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yundeob · 4 months ago

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A NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD ☆ | ATEEZ SERIES

— featuring ot8!ateez in iconic HOLLYWOOD romance and rom-com movies

— TICKET BOOTH IS CLOSED! 🎟️ : the movies are about to start! all fics will have MATURE CONTENT! MDNI!

sit back, relax, grab your popcorn and tissues, and enjoy the silver screen . . .

THE PARENT TRAP ☆ | KHJ

TROPE: exes to lovers! divorced!au

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst, crack, slice of life

AS DIVORCED PARENTS to two twin daughters, you and hongjoong have your fair share of work cut out. Driving to piano lessons, cheering at hockey games, drop offs at each other’s houses, it can all be a little much. But could a relaxing summer retreat as a whole family possibly rekindle past emotions you’ve swept under the rug? . . .

— IN THEATRES

DIRTY DANCING ☆ | PSH

TROPE: bad boy!seonghwa, enemies to lovers!au , 60s!au

TAGS: nsfw, smut, angst, crack

THAT WAS THE SUMMER before JFK got shot, before the beatles came, and when you were working part time at your aunts summer resort. That was also the summer you met resident heart breaker and cocky entertainment crew member, Park Seonghwa. Remind yourself why you’re suddenly dance partners with him again? . . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

PRETTY WOMAN ☆ | JYH

TROPE: dilf!yunho x formerstripper!reader, strangers to lovers!au, contract lovers!au,

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst

LIVING IN BEVERLY HILLS comes with its perks. But for two different people such as yourself and multimillionaire business tycoon, Jeong Yunho, both of you can��t seem to find what you’re looking for in the so called ‘Land of Dreams’. So the proposal is simple really… let him spoil you with money, jewelry and clothes while in return, you stay by his side. . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

MR AND MRS KANG ☆ | KYS

TROPE: marriage!au, established relationship, spy!au, assasin!au

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, ANGST, crack

WHO WOULD’VE THOUGHT picture perfect suburban neighbourhood couple, Mr. and Mrs. Kang would be at each others necks trying to kill each other first. You’ve both come this far in your marriage while hiding your secret identities, but it looks like only one person can remain standing. I guess you both did promise “in sickness and in health”. . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

ROMAN HOLIDAY ☆ | CS

TROPE: royalty!au, princess!reader x reporter!san, strangers to lovers!

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst

AS CROWN PRINCESS, you’re on a tightly scheduled tour of European capital cities. But after an especially rough day in Rome, you sneak out of the embassy to explore the so called Eternal City, running into no other than celebrity news reporter, Choi San, looking out for his next big royal scandal. . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU ☆ | SMG

TROPE: college!au, stoner!mingi, enemies to lovers!au, fakedating(?)au, y2k aesthetic

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst, crack, slice of life

YOUR YOUNGER BROTHER Wooyoung is desperate in getting you, his older sister in college, to date so that he can finally date in highschool. The options for potential candidates are scarce, considering men flock away like birds the second you’re near. Good thing campus stoner and weirdo, Song Mingi is the same as well. . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS ☆ | JWY

TROPE: fashioncolumnist!reader x advertiser!wooyoung, y2k aesthetic, fake dating(?)au, enemies to lovers!au, mutual pining

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, angst, crack, slice of life

LISTEN, IF IT MEANS getting a promotion at your editorial company as a news journalist instead of pop culture and lifestyle columnist, you’d do anything. And that includes pretending to be the most annoying and clingiest girlfriend to some guy for 10 whole days. But just so you know, Wooyoung likes clingy. . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

ROMEO & JULIET ☆ | CJH

TROPE: unrequited love, star crossed lovers!au, mutual pining, secret romance (shakespeare be rolling in his grave rn)

TAGS: nsfw, smut, fluff, ANGST

FOR CENTURIES, a plague of hatred and hostility has been present in the relations between the House of Choi and your own. You know you can’t be together, but yet why do you keep catching that dark haired boy staring at you so longingly? And why do you want him just as bad?. . .

— not yet in theatres . . .

a/n: for updates, follow my blog! this will be a work-in-progress so I ask for your support:(🙏

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crowdsourcedgender · 6 months ago

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My zine, 'Label Coining as an Artform', is finally done! Transcript/Image ID underneath (warning: it's long). Printed version in a reblog.

[Image ID: A series of pages in a zine. The text is handwritten, and all figures described are simplified stick figures.

Page 1: ‘LABEL COINING as an ARTFORM in large text. Below is the multicolored MOGAI wheel, with three figures taking pieces of the colors and using them for art: sculpting, cutting a piece of paper, and painting. Below is ‘a MOGAI (& LIOM!) zine by Elliot/Hesper aka @ crowdsourcedgender on tumblr. Under the text are five pride flags: aro-spec, veldian, alterhuman, xenoman, and schooldoodlic.

Page 2: ‘Label Coining’ in large pink text. ‘(in this context) is the act of creating a word (and usually flag) for a certain experience!’. Next to this text is a figure filled in with pink with a speech bubble full of pink shapes, talking to someone using a cane holding out a hand and expressing a question mark. Below reads ‘generally a queer experience, but does often include or incorporate disability, neurodivergence etc.’ A figure asks ‘Why?’ and the text reads ‘I would say these are the ‘core tenets’:’. In a cloud next to this text is a blue and purple pride flag with purple text reading: ‘like this cool prosopagnosia flag I made!’.

The bottom half of the page is split into two columns: ‘Understanding’ and ‘Community’. The first column has a purple arm amputee explaining a purple rectangle to another purple person who is thinking ‘that’s me!!’. Next to them another purple person is explaining the same rectangle to a blank person, who has a purple-filled thought bubble with a white exclamation mark. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by question marks: ‘Labels help people understand what they are experiencing, and communicate this to others. It’s easier to explain something when it’s already been written down!” The second column has a purple person holding a purple umbrella. They are waving to a purple person in a wheelchair. A purple person is leading another one to the group. Underneath the drawing is text surrounded by connected dots: ‘People can unite under a shared label whether this group is big or small! Whether for practical purposes (like advice) or just for fun, having people like you is nice.

Page 3: ‘And these are just as important as ever! But I’ve noticed what I like to call COINING for the sake of CREATION’. This last phrase is in large, dark and light blue text. Two sun symbols are on either side. Below is the text: ‘Vexillology is very clearly an artform, but label coining has become something more (not to mention that not all new labels have flags!). It’s composed of multiple skills has become more than the sum of its parts. Any art captures an experience, but label coining is much more explicit about it. And not just people’s experience of their identity! Part of the art of label coining is incorporating other concepts too, e.g. Schooldoodlic A gender related to doodling on school work papers and/or your homework. By spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr.’ The text about Schooldoodlic is small and light teal. Next to the text is its flag.

Page 4: ‘Elements of Label Coining’. The text on this page is separated into four green boxes.

‘Naming: Coming up with the actual word can be tricky. Generally, labels with lots of elements get more leeway with length. It’s important to check that a label isn’t already a word as well.’ Next to this text is more rough, dark green text reading ‘Premade suffixes + prefixes help! And latin (for some languages) as it’s possible to intuit meaning!’ Around the text is a few examples: ‘-vesil’ ‘-musica’ ‘an-’ ‘quoi-’

‘Flag making: Also known as vexillology, this is a pretty big deal. It’s also the most fun for me! You develop a really good sense of color from spending so much recoloring the same three stripes.’ Next to the text is 6 versions of the same pride flag, each with slightly different colors, with a 7th final version with a symbol.

‘Symbol making: Most flags don’t have symbols, but they’re good for groups of labels under a certain umbrella, or just if you have a really good idea.’ Next to this is rough, dark green text reading: ‘I drew three semirealistic flowers for a flag and ended up only using one’ with sad face. Under it is a drawing of a daisy, a pink coneflower, and lavender, which is circled.

‘Descriptions/formatting: Explanations can be artistic in their own right, and formatting is fun to mess with: many people have their own style. Make sure it’s accessible: add image IDs and plain text where applicable. There are a lot of good resources online!’ In dark green text is the phrase ‘Accessibility over Aesthetics’ with an image of a key on top and sparkles below.

Underneath the boxes in light green text is ‘Note: in the right context, any of these can be optional!’

Page 5: ‘If it wasn’t clear, I think this is AWESOME’. Awesome is in large text with yellow radiating lines. Underneath is ‘I’m a MOGAI coiner myself (generally) with about 65 coins at time of drawing. Using something I made, I wanted to demonstrate what a label coining might look like!’ Underneath is four versions of the same pride flag as well as a description, with ‘flag!’ ‘stripe meanings (I don’t normally do these)’ ‘symbol’ ‘name’ ‘pre-existing format’ and ‘experience’ labelled. The description reads ‘[Image ID was here] Human non-conforming (HNC). Human non-conforming (HNC, similar to gender non-conforming) is an umbrella label encompassing all identities and subcultures that somehow incorporate nonhuman elements in any way.’

Page 6: ‘The thing I love most about the label coining community is just that- the community! The way coiners and users interact, as well as how coiners can work together, is wonderful. There are 5 large words each with an associated doodle.

‘Requesting’: A figure leaning on forearm crutches has a speech bubble with yellow shapes exploding out of it. Another figure is taking shapes down from the bubble and forming it into a ball.

‘Collecting’: A figure is pulling a yellow cart with a large cloth bag labelled ‘LABELS’. They have stars in their eyes, and are looking at another person who is gesturing to a yellow rectangle.

‘Collaborating’: Two figures, one with orange speech and one with yellow speech and an AAC tablet are discussing, with many shapes and lines intermingling to make a fragmented rectangle.

‘Combining’: A figure in a grey hijab pulls down a lever. They are standing next to a large blender mixing orange and yellow liquids. On either side is bright yellow lightning.

‘Redesiging’: A small star with four radial lines coming out of it becomes more and more complex, indicated by black arrows.

Under the words is the text: ‘I’ve never participated, but there’s this amazing event called: COINFIGHT. Hosted by @ kiruliom on Tumblr. It’s inspired by artfight, and it involves coining labels for other people- but competitive-ish!’ Coinfight is in large, text with a crescent moon with stars at the top right corner, and a star at the bottom left.

Page 7: ‘I don’t think there’s anything like finding a label that finally fits you, or hearing that something you made did that for someone else.’ Under is a figure looking at an orange flower with light lines, then forming elements of the flower into a bubble, then showing an orange rectangle to another figure, with orange tendrils reaching towards them, forming the shape of a heart. Below is the text ‘There are a lot of things like pouring out your heart- or just having fun- while making or collecting label. I coin in the same mind I sketch and color and shade.’ On each side is a pen drawing an orange figure with a red shirt, and a tablet with an orange and red flag. Under this is ‘Label coining is an artform both like and unlike any other, and I’m proud to participate in it. I hope that if you want to, you can join me. And if that’s not your thing- thanks for reading!’ There is a drawing of a figure with dark grey wings holding up two fingers. Next is a ‘<2’ heart and ‘elliot’ as a signature. In smaller text next to these is ‘Thank you to the creators whose work is featured in this zine! Credit on the next page. Remember to keep this wonderful community and artform accessible to all!’

Page 8: ‘Credit’: This section has a pride flag next to each label. ‘Aromantic-spectum, @ theflagarchive on Tumblr. Turian, @ kenochoric on Tumblr. Schooldoodlic, @ spirits-gender-coining on Tumblr. Xenoman, @ ryanyflags on Tumblr. MOGAI symbol, Pride-Flags on DeviantArt. Alterhuman, @ vaestra on Tumblr. (the flag on pg. 4 is Wildflowergender). ‘About making this zine’: ‘I really, really regret handwriting this. Drawing over Helvetica Neue for so long might change my actual handwriting, [more rough:] which looks like this! According to Artstudio Pro, I took 14 hours! I barely planned this before starting, the color wheel theme and the people doodles. /End ID]

#mogai #microlabels #mogai coining #lgbtq #lgbtqia #zine #art zine #lgbtq zine #queer zine #label coining #queer vexillology #queer #queer community #long post #described #image described #image id #not coining

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thankskenpenders · 10 months ago

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Sonic Prime Season 3: Final episodes, final thoughts

Well, here we are. The final seven episodes of Sonic Prime are out on Netflix, concluding the story of Sonic's adventures in the Shatterverse. I've previously shared my thoughts on the first and second seasons, which I was pretty mixed on, but there were still glimmers of hope. The fluid animation, Shadow being fun in all his appearances, Nine being fairly interesting as a jaded alternate version of Tails, etc. There was enough to make me believe that after some highs and lows there was still the possibility that this show could end on a high note - or at least a decent note.

This did not happen.

Sonic Prime's final season sucks. The ending sucks, and the road to get there sucks. It's left me wondering what the point of all this even was. There are still moments I like that I'll try to highlight, and the animators and voice cast are still clearly giving it their all, but these efforts sadly don't outweigh the overwhelming mediocrity of the story. I would barely even recommend other Sonic fans who are on the fence go out of their way to finish it. I won't begrudge people who got more out of this show than I did, but I think overall I just really, really dislike Sonic Prime.

...The problem, of course, is that all other discussion of the show has been overshadowed by needlessly hostile arguments over its place in Sonic's canon. So we've gotta talk about that, too.

(This post will contain full spoilers for Sonic Prime.)

The show's out of ideas but they've gotta stretch that shit out to hit the 23 episode mark somehow

Season 2 ended with the big twist that Nine decided to betray Sonic and Shadow, taking the Paradox Prism for himself so that he could go turn the empty world of the Grim into his own little paradise, since he doesn't believe he'll fit anywhere else. Nine has made himself the true big bad of the show.

The main impact this has is that now, instead of fighting endless identical Eggforcer bots and members of the Chaos Council over and over, the good guys and the Chaos Council have to fight endless Chaos Sonic-style robots sent by Nine while he goes "grrrrr I need Sonic's energy to stabilize the Paradox Prism." This continues for six whole episodes until the series finale, when the show decides it's time for Sonic and Nine to quickly make amends, fix everything, and send Sonic and Shadow home.

That's pretty much the whole season.

I cannot emphasize enough just how much of this final season is just fight after fight after fight against Nine's bots, and how fucking boring that gets. The season feels like one long, drawn out final battle that did not need to be nearly this long, but Nine had his big heel turn 2/3 of the way through the show and we've gotta fill up the rest of the time somehow. The novelty of the bots being based off of Sonic's friends (including the Chocobo-sized Birdie from the jungle world) really wears off quickly when they're just used as generic, silent mooks that the good guys have to fight by the dozen like it's the climax of an MCU movie. The first episode of the season with Sonic and Shadow fighting the new bots is pretty good, especially because Sonic and Shadow's dynamic is one of the few redeeming aspects of this show's writing, but after that it just gets boring. Three full episodes in a row are spent showing all the characters fighting robots in an empty wasteland while Nine scowls next to a big beam of energy. I found myself missing the in-your-face attitude of Chaos Sonic so much. He truly was one of the best parts of this show.

While the cast is busy fighting all these robots for what feels like an eternity, various things of varying levels of interest happen. There's a halfhearted attempt to have some kind of rivalry between Shadow and the main Grim Sonic throughout the final battle, but it completely falls flat because Grim Sonic has no personality whatsoever. It's like Shadow beefing with an above-average Egg Pawn. (Actually, no, that would be funny.) There's also a death fakeout with the two other versions of Tails, where they make a makeshift bomb and throw it a little too close to themselves on the battlefield and seem to get vaporized. If they had actually died there they would have had the funniest, most pointless deaths in the entire franchise.

I also realized at one point that they were trying to do the Avengers girl power fight thing with the three versions of Amy fighting a bunch of Rouge bots. This was very funny to me. Actually, so much of this is just following the tired MCU formula to the letter. Fighting over a macguffin, two armies just kind of running at each other and clashing in a big empty field, constant one-liner quips instead of actual jokes, the need to take out key targets to make the whole enemy army disappear, a villain who has a point but has to randomly hurt people so that there's an excuse for the heroes to fight him. When combined with how shit the multiverse stuff is, this whole show really is just Man of Action tackling some of the most played out storytelling tropes in modern pop culture in the most bland way possible. What a bunch of hacks.

By far, the one truly fun thing that happens in this protracted final battle is when a giant robot based on Big appears. It doesn't have arms or legs, but it can swing itself around to use its tail like a giant mace, and it can also shoot Froggy-shaped missiles out of its mouth. I wish the rest of the show was even half as fun as this. Again, Sonic Prime has just enough good moments to make you mad that the rest of the show isn't better.

The thing is, all this repetitive (but well-animated) action and the thin excuse plot would be totally serviceable if I just gave a shit about the characters involved. But I don't. I don't care what happens to the pirate version of Amy who goes "arrr." I don't care about what happens to Hipster Eggman. And unfortunately, by the end, I didn't really care about Nine, either.

Nine as a villain

It's hard to criticize the story here without it coming off as a broad condemnation of the tropes at play. The thing is, I like many stories that try to do similar things. I love clashes between heroes and villains that are really just fantastical exaggerations of more personal conflicts. I love stories where a tragic, sympathetic villain lashes out at the world as an expression of the pain they feel, and a compassionate hero just has to get through to them. I eat that shit right up. Undertale is my favorite game ever made. Shit, I love other Sonic stories that do these exact things. And Sonic having to fight an alternate timeline version of Tails also has so much potential for drama!

So I can very easily imagine a version of the show where all this works for me. That just isn't the version we got.

Like I said last time, Nine's motivation is just too sympathetic and understandable for his sudden turn to supervillainy to make any sense. He just wanted to start over somewhere where he can be happy after a childhood filled with bullying and loneliness. Nine betraying Sonic and stealing the Paradox Prism to go make his own world? That tracks! Especially since we don't even know if Nine will still exist if Sonic goes through with his plan to restore his original world! But trying to kill everyone in New Yolk City by tilting the world 90 degrees, intentionally targeting the civilian population because it'll get to Sonic? Nope! Sorry, that's a bridge too far. I don't buy it. He's jaded and antisocial, but he doesn't strike me as cruel. Writing in an excuse about him needing Sonic's energy to fix the Prism does not make this make more sense.

This was really just one of those conflicts where it felt like everyone should stop and talk it out. Instead we got six episodes of fighting before one of Sonic's many, MANY attempts at reasoning with Nine throughout the season finally works. This isn't me pulling some Cinema Sins bullshit where I complain about characters in a work of fiction not always behaving rationally - the real problem is that it's just so damn repetitive waiting for this conflict to resolve. This could have been wrapped up in two or three episodes and instead it takes seven.

A brief aside about that weird Dorkly-ass Sonic Advance 3 flashback scene hacked together with mismatched sprites where Gemerl happens to be present, presumably just because he's a part of the sprite for the Sunset Hill boss, and seeing him briefly makes me remember the extended cast from the games and how much I wish they had just made a cartoon about them instead of a bunch of stock characters wearing the skin of Sonic's friends, but then Gemerl just explodes with the boss machine at the end while Eggman is shown to get away so I guess Gemerl just dies in this flashback

Yeah that sure happened huh

The ending

Despite having a final battle that felt like an eternity, Sonic Prime is a show that just kind of... ends. And that ending is weird and haphazard.

The understanding I had was that Sonic's normal world had "shattered" when the Paradox Prism was destroyed, and from those remnants these new worlds were created. This is why they use terms like "Shatterverse" and "Shatterspaces" and why there's shattered glass/crystal/whatever imagery everywhere. This is a broken, fragmented version of the real universe. Right? Right?? Isn't that the entire premise of the show? And therefore, if the universe has been shattered, then fixing it means putting all the shattered pieces back together. Which I would assume means that the Shatterspaces cease to exist.

So, in the ending... Sonic's world seems to just exist as another Shatterspace. Restoring the Paradox Prism doesn't seem to combine the worlds or anything, it just fixes the broken portal to Sonic's world that exists alongside all the others. So... what exactly was the point of all the shattered glass symbolism?

Things only get more confusing as the ending progresses. Shadow brings Sonic through the portal before the draining of Sonic's whatever energy makes him disappear, and they're transported back in time to right before Sonic broke the Paradox Prism. Only Sonic seems to remember what happened (Shadow might remember, but he doesn't say anything), and with the Paradox Prism never shattered, it's unclear if the Shatterspaces exist now.

I'm not particularly hung up on the time loop ending. It's very much in line with all sorts of classic morality tales like A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life, where the flawed protagonist goes through some kind of magical experience and then returns home with a new appreciation for the people in their life. It's always been pretty obvious that was the type of story they were telling. I'm more bothered by the fact that there's no time whatsoever spent on whether or not the other worlds and the characters in them continue to exist. Sonic seems to act like the worlds will go on without him before he leaves, but it's not like we get an ending scene that shows how the other worlds are doing, so they really truly might as well not exist anymore. Sonic just wraps up the adventure from the first episode when he gets home, and before he can explain what happened from his perspective he's interrupted by a mysterious energy wave from off-screen and it's off to the next adventure.

(Despite this odd cliffhanger ending, the show is extremely over and not coming back. I have to imagine this is just a "the adventures never end" type ending and not a hint that more shit is going on with the Paradox Prism.)

This ending is also a terrible resolution to Nine's whole arc, despite him being the driving force of so much of the show. The way I see it, there are are three possible fates for him:

The Shatterspaces continue existing, and things go as Sonic expects them to go. Nine is allowed to make the Grim into his own little utopia, and everyone else leaves him alone instead of punishing him for all the trouble he caused. Instead of finding love and acceptance so he can heal from a lifetime of bullying and loneliness, Nine is allowed to run away, isolating himself from every other living being in the multiverse, and live alone as the god of an empty world with only his own creations as company. Sonic was his only friend, and he's gone forever now.

The Shatterspaces continue existing, but because of the time travel ending, most of the events of the show never happened. Sonic never helped defeat the Chaos Council, so they still control New Yolk City. Nine is back to living in this dystopian city with no friends. He never met Sonic.

The Shatterspaces have been erased. After fighting so hard for his right to exist as his own person and not just a "wrong" version of Tails, when the timeline is altered, he just... stops existing. Along with almost every other character in the show.

Do I even need to explain why these are all unsatisfying?

Misc. thoughts

I skimmed over this, but a lot of the final season is just spent seeing Sonic's friends bicker with the Chaos Council and then Sonic has to beg them to get along to save the universe. It gets old.

We also never really got an explanation for why the Chaos Council exists. They can't have come from other Shatterspaces because there ARE no other Shatterspaces. If the original Eggman was just split into five guys or time travel was involved or whatever, it never comes up. I can live with this, but it seems like an odd omission for a children's show that's constantly bogged down in technobabble explaining the mechanics of its extremely small and finite multiverse.

I have no idea where Shadow was for the first part of the final battle. I figured Nine must have captured him off-screen after Sonic first left the Grim, but Shadow was just... hanging around until his cue in the script, I guess?

Sonic saying "help a brother up" to Shadow was funny

Hipster Eggman pointing to one of the few nameless extras who tagged along for the final battle and going "Who are you? Seriously, does anyone know who this is?" was the only funny thing he did in the entire show

Mangy Tails randomly pressing buttons on the Chaos Council's generator like a curious animal and managing to improve its output was cute

Rusty Rose randomly realizes that the Birdie in her chest actually isn't being used as a power source, and that the Chaos Council was just... using that to manipulate her, somehow? I don't really know how that works but whatever

The Sonic Advance 3 flashback uses the actual boss music from the game, but they can't use the real Sunset Hill theme because they didn't wanna pay Masato Nakamura for using the Green Hill motif, I guess

To my fellow fans of bad games: did you know that Man of Action wrote the story for the bizarre Square Enix game The Quiet Man? The one where the lengthy FMV cutscenes play out with muffled audio and no subtitles because the protagonist is deaf, so you can't tell what's going on? And you had to do a New Game+ playthrough to actually hear the audio and understand what's going on? The worst-reviewed game of 2018? That one? I only learned that recently and it blew me away

So yeah, that's the end of the show. I didn't like it, and I don't think I liked the show much as a whole. I am far from alone in this sentiment, but the reasons why people dislike the show... those vary a bit.

The canon conundrum

More than anything else, it seems like most other discourse surrounding this show has been consumed by one talking point:

How can this be canon? Why is it canon?

I want to state very clearly up front that I, too, am a person who's noticed and complained about the inconsistencies with the games in Sonic Prime. Some of the characters are a bit off - or, you know, completely unrecognizable when discussing the writing of some of the AU counterparts. I think it's lame to say Sonic and friends all live in Green Hill and act like that's the entirety of their world. That sort of thing. But if Sega says it's canon to everything else? Sure. Fine. There's weirder shit in the canon.

Really, most of this can be explained away pretty easily. The show was written at a time when Sega was still figuring shit out and there were looser restrictions. Why does Sonic act a little more immature? Probably just because Prime is aiming for a slightly younger audience than the games or the IDW comics. (And also it's, y'know, written by Man of Action, who people have accused of only knowing how to write one kind of protagonist for years.) Why do Sonic and friends live in Green Hill? Because that's the most recognizable location from the games, and the game world doesn't get enough screentime to justify modeling multiple different environments, so they just focus on Green Hill. Why is this considered canon to the games? Because this is the first Sonic cartoon that outright references events from the games as things that have happened to Sonic in the past.

But announcing early on that Prime would be canon certainly let fans' imaginations wander. It was one of the few things we knew about the show before it premiered. People wondered if characters from the games and comics who had never made any appearances in Sonic cartoons might get their time in the spotlight. We wondered if it would tie into the lore or any existing storylines in interesting ways, like the IDW comics do. But above all else, we hoped that its canon status would mean that Sonic Prime would finally be the Sonic cartoon that was faithful to the source material with no catches. We've literally never seen the actual world of the games brought to life in a TV show. Sonic X came the closest, but that still took its liberties. And so hype built for this Canon Sonic Cartoon.

And then it actually came out, and after a brief intro in Green Hill based loosely on the games, it spent most of its running time focusing on things like "what if there was a version of Eggman who was a bratty teen who just wanted to play video games?" The disappointment among fans is understandable. I am disappointed. Look at how much I've bitched about this aggressively mid cartoon.

Some fans, however, came up with an elaborate theory about the series. You see, when asked about the show's place in the game timeline during a live Q&A, Ian Flynn (who only served as a consultant on Sonic Prime and did not write any of it) said this:

"I cannot answer because I know the answer, and you haven't finished watching the show yet."

A couple days later, when answering another question about Prime's place in the timeline and also about a writing discrepancy, he said this:

"As to where it fits on the timeline, I can't speak to it because that would spoil the show to a degree. So you're just gonna have to wait 'til it's done. Towards the other point, I don't know how much I can say, so it's probably better that I not comment. That's a really dissatisfying answer, I know, I'm sorry, but my hands are kinda tied on that one."

I feel the need to quote Ian directly here, because these very basic statements about how he can't talk about behind the scenes shit or anything from unreleased episodes was GREATLY misinterpreted by the fandom. People clung onto Ian's claim that we had to keep watching like a life preserver. Some took it as Ian saying that the ending would explain everything. Finally, we'd have a definitive answer for every little discrepancy and the apparent differences in worldbuilding. An explanation for why Sega and the producers repeatedly insist this show HAS to be canon.

And to these fans, the only explanation that made any sense... would be if the ending of Sonic Prime pulled a Flashpoint.

As this theory explained, the Sonic we were following in Sonic Prime wasn't the Sonic we know from the games and the IDW comics, and likewise the world he comes from isn't really the game world. This is a different Sonic who fights a different Eggman in a world that's literally just Green Hill. It was a hint that something was off all along! But in the end of the series, this Sonic would sacrifice himself to merge all of the Shatter Spaces together and form a brand new world, and that would be the more visually diverse world of the games and comics. According to this theory, Sonic Prime was canon because it was a new origin story for the entire franchise.

I want you to really stop and think about how asinine of an origin story this would be. Really drink this in. The idea that there was another, slightly different version of Sonic who went on a kinda shitty multiverse adventure and then sacrificed himself to create the real Sonic that we've known since 1991. People convinced themselves this made more sense than the simple explanation that a different team of writers got some stuff wrong and Sega didn't make them change it. Interviews where producers talked about drawing on Sonic's "mythology" (ie: they reference the games in the show) were taken very literally - they must be saying that Prime's story is mythological in nature, and that this show would be integral to the games' mythology. Why bother making a show that's canon if it's not going to be crucial to that canon, after all?

The final episodes dropped, and none of this happened. Because of course it didn't. It was all Sherlock fandom-level copium. But fans were left confused by the lack of a grand reveal of where Sonic Prime fits in the timeline, believing they had been promised this, and they turned to Ian for an explanation. Ian's answer:

It doesn't matter, b/c Prime wipes itself out. It's sometime after Advance 3*, but otherwise, it's moot. I didn't want to sour anyone's expectations or investment by spoiling how Prime resolves, that's all. If you enjoyed it, awesome. Savor it. If you didn't, then you can safely ignore it. Simple as that.

* About a trillion people have um, actually'd Ian to point out Orbot and Cubot briefly appear in the show, but if we're really being pedantic here we don't actually know how long before Colors Eggman built Orbot and Cubot, so it wouldn't be fully accurate to say a story featuring Orbot and Cubot couldn't be set before Colors. Either way, a story set anywhere around Colors, or at any point later than that, could still be described as "sometime after Advance 3." Advance 3 is just the most recent game that has specific in-game events referenced in the show. Yes I can feel myself morphing into the nerd emoji before your very eyes

Anyway, this is the latest reason Ian is getting death threats on Twitter. This time it's over a show he barely even had any input on!

I'll cut to the chase. It is truly wild to me that people are getting this heated over canonical inconsistencies in a series as historically inconsistent as Sonic, to the point that they think threatening Ian is justified. The aesthetics of the entire world Sonic inhabits change every other game. Sonic Chronicles may no longer be canon due to the Penders lawsuits, but it was canon at one point, and it took huge liberties with Sonic's world, moving Green Hill off of South Island and reinterpreting Station Square as a tiny outpost in a snowy alpine forest region. Characters' personalities change from writer to writer and based on what Sega wants at the time, with some being WILDLY different across different games. One game Sonic will be stoic and cool, the next he thinks "Baldy McNosehair" is the funniest thing ever. Sega's STILL trying to figure out what Amy's personality is supposed to be. We still don't have the explanation for how the two seemingly contradictory backstories for Blaze can fit together. There have been multiple huge, sweeping retcons, and retcons to those retcons. Sonic Forces claims that Classic Sonic is from an entirely different universe than Modern Sonic, and the plot only makes any sense if that's true - otherwise, Modern Sonic would have already known Eggman was going to beat him and take over the world when he did, because his younger self had already lived through that war. All of that makes no sense in the newly reunified timeline, but Forces is very much still canon.

For fuck's sake, we're talking about the series where Eggman blew up half the moon and then it looked completely normal in every other game after, explained away as "the moon just rotated so we can't see the destroyed side from Earth." This has never, ever, ever been a franchise where everything lines up perfectly with no issues. It's not that serious.

The real core problem with Prime isn't that things don't line up 100% with our current understanding of canon, or that Sonic's characterization means this can't be the real Sonic, or anything like that. The problem, as I've been saying this whole time, is that the story is bad. None of these discrepancies would truly matter if the story was better. They'd just be nitpicks. The fact that Sonic and friends live in Green Hill would be the farthest thing from my mind if the drama was more engaging, if the villains were better, if the jokes were actually funny, if more of the alternate universe counterparts of Sonic's friends had more than one generic character trait each, if the multiverse was more creative and varied, if the final seven episodes of this show didn't devolve into the third act of an MCU movie and then just arbitrarily end, if Nine's character arc actually had a satisfying conclusion instead of ending with either isolation or nonexistence. Maybe we'd be seeing people talk about more than just whether or not it should be considered canon if the writing was any good.

"Canon" is not real, and it sure as hell isn't worth sending people death threats over. It's a storytelling tool. Real human beings decide what does and doesn't go into that canon, or how much they do or don't want to draw on past stories, when creating a new story. Serving that canon is secondary to creating a story where the emotional truth resonates with the audience. And Sonic Prime failed to do that. That is its true failing.

And finally, to close out...

Since people will ask, here are my current ranking of the Sonic TV shows, now that Prime is finished.

Sonic Boom

Sonic SatAM

Sonic X

The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic Prime

Sonic Underground

Yes, I'd say Boom is my favorite. It's far from my ideal Sonic cartoon, but it gets a lot of points for being as funny as it is. But the top four are all shows I'd say I like, more or less. They all have their pros and cons.

So now, uh... I guess let's hope the live action Knuckles show coming to Paramount+ is better than the underwhelming synopsis of "Knuckles helps deputy sheriff Wade train in the ways of the echidna warrior" would imply? Maybe we'll get lucky?

#tkp post #other media

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space-dreams-world · 3 months ago

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Another twin Au: D and T twins

D and T twins part 2: more info on the twins

When Danyal was pretty young, by accident, he tripped into the pits when no one was looking and came out fine, by after his trip he had gained some abilities that while he wanted to share with his sister, her treated of him was pretty negative and kept to himself, in fact after this he spent his time at the All-Caste to hone his skills partly, but distant himself from his sister.

During this time, he was contacted by a Deity named Chronos/ Clockwork who promised him some clarity on the future of the League as well as some insight into his family and his place in the league.

Now, Danyal knew that the League was not a good nor safe environment to promote the betterment of others, but had a fate that maybe it could change. Both himself and his sister were trained in the art of combat and assassination, but Danyal excelled better in emotional manipulation, strategy and the element of surprise, while his sister was the brutal attacker with her deadly charms.

Talia forgot due to trauma, that one of Ra's tests was to have some assassins assassinate them in their sleep, but one was a little more handsy than they should of, so when Danyal heard his sister's quiet tears, Danyal was there and with quick efficiency and brutally the assassin was dismembered into chunks that Talia had to change sleeping quarters and they could never really get rid of the bloodstains in that room. (This hints at some aggression that can be seen in Dan Phantom)

This is where Ra took a personal interest in Danyal and had mandatory sessions with him. During or after some sessions, Danyal was able to get into Ra's journal without being caught and he read the first-hand account of Ra's deeds. Danyal is appalled by this but understands that from an early age, his father has been mentally unwell from his Lazarus pits baths and that whatever remains is his brain struggling to process all the years he has been alive and that his mistreatment of his sister is due to old ways thinking. After the failed switch between Danyal and Ra, Ra trained his sister to be on equal footing as her brother, but without the spiritual resilience Danyal had.

[During Danyal's trip into the Danny Phantom universe, Danyal had been reduced to being reborn again into the Fenton Family and lived his 14 years ( and experienced his sister's frustrations with a "Golden child" sibling with Jazz) with them until his accident. Danyal, now Danny was good friends with both Tucker Foley and Sam Manson but had some reservations about their goals in befriending him. With Danny's new abilities, he dons the character of Ghost superhero as he had opened the portal and was partially responsible for its work.

Danny played the role of a failing high student who was bullied by peers,( a Clark Kent/Superman role) cut to the episodes where Danny deals with enemies such as Vlad, Freakshow, the GIW, the Observants, Valerie, Pariah Dark and any other big names. Danny had made friends with some of the ghosts including the deity Clockwork after a false assassination attempt and had learned the true nature of the Lazarus pits i.e. ectoplasm. Danny doesn't really entertain the idea of dating but accepts that he has preferences for strong driven individuals...batman.

At the end of the series, not including Phantom Planet, the Sr. Fentons have discovered Danny's true identity as Phantom as well as Danyal Al Ghul that he briefed to his sister, his clone (That after being discovered and rescued from Vlad was kept in the Zone to properly stabilize) and friends some time ago, the Fentons are outraged and in a move of pure idiocy, they blow up their portal that blows their home up and killing them and turning them into ghosts.

They spend their afterlives in ghost zone prisons, learning to correct their biases in death. Jazz ends with either the Foleys or Mister Lancer as Danyal is declared dead at the scene along with his parents. (He's not but once he gets back to his dimension, and Jazz has finished her education she will join him. Sam and Tucker may summon him, but he is not bringing them as he feels that there is no need for them to join him in the assassination and Danny is mentally older than them both as he played Danny as he never experienced normal childhood. Even if Sam harbours a crush on him, he has stated that he reserved his affections for someone else.]

More in part 3...

#dp x dc #dpxdc #danny phantom #dc x dp #danny fenton #au #batman #the fentons #sam manson #tucker foley #clockwork #jazz fenton #dani phantom #vlad plasmius #ra's al ghul #talia al ghul #all-caste #DC into DP back to DC #D and T twins Part 2

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bokutoasavillain · 9 months ago

Note

Hello! Could you recommend your favorite System fanfictions?

I have put this off for so long bc I have so many that I love and making a list that big seemed terrifying but I love sharing fanfics so here’s my best attempt <3

Bingqiu:

Tale Within A Tale

Rated T, It is so good!! The concept is so clever and it is such a satisfying read<33

it's you I find like a ghost in my mind

Rated M, a great identity reveal with a lot of dreamsharing

Treading Well-Worn Paths

Rated T, post-canon sqq turns into a kid and yqy and lbh look after him. I cannot tell you how I love this. The characterization, the dynamics, the identity reveal are all so perfect. Everything progresses so naturally and it is so good. The ending is a bit bittersweet and honestly it’s so fitting and just read this it’s perfect

We Are Not Wise

Rated T, in an au where cultivators draw their swords from their souls, sj takes in sy (a bit of blackmailing included). Sy and lbh are both disciples and soulmates. The focus is more on the relationship between sy and sj and it’s probably one of my favorite ways their relationship is portrayed. It is heavier on the angst and I was crying. It is so beautiful <33

The Mortifying Ordeal Of Being Known

Rated T, such a sweet and lighthearted post-canon truth spell fic <33

side effects may include indefinite photosensitivity

This is a three part series taking place post-canon. It’s about relationship development and also character development bc these two are so so young and have so much time to still grow. It is so sweet and also has some genderqueer bingqiu (as a treat)

Also one of my favorite quotes ever that still makes me cry to this day:

“I think I am mourning something that never existed to begin with,” […]“I think I am the thing that never existed to begin with.” (It’s in the third fic)

lonely little heartbeat

Rated E, lbh reverse transmigrates at 15 (I don’t want to spoil it but it’s great)

colored bright green

Rated T, Binghe also transmigrates to pidw and finds out he’s not the only one! It’s a slow burn and so sweet

Now Entering Incognito Mode!

Rated E, sqq flees cqms while lbh is in the abyss and he meets a mysterious young lady, I don’t want to spoil this it is soooo good!!!

I'll make the world safe and sound for you

Rated M, babytrapping (kinda?) its sweet and beautiful

go with the flow

Rated T, no plot just sweet post-canon husbands

End Racism in the OTW -- Infinite First Dates

Rated M, set during the five years sqq is dead, a lot of dream sharing. It’s really fun and lovely and just perfect <33

Type Casting

Rated E, oh god this one is soooo good!! What if sqqs mushroom body was that of a woman? And what if he didn’t remember his death?? And what if he himself assigned himself the role of the female lead bc well she’s a woman now so she obviously has to marry lbh right? Right???

Also sqqs inner monologue is so perfect and so good!!!!

I love this one so much pleeeeaase read it!!

the adventure of tiny bing

Rated E, tiny bingbing!! They’re friends and husbands and silly your honor

Error 404: Shizun Not Found?

Rated M, such a unique concept done so well

Promise Me Your Heart

Rated T, such a sweet and so underrated fic! I love it so much it fills me with all the mushy sweet feelings and it’s so tender and romantic and just sooo sweet <33

We’ll Meet While Rain is Falling

Rated E, amnesia that gets fixed by you guessed it papapa!! (It’s really sweet and tender)

Size Empress

Rated E, genderqueer sqq has a dream and well it progresses really well

Benign Deviations

Rated M, Bingge and Bingmei switch places and it’s amazing

shallow water weather

Rated T, MERMAID BINGQIU!! It’s so good (also anything my nyoomerr is amazing so read them all)

continued

Rated T, this one is really hard to describe so just go and read it it’s so fun and hilarious

To Boil a Frog

Rated M, the narrator in this one is so good and fun and overall it’s great

a gentler lesson

Rated T, KISSES!! SOO MANY KISSES!!!!

I (immortal, M) think I might be developing feelings for my roommate (27M). Help!!!

Rated M, so stupid so good just what it says in the title

A Transmigrator and a Time Traveler Walk Into the Bamboo House

Rated T, I just really love this one! Definitely so worth reading (I might have read it twice)

open my lungs to let you in

Rated T, also one I’ve reread a few times

Can't we just skip to the end?

Rated E, time travel baby! This and the sequels are so good!!

night of yearning

Rated E, lbh gets selective amnesia, this absolutely destroyed my soul

As to Me, As to You

Rated T, such an amazing concept with so much potential for future shenanigans and overall so satisfying

right from the start, I gave you my heart

Rated T, sqq is under an obedience curse when the jinlan reunion happens what could possibly go wrong?

Cumplane:

slow dance with you

Rated T, Kissies<33

I've got $400 and a really bad idea

Rated T, fake dating hehehe

Cumplane Summary Archive

Rated T, Outsider pov and overall hilarious

huddle for warmth

Rated G, so sweet and funny

Bros before... well everything I guess

Rated T, theyre a family <33

Moshang:

The Pen is Mightier

Rated E, Mbj seducing his husband <33

speak your mind

Rated T, sweet and touch starved

technically our marriage is saved

Rated T, so fun

Cold Hands, Warm Heart

Rated T, this is so good! It destroyed me emotionally and just ugh. My notes after reading it: „My chest hurt and oh my god this is perfect and painful and beautiful“

A Child Once

Rated T, post-canon sqh gets deaged and it’s really good

retrograde

Rated T, amnesia and misunderstandings work out

maine nazaron se tujhe chu liya

Rated M, soulmate marks and a bit of mystery (kinda)

If Not You

Rated E, fuck or die and it’s really good. I stayed up reading this until I could not see properly and I was dizzy

Ok this is it! I went through all my bookmarks for this and it took me the entire day. I hope you enjoy and if you ever need anything specific I can probably find it for you<3

#svsss #svsss fanfiction #bingqiu #cumplane #moshang #fafa says #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #shang qinghua #mobei jun #the scum villain's self saving system #asks

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queerfables · 1 year ago

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Why all the crowd scenes look the same, aka: Something is WRONG in Soho

I'm not even gonna tease and draw this out because it's so cool it doesn't need the fanfare. Ready?

Season 2 takes place over the course of 5 days. During that time, most of the passersby in Soho - maybe even all of them - stay exactly the same. It's the same people every day, wearing the exact same clothes, and they wander through the neighbourhood in paths that don't make any sense. You won't be able to unsee it. I can't believe it's taken us this long to realise.

Don't believe me? Rewatch the scene from 2x03, I Know Where I'm Going where Shax confronts Crowley outside the bookshop, appearing in a series of different guises. Pay attention to the people going past.

I've marked out five people you see on screen when Crowley first exits the bookshop at 39:37:

Numbers 1, 2 and 3 are following the path right. Number 4 follows the path left. Number 5 crosses the road.

Here the five people are again, at 40:19, when Crowley goes to return to the bookshop:

Number 5 is still visible in the distance, in the direction she walked in. This makes sense! But numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 are rounding the same corner they just passed. It's as though 1, 2 and 3 all decided to turn and head back the way they came just 40 seconds ago, and number 4 has circled the block to join them.

This on its own would be super weird, but they're not the only people to do that in this scene. The man in the purple sweater from the first picture crosses the road, then appears back next to the bookshop, then starts walking back the way he came again.

Here's the part that made me absolutely certain, though. At 40:05, a man wearing an orange hoodie with blue sleeves walks past Crowley, who is heading towards the bookshop entrance.

The camera cuts to a view from behind Crowley, and a moment later, at 40:08...

He reappears in front of Crowley and walks past him again.

It's such a distinctive outfit, there's no mistaking it. They are absolutely fucking with the background characters and they are absolutely doing it on purpose.

Your turn. There are at least three other characters in this scene who pass by multiple times. Watch it again and try to spot them.

This scene is really chaotic and obvious, but the phenomena I'm talking about is much bigger than just one scene. Let's go back to the first thing I said: the background characters don't change. All our leads do. Maggie and Nina wear distinctive outfits, clearly demarcating each new day. Even Crowley and Aziraphale, who in season 1 were like cartoon characters with wardrobes full of identical clothing, vary their looks. Crowley changes his (very subtly) each day; Aziraphale is less rigid on timing, but he has a few different coats that he switches between. The background characters, on the other hand, wear the same outfits every single day. They walk by on the street but they never actually seem to have a destination. They sit in the coffee shop or pub and don't eat or drink anything, and nearly everyone leaves together exactly on closing time. It's eerie.

For reference's sake, here's a rough timeline of season 2, with pictures of Maggie and Nina's outfits to show the passing of time. I had to outsource this section because my post was too image heavy, lol. The main point I wanted to make is that five days go by.

Five days, and all the same faces keep showing up in the background, and almost none of them change their clothes. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but there's no way it's an accident. It might, in fact, be a game changer. To me this is proof positive that something is not as it seems. I've been a massive Clue skeptic, adamant that I'd only be convinced by the most unambiguous evidence, and honestly? This is enough to move the dials. It's too big for me to ignore. Whatever grand explanation of Good Omens we come up with has to account for this. I don't have it yet, but my current working theories are that Crowley and Aziraphale are under some seriously heavy surveillance, that time warping is involved, or that reality itself is not what it seems.

It would take a really long time for me to go through all of the background characters who turn up over and over but I do want to show you what I'm talking about. To wrap up, then, I'm going to pick out some memorable characters and walk you through a few of their appearances through the week. I highly recommend looking out for this yourself on your next rewatch and seeing how many other characters you can recognise.

Yellow Skirt

The first person I kept coming back to as being not quite right. You probably remember her from the first episode - she's the one who waves and walks past Maggie and Nina the night they're locked in together. Incidentally, she's also Person Number 3 in the scene with Shax.

Day 1 (2x01 - 36:20):

Day 2 (2x02 - 42:03)

Day 3 (2x03 - 06:36)

Day 5 (2x06 - 30:00)

Coolest Leather Jacket In The World

It's not so easy to recognise people wearing lots of nondescript dark colours, but I love his hair and his jacket, so he stood out to me. I think there might be a lot more people who are wearing fairly nondescript clothes who I just can't recognise from episode to episode.

Day 2 (2x02 - 16:44)

Day 4 (2x04 - 41:20)

Day 5 (2x06 - 29:20)

Dressed In Mustard

Ms Mustard shows up everywhere. If you want to see what I mean about their paths not making sense, pay attention when she comes on screen, because she'll often show up a few times in succession and walk very purposefully to nowhere in particular. The thing that she is doing, essentially, is behaving like an extra in a tv show. Which of course she is, but you're supposed to make that invisible by not having the same person go back and forth in the same scene, or changing up their outfit each in-universe day to give the sense time is passing. Not doing that is a really deliberate choice.

Day 1 (2x01 - 22:37)

Day 2 (2x02 - 42:03)

Day 3 (2x03 - 01:49)

Day 3 (2x03 - 37:07)

Day 5 (2x06 - 29:59)

Swishy Dress

This character shows up a lot in the first episode. I've struggled to find her in later episodes, though. None of the characters seem to follow the same patterns or show up to equal extents each day, which makes me think this isn't a straightforward time loop. I haven't actually cross referenced character appearances to in world times, though. Possibly this is a project for someone who's more across the time-related shenanigans than me.

Day 1 (2x01 - 22:43)

Day 3 (2x03 - 07:01)

Yellow Vest

I've only seen this guy a handful of times, always around the French restaurant. I wonder if there's significance to that.

Day 2 (2x02 - 41:06)

Day 4 (2x05 - 12:49)

Fuzzy Blue Coat

Another background character who shows up frequently. The blue doesn't stand out quite as much as the yellows and reds some characters wear, but it's very distinctive.

While we're getting a lot of shots of the street, it's worth noting that I'm pretty sure the vehicles we see are also just the same few cars repeating each day. A lot of them are in neutral silvers and monochrome, but there's a couple of blue cars, one red, and one black and white that I'm fairly sure I've seen over and over through the season.

Day 1 (2x01 - 22:45)

Day 2 (2x02 - 42:04)

Day 3 (2x03 - 02:00)

Day 5 (2x06 - 40:10)

Day 5 (2x06 - 48:56)

Day 5 (2x06 - 50:06)

One final note: Whatever this is, Nina's employee who you see in the background at the coffeeshop sometimes isn't affected by it. He's wearing different outfits each day. On the other hand, some of the other shopkeepers do seem affected. I'm fairly sure Mr Brown and Mrs Sandwich wear the same outfits a few different days, only changing because of Aziraphale at the ball.

And that's it! Thanks for reading and I hope your mind is blown as much as mine is.

EDIT:

Hey I don't mind anyone pointing out production reasons that this might be the case or disagreeing with my analysis (over-analysis, some might say 😉). Please be kind about it, though. I'm not ignorant of the practical limitations involved in film making, but some of these costumes were really distinctive in a way I thought might be intended to draw attention.

For those of you who do find this theory convincing, I feel I should mention that I was working under the assumption that this stuff would have taken a few days to film, even filming it all together. That would strongly suggest that the actors were deliberately costumed the exact same way over multiple days of shooting, which made me think it had to be purposeful. @coranax was kind enough to point out, though, that behind the scenes videos said the extras were filmed separately to the main actors because of Covid protocols. In that case, they could have done it in just one day and that weakens my confidence in its intentionality.

Finally, all of my points about the scene with Shax in 2x03 stand. That was not a case of accidental continuity errors, it was really elegantly choreographed to enhance the tension in the scene. I say that with confidence because the extras are doing exactly what Shax is doing: circling Crowley, appearing where he doesn't expect them, creating a whirlwind sense of being off balance and out of control. I think it's really cool and effective, whether there's a deeper meaning to it or not.

#good omens #good omens meta #fable talks good omens

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msperfect777 · 1 year ago

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how to know you are only consciousness

⭐️part one of the understanding consciousness & non dualism series

you are consciousness. you are not the body or the mind or the ego or the thoughts or experiences; those are what you think you are, they are the false self because the real you is....consciousness.

nothing can exist without you being conscious of it first. things exist because you are aware of them and as consciousness, you are always aware and can only be aware. for example, you are aware of these words right now right? 10 seconds ago you were not aware of the wall or sky above you so it did not exist to you 10 seconds ago. most likely, you are now aware of the wall/sky bc i pointed it out so now, the wall/sky exists to you. you are consciousness/awareness and you are always aware of something.

since you are always aware and things only exist when you become of aware of them, the only thing you are is awareness = consciousness.

"you" are looking at your screen right now and "you" read these words but what is the thing that acknowledges or notices that the screen is there or that the words are there? consciousness, awareness. look at "your" shirt or hand or an object and tell me how do you know its there. you might say its because you see it with "your" eyes or you feel it on "your body" but that would be incorrect. you are only consciousness; you are not the human body. the shirt and words are there bc you are aware of them; you (consciousness) are observing them. i use quotations on the "you" to emphasize the fact that this human body is not you, that is your false self:

(human body, ego, emotions, thoughts = false self ; consciousness, awareness, the observer, imagination = your true self, identity)

let me give you another scenario: let say you cannot see anything, you cannot hear, touch, taste, or smell anything. you would still be aware and know that you are still present because you are always consciousness and you are always aware. the removal of the five senses and human body cannot remove the fact that you are awareness. the five senses do not matter because consciousness is all there is. if there was no human body, you would still be aware because consciousness / awareness is your true identity. think about it though: if there were no five senses, you would still be aware. this proves that the five senses are not you, the human body is not you, consciousness is what you really are and only are.

let me speak more about the human body and thoughts, emotions, etc. when "you" (your false self / human body) experiences pain, that comes and goes therefore its temporary. you, consciousness, is only aware of that pain and when you think you are the human body, you think that you are experiencing this pain which is false. let me give you a personal example: one day i was sitting on my couch doing my homework and everything was quiet but i got up and i kicked down my big ass metal water bottle that was on the floor and it fell over and made a really loud noise. since i forgot the water bottle was there and because i got scared of the sudden noise, i literally heard and felt my heart beating so loud. at the same time, it was raining quietly outside and i remember hearing my heart beating but i thought no, i hear it bc im aware of it so i turned my attention to the sound of rain outside (i became aware of the rain) and when i did, i literally didnt hear my heart beating anymore bc i was not aware of it and i was aware of the rain instead; my beating heart did not exist in that moment. then i became aware of my heart beating again instead of the rain and i heard and felt my heart again and not the rain.

the point of this story is that, that "pain" or "feeling" left once i was not aware of it anymore. it was temporary because my true self (consciousness) was not really feeling that pain; the false self felt the pain of "my" heart beating only because i was aware of it. same thing applies with thoughts, they are temporary, they come and go while consciousness never leaves. "you" think you are the one who thinks these thoughts which is false. why? ... because you are only awareness. these thoughts exist only bc you are aware of them. as consciousness, you can only be aware, you can only be the observer; you cannot experience pain, pleasure, etc. you only observe, be aware of that pain and pleasure. the ego is also the false self. ego = thoughts, beliefs, emotions. when you think that learning about non dualism is hard, that the ego that makes it seem hard to understand, thats not the real you (consciousness).

now you know that you are not the human body, you are consciousness that is observing, being aware of the human body and those so called experiences and feelings, etc.

#nonduality #nondualism #non duality #non dualism #consciousness #conscious awareness #advaita #observer #spirituality #enlightenedconsciousness #enlightenment #self care #self love #manifesation #manifesting #law of assumption

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verm1c1de · 1 year ago

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Zims entire personality is completely fabricated

Let me explain.

Zim, as we know him, is just a mask made up by.. well, Zim.

Zim doesn’t exist.

Because Zim, at his most genuine, loves.

And Zim is not supposed to love.

It’s been thrown around throughout the entire course of the series that Zim is, in fact, a very intelligent individual. Moreso than irkens, renowned technology-thieves, are known to be. It’s for this fact, that it would make sense, that Zim would not be completely ignorant of how the rest of Irken society views him.

The defect, the worst irken to ever exist, et cetera.

There’s no way to be that obtuse about your own infamy, and if there is, there’s enough hints and clues in the series to allow viewers to come to the conclusion that Zim isn’t unaware of it all.

And no, this is not a “Zim is a genius and knows absolutely everything” post. He’s definitely gullible. He absolutely has the worst priorities, he doesn’t know when to quit, too stubborn and set in his own beliefs, but he does Know a lot more than he lets on.

Multiple instances of Tallest Purple nearly revealing the truth about Zim’s mission or being too careless with his words are brushed away, either spoken over by Red or ignored completely by Zim, as if he didn’t hear it at all. Similarly, Sizz-Lorr exists as tangible evidence of everything wrong with Zim’s falsified identity as an invader. He shows up for one episode and that episode introduces some of the most important building on Zim’s coding and the consequences derived from his destructive actions on Irk. And his response to this, is to flat out deny it. Because with Purple, he has the expectation to not be aware. With Sizz-Lorr, everything he’s done is laid out in front of him, forcing him to acknowledge it. He won’t.

Zim, at his most genuine, is paranoid.

Paranoid enough to fabricate an entire personality from nothing after having the entirety of Irken knowledge downloaded into his PAK, only minutes after having been freed from his tube.

Zim is a bootlicker. Zim couldn’t care less about the Tallest. Zim seeks absolution from the Tallest because he knows that he was Made Wrong and that the things he’s done are unforgivable, but he can’t help himself. Zim only goes out of his way to gain their attention because he knows that’s what the average irken desires. All of these are true.

Zim is only drawn to invading in the most superficial way possible for an irken. He enjoys the idea of invading, not because it is personally "appealing" to him in any sense of the word, but because he knows that it is for others. It's an esteemed title. An invader gets to have respect. An invader gets to be addressed directly by the Tallest.

Being an invader is the best thing. Not for him, but for his act.

He needs the act. The act will save him from his imperialistic society. The act is the worst thing to ever happen to him.

Zim is nothing without it. He’s nothing with it.

He hates the act.

(“Hey, you’re a worse flier than I am!”)

And it’s very, very likely that he hates himself because of it. Much more than anyone else could ever hate him, because their hate for him is as superficial as his allegiance to the Empire is.

Zim does not fit in on Irk because Irk doesn’t need a Zim. Irk doesn’t need an irken soldier whose sole identity is to destroy.

Which is why Zim fits in so much better on Earth as its villain. On Earth, he gets to be a part of the story, not a fool that has to force himself on stage to even have some semblance of a spotlight.

Zim was already firmly set into his role before arriving to Earth; but coming there, and meeting Dib, further instills Zim with the drive to keep it up. Dib exists to be a hero, after all! And heroes need their villains. Zim fits into that role perfectly. And of course Zim, being nothing BUT a role, is drawn to it. He'll feed into Dib's alien obsession because Dib's alien obsession fits into Zim's "character". The big bad guy that needs to be fought against.

Which makes sense.

If he's the big bad that everyone hates, he doesn't have to worry about wondering if anyone loves him, because he knows they don't.

His first words were “I love you.”

The Zim we know does not love.

The Zim we know is nothing but an elaborate, one-irken act, stuck playing the same role in the same show for as long as he draws it out for.

One which would collapse if anything ever brought attention to it.

this post would not have been made without the help of @short-and-ugly and @animatorfun. seriously. like they wrote it. they were my editors.

this is NOT a headcanon post, im for realsies. this is metatextual analysis. i genuinely believe this is what zims character is supposed to be ((even if not necessarily intentionally))

#iz #invader zim #zim #iz analysis #long post #very long post #vermi.txt #Zim Larp Theory #named soafter our google doc about it

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diejager · 10 months ago

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hii!! just so you understand, I have real brainrot because of your “Only Human” series! I love it madly tenderly and with all my heart😭😭 anyway, I saw that you have requests open, but feel free to ignore if this is not the case or I indicated something incorrectly. how about our favorite monsters and hybrids 141 with a new member of the team who is a witch??

also, sorry for my english, I use google translate☠️

Hey, no worries, I understood your request!

Spell Cw: witchy stuff, death, murder, drowning, blood and injury, fluff, magic, inaccurate understanding of magic, tell me if I missed any.

He always found it mesmerising, the soothing coldness of your spell working its magic on him, gleaming like water embracing his bleeding wound, the skin ripped apart at the middle and flesh throbbing painfully. It wasn’t anything new, pain wasn’t a stranger to him, rather a friend, a brother to him. Pain was a repetitive thing in his life, wound after wound bleeding him, and scar after scar painting his skin, he’d gotten so used to it that the stripes on his face were now an integral part of his identity, pushing the facade of a tiger if he didn’t have his ears and tail out.

But with you, everything had smoothed over to a soft thrum, like the warm waves cradling his shifted body, your magic, attuned to their aches through your bond and being, worked to cure everything to ensure that the pack he grew to love and care for stayed safe. Your being was like a body of water - the ocean - a beauty of nature when calm, but a terror when enraged, storms crashing against land and causing devastation in moments of fury. You were as dangerous as you could be caring and loving —just like the sea.

“Why didn’t you come see me first?” You sighed, tone laced with amused disappointment, brows tensed but your pretty lips quipped up, “I thought I put you in control of this Horangi…”

You worked your magic on König, fingers weaving invisible threads over his bleeding forearm, pulling the strings of puppet of flesh and bone, controlling the sinuous fibre of his skin to sew itself back. Horangi watched his friend’s wound steadily close up, injury shrinking with every pull of your finger until all that was left was the lingering scent of your cool magic and the metallic odour of blood.

“König is stubborn, ” Horangi chuckled, flashing you a sly smirk despite your exasperated expression, “Big too. I can’t move him.”

“And I can?” You scoffed, finishing off your skin weaving with a soft pet on his arm, letting König admire your work like a child with a new toy even though you’d gone through the same process over and over in the past, König had a habit of collecting scars as often as he toppled his enemies.

Your magic wasn’t only used in healing, you were an adaptive soul, your comfort found itself in water, and water meant life, and life meant whatever violent fury came along with quiet calmness. And in the right situation, where Laswell sent the Task Force on a boat or by the shore, you could level the oceans at your will in anger or protection. You gave men and women a watery grave on land, drowning them in their water-made coffins to stop them from reaching your wounded comrades, glaring off at anyone who tried approaching your cover .

You had Gaz, Price and him, tending to their deeper injuries and letting them use their first aid while you kept the enemy at bay, lower lip pulled between your teeth, gnawing on the skin until it bled. Separating your attention for both healing and defence/offence demanded a lot of concentration, especially when you were sewing up Price’s deep gash on his leg, listening to his hiss and groans of pain.

“Fucking-” Horangi busied himself with wrapping the bandage and gauze over Gaz’s wound, his eyes occasionally peeking at your clenched fist that pushed out your anger through the waters you controlled, “Bastards keep coming.”

You were a puppet queen and the sea your mannequin.

“Almost done, Hunter,” Gaz hissed out when Horangi pulled too tightly on his bandage, sending you a reassuring look to calm down your raised hackle, teeth bared and eyes burning the enemies alive as much as you were depriving them of air.

This was another show of your prowess, your fingers puppeteering water, commanding it and coaxing the water’s will to follow your call, heeding your every whim. It was a majestically show, as tragic as it was beautiful, much like the cleansing of the world when the oceans flooded Earth, leaving but Noah and his wife, and couple of animals to remake the land. You were remaking the land you fought on in an imagine, to make it safer and protect them —it would tire you out for the day, Horangi will ready to help you with anything wile you doze on and off.

Taglist: @craxy-person @crowbird @dead-cipher @iwannabealocalcryptid @iizx7y @mxtokko @capricorn-anon @perfectus-in-morte @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @bvxygriimes @distracteddragoness @konigsblog @angelcakes-22 @cassiecasluciluce @ramadiiiisme @ramblingsofachaoticthinker @im-making-an-effort @love-dove-noora @jinxxangel13 @daisychainsinknots @0alk0msan @mul-pi @danielle143 @beau-min @makayla-666 @urfavsunkissedleo @notspiders @brokenpieces-72 @luvecarson @petwifed @randominstake @heartelysia @jggykhug09090 @cassiecasluciluce @hayleybarnesx @shironasumi @sparky--bunny @bloobewy @call-me-nyxx @sans-chara @infpt-zylith @sweetnanah

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exilepurify · 2 years ago

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I see people everywhere all the time raving about how flawless and satisfying MP100’s ending episode is, and I agree. But sometimes it kinda takes me aback exactly how well-planned the entire story is, especially because it began as a webcomic.

The individual relationships Mob has with the “Big Three” (Reigen, Teru, Ritsu) each follow their respective themes from start to finish, with the application of each theme to the story changing as it progresses but the major idea remaining the same—until the final arc, which is broadly split into three episodes, each featuring the culmination of the respective relationship.

Teru’s theme is strength, Ritsu’s theme is communication, and Reigen’s is acceptance.

More under the cut bc this got a little long.

We find each of the Big Three struggling with these concepts throughout the series. Teru grapples with what it really means to be strong, Ritsu struggles to open up and communicate his feelings with his brother (garnering resentment), and Reigen refuses to accept the self he hates, opting instead to build his career and his relationships out of lies to hide this despised identity.

These are also, coincidentally, things Mob is struggling most with. Mob’s terrified of his strength, he’s unwilling to open up about his guilt and self-hatred, and he outright refuses to accept his powers and his repressed self on many occasions throughout the story.

But the finale is structured to not only perfectly demonstrate and polish off the ways in which the Big Three have overcome the struggles of their themes, but also how that growth powers their love for Mob, subsequently helping Mob achieve the same growth.

In S3E10, Teru finds true strength by enduring pain and humiliation in order to save people and forge connections with others. Not only does he rescue Shigeo’s victims, but it’s his love and strength that allows him to push through Shigeo’s powers at any cost to wake Mob up internally and begin the process of ending the disaster. It’s because of Teru that Mob wakes up and realizes what he’s done, in much the same way that Mob helped Teru realize what he’d done at Black Vinegar.

In S3E11, Ritsu manages to communicate his unfiltered feelings to Shigeo for the first time and ends the tentative, repressive resentment boiling between them (both Ritsu and Mob harboring resentment for “Shigeo” specifically). He talks about how he hates this destructive side of him and how scared he’s always been, but this honest communication is what allows Ritsu to see the situation clearly beyond the scope of his repressed resentment and accept Shigeo as a part of his brother that’s not to be feared. It also opens the door from Shigeo’s end, finally knowing how his brother feels and not having to tiptoe ineffectually around the issue. Ritsu’s open and honest communication allows Mob to locate where Shigeo is being held in his psyche, opening up a channel of communication between him and his repressed self. This communication is what allows Mob to be confronted with the truth of the disaster he’s created, and this ability to talk it out with himself is crucial to ending his suffering.

Finally, in S3E12, the finale, Reigen is confronted with the ways in which he’s inadvertently worsened Mob’s condition with his inability to be genuine and makes the decision to drop the smoke screen and come clean about everything. The fear and gravity of it brings him to tears, but he bares his true self to Mob, admitting the things he’s done wrong and confronting the side of himself that he hates. He has to come to terms with this aspect of himself, even if it hurts him, and even if it hurts Mob. Self-acceptance is, in this moment, non-negotiable. Seeing Reigen’s true self in its entirety for the first time leads Mob to realize that everyone has flaws and a darker side to them, and it doesn’t make you a bad person to mess up, but you have to embrace it all unconditionally and own up to it honestly and without hesitation. Reigen, and everyone else, saw this ugly and angry side of Mob and continued to love him unhesitatingly and unfalteringly. And so, Reigen’s acceptance inspires Mob to accept Shigeo, ending the disaster and finally making Shigeo whole and happy again, unfettered.

It’s honestly fucking masterful. It makes my chest tight. ONE is genuinely something else.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 spoilers #mp100 s3 #confession arc #mp100 analysis #mp100 meta #shigeo kageyama #unknown percentage #teruki hanazawa #reigen arakata #ritsu kageyama

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sophieinwonderland · 8 months ago

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The Plurality of... Avatar: The Last Airbender

Major Spoilers For Avatar: The Last Airbender ahead! And minor spoilers of related properties.

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished.

Welcome to the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender. A world where some people are born with the gift of bending, an ancient art that allows them to control one of the four elements. But only one. Even if they came from parents who were different types of benders, each bender only gets a single element.

But there exists a single exception to this rule. The Avatar. The one person in the world who can master all four elements.

But we're not here to talk about the Avatar's cool bending powers. We're here today to talk about…

The Plurality of The Avatar

Plurality: A state of multiple self-conscious agents, or "headmates," sharing a single body.

The Avatar isn't merely a jack of all trades bender. Simply knowing how to use the four elements is only a small part of their toolbelt. And perhaps one of the least important. Despite the series placing a strong focus on the need to master all four elements, perhaps the actual most important thing about the Avatar is that they reincarnate and are connected with their past selves.

This allows each Avatar to speak to and learn from the experiences of past avatars. This is most prominent in what's called the Avatar State, a sort of super form where their eyes (and downvotes) glow as they channel the skills and abilities of all the past avatars through them.

(Art by @joeyscomics)

Aang's avatar state is a sort of blending of the avatars without a distinct identity of its own.

Additionally, there were also a couple instances through the show where Aang, the current avatar, switches into other avatars.

During the season 1 mid-season finale, The Winter Solstice, Aang first contacts Avatar Roku, his firebending predecessor. Trapped in a temple with no way out, a group stands outside the door prepared to strike as soon as the avatar steps through. They expect to see a small child walk through the doors. But what they see instead is Avatar Roku.

Once the enemies have been defeated and fled, Roku turns back into an exhausted Aang, who drops to his knees.

In season 2, this happens again with Aang switching into avatar Kyoshi. Again, sure to spirit magic, Aang physically transforms into Kyoshi.

(Obviously, real plurals don't physically transform, as cool as that would be. But spirits in the avatar universe do have shape-changing capabilities, being able to alter both their own forms and the forms of others. There are many examples in Legend of Korra and the comics, but one big one we see in A:TLA is Koh The Face Stealer, who as you can guess, steals people's faces, physically transforming their bodies. Simply put, we can accept the Avatar Spirit as having the ability to naturally shapeshift.)

So there's the basics of the Avatar's plurality. We have multiple people sharing a body. We have system-like internal communication. We have switching. And we even have a state that could be best described as blendy.

In the plural community, a system that's formed from past lives is sometimes called Fenigenic or Phoenigenic, drawing its name from the phoenix; The mythical bird that dies and is reborn from its ashes.

From Pluralpedia:

Fenigenic is a system origin that describes systems who formed from past lives in some way. They may believe they left their past life and were reborn again as a system, came into the system from a past life into the body (causing plurality), were a system in a past life and were reborn again with the same one, and/or various other scenarios. This is an intentionally broad label that can describe many different experiences.

With these established facts, without a doubt, the avatar would qualify as a Pheonigenic system.

But I want to delve even deeper. Because at its core, Avatar: The Last Airbender isn't just a story about a kid who happens to be plural. It's a story about plurality. It's a story about dissociation. About connecting with and building connections with parts of yourself. And about taking responsibility for those parts, even when you aren't actually them. And all of this is what make the series so fascinating from a plural perspective!

The Avatar State as a "Self-Defense Mechanism"

At the beginning of season 2, Aang enters the avatar state while scared of losing his friends, and talks to Roku again. Roku explains to Aang what the avatar state is.

The Avatar State is a defense mechanism, designed to empower you with the skill and knowledge of all the past Avatars. The glow is the combination of all your past lives focusing their energy through your body. In the Avatar State, you're at your most powerful... but you are also at your most vulnerable.

At this point, Aang learns that if he dies in the Avatar State, the cycle breaks and the avatar will never reincarnate again.

Let's take another look at that wording though. "The Avatar State is a defense mechanism." It's a word choice that you wouldn't expect to find in a fantasy cartoon. "Defense mechanisms" are more a psychological term, having their origins in psychoanalysis.

Why does this matter?

Because the avatar state, at its core, is a dissociative state. And dissociation has often been described as a defense mechanism itself. From Wikipedia:

In mild cases, dissociation can be regarded as a coping mechanism or defense mechanism in seeking to master, minimize or tolerate stress – including boredom or conflict.

And later when talking about traumamatic dissociation, it goes on to explain:

Symptoms of dissociation resulting from trauma may include depersonalization, psychological numbing, disengagement, or amnesia regarding the events of the abuse. It has been hypothesized that dissociation may provide a temporarily effective defense mechanism in cases of severe trauma; however, in the long term, dissociation is associated with decreased psychological functioning and adjustment.

What's interesting about the avatar state is that, while there are some times Aang goes into the Avatar State to protect himself, often he enters it as a response to stress in general.

The first couple times we see Aang go into the Avatar State, it's to physically protect himself. Once to freeze himself. Then again to fight Zuko. But the next time he enters the Avatar State, there's no danger. There's no need to use it.

This is when he's at the Southern Air Temple, and sees his old friend Monk Gyatsu. It's when he really learns and has to process that he's the last airbender and everyone he ever knew is dead.

Aang doesn't use the avatar state as a physical defense mechanism here. Rather, he enters the avatar state as a psychological defense mechanism.

It takes over because he's disengaging. He just learned something traumatic and he can't come to terms with it. He shuts down, and his friends have to reach him through the pain.

This becomes a pretty common theme throughout the series from then on. Sometimes, it's the physical danger that causes him to transform. But other times, he's triggered into this state by his friends being in danger, or from losing Appa.

Time and time again, we see the Avatar State as being triggered by extreme mental stress more often than by any sort of physical stress.

A big part of Aang's journey though the series then becomes learning to master the Avatar State and the dissociation that comes with it. To take control of it instead of letting it control him.

Avatar's Take on System Responsibility

"System responsibility" is the concept in the plural community that if one headmate does something, then the entire system of headmates is responsible for it. Some feel this is unfair, but for practicality, it makes sense. If someone steals something, then obviously you can't send only one headmate to prison. So a big part of being plural ends up having to accept that if someone else you share a body with does something wrong, even if you don't agree with it or don't even remember it, you're responsible for it.

And Avatar has its own form of this, where all Avatars have a single spirit that is reincarnated, and are therefore responsible for the actions of their past lives.

This is most exemplified in the episode Avatar Day.

In this episode, the Gaang wander into a town that's celebrating the titular Avatar Day. They see a parade with massive wooden floats of the past three Avatars. Aang, Roku and Kyoshi.

What appears to be a nice festival that the Gaang is enjoying is quickly turned on its head when a villager sets fires to the figures and the crowd begins chanting "down with the Avatar" while the figures burn.

It turns out, this town believed Avatar Kyoshi murdered their leader, Chin The Great.

In order to prove he wasn't a murderer, Aang volunteers to stand trial. Even though Aang and Kyoshi are separate people in a way... in another, they aren't. And Kyoshi being a murderer is something that would continue to follow Aang around.

So he agrees to go on trial, and refuses encouragement from his friends to escape. And he could escape if wanted to.

When viewed through the lens of a plural system, what we see here is a demonstration of system responsibility, where Aang is showing himself willing to take responsibility for the actions of past Avatars.

Later in the episode, Katara decides that they need to call Kyoshi herself to prove their innocence, and dresses Aang in Kyoshi's clothes to "see if it might trigger something."

And it actually does! This stunt causes Kyoshi to take front! (With a full body transformation because spirit stuff.)

In the end, Kyoshi confesses to killing Chin, who she calls Chin the Conqueror, and Aang is willing to accept the outcome of the trial.

It's not just this one episode though. It's a running theme of the series.

The franchise even.

In season 3, Roku reveals that the whole reason the world was in danger was because of his connection to and weakness in stopping Fire Lord Sozin, who went on to wipe out the Air Nomads. Aang is left with the responsibility of making up for Roku's mistakes.

In the books, it's revealed that Avatar Kyoshi's earliest trials were a direct result of the failings of Kuruk, the avatar before her. And his were a result of Yangchen's mistakes. And in the sequel series, avatar Korra is left to make up for the mistakes of not just Aang, but also Avatar Wan who started the cycle.

The Avatars are people who share a single soul. Each new avatar can be viewed as a new host in the same system. And each one therefore is responsible for making up for the mistakes of those that came before.

This is what the avatar franchise, at its core, is about. A single system making mistakes through life after life, and having to fix those mistakes in the next, hopefully making the world a better place and keeping balance along the way.

A Story of Connection and Balance

With all of this in mind, Aang begins his journey is a system cut off from his headmates.

A central theme of the story is restoring that connection. This story really begins with Aang entering the avatar state in the Southern Air Temple. This is the first time he loses control and nearly hurts the people he cares about.

The avatar state here is something powerful, yes, but also something to be feared, making him a danger to his friends. He doesn't understand at the time what that state is exactly. It's something that leaves him confused and scared.

Through the series, he gradually learns more about the avatar state and his past lives. He begins to learn from avatar Roku. Then from Kyoshi. He learns about their lives, and has to reconcile their past mistakes. He also has to learn to accept himself as the avatar. Something which he struggled with throughout the series, and led to him fleeing his people.

At the end of season 2, Aang nearly dies in the avatar state. In a canon webgame called Escape from the Sprit World, while unconscious, Aang enters the spirit world and goes on a journey where he has to reconnect with the past avatars in order to prevent the avatar cycle from being broken, going back all the way to meet Avatar Yangchen, the airbender before him.

After meeting and learning from all these avatars, he's able to awaken with a new connection to them. (Albeit with no memory of this side quest.) Although he's told he won't be able to enter the Avatar State for the time being.

After this, on the Summer Solstice, he was able to meet with Roku once again to learn about Roku's own past, and his history with Fire Lord Sozin.

All of these events laid the groundwork for a final realization in the series finale. That the past avatars were always with him. He's able to meditate and reach out, and commune with each of them.

Finally, Aang has become a fully-realized avatar, tearing down barriers that kept him separate from the rest of his system!

And in the final battle, Aang is able to access the avatar state with full control over it for the first time.

Some would say that this was because of a conveniently-placed rock. Which, yes, that might have been the literal trigger that unblocked his chi. But narratively, I would argue that it was the connection with the past avatars that truly allowed him to access the avatar state again. That finally connecting with them all was how he truly earned this ability!

Conclusion

So there we have it! The story of Avatar: The Last Airbender is not just an incredible story, but an incredible story of plurality and connection between headmate.

This was really fun to write about, and I enjoyed talking about the plurality of the Avatar.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read!

I think with that, I've covered everythi...

Oh... right...

I guess I didn't cover everything about the plurality of the Avatar, did I?

Guess I need to plan for a Plurality of The Legend of Korra in the future! 😁

(And if you're interested in more of my ramblings about plural representations, you can check out my post about the Plurality of Batman. Or you can read about The Plurality of The Hybrid Chronicles: What's Left of Me, where I analyze a novel about a world where everyone is born with two souls.)

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