with this big sad dog in a cage and Beel just knowing, "This is my baby."

Bernese Mountain Dogs DROOL, and I feel like Beel wouldn't mind that seeing as he is the Avatar of Gluttony.

Speaking of being the Avatar of Gluttony, Beel's dog 100% gives him puppy eyes while he's sitting at the table eating, and what does Beel do? He sneaks his dog food under the table.

Given his workout schedule this doggo gets atleast one walk a day. ATLEAST.

Beel one hundred percent cuddles up with that dog. You thought he had a mental bond with Belphie? Well that man has a mental connection of that caliber with his dog.

He is covered in dog hair but he sees that as making him part of the pact with Bernie so he couldn't care less. (He does clean up shed hair with a roller when going out though)

Bernie might've been a rescue and maybe could've lived a hard life before Beel adopted her, but Beel loves her like she's his own child that is his BABY.

BELPHEGOR

Shiba Inu

It reminded him of Beel, okay??!

Normally Belphie can't be bothered with animals, but when he saw the ad saying 'FOR SALE: NEEDS BETTER HOME' and saw that closed eye Beel smile his grinchy little heart grew three sizes that day.

He adopts the dog.

He calls her something like, 'Bella'

No thats not because it sounds like Beel. Piss off.

Bella isn't too high maintenence and actually does well for Belphie's productivity.

The seventh born actually goes on regular (though albeit) short walks with Bella.

Beel bonds with the dog as well and is very happy to take her on his morning runs with him.

Bella is affectionate but fucking stubborn. (Just like Belphie if you think about it)

Sometimes while cuddling (which only happen on Bella's terms by the way), she will not get off of Belphie, no matter how much Belphie asks. (Not that he minds, its an extra excuse to be lazy)

The cuddling in question is literally just Bella laying on top of Belphie like she's some sort of cat.

Bella is more of a brat than Belphie and thats saying something. The man spoils her.

Finally, a being (other than you and Beel) that understands him.

as you can tell I love big dogs and think small dogs are little rats. (said affectionately)

all of these dogs are female btw bc i got humped by my cousins dog recently and i wish that pain on no one. not even my worst enemy (which is solomon btw)

by the way unhinged anon im still waiting for you to go through with that threat 🤨🤨

[midnight---hollow]

Ok i need to yap for a second

I love how well written and thought out the ipc is in honkai star rail. I feel in general we dont always get the best discussions about capitalism and giant corps because said giant corps are usually sponsoring or are creating them most of the time so there is usually bias. I just saw some of the boothill story lore leaks and im not gonna talk about them here cus leaks but it gave me real big appreciation for how the ipc is handled.

Im personally a real big fan of complicated situations in my fictional stories. Ever since mob psycho ive gained a new lens of trying to find sympathy and reason for any situation, keeping my own opinions and preferences while still understanding the other side. I feel star rail has done a great job at show casing the many sides of the ipc even if i for one really dont like the ipc and its my least favorite organization

(I feel i should also say this is an opinion piece and im not informed enough on the real life issues as i would like to be. I just want to yap my opinion out and express why i find joy in this and maybe even come back later with more research to make another post but with references and proof to explain why besides what i remember and like. If i do get anything wrong then please inform me cus i would like to learn more about this and plan to)

|Spoilers for basically all the ipc related things in hsr|

I started out hating them cus i just dont like capitalist corps and they just rubbed me the wrong way. When the arum alley event happen i was originally pissed at it because even though it was confirming my beliefs of “big corp bad” it felt cheap and like almost every other story told by a big corp trying to tell us big corps are bad. Yknow the “look at this obviously in the wrong guy dont be like him, look at him get his comeuppances in the end and ignore how we actually are alot more complicated and worse than this super evil and obvious example”

arum alley then did something i didnt expect. It gave nuance to the story. It started out with that obvious example yes but the next one wasnt that obvious, the next part of the event talked about how some workers feel they wont be able to sustain their lives as independent workers and feel they need to work for the big corps for a safe job and it started getting into the logistics of big corp vs independent business. Yeah we where fighting them but there where reasons and concerns and fears to be given. It wasnt just big corp bad it was “yeah big corp bad but here is why and here is also how its good” and it brings up the questions on what can be done so we dont need to rely on big corp

Topaz and her whole arc is another situation i find interesting. Topaz is a character i dont care to much about to be honest but i think she plays a good role in this whole ipc debacle. To me she feels like she represents someone who used the system because they needed to and made it work and flourished in the system. Her planet was basically unlivable and she lived in a capitalist waste that failed. In comes the ipc and they are almost what her world was but better for they offer to help and save them. All they need to do is sign their lives away to join the ipc and they did and their planet flourished because of it. Topaz herself was able to rise the ranks into being a cornerstone. I think her story shows both the light and dark of the ipc because they saved her planet but they only did it because it benefited them, if they didnt sign their lives away it is very likely topaz and everyone on her planet would have suffocated from the toxins and died. They had no choice but to join the system and its stated in game that topaz’s planet is one of the few that where able to be saved.

That’s probably what i like most about the playable ipc characters, it reminds us that these big corps arent just mustache twirling bad guys, it reminds us there are people there just trying to keep going and some of them are genuinely trying to do right and think what they are doing is right. Again topaz for example, she genuinely believes what she was doing was for the good of belabog. She saw a planet so similar to her own and i think she did what she thought was right and tried to help them (i dont think what she did was right but i can see where she comes from in thinking its right) i also think its showing that when she learned their was a way out for belabog that allowed them to not give their lives away to the ipc she gave in and stopped trying to convince them. She risked her own job security to allow them that right and because she didnt force an entire planet of innocent people who just got out of a horrible situation to sign their souls away (including the children mind you) she got demoted. Im not saying that she deserves a pat on the back for doing the bare minimum esp after she tried killing us, she is a rich, a conerstone, owns an exotic pet that she throws into battle and design her gun after, is a high member of said capitalist big corps, im just saying this is a very nuanced and interesting situation that i like to think about because there are so many thoughts and arguments

The whole belabog vs ipc thing was interesting in general for me because i think it was just such a good concept to bring forth the conversation of the goods and bads of big corps. Technically the ipc does have the right to want their century old debt repaid (ignoring the fact we later learned the robots where never used i think idk the end was confusing ngl) yet also at the same time we as people have a hard time siding with them when belabog didnt even know they where in debt because they where so isolated because of the stellaron and they just got out of the stellaron crisis and are trying to make their world habitable and yknow survive. We cant blame them for being unable to pay a humongous debt when these where the same people who stood in awe as march shower them a photo of their planet that she took while on the express. It creates a situation where yeah technically the giant corp has a right to take that money because its theirs but its still feels so cruel to make them have to cough it up right now with only a few days time. Belabog is basically forced to sign that deal because there is no way they could have payed that off they where doomed the moment topaz set foot on the planet. I remember talking to each of the people in belabog and getting their opinions on the matter and constantly having to rethink my stance because there where so many good points for why they should and so many for why they shouldnt. I can go on and on about this but this bit is already to long.

Aventurine!!! Aventurine aventurine oh where to start. Unlike topaz i actually like aventurine alot he is just such a well written character but we arent here to talk about how amazing him and the games writing is we are here to talk about the capitalist cooperation he is a cog in. Aventurine in a sense has a similar story to topaz but its more cruel and less happy. The ipc didnt save him, the ipc what going to arrest him and its thanks to his luck and a deal with the devil (or in this case a bet with a snake) that he was able to become aventurine.

I havent seen the writen stuff for him in his characters story because i dont have him but i will say from what i saw during the main story, something i question alot is what the ipc did during the avgin genocide. This might be a small tangent but the avgins said they had the support of the ipc. What happened that caused for the entire avgin civilization to be wiped out when they had the help of people with better weapons and armor and equipment. Apart of me is nihilistic enough to think the ipc didnt really care for saving the avgins and might have used the katakans attack as a way to know out the two groups that where causing them the most trouble but at the moment i dont know if theres anything supporting this theory so its just a crack theory

Aventurines spot in penacony is again interesting. Penacony is a prison planet of the ipc, that was taken over and turned into a party paradise thanks to the hamrony, family, and a stellaron. Aventurines goal was supposed to be to put penacony back in the ipcs control and to be honest i cant tell if thats his plan or not because of how crazy and confusing the story was (i loved it) but that being said it is another example how how grey ipc is. It isnt just a big bad corp there are people with lives and in avens case, people trying to gain their freedom with any risks necessary. I also think again the ipcs role in penacony is like belabog, very interesting, just for different reasons.

Penacony is based off America and in this case im assuming the ipc is their Britain. I feel like if you ask most people they would say that the ipc is the only group in penacony they hope fails (minus aventurine again i feel everyone wants aven to succeed even if we want ipc to fall) but i think the family being as grey as they are (basically a cult and also a representation of newer day amarica and its “its us or them” mentality in a way. I can make another yap ses about that lmao) adds an air of mystery and confusion on who we want to succeed since they are on two very different sides of the board so if one wins the other loses. It makes it feel like a fight of two big corps against each other and not really knowing who to support. Do you want to support the capitalist or the cult, pick your poison. We need the rest of penacony for me to go more in-depth on my opinion of ipc here and to rant but i can say its already making me question and argue both sides with what we have seen so far

That was fun for me. I havent ranted on tumblr in a long long time but hsr has been my recent hyperfixation and again boothill makes me crazy. While writing this is made me start to think about how much i wanted to talk about the hidden story of immigration i feel penacony is aso trying to tell. I think penacony is handling so many deep and interesting topics and im very excited for the next update. This has made me hyped to talk about the immigration stuff but i want to do reaserch and gain a proper strong stance besides “thats just my opinion.” I think this is an interesting topic and yapping about it made me want to do more reaserch on the topics of capitalism and big corps cus i hate them but i also think its important to know about it and understand there is more to the issue than just stingy old white rich people. I havent even gotten to jade yet. When we learn more about her imma have some words prob

Srry this was long but anyways cant wait till boothill comes out so i can get him and his light cone

[nerves-nebula]

this is something ive always been kind of curious about but a recent irl discussion has brought it up again.

if u wanna know my personal opinions/the conversation that reminded me of this, you can see them under the cut lol

so like. I was talking about the weird racism stuff with splinter (him being japanese and a rat and the whole history of that stuff) and i said that i personally thought it was less racist for him to have been a japanese guy who got turned into a rat because at least then he has like, a legitimate reason for the accent and the ties to the culture. If he's just a guys pet rat, that kind of makes sense- but also it's always felt to me like that was equating the animal with some innate racial characteristics. idk im not a race scholar...

i'm also not japanese, but I know that if there was a culturally black mutant monkey character, I would prefer for that monkey to have previously been a human. Because otherwise it feels, to me at least, like equating that animal to that ethnicity or culture inherently, since they were never really related to that culture and at most were exposed to it in ways they couldn't understand as an animal. which feels demeaning imo.

the white ppl i was talking to this about came around to my point of view, but they originally expressed the thought that it would be less racist to just have an actual rat mutate and just be a japanese rat, accent and all.

I've seen japanese and other asian tmnt fans express the idea that they feel like the human or the rat origin is less offensive, or that they feel one is more or less racist, so I'm not gonna say i think one is definitively more racist cuz to be honest they're both pretty bad and I've seen compelling arguments for both of them being the worse option.

and how asian people experience and think about the racism that affects them is way more important than how i think about it lol.

BUT! I am interested in what you guys think and I'm especially interested in if it breaks down differently between white and nonwhite people. I was considering splitting the vote even more and giving asian people their own options too but seeing as this was inspired by a discussion between a black person and two white people i feel like the point is more to see if this is a poc/white person split first and if so then maybe I'll put out another poll. if not and that was just a coincidence i'll prolly just leave it as it is.

side note: I will say that I think the way mutant mayhem did it where he was just a sewer rat, not even a pet who was raised by a japanese guy ?? and he learned ninja stuff from VHS's??? That one is probably my least favorite. love that movie but i HATED that.

[a-humble-bagel]

 so i finished good omens season 2 a couple days ago and i have a lot of thoughts about the ending, and how i’m not a big fan of the coffee theory. i think that aziraphale’s decision at the end of the season was actually very in-character, and i honestly love how that ending showed a key difference between aziraphale and crowley, so now im going to explain why i think that. 

(this post ended up being about 1,800 words long, so if you don’t feel like reading that much, than just skip to the conclusion/tldr at the end :] )

the last ten minutes of season 2 absolutely ripped my heart out, but i think one of the worst parts is that it honestly feels completely in character for aziraphale because unlike crowley, aziraphale never lost faith in the system. in season 1, for example, he consistently tried to go through the system to try to stop armageddon, even getting to the point where he decided that the archangels were the problem and decided to try to talk to god personally.

crowley, on the other hand, didn’t even think about trying to convince the demons that armageddon was a bad idea, because, unlike aziraphale, he doesn’t believe in the system. to aziraphale, the flaws in the system were individuals like micheal, uriel, and, in season one, gabriel, and never the actual system. it always seemed to him like the archangels were the ones making mistakes, and he always strove to do what he felt was the ‘right’ decision according to his own moral compass. 

@inhonoredglory wrote a really good analysis here that i very very highly recommend reading, but to summarize, @inhonoredglory talks about how crowley was the one who helped aziraphale learn that he doesn’t have to follow heaven’s command and to do what his heart deems is right, even if it feels like he’s breaking the rule, and how aziraphale isn’t blind to heaven’s problems but wants to fix them. he’s never stopped wanting to do good. 

in addition to this, while aziraphale is still trying to be a good angel, crowley has kinda given up on the whole being a demon and making life worse thing. so while neither aziraphale or crowley follow what their respective sides want, they’re doing it in very different ways. aziraphale is doing what he believes an angel should do, not what heaven believes an angel should do, while crowley doesn’t try to do “demonic” things at all anymore, he’s just kinda living life. 

aziraphale wants to do good. crowley wants to live life. those are the two paths and the two different opinions that played a large role in season 2 ending the way it did. it’s a difference the two have always had, but up until this point in the series, those motivations led to them wanting the same thing (stopping armageddon). however, when the metatron offers aziraphale gabriel’s job, suddenly aziraphale’s and crowley’s desires are leading them to two different paths. 

but obviously there’s a lot more to their relationship than that. i mean the whole series revolves around how much aziraphale and crowley love each other. like @inhonoredglory said, it was crowley who showed aziraphale that he could defy heaven and that it was better to do what his heart said than what the archangels told him. they clearly both love each other so much, even if neither of them are actually willing to say it. that’s why i think that, as tempted as he was, aziraphale wasn’t originally going to accept the metatron’s offer because he couldn’t just leave crowley, but after the metatron said that he could make crowley an angel again, well,

it was basically all aziraphale wanted wrapped up in one thing. he would be able to do real good and make a change and fix all those problems in heaven, and he’d be able to do it with crowley there with him! it was like a dream come true! it’s tricky to remember since we all (or most of us at least, including me) think of this as them breaking up, but it’s important to remember that neither crowley nor aziraphale actually wanted to leave each other. they were both asking the other to stay with them. i mean aziraphale literally says that he needs crowley.

but with all that, why would aziraphale still end up choosing heaven over crowley if he was really acting of his own volition?

im gonna get to that in a minute, but first let’s take a minute to talk about crowley..

now i’ve been talking a lot about how crowley doesn’t believe in the system anymore, but let’s go into the details now. the opening to the entire season shows crowley basically creating the stars and space and more or less the universe, and then his disappointment at the fact that most of his work won’t even get to be appreciated. he’s clearly upset and plans to ask god about it, assuming he can’t get into trouble for asking a few questions which we know from season one is how he got kicked out of heaven, so it’s very probable that he questioned god, disagreed with god, got kicked out and didn’t seem to care about being “good”.

aziraphale questions whether what heaven is doing is right, where as crowley just questioned god. so, crowley got kicked out because he questioned the system (god) and was met with an “i’m right, you’re wrong” attitude. after all that, why would he trust the system? why would he believe that heaven could be reformed if he’s seen some of the worst stuff it could do? why would he ever want to be an angel again when the first time around, he put all his love and effort into something only for it to be underappreciated, and when he dared to ask otherwise he got kicked out?

also, when he snuck up to heaven, crowley discovered why gabriel went down to earth (or part of it at last). gabriel said no to armageddon 2, he defied the will of the archangels and the metatron (and we assume god as well), and for that he was going to lose all of his power. he only had power as long as he agreed with everyone else, and when he disagreed all of that power was taken away, just like it had been taken away from crowley.

so, as far as crowley sees it. heaven is broken and corrupt and unfixable, and the only way he’s able to do what he likes is without both heaven and hell. after all, that’s all he’s wanted, to be able to do what he wants. he wanted his creation of space to be allowed to develop, he wanted to be left alone by heaven and hell, he wants aziraphale to be there with him. so, to crowley, aziraphale saying he wanted to take over heaven and make crowley and angel again would have seemed like the worst possible thing in the world. being an angel in heaven would take away almost everything he wants, except aziraphale. 

so, we have crowley, who needs aziraphale, and needs freedom from heaven and hell, and we have aziraphale who needs crowley, and who needs to be able to do good. now, let’s quickly talk about the metatron’s offer before we get back to aziraphale’s decision. now, when the metatron is talking with aziraphale, it’s clear that at first aziraphale is just being polite. he clearly wants to get away and go back to crowley, until the metatron mentions crowley. even after that, aziraphale still seems very conflicted.

i’d also like to point out that while i don’t believe the coffee theory, the metatron is definetly manipulating aziraphale, he just doesn’t need any magic to do it. the metatron goes out of his way to seem approachable and just like aziraphale (by getting him human coffee), the smile drops from his face and ominous music plays as he and aziraphale leave the bookshop, and, even though he tells aziraphale to ‘take all the time [he] needs’, he’s right back to ask him if he’s made up his mind after only a few short minutes, after he sees crowley storm out. not to mention, the metatron definetly knows more than he lets on, he mentions that crowley was always “asking damn fool questions” which we can assume are the questions about space that got him thrown out of heaven. 

@halemerry​ wrote a really good analysis of the metatron’s manipulation here that goes into a lot more detail than what i just said and i’d really reccomend reading it.

so now aziraphale has to choose between doing what his heart says is the “right” thing to do, and what his heart desires (crowley), and he’s being pressured and mainpulated by the metatron into choosing the first option. now, throughout the series, he’s often conflicted on whether or not he should do what feels right, and crowley has helped him learn that it’s better for him to do what seems good to him. it’s just that in the past that always aligned with him and crowley working together.

and so, no matter how much it’s hurting him, aziraphale chooses to go up to heaven because now he can finally do good. he feels that it’s what he has to do, no matter how painful it is. and when he hears about “the second coming” his determination grows. he has to be up there, someone has to keep things in line, someone has to fix the system. but, what about the smile? why would he smile? well for the same reason he smiled in the bookshop just before he left:

and the same reason he smiled before getting in the elevator:

he’s putting on a brave face. i mean moments before he smiled in the elevator he looked like he was on the verge of tears, but now he’s smiling and trying to pretend as though nothing is wrong.

and that is why aziraphale choosing to go to heaven is in character. because he’s always believed that the problem was the people in the system, not the system itself, because crowley helped him learn to do what he feels is right regardless of his own personal comfort with that, because he doesn’t have the context crowley does of knowing what it’s like to be a high level angel and knowing what exactly got gabriel punished, and because, yes, he is being manipulated by the metatron, but all the metatron needs are words, not coffee. 

tldr: aziraphale would choose to go to heaven because he thinks he can fix it, he doesn’t have the context crowley does, the metatron is manipulating him (but not with magic), and he’s learned (through crowley) to do what he feels is right regardless of how uncomfortable it makes him feel. it’s just that in this case, the thing that will let him do the most good is leaving crowley

[cryscendo]

i was gonna reply to your comment on my post but i thought id bring the discourse straight to your inbox instead alskfjdslk its not like we're telling teenagers to go out and discover some weird kinks of their own right this second lmao but they absolutely have to learn to be comfortable with the fact that people are going to be into kinky shit they think is weird and thats its not in fact a moral issue and also none of their business lol

like when i was a kid everything was so fucking raunchy and im not saying it was better but everything has to be so fucking sanitized now and thats not good either. when i was a kid online in the 00s people would literally link you to shock porn videos as a joke and that was just an accepted norm. nowadays there are so many ways to tailor your online experience to you and people are just ignoring all these block and filter functions and look at shit they know they dont like and bitch about it when they had every opportunity not to see it

and it goes back to the fucking rocky horror discourse like god forbid youre trying to portray a queer character in a way thats anything other than the most palatable beige blank slate that ever was. god forbid a queer character acts or dresses or looks or behaves in a queer way aksfjsld they want everything to be so fucking boring and palatable to 1) encapsulate every single queer experience on earth in a single piece of media and 2) be tolerable to straight people because theyre under the illusion that there is any acceptable way for a queer person to be to a bigot other than dead. both are a useless endeavor and they need to quit wasting energy on caring about either

like god fandom just feels so bleak nowadays and i know part of it is bc of how fast things move and no one can hold longterm interest in stuff anymore but a huge part of it is how flat out prudish people are all of a sudden

let ships be problematic let queer characters be weird let sex be kinky lmao let fandom by fun again my godddd

sorry for the rant aklsfjkdshfdk i apparently had a lot to say but hey i love you thanks for complaining with me xxxxx

omg i’m so sorry i meant to respond to this earlier than now!!! i saw it originally when i was waking up for work and thought “ooooh she’s making some banger points i’ll respond to that on my break” and then i just… forgot. so here i am now better late than never 🥰

i’ve always had a bit of a problem with the incessant need to sanitize fandom. i’m not saying ppl can’t curate their fandom experience to appeal to their interests, because obviously, they absolutely can. HOWEVER i do think it has become much more policed than it once was.

i think kink, and understanding its place on a fundamental level (especially within queer spaces), is something that takes maturity to fully understand. like with the rocky horror thing, the use of sexuality and kink is inherently different than what a young person of today might perceive it as. it doesn’t particularly surprise me that people are so sensitive to it, because they simply don’t understand their roots — they’ve formed this concept of queerness that pleases them, and therefore find other demonstrations of queerness to be antiquated or “back-pedalling” (even though we both know it isn’t). i think it’s dumb and immature to try to dictate “right and wrong” ways to be queer, but i’m also not all that shocked that it’s happening.

all this to say, queer characters don’t have to fit into the boxes that we deem as “appropriate”. just like how real queer people don’t owe an explanation for who they are, these queer characters don’t HAVE to reflect every queer person that engages with their media.

personally for me, kink is a MASSIVE component of the queer experience. so because of that, i like my favourite bitches to be kinky but that’s just me 😌

absolutely feel free to rant anytime your opinions are literally always correct to me <3

[miowritings]

hii, can I please request Ena with a reader that is (in her opinion) better at art than her even though they're not an artist? thanks :D

꧁“𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠!”꧂

Ena shinonome x gn! reader

✮A/N: so sorry for the late reply🙏🙏 i wasnt sure if you wanted an angst? Or fluff? This was originally supposed to be angst where ena got jealous?? But i decided to scrap that yknow? Since reader here is a beginner, i feel like their drawings are good but not that good to make ena feel jealous.

✮Synopsis: ena sees you drawing and cant help but watch you.

✮Contains: fluff! Gn! Reader, ena is jealous at you from the start, reader calls ena, shinonome instead of her firstname, reader later calls ena her firstname, ena and reader are not close friends, just friends.

When ena first saw you drawing she didnt think much of it, she saw how nice your drawing is, making her feel a tinge of jealousy.

Her peeking was soon turned into staring, you noticed her staring frequently, she kept moving her seat at least an inch closer here and there, thats when you decided to speak up.

"..need something..?" You ask awkwardly, ena shakes her head "ah! No,no.. i just wanna watch you draw.. if thats okay with you, i didnt know you were an artist.." she added, you shook your head at her remark "oh, uhm.. im not an artist! Im just trying out drawing.." you replied "oh? But you art looks good for a beginner, can i watch you draw?" She asks, you nodded and you continued to draw while ena was watching you, you noticed how she watched was very focused.. was she studying how you draw? You didnt think much of it and continued drawing until you had an idea.

"Hey, shinonome can i ask you something?" You ask, ena nodded "oh, sure, what is it?" She asks, sounding intrigued, "would you like to draw with me?" Without hesitation ena nodded "oh, sure!" She says and grabs some pens and her sketchbook, while ena was flipping the pages, looking for a clean page to draw on, you couldn't help but stare at her drawings, they were very good..! Majestic!

"You sure draw alot shinonome, can i see your drawings? If you dont mind that is.." ena was a bit reluctant but eventually agreed, you flipped over some pages and saw a drawing of hers, it was a bouquet of flowers, the next was a colorful wolf, and the next was a girl who had no emotions, she has alot of different arts on her drawings , you couldn't help but point them out, "you also draw animals? Thats so cool shinonome..!" You exclaimed, ena cant helo but blush at your compliment, after all its not everyday someone acknowledges her for her art. "Oh, and this ones a flower, and thats a wolf.. how do you manage to draw all these things?" You ask, ena answers your questions and sooner or later, you both found yourselves talking about art, with ena teaching you the basics.

"I didnt know there were multiple things to study with art.. i thought you could just scribble here and there.." you groan playfully, ena chuckles at your statement "well yes its important to learn the basics, but whats more important is to have fun" she mentioned, you smile at her words and nodded in agreement.

While you were chatting and drawing with her you suddenly have the urge to ask her a question. "Oh, shinonome.! Theres one last thing i have to ask you" you added, ena nodded "oh sure" she replied "why did you think i draw good despite being a beginner? Whats so special about my art that makes it special than a beginner?" You ask before quickly trying to brush it off "a-ah! No need to answer its just.. the question's been lingering on my mind for some time" ena thinks for a moment, not too sure of her answer before eventually replying."well, the characteristics of your drawings are far more different than beginners.. thats what i noticed.. your lines are somewhat refined.. when i was teaching a friend of mine about drawing, her lines were uneven and she was overusing outlines.. which made her drawings appear more.. heavy? But yours is different.." she replied, it was making you feel confident, you were different from other beginner artists, your ego has been boosted thanks to ena! "Oh wow.. that made me feel confident.. thanks shinonome!" you smile at her, and she smiled back.

"But why that question?" She asks. "Well, it kind of caught me off guard that you told me that my drawings were different from other beginner artists and i just wanna know" you replied and ena nodded to herself soon enough a chime was heard, indicating school was over, you and ena both packed your things and cleaned up your desks.

"It was nice talking to you, shino-" ena cuts you off before you can even finish your sentence "oh, no.. please call me ena" she smiled "oh okay ena, and please call me [Y/N]" you added and ena nodded "okay [Y/N], you were saying?" You cleared your throat and continued your statement. "I was wondering if you could.. uhm.. bring your sketchbook's tomorrow, i really wanna see your drawings and yknow, maybe have some inspiration?" You ask "its okay if you dont-" ena interrupts and nodded happily "why yes.! Im more than happy, ill make sure to bring my favorite sketchbook" she added, you nodded and waved goodbye, going to your separate ways.

Ena was very happy when you asked to see more of her drawings, she was happy that you acknowledge her drawing skills, maybe she would being more sketchbooks than expected.. oh well! More references for you!

[discourse-by-candlelight]

(I'm not plural, but I'm in a community that has a lot of systems (alterhumanity) and I never understood one thing about syscourse, I would like to ask you because I want to better know other members of the community. )

How different are endo systems from transid stuff?

Additionally: can you be an endo system who didnt self diagnose? Im asking because I saw a self-dx blog that was strictly anti-endo and it made me wonder because afaik being endo is almost always self-dx'd.

I see anti endo DNI and pro endo DNI almost equally thrown around and Im just here. Not getting it at all.

You don't have to answer if you don't want to though! I just thought this would be a good place to ask because this is a syscourse blog

Hi! We'd be happy to answer these to the best of our ability. Most of this is simple once you're in the community for a time but it's easy to see how it could be difficult for an outsider to understand.

To begin, plurality is absolutely different from transid stuff. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably from the transid community first plural community second. Like with many things transid they like to try and slot themselves and their beliefs into our communities and co-opt it for their own use (if you can't tell, we're not exactly big fans, although transids are allowed on our blogs so long as they know we're not supporters, dnis are stupid in our opinion). The plural and endogenic communities are entirely separate from that movement, however.

Plurality refers specifically to the concept of being more than one identity/person within the brain and body. Endogenic means that your plurality formed for any reason other than trauma. An important thing to keep in mind going forward is that plurality does not inherently equal a dissociative disorder, unlike what many may say against us. The entire cornerstone of the plural community is that these experiences are often non-pathological and can occur for various reasons. For example this blog is ran by the Candlelight Society, we're a tulpamantic system, meaning we used tulpamancy to shape and for the most part create our system and plurality. There's plenty of people with DID/OSDD who also use the plural label, but the label itself is for everyone who experiences a state of being more than one regardless of origin or experiences related to it. The difference between this and transid should be pretty obvious. The closest thing we can think of to an overlap is the concept of "transplural" but that's just another way of saying created system brought into our community by transids, and is for the most part considered a ridiculous term in comparison to tulpa/tulpamancer, parogenic, or created system.

Onto your other question, this one's actually kind of funny, because it implies endogenic plurality is something that's diagnosable. Endogenic plurality is, as said earlier, not pathological or even a largely medically recognized thing at all. Plurality is an opt-in label, like alterhuman. You decide whether your experiences match up with the experiences described by the plural community. For that reason saying whether plurality is something that is self diagnosed or not is a bit silly really. You don't often hear people saying they self diagnose as alterhuman, not in our experience anyways.

TLDR: we're very different from transid concepts and we're an opt in label, thus kind of always self diagnosed if that even fits at all due to our non medical nature.

Hopefully this helps put some things into context. This was pretty quickly and sloppily written so forgive any grammar mistakes. Also if you'd like to learn more about plurality, tulpamancy, or some general syscourse topics feel free to send more asks and we'll provide some sources that may be useful to you when we have the time.

Have a great day!

[lupunsus]

I'm obsessed with the hybrid AU of @cinnamonest, and i couldn't help but think about the hybrids of animals that aren't, yknow, sexually desired, but still make contact with humans, like Sloths. Just a sloth living their life.

All of this is just my personal opinion and ideas, im also bad at writing, but this is just a ramble of thoughts. the original idea of the hybrid au goes out to cinnamonest

I feel like i haven't done as much research to properly get the behavior of the sloth down to a T, but let's just say domestication can change even the craziest of wolves 🫡

GN reader, sometimes referred to as "it," because i like to believe that humans in this au don't see hybrids as people unless they prove themselves to be as smart and able to live on their own. Also, I think that sloth hybrids can move a bit faster than sloths.

Sloths as animals are already rare. So, to stumble upon a sloth hybrid would definitely be even rarer than receiving God's blessing, I think.

I like to imagine the first sloth hybrid encounter would be in Sumeru, where an Akademiya student notices some weird creature eating their notes while out researching in the forest. At first, they would be horrified at all their hard-earned work and possible funding going down the drain until they noticed that this thing is a weird dirty human with moss on their back. And it moved as slow as a snail...

An undocumented hybrid??? Would presenting it as a research topic replace the fruit of labors this student wasted their entire lives on??? The answer is yes. Yes it did.

Sloths feel very stressed when carried, so getting the hybrid to the city was difficult in itself, and plus, wasn't it illegal to bring in wild animals out of their habitat? But the species could be considered to go extinct as their numbers have been dwindling, so wouldn't it be better to raise it in a controlled environment where it's safer for them? Who knows if the reason there's barely any out in the wild is because of predators or due to the Withering problem (that is now taken care of) that destroyed a good fraction of the forest.

Either way, the hybrid is now under the protection of the Akademiya, and its new habitat is in the section where they usually study hybrids and their nature towards humans (with their owner's permission and signed documents). In this case, having a one-way glass is fortunate since the poor hybrid freaked out when a lot of humans gathered around them and severely injured one with their claws. They considered releasing the hybrid back in the wild because of how indifferent it was to humans (and the fact that it actively resisted being given a bath by using its claws, again), but decided not to as the hybrid seemed ok with living in the space as long as it wasn't bothered.

But the question now is, how would researchers study the sloth hybrid? Some attempt to bribe it with delicious food, but it takes forever just for the hybrid to eat the bribe. So they opted for leaving out simple puzzles, namely shaped blocks that fit into different holes in a wooden box. Due to the time it takes to study it, I like to believe researchers are paid for their efforts if they submit a report of what the sloth does, like how long it takes for them to eat this kind of fruit, how long it takes for them to move around, etc etc.

It sounds easy, but when you take into consideration how smart sloths can be, it isn't long before the hybrid learns how to speak, nor does it take long to figure out they're being watched.

"No." Is the first word they picked up, due to how common it was to hear it whenever someone would complain around it. So when the student who brought you in started complaining about how they should've just left it out in the wild and rewritten their paper, it said its first word.

Now, in context, saying no to someone saying "I wish I left you in the woods" could be taken in many ways. Does this sloth see me as a friend because I brought it here? Does this sloth care for me more than the others because? Or does it feel bad for eating my research notes that were my entire reason to live?

To the last part, the answer would be no. Sloth hybrid feels no shame for their actions. Don't leave important things out in the open.

All the researchers that have said "no" around the sloth hybrid appeared to be uncomfortable and distressed, putting their hands on their head and shaking it, sometimes letting out some kind of liquid from their eyes. Hearing these humans talk so much and offer nothing but tasteless leaves... wouldn't any sloth feel uncomfortable and distressed? It took at least 5 minutes for liquid to also come out of their eyes and mimic the behavior of students who lost all hope in their future, shaking its head and saying "no" repeatedly but slowly. If the humans would take it away from heavenly leaves and fruits, couldn't they supply it with anything better than dry leaves?

The student panicked, thinking that maybe they should've let the sloth be, and tried to discuss moving the hybrid back to the wild as it was clearly not liking something. But it still said no, even louder when they tried to bribe it with (mid) fruits inside a crate. All researchers agree that they wish sloth hybrids could move faster, or they could learn to move faster because 15 minutes later, the hybrid was laying on it's back pointing to its food.

Killing hybrids is illegal and would most likely get someone life in prison. I think.

There are some moments when the sloth hybrid proves itself to be helpful and even intelligent enough to comprehend human emotions. Liquid coming out of eyes = sadness. So when a student comes in crying while delivering high-quality leaves and fruit, the sloth makes an attempt to reach out a hand, offering fruit. After 20 minutes of climbing down while the student who probably failed their midterms is having a breakdown in a corner.

It's a sweet gesture, but the way it sometimes just drops the fruit on the person and turns to go back to eat makes some think it does it just for the human to be quiet. But if you have the patience to sit for another 20 minutes, you'll notice that it will take a bite of its food and wait until you do the same. But once you take a bite, it'll stop caring and munch away. If you're still there and there's a piece of fruit or a leaf left, prepare to wait a very long time for it to bring the plate over and give it to you.

It's adorable until it realizes that bringing empty plates to humans makes them take it away and bring more food, so those unfortunately not having a mental breakdown have to wait for the sloth to bring over its plate. It's even worse after some students teach it to wave, as the hybrid will stop what it's doing, raise their hand, wave, lower their hand, and look around for 5-10 minutes before remembering what it was previously doing. Less if you point to the plate. Don't grab the plate, though. The sloth hybrid is smart enough to do it itself and will throw a fit and scratch at you if you attempt to rush it.

Students now secretly feed the sloth in hopes that their friends won't distract it, as it would take almost up to an hour if a group of researchers all decided to come and wave one by one. Sometimes, people think it's a curse to have some sort of intelligence because the thing is so slow, but I don't think it would prove itself to live on its own as a citizen with rights just because it's so slow, and it would probably take an hour at least to do a simple task like writing a letter.

But don't worry, the sloth hybrid gets the best care at the Akademiya Hybrid Research Facility(?), even if it's starting to smell a bit bad to the point where they're considering spraying it down with a hose from a safe distance.

[stuck-in-the-ghost-zone]

ALSO. HIIII good evening <3 holding microphone up to u. i would love ur scion thoughts post-interlude!! if u have any!! i know u have Opinions on him i wanna know how the redstringing's going!!!!

OH DUDE I HAVE SOOOOOOOOOOOO MANY FUCKING OPINIONS. GOD. WHAT THE FUCK . WAS NOT EXPECTING 2 LEARN THIS INFORMATION WHEN I WAS TIPSY ON CLOWN WINE AT MIDNIGHT BUT ALAS HERE WE FUCKING ARE I GUESS. CASUAL WORM READING EXPERIENCE. FUCK

okay okay okay oka. that interlude was so fucking good it both answered some of my questions and also gave me SO MANY MORE QUESTIONS. as soon as kevin started talking about being the most powerful man in the world i KNEW. i KNEW it was gonna be some scion bullshit. at first i thought it was gonna be like some... witch from beauty and the beast bullshit where he Was Actually scion just. posing as an eccentric homeless guy out of costume. which would have disappointed me i think because i am so dead set on scion Not Being Human.

WHICH. I FEEL SO STRONGLY IN MY HEART THIS CHAPTER SUPPORTED SO WELL. when they described how Simurgh first appeared floating motionless over a city. dude. dude. my first fucking thought with that was "hey that sounds like what people say about scion." he doesnt speak. his face never moves. hes extremely powerful, so far the only person powerful to drive away the endbringers. he's GOTTA be the same type of thing they are. not human, never was human, but for some reason he Looks Human. like... simurgh does too, but shes still huge and has weird proportions and the wings. scion as far as i know is normal sized and looks mostly human besides being gold. i havent figured that out yet

having a LOT OF FEELINGS about . the whole reason scion does what he does is because some miserable man with a heart of gold told him to. side note i reallyyyy really got attached to kevin i liked him a lot :( that brings into question SO MANY fucking things about the endbringers. this is full on mac ghostiezone game theory moment at this point but. i dont know where they came from, but it seems like at their first appearance they were... susceptible to orders? and this just happened to be an extremely lucky right place at the right time moment. I cant even imagine a world where scion wasnt a "hero" and was instead a force of destruction like the endbringers. which brings up the question... did anyone else try to talk to the endbringers at their first appearances? i cant IMAGINE anyone would willingly go near leviathan or behemoth considering their more monstrous dangerous appearance . but what about simurgh? im acting on the assumption that the endbringers are some sort of Creation and i dont know what their purpose is but either option 1: someone DID talk to the other 3 and it was someone with extremely bad intentions and gave them the orders to become what they are now or option 2: nobody said shit to them and theyre acting on base instinct????? idk. im viewing the endbringers more like. animals or natual disasters than anything and i dont know if thats exactly correct to do but its how my brain works. so.

the big difference between them is that... scion acts with a Goal, where the endbringers seem more like forces of nature that dont really act with any sort of. purpose. simurgh is the exception to this though since she went out of her way to obscure the information about power origins from reaching dragon and also the way she acts makes it seem like... she Knows something. i dont know i still have sooo many questions.

im REALLY worried about whats gonna happen now that kevin gave him the new order to kill. im really worried its gonna be like a monkeys paw situation where... maybe one or all of the endbringers will die, but then what the fuck does he do after that. come back to whats her name (is it lisette?) for more orders? theres no guarantee lisette will be anywhere near as. idk. selfless? as kevin? that feels wrong. idk. she seemed scared of that situation and didnt want the responsibility placed on her so what if she avoids it and never gives scion any other orders???? will he just fall back on old programming and start killing other "bad" things???? is THIS how the fucking apocalypse starts. this has gotta be connected to the apocalypse in some way i can feel it in my bones. scion with kill orders makes me feel crazy.

[ender--slime]

i wanna share some thoughts i have about. some stuff i guess!!

i think the way people treat post canon, no matter which team was writing it or which version of it you’re looking at, is also similar to the way people treat. literally any other artist in this fandom. which is “your interpretation is Wrong and that means your art and morals are Bad”

which is sad to me because. we all took english classes right? we all learned about different literary lenses and different ways to interpret a piece of media. and that everyone can have different takeaways from the same thing. and they might not be equal or even the authors intent but like. that’s okay. it’s not that serious. sometimes a person is 14 or like. just cares more about Background Character than anyone else. and that’s okay!

i’ve been reading homestuck with a friend who’s never read it before- she works on the fanadventures with me and it’s simply required reading :p And she said something a lil bit ago, basically that she reads the kids as a lot older than 13. she doesn’t feel as though they are written as realistic 13 year olds- 15-16, for sure. but 13? to my friend, not so much.

and that got me thinking about the way people treat HSAU. “why’d you age them up? they were written to be 13 for a reason!” is definitely a valid critique i think, if you yourself had that interpretation of the original character writing. but if you’re my friend, who feels as though they act a bit old to be 13, aging them up probably makes a lot of sense. i think she’d really like HSAU. also because i showed her the ranma 1/2 june scene and she CRIED. on that note- “why did june come out so early?” probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to someone who enjoys post-game adult trans headcanons, but it’s simply the same thing post canon is doing. a What If. What if Egbert realizes she’s a woman at age 40? What if she realizes it at age 18? What are the different themes and interpretations that can be found in both of these headcanons? what personal experiences and interpretations of the post canon and HSBC writers can be found in PQ trans vriska? or middle aged june egbert? what personal experiences and interpretations of a certain content creator can be found in a teenaged june egbert reading ranma 1/2?

artists rip out their hearts and draw them, paint them, write them, compose them onto a canvas for Us to see. what more must they do simply to get Our approval? in this late late late stage capitalist society, must we demand that artists make art for Us? and not for themselves? are we not lucky to be surrounded by so many cakes?

i have all the drawings my partner has ever made me on display in my room. she doesn’t draw very well- but they are so special. they look about the same as an elementary schoolers art skills- like the Little Chuck E kid who visits me at work. but to me they are the most amazing pieces of art in the world!!

all the art we make has our own hearts and souls poured into it. and that’s pretty cool.

this is my tumblr exclusive opinion twitter doesn’t get to see this one shhhhhh also i am not accounting for every nuance of media literacy and analysis ofc im just yapping. so plz don’t kill me or whatever

[cyclorose]

I'm curious about who your favorites from ULTRAKILL are, if you're okay with sharing that?

(A BIT RAMBLY 😋)

I don't really have a favorite character, but I do have some of them that caught my homosexual eyes hehe..(I had this drafted and now that I watched a video explaining the lore I can say gabriel is my fave, along with v1 I think, smiles, but I'm keeping the original format because it's silly, to me)

HOWEVER, I have 2 favourite floors, and one that's pretty close to be a fave as well!! (I will post them in order)

*note that I didn't play the game on my own yet (I watched it), so I can't say my opinion gameplay wise lmfao😭 and I also didn't see the secret scenes/rooms/yeah the secrets 💔

the one that's pretty close to be a favorite is the gluttony level. When I first saw it, I quickly connect it to that one part in the legend of zelda: ocarina of time, as well as mouthwashing (close to the end of the game!)

my first favorite level is greed. I love me some piramids hehehe. I just really like how this place looks (and it's yellow. I mean, not that a yellow thing/place/character automatically becomes my favorite JUST because of that 😭), and honestly how the levels and the character design in look in the game. It's colorful and eye catchy. Groovy, even

The other one is the violence level. Same reasons as the first one; design!

CHARACTERS TIME 😁

there's a couple of them that made me gay, and some that I like more than the others, here you go:

swordsmachine: it is the first guy I saw and the first one I said: 'OH HELLOOO THERE😋'. It is cute idk...at first I thought it had a tail and apparently NOT?? I feel robbed (/J). It looks silly. If we were on a date we'd eat hot dogs in a park

v1: after learning more of its story, I gained more sympathy for it. It is an interesting guy. The reason why I found it even more appealing was because the guy who was playing started spinning the guns, guys I'm sorry (/silly). Our date would be at a restaurant I think...

v2: I liked the battle between v1 and v2!! there isn't much to say; it looks similar to v1 so I guess that's it 😭 date would be vandalizing an abandoned building with graffiti

gabriel: WIFE WIFE HUSBAND HUSBAND!!! one of the reasons I wanted to play the game was to see him, because he shares VA with sebastian, and ended up liking his character and story (and awkwardly developing a crush). I overall like his design as well :3 I knew him before bc I was requested to doodle gabriel, and thought to myself to watch the game some day, but I never got the chance until now haha. He's really cool...and neat....groovy. Anyway a date with him would be at his house, he'd make me dinner and would complain about v1

I made the answer to the original question so much more complicated IM SORRY HAHSHD but I felt like rambling a bit!

[melancholiaenthroned]

ok its been a few hours here r my absolute batman thoughts...

starting off with what immediately stood out: that man is not blond. we have spent weeks either bemoaning or defending blond bruce wayne, only for him to appear, not blond. when was the choice to unblond him made? neither of his parents are blond, perhaps then? he also doesnt appear to have his gay little dog, but he havent seen much of his home life so im still holding out hope.

the first thing i will say that jumped out to me, and something ive already commented on, is how much of a scott snyder batman book this feels like. which it is, but god i missed this feeling. snyder writes batman a bit more lone wolfy than other writers, but with a very well defined ensemble cast when the need arises. snyders alfred is one of the only ones ive ever actually had, like, any opinions or feelings on, and so having him (even a very different version of him) star in the opening issue feels right. speaking of snyders alfred -- julia! julia mention, julia graduation photo! julia:-) seeing alfred call her in one of the first pages was my first sigh of relief like oh were gonna be okay... theyre estranged, which makes sense considering any alfred but especially this one, but i do wonder why/for how long considering alfred does appear to have been at her college graduation, and i assume shes around the same age as bruce.

bruce who, speaking of, is 24 and born in... 2004. setting this comic in 2028 but also! thats fucked up! what do you mean batman is the same age as me? that gives me four years to bulk up and learn how to do. whatever bruce did with that massive gun to make it "non lethal" (comic books....). its very weird to have a gen z batman but also makes sense considering snyder said this book represents more his thoughts on the mindsets of his children rather than his own (as was the case for his original batman run). bruce is an idealistic young person now! with young person friends... also weird to think that in this universe, killer croc, the penguin, two face, and catwoman were probably also born in the 2003-2005 range (they appear to have been childhood friends, i assume they went to the same school and were maybe also at the zoo that day?).

this is disorganized and i dont have a transition into this section but: the main "twist" of the issue, which i was not expecting at all. martha is alive. bruce lost his father, but he never lost his mother. it makes sense why he seems a little more idealistic (or maybe thats just Alfred's pov skewing events), he really does have like. a whole life. he has friends and a mother and a job, hes not a sad boy left alone in a manor. really not much to say about this considering its only the first issue, but im really excited to see where it goes. it does make this batman feel a little like superman in an interesting way. hes a lot more ingrained in the city by working a job that actually touches its core, hes a mamas boy, he (or at least his social circle) is involved enough in local politics to be going to town hall meetings. and of course. his main villain appears to be this weird ultra rich guy...

which leads me to other main snyder-ism of the issue: we gotta get the joker in here, and he is NOT funny. in classic snyder fashion the joker is SERIOUS now. he wears muted colors and never laughs and is a brunette (which could all change when/if he gets dumped in acid).i really wasnt sure if he was gonna do it, after all snyder has already pretty extensively covered the joker in his old run, and while i think hes literally the best joker writer ever, i wasnt sure if hed been interested in tackling the character in what is essentially a new batman origin. but here he is! and the tables are turned -- bruce is friends with all the jokers old compatriots, and the joker is alone and insanely rich. i honestly really have no idea what to expect from this plot going forward, obviously the current focus is black mask and his gang, but its clear the joker is going to have some part to play. im excited about it, im not one of the people who dislikes joker stories on principle and i was really hoping for snyder to introduce him into this world so its a win for me if nothing else.

anyway! not sure how to conclude this, but these are my thoughts! its been a while since ive been this excited for a bat run, and this will probably be the only thing keeping me going for a while considering weve got tom taylor on tec now. but god. im just so happy. remember being excited about batman comics? if any of u guys read absolute batman plsss lmk what u thought...

[bharv]

I love your posts so much analyzing the game and the Devs choices! Thank you so much for writing them and i would also like to know your opinion on what they have done to the greywardens in DATV. Im not gonna elaborate further on what is written in the game for them in case yoy didn't get there yet! But please if you have any analysis or opinion i would LOVE to hear them!

Ohhh thank you anon. I’m still having issues with my inbox so I’m hoping this posts…

I still haven’t finished the game so this is going to be my incomplete thoughts but I have, unsurprisingly, mixed feelings.

I'll put under a cut just in case! And apologies if it's a bit slapdash, I'm still a bit covid-brained.

I am going to be controversial in that I've never loved the bringing the griffons back part of the lore. Last Flight is easily my least favourite book, I preferred the imagery of griffons being a symbol of the warden's lost valour, rather than something to literally bring back.

However, I did like the Cauldron and what it showed about the dead glory of the wardens. I thought that was really good! Also the little histories in the memories about the wardens during the siege were very interesting, and a clever way to get around not importing choice by making it about people from the backgrounds of characters we know.

Davrin is also one of my absolute favourite companions. I love his attitude, I love his resolve and his inner conflict, and the performance is I think one of the strongest in the game. Controversially I kind of wish Assan wasn't a griffon but was an actual mortal child lol, I love the parenthood analogy but I kind of thing it would hit harder. As cute as Assan is.

I loved the First Warden. Again, another favourite character for me. I remember thinking FINALLY when he turned up. Finally, an adult! Finally somebody reacting to this news in a way that makes sense! I chose to talk him down and I loved his final stand as well, though I'm wondering if the implication that the gods can talk to the wardens through their blood is going to... pay off elsewhere. I've also always been a fan of Evka and Antoine, so seeing them get such a prominent role was great, and on the whole the wetlands is one of my favourite areas in the game. Feels very, very origins.

On that note, it's been one of my favourite things through the series that the wardens get progressively less majestic the more we learn. In Origins you hear of the Order in other lands, and you think (and your warden probably also thinks) oh, it's okay, out there somewhere there is a whole retinue of heroes that WILL save us! We just have to survive this, and then it will be okay! And then seeing that the order even at its headquarters is woefully underfunded, largely people who were conscripted and are scared and just trying to do their best... I really, really like that as somebody who has always been most interested in that side of Dragon Age storytelling.

I do wish we had a little more reactivity to our warden-commander in the game, even if the game did just decide to confirm that they were dead (hey, it's completely justified to me to kill them off screen. They would be nearing their calling now I think.) And the way the blight functions is a bit... nonsensical to me now we are absolutely COVERED in blight all the time. The likelihood of it getting in the bloodstream is so, so high the way the fighting works!

I've heard the story continues into other territory, so I will let you know what I think when we get there...

[ectopuppy]

which ben 10 series do u like best??!! im a sucker for the original series bc of nostalgia personally, but they are all good in their own ways

this is an impossible question to answer so im just gonna talk about why i love each series im sorry and thank you anon for gifting me this opportunity to ramble about The Hyperfixation (tm) o7

This is going under a cut btw. It's a little under 3000 words of unedited thoughts so like, just a heads up lmao

Why is the Original Series Good?

So first! Before I get into it! I overall just fucking love Ben 10 conceptually in general! I've always loved aliens and sci-fi and superheroes so you can imagine how excited I was to stumble onto this show airing on teletoon when I was just a tiny Kiki.

The OS has a lot going for it, but the big one is, of course, the nostalgia factor. Iconic as fuck! Fun theme song! Max is there! Yay!!

The BEST character in the OS is Max and I WILL die on that hill. Even as a kid I fucking loved him. Ben and Gwen are fun characters, but Max is the much needed reprieve from them constantly bickering. (Which is one thing I'm glad there's a lot less of in later series.)

Ben is a compelling hero, and the OS is an amazing START POINT for him. While he does have character growth in the OS, I would not be THIS obsessed with him if the OS was the only Ben 10 media that existed. He's a kid. A bit of a brat, but always TRYING to do the right thing. Which he's not always great at considering he's, you know, 10, but he really does try.

Something a lot of people seem to brush past when talking about Ben is that at the beginning of the series he was actively friendless and being bullied at school. I feel like that's a huge factor in why the Omnitrix is so important to his identity in later series. (or even in the Xylene episode when he finds out the Omnitrix was supposed to be for Max) He really didn't have much going for him before that. Being a hero is very likely one of the first times he's felt like he belongs somewhere, you know? Anyway..

Gwen is also very fun in the OS. UAF filed down her teeth just a little too much in my opinion. A lot of her personality in the OS is her THINKING she's sooo much more mature than Ben despite also being a fucking grade schooler. (They are literally the EXACT same age, right down to sharing a birthday.) She's is just as immature as Ben, no matter how much she thinks she isn't. It's just that her smug "I know better." attitude doesn't cause outfacing issues as often as Ben being impulsive and a little self centred.

The OS also benefits from being the "spaghetti on the wall" series. Things just kinda worked however the writers wanted at the moment. Big point here: Magic got to just be magic. (I have made a whole ass post RE: Anodite Gwen so I wont get into it here, but I like the retcon. That statement does not conflict with the above.) Gwen getting fed up being sidelined and going "Fuck it I'm learning magic." is so good and I love it.

I feel like it is impossible to not like the OS in some form, because it's the Original Series. Everything that happens later can only have happened BECAUSE of the OS. Is it my favourite series? No. But it's charming and silly and fun and I love it. c:

Why is Alien Force Good?

Alien Force is a tonal downshift for the series. The era it was made in was the era of Gritty Cartoons for Cool Boys, and it shows. Now, this is not a bad thing to ME, but I know a lot of people don't like the heavier atmosphere of Alien Force, especially in its opening arc. Like... episode 1 (or 2 not sure, but it's in the premiere) of AF has a dude straight up just fucking die, which is kinda. A lot. I can see where people are coming from.

HOWEVER.

Personally, I love the entire DNAlien arc, and it's use as a coming of age story for Ben. A big part of AF is Ben realizing that he needs to grow up. In the OS he was a kid. Max was the leader and the beacon of morality. In AF Max is MIA from episode 1. Gwen is more mature, and has mellowed out a lot, but she just isn't a leader. Kevin should never be put in charge of other people, so he's out. So it's Ben. He has to step up and lead, because there IS nobody else.

But, also the show is not gloomy! It has it's moments, and I get why people might watch the premiere and think "Hmm, too dark.", but AF is silly as hell. I will point to the Alien X episode as my basis here. It's smack in the middle of the DNAlien arc, and it's dumb as hell. Again, I have made a whole ass post about this, but the gist is: I love Alien X being a god being with the ability to do LITERALLY anything, but Ben gets so frustrated that he refuses to use it unless the universe is actively collapsing. (Also, the incurseans are there, and they are never not silly lmao)

But to me, the best thing AF did for the series was give it structure. The OS was extremely episodic, but the front half of AF is held together with a tight plot line. The back half not so much, but it does have a lot going for it character wise. Case in point:

Let's talk about Kevin. c:

Kevin was always a fun villain in the OS. Any time he showed up I knew we were in for a fun time, so him becoming part of the main cast (As a hero and friend no less!) in AF was a major selling point to me personally. Unlike with Gwen, I feel like they sanded him down just enough. He's still kinda sleazy and a bit of a shithead, but now he's trying to do better.

I'm aware the explanation for this behaviour is that the Omnitrix energy he absorbed in the OS drove him crazy or whatever, but that's not something we get up front if memory serves. He really does seem like he naturally just grew up and realized acting how he did when he was 11 wasn't exactly getting him anywhere good.

Kevin's arc in the back half of AF plays really well with Ben's arc. Ben is at an all time high after saving the universe, while Kevin gets mutated again and has a really shitty time. Ben getting humbled while Kevin gains confidence just works really well in tandem, I think, and they end AF on somewhat equal footing.

AF also gives us some of my favourite side characters so I really love it on those grounds alone tbh. Mostly talking about Paradox here, but also Albedo, and The Plumber's Kids (especially Alan I love him he's so baby <3), and Sandra. God, I love Ben's hippy dippy granola mom so much it fits him so well.

I could make a whole fucking post about Paradox to be honest, and this post is already insanely long so I'll be brief here. He made it a billion times easier for the writers to play with timeline bullshit without having to sneak retcons past the audience every time. He's also just insanely fun. Silly Time Man. I loves him!!

I also really love Julie and Omniverse did her so fucking dirty, but that's a whole thing and I'm sure I'll get into it when I get there in my rewatch so I'll save it.

Again, I don't know that I would say AF is my favourite series, but I will say AF DOES happen to have my favourite EPISODE of the entire continuity though. "Con of Rath" is the best Ben 10 episode and I will fight you on this one.

I'm about to pivot into Ultimate and seeing as I haven't gotten there in my rewatch I am going to have less to say about it (and Omniverse) since they aren't fresh in my mind and I don't want to be spouting half remembered nonsense or go dig through the wiki to fact check (and spoil myself on things I don't remember). I know this post is stupid long, bear with me a bit longer.)

Why is Ultimate Alien Good?

Every new series of Ben 10 does something to change the status quo in some way. In AF it was aging up the characters and relegating Max to side character status. Omniverse does much the same, giving Ben a new partner and pushing Gwen and Kevin aside. Ultimate changes things in a different way, though, and I'm NOT talking about Ultimate forms.

Ultimate's big shake up is actually the name of it's first episode: "Fame".

Now, in this house we love a secret identity, lemme get that out up top. For Ben, though? The fame works. He never really honestly HAD a secret identity the same way most superheroes do. He'd always just kinda done his thing, and had it work out. All of his villains knew who he was. (To the point that "Hit 'Em Where They Live" kinda makes no fucking sense? Zombozo is dumb as shit so like maybe he didn't? But Charmcaster DEFINITELY did, and Ben was famous OFF earth already? It's whatever, but like ',:| ya'know.)

The important thing about making him famous is that it gives him a new avenue for character growth. As in my dude needs to get his fucking act together good god. Like, it's Ben, when it comes down to it he buckles down and does the right thing, but fuck man. This is a character trait that will haunt the rest of the series. There are episodes of OMNI that focus on Ben needing to get his head on straight wrt being famous.

It circles back to my point from earlier, though. Ben was NOT popular before "Fame". His friends included: Kevin, Gwen, and Julie. That's it. He's on a soccer team (At least at the beginning of AF I feel like it never comes up later.), but he never talks about his teammates. That one bully whose name escapes me is on okay terms with him after "The Gauntlet", but I wouldn't call them friends. But after his identity is leaked suddenly everybody likes him. He's gone from absolute nobody to celebrity overnight. Of course he would love this.

This is also an extension of one of Ben's core character traits: He NEEDS to be a hero. Actually he needs to be THE hero, because that is his entire self identity. It comes across (both in universe and from a meta standpoint) as Ben being conceited and selfish, but underneath it is really just a sad little boy who is clinging desperately to the ONE thing he's ever been that people liked. The Hero.

If Ben isn't the hero then who is he? He clearly doesn't know as of the AF finale. He loses the Omnitrix and completely breaks down. Even though he's an expert tactician and a damn good leader, he doesn't even know who he is without the Omnitrix.

Azmuth of all people is the one to tell him to get his head out of his ass. I don't think any other character could have done it, though. Azmuth does not care about Ben's feelings, but he's also someone who (whether he likes it or not) sees ALL of Ben's worth. Max or Gwen would be too soft and Kevin's words wouldn't hold the same weight. Azmuth is someone Ben looks up to while also being someone who won't pull his punches. If he's telling Ben he can do something it has to be true, you know?

That aside, lets talk about the "Ultimate" in "Ultimate Alien".

The Ultimatrix is... weird. It's interesting, don't get me wrong, but it is so completely and clearly just a marketing gimmick. The Ultimatrix can be as cool as it wants, it is not making it out of this series alive. Also, everything I find interesting about the Ultimatrix gets dropped. The first episode has Ben be apprehensive about using the Ultimate forms, but then it's just never brought up ever again for some reason.

Also this shit:

WHY DOES THIS HAPPEN????? WHY IS IT NEVER TALKED ABOUT? 😭

It all just feels so fucking meaningless knowing the Finished Omnitrix is going to replace it. Like, Albedo made this peice of shit. So even if I hadn't watched parts of Omniverse first I would have put together that Azmuth would inevitably replace it, right? But it doesn't really matter I guess. That's my personal gripe with Ultimate forms, though, so I wanted to get it out here. Ultimate's does give us "The Ultimate Sacrifice" which is an episode I remember enjoying though, so its not a complete wash.

The thing with Ultimate as a series it that it's really just Alien force... 2!! to the extent that fans refer to them as a collective. "Ultimate Alien Force" Like, my header up there ^^^ was "Why is Ultimate Alien Force Good?" when I first started writing the AF part, and I only changed it so I had a smooth transition to talk about "Fame". They are so intrinsically linked in my brain that I didn't even blink lumping them into one. It makes it hard to find fault in Ultimate when I love so much of the things introduced in AF that carry over, you know?

Now onto the one I was soooo close to saying was my favourite:

Why is Omniverse good?

Omniverse is very, very special to me. I did not watch UAF as a kid. It started airing just as I was hitting my "I'm too old for cartoons" phase, so I just.. never watched it. I wouldn't have ever really gotten into Ben 10 as much as I have if not for someone talking about how much they liked Omniverse on my timeline when it was airing. I watched a large chunk of Omni before doubling back to watch all of the OS (Which I had only seen bits of growing up.) and then UAF.

I fucking love Omniverse and a big reason is:

Him 👆 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

I would kill and die for Rook Blonko.

He is mine moste beloved boy. My babygirl. My right hand arm etc.

But beyond The Boy 💖 Omniverse has a lot going for it. It's another tonal shift for the series, this time back to the more innocent and silly tone of the OS. Like I said, I like the tone in UAF, but Omniverse is just so bright and charming it's hard not to enjoy it.

The art style is also very fun in Omni and matches that lighter tone really well. (There are some stylistic choices I'm not personally big on, but it's whatever.) Where UAF had scaled back a lot of designs to give off a pretty generically American Comic Book style, Omniverse lets characters look interesting again! I'm thinkng specifically about Animo and Charmcaster here (Charmcaster's UAF design is so boring. Omniverse puts her back in her cool robe/tunic thing from the OS.), but in general the characters in Omni just have more interesting designs than they did in UAF. Like, Paradox isn't just Guy in Labcoat in Omni lol

I also think the ten episode arc structure does Omniverse a lot of favours. It gets to have the fun silly episodic nature of the OS while also holding onto the structure AF gave the series.

Beyond that, based on my memory of the series (which I have not watched since it finished airing so it's not exactly perfect) I don't really have much more I can say about Omni. It's fun, and has good characters and plot lines. It's just a really good entry and was a solid ending to wrap up the whole four series continuity.

And so, finally, I can wrap up this fuck off long post.

Like I said up top, I can't definitively say which series is my favourite. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and are good in their own ways. If pressed, I would probably say "Um... Omniverse maybe?", but I love the OS and UAF so so much it's not a confident answer. (having not watched Omni in a hot minute also doesn't help lmao)

Thank you for reading my big dumb post. If you got all the way to the end, I love you. I mean, if you stopped reading it I also love you, but if you managed to get through all, uh, 2800ish words of this post without tapping out, you are on the top shelf. <3

I'd love to hear your thoughts, or answer more specific questions if you have them!