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teethstitch · 2 months ago

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Since you are into TMNT I am curious what’s your opinion on each of the turtles in general since you seem to be into all iterations of them /gen question

ooh fascinating question. unsure if you mean each individual turtle from each gen or just each gen itself but i'll go into both!

so i actually have a tmnt powerpoint i'm working on right now, so i'll lift some stuff but obviously i won't lift it all, ill go in franchise order. shows and comics in order (show specific comics will go in the show sections) and then movies. spoilers for pretty much every single thing i talk about. if you haven't finished a specific iteration just skip the paragraph about it

Mirage

I havent read too much of mirage, though i'm sure its good i find it a bit visually noisy and actually struggle to read it- my vision is fine as far as i know and i don't usually have trouble with other black and white comics but man mirage is hard to read, whenever eastman would draw for idw annuals or issues i'd have a hard time getting through them because even though the style is cool i just can't see anything, so yeah, that for the time being kind of sums up my thoughts on mirage, i think the shredder worm shark is funny as hell though. i suppose the only thing of note i have an opinion on is the april race debate - wherein by one of them she was thought of as white and the other thought of her as non-white (i can't remember which ethnicity), so based on that i've seen people say that means she's white or the other ethnicity but since they're co authors i've just gone with the idea that mirage april is biracial. that's about the only mirage thing i can actually give my two cents on, moving on!

1987

I really like 1987, i haven't watched it all but trust me i'm slogging through it o7. i adore the animation mistakes, the way they give one turtle another turtles lines, and i think the characterisation is pretty solid. sometimes the show can feel tedious to watch personally, which is why i love saturday morning adventures, it's a much more concise, thought out version of the show itself and is a beautiful love letter to the show (they also finally sent usagi home :'D). obviously it went on for way longer than it realistically needed to, a majority of episodes basically mean nothing unless they introduce new characters, its the one piece of the franchise, lots of filler, i still think it's great though. i also love shredders revenge, it was the first tmnt game i've played since joining the fandom and similar to SMA it is a genuinely beautiful love letter to the community and franchise, i'm an avid cross stitcher as well so pixel games make me happy because i can stitch straight from the game sprites, which i've been doing :3. I love how the turtles are characterised, Cam clarke is iconic and i love shredder and krangs dynamic, irma has become the love of my life and much to my dismay i love the neutrinos which sucks because they're only present elsewhere in idw, i'm doubtful but begging Tottmnt to bring them back.

2003

2003 is by far my favourite of the shows, i actually enjoyed fast forward unlike much of the tmnt fandom, i thought it was fun, though sterling was meh to me, i just didn't like him - even though i liked fast forward i can personally admit the show dealt with similar issues to 1987 of just. extending itself. when they were able to focus on plots and do arc episodes was great, but the seasons could have definitely been cut down sometimes because the formula of an episode was beholden to ads, which meant every 5 minutes someone had to say something shocking or nearly die only for it to be dissuaded or continued after the ad break, watching it digitally now with no ad breaks was kind of funny though because i would be up late sometimes and delirious and the 03 singers yelling 'teenage mutant ninja turtles' at me while mikey or other did a cool move entertained me much more than it should have. I really love that the opening scene is recreation of the first scene in the mirage comics, even if i have trouble reading it i think thats cool and fun, i love all the turtles voices and characterisation, i never have any complaints about voice in any iteration but especially not here, they all feel perfect. the fandom is a big part of the joy of 03 for me, but i do still love watching my favourite episodes back from time to time, and like any good 03 fan i can scream about good genes and same as it never was like a banshee, though i do also have a lot of thoughts on other arcs dw. usually i find it easier to pick a favourite turtle iteration to iteration but man is it hard here, they all have their moments, i think the humour and the darkness are played really well (cough except for when leo got stabbed in the shoulder and i had no idea where he got stabbed until he got a scar next episode because there was no blood). I was drawn into the fandom by rise and it will always hold a special place in my heart but 2003 is far and away my favourite iteration. forever sad about the dreamwave comics being cut short and no one picking them up. we deserve more official 03 comics.

IDW

I'm also still reading idw - don't kill me its long and also theres just a lot of turtles stuff to get through, okay? I really have enjoyed it thus far, i jumped for joy when the neutrinos were revealed, i hated chet with a passion and they somehow wormed me back in with the fugitoid reveal, i will say similar to watching 03 digitally and just getting hit with the before ad and after ads cutaways back to back, there's a bit of an annoyance in trying to find and read everything in exact order, because missing a micro/macro or short side story like the secret history of the foot can kind of screw you over, so when someone says they're reading idw its not actually the 150 issues, its well over 200, though i haven't counted specifically. if you read the powerpoint pictures you'll see the artist death match, basically i was just going to pit them against each other by choosing the best design of reoccurring characters and the artist would get the point, there are some great artist who had a hand in this series, i can't deny all of them are talented, but man some of them are just not for me, getting through an arc with a style i don't like is a breath of fresh air, right now my main example of a style i like is Mateus Santolouco - not all the character designs are my favourite but the secret history of the foot clan was gorgeous, especially karai, she's always been one of my favourite characters. i enjoy idw, i think the worst thing i can say about it really is sometimes theres styles i don't like and akin to other comic series it can be stupidly difficult to figure out the exact reading order when you're not there from the beginning.

2012

possibly controversial (definitely, i'm lying to myself), 2012 is probably my least favourite of the franchises shows (no, its not below next mutation, just talking animated main shows). just to explain myself, I do LIKE the show, but of the shows i find its the least in line with my humour, the gross out humour is a little more uncomfortable for me given the 3d style, i can't deny the story is probably the most well done of any of the shows thus far, i do enjoy the story and i think even non relevant episodes to the main storyline do a good job of serving some kind of purpose to character development or giving the viewer a look into the world, it is by no means a bad show, i would never say it is, i do like it, but for myself personally i struggle to sit down and rewatch because of some of the things i pointed out and some other things like the way apritello is written, leorai (shudders), idk why but 2012 splinter just annoys me, i will say the turtles and april are really enjoyable characters, i find most of the characters (karai, casey, some of the minor villains even) pretty engaging, everyone feels really fleshed out and similar to 03 the voice acting is on point, though this iteration isn't my favourite in terms of rewatchability, i audibly cheered when i realised shelldon was greg cipes, when he said booyakasha i was on the floor weeping. 2012 is a show that i would watch on occassion when it was on, its the one i technically grew up with, though i wasn't really into tmnt as a kid, but greg cipes was pretty much my childhood as a big teen titans kid, as well as mae whitman, i was a big tinkerbell kid, so those 2 are a huge highlight of the show for me. my feelings on 2012 are pretty confusing, but i still do like the show, its just if anyone (like you) asked, i would have to say its technically my least favourite, but again, by no means means that its bad, because it isn't, it's just not really as for me as the other shows. the '12 comics i enjoy, i haven't read too many but the batman crossover was sick as hell, style wise the 2012 comics are solid, while i don't think 2012 looks bad as a 3d show i would personally be more drawn to it if it was 2d like the comics, i just prefer 2d.

Rise (2018)

As previously mentioned, like many others rise was my formal introduction as a teen/now adult into the tmnt fandom, for a while it kind of stood out as my favourite before 03 topped it, but still i love it with all my heart and i rewatch episodes frequently. i think the voice casting was on point, i had recently finished ducktales so ben schwartz and josh brener were welcome surprises, kat graham was in perth for a con recently and i was so sad she wasn't scheduled for the melbourne run of that con and was heavily tempted to go just to see her, rise april is definitely my favourite of all aprils, while i think its a fun dynamic when April is an adult and sort of an aunt figure to the turtles, rise april really killed the older sister thing, every episode she's in is a treat, omar miller and brandon smith (am i meant to put middle/second names i have no idea) were stunning choices for raph and mikey, rise raph is so brotherly and silly, he just brings so much heart to raph, Mikey is so much fun in rise, i can get caught up in inflection and the way a line is said and there's a lot of variety with Mikey's lines, its funny and i couldn't ask for better delivery, i think they're all good at it but brandon knocks it out of the park with mikey. So, partially the blame goes to 03 but rise was also what got me into usagi yojimbo, it's kinda funny how the only show without a canon usagi is the one that kinda goes the hardest in adding him into stuff. the format of the show not getting to focus a lot on plot and mostly just being one off episodes obviously isn't ideal, but for what story we got i really enjoyed, i also just liked the one off segments, the majority of them i really liked and found funny, for me this is probably the show that makes me laugh the most out of any of them - while i tend to participate nowadays more with the 03 section of the fandom, i still love rise to my core and still interact with it here and there.

Ronin

As i said before, theres a lot of tmnt to go through, but uh. everyone talks about the last ronin, so i detoured my regular watching and reading to dive into it. I liked it, there are things i would love answers to but i might just need to reread to know because middle of reading my cat threw up and i had to pause to clean it up, so yeah- there are things i'm worried to have possibly misunderstood, like the dissolution of their treaty of sorts, misremembering or misunderstood that part of the story is a possibility but if its not that i'm still desperate to know who actually betrayed who first, what actually did the turtles/foot truce in? i haven't gone into re-evolution or lost years yet, i've been meaning to but occasionally i'll get a new shiny hyperfixation and when i return to turtles i tend to dive right into the shows or long running comics first compared to stuff like ronin. i am very excited for the game and the film, little nervous at the idea the film will be live action but i'm mostly just going to wait and see, no sense hating it before i even know what it looks like.

Mutant mayhem/tales/2023

i know i said movies last but its kind of different since the movie was before the show- so deal with it ig. mutant mayhem is a great movie, emotional, funny, i really like it, and the style translates beautifully into 2d animation for the show, i don't have much to say on the movie itself, i really liked it, i watched it with my mum who really liked it and she can be pretty hot and cold when it comes to movies. Tales is a fun show, i similarly don't have too much to say, i struggle to rewatch things i've watched semi recently because i get burnt out on it quicker, but i'm super excited to watch this iteration continue, i'll miss rise like hell but i think tales shows great promise and i'm looking forward to more of it!

Bayverse

if you're wondering why i skipped the 2007 movie its because i haven't watched it, semi similar to mirage the style is a lot, but not similar in the way that i can actually tell whats going on in 07, i just. don't like the style. bayverse is pretty controversial but i like it enough, i don't really rewatch it because the 3d models freak me out, but i love the fanart people make, i do think the character designs themselves are very good, peoples fanart definitely helps you look at them more clearly as well. I still don't visually get leo's bone necklace placemat thing. splinter in the first movie is too furless and he needs to be shot. the movies themselves i don't find too special but i don't dislike them, i remember watching the second movie because some cousins and i went out with our nan and my younger cousin wanted to watch it so we did. i had very little turtle exposure as a child but out of the shadows was part of it.

Original trilogy

I quite like the original trilogy, it's very campy but i think its a fun watch, similar to mutant mayhem i watched these with my mum, we really only watch the movies together and we had a good time, we both struggle to really take them seriously. we had to pause the first movie for a WHILE to laugh at the bathtub scene, i still laugh about it frequently and remind her of it just as often, 'i'm coming....... tO A DECISION' also was funny, the third movie is there also.

Batman vs tmnt

Holy crossover, batman. i really like this movie, as a tmnt fan and a batman enjoyer this movie is just so good, many have said it before and i will continue to say it. the movie is so full of easter eggs, i'm still trying to figure out if that portrait in the turtle van is of mikey or jennika - everyone is characterised so well, the dynamics between the batfam and the turtles is done amazingly, alfred and mikey as a duo is delightful and as always the voice acting is so good, i would sell my soul to hear kyle mooney and baron vaughn as mikey and donnie again. eric bauza is always fun to see given his history with tmnt, so seeing him actually be a turtle for once was great, i really enjoyed his performance as leo, i still can't believe darren criss is raph. i'm a gleek and a huge starkid fan and i can't hear it but i know its true. its fucking insane. the movies story and pacing is just really good, and is one of the few animated tmnt iterations to actually let people get hurt, have visible injuries and get fully murdered on screen, when i saw that foot ninja DIE die i was fucking pumped, a lot of the other video iterations lack actual tension because yeah shredder wants to murder a guy but this is family programming, so he wont and can't. but you watch people die and suddenly that hologram the foot tried to kill doesn't just feel like a 1987 thing where the one time the villains are able to do real damage its a decoy, it feels like a truly necessary precaution, had batman not done that, someone would have died, no doubt. i've spent an extended period of time analysing the easter eggs in this movie, especially when it comes to the turtle van itself, i LOVE the van design, the fact its an old rv, the call back to 87, the spare tire being an anti-foot symbol, the grafitti saying 'Foot Stinks', the April calendar with a picture of a turtle on it, its all a genuine treat. I love this movie, i think it's the best tmnt film ever, i love rise's film but to me nothing holds a candle to this. rarely do i only ever have one criticism for a movie but the only issue i have with the movie is the fact they clearly imply mr freeze DIED and that mutated batman killed him but they NEVER TOUCH ON IT AGAIN. i need directors commentary, i need a script, i need SOMETHING to tell me what happened. anyways. the fighting is so much fun, i love it, it's delightful to watch a tmnt fight and to be fully dialed in because it feels like a real fight, 03 had some pretty good fight scenes but in essence they were very cartoony in the way they won a lot of the time, i just think the batman vs fights are golden, especially the penguin fight, but again, all of them are really good.

so yeah. i have a lot of tmnt opinions, there's more i could say about each iteration individually, especially the shows, but i'll leave it with a list of my favourite characters and their iterations.

IDW Karai, 2012 and 2003 karai, they mean the world to me, i'm a big karai fan and i think they're great. of course the neutrinos, as little as they appear they mean the world to me. 2003 casey is definitely my favourite casey, second is probably idw casey. Batman Donnie is so much fun, his lack of social awareness is really played up but it feels natural and very donnie and i love the think he does where he moves his head like he's going to hide it in his shell but doesn't so he's just poking out. Rise april has my entire heart, she's the best and i'd die for her. 03 and 24/MM Leo, they're both great. really the entire rise cast has my heart. also the 03 cast but special shout out to 03 splinter he's just very sweet. i have to stop now because i could yell about even more characters forever, so last one i would say Alopex, i think she's a great addition to the franchise and i hope more people adapt her.

in case you weren't wondering because i'll tell you anyways, i do have oc's, i just don't really draw that much or particularly well so i don't post about them, i do write about them but i don't publish it bc i don't think anyone would care much, i don't really dip into oc fic either so.

so yeah. general thoughts on most of the franchise! if you want me to expand on any of the thoughts i shared here i'd be happy to but for now my fingers ache from typing so bye :3

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt 2003 #tmnt shredders revenge #rise of the tmnt #tales of the tmnt #tmnt 1987 #tmnt idw #tmnt mirage #batman vs tmnt #tmnt 2012 #mutant mayhem

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goddamnwebcomics · 3 months ago

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Ranked from Best to Worst: Webcomics of Goddamn Webcomics (2024 Edition)

It has been a year since I started riffing the new batch of comics at hand, and 15 months since I made this previous ranking, so it's about time it got updated again. This time, if I have nothing new to add to a comic's description, it has been italicised.

0. Gene Catlow

When I added Gene Catlow to the ranking, I thought there was nothing like it on this blog and is thus unrankable. One year later, I have been mostly proven right. I still hate how terrible the pacing for this comic was in its later years, and honestly outside of Burke and Sulfur this comic's ending is hard to get through. I think the biggest strength this comic has over any other comic is the emotional versatility. Yes, it's not perfect and can often get extremely tonally inconsistent. I still recommend for people to read it, but if you skip every page after Dorzoi dies outside of Burke and Sulfur pages, I don't blame you.

1. Alien Dice

Alien Dice is still the best comic quality-wise I've read. I would actually argue it does the emotional versatility much better than Gene Catlow does, despite its VERY grimdark setting, which is impressive. Still, it has the occasional inconsistent characterization, it has the ANIMAL ROMANCE, it has the terribly written villains, it has Riley. Chel has gotten some competition with likable protagonists, but still doesn't change the fact Chel and Lexx are the only likable main protagonist couple in this blog.

2. Peter & Company

Some people may be upset by this ranking, but it speaks more about the quality of the shit I riff on this blog than the comic itself. Peter & Company does the bare minimum to not be bad. It has some really good dramatic scenes and decent art, but it's flaws are as hard to ignore as the cameos in the latter half of the comic. Combine that with some of the worst explained worldbuilding in this blog, and I don't see another decent by this blog's standards comic going below this.

3. Daisy Falls Apart

Daisy Falls Apart is a parody comic that doesn’t exactly break new ground. It’s harmless but I wouldn’t read it a second time. It’s held down by its horribly unlikable protagonist and how the whole conflict of the comic is very quickly resolved, and also too many sexual jokes in something that is based on a children’s game. Out of all the comics I’ve riffed, this one is the most mediocre, and number 3 meaning mediocre should worry you.

4. Dominic Deegan

You might be shocked to see Dominic Deegan this high up, yeah, if I did this few months earlier it would be much lower, but recently Dominic Deegan has gone through colossal improvement. However, it still has the existing problems, and especially in its past it has been rather terrible. Still, Dominic does have the credit of being an interesting case as a protagonist. He is not likeable but he is not that hateable either, because he is not a horrible person. You hate because of what a saint he is to the comic's world, not because of what he does. Still, the painful lack of nuance in its commentary can make it a cringy read, its tone is all over the place and comedy isn't as funny as some of the above comics.

5. Carnivores

6. Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary satisfies your specific hunger for Johnny Test characters commiting several crimes in rapid succession. Reading the comic both entertains me immensely but it also makes me feel dirty. The crossover stuff is there to please the author and not really provide any point. It is unique in that the comic doesn’t feature a full cast ensemble but it’s rather just focusing on Mary ruining people’s lives and interacting some random character from a North American animated thing. The only reason it’s below Carnivores is the suspicious amount of unintentional racism???

7. Warmage

Warmage is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. None of Dumok’s other comics have gone to the same level of bizarreness Warmage offers with each page. However it is also the host to the long-since-dethroned worst character to ever appear in this blog, Tsuki. Other than that, Warmage seemed to have semi-intriguing lore and also ended on a rather decent arc, so i think i could’ve been interested to see it continue, just because i wanna see how much worse it can get. But then again, spanking scene.

8. Kit n Kay Boodle

It’s amazing that year by year, Kit and Kay Boodle gets more and more tame. More than anything it helped to expose me to Albert’s usual writing bullshit, but somehow it manages to be tame compared to craziness of Gene Catlow. When you know that EVERYONE is fictional in the real life bits, it just loses the nightmare quality it once had. That being said I am bitter half of the riff is locked behind Tumblr’s stupid filter system.

10. TwoKinds

Yes, I'm afraid TwoKinds is occupying Dominic Deegan's former spot. It honestly suffers from very similar issues as early Alien Dice did, just without the likable protagonists. It has some very surprisingly progressive things for its time, but that doesn't change the extremely confusing worldbuilding, terrible antagonists, yet ANOTHER "evil side of the protagonist" and of course the sympathetic slaveowner. Why did Tomjay think that was a good idea? This comic is kind of stuck in a place where it still has a chance to either go above and beyond the early blog shit, sink below Chugworth Roommates line, or maybe just stay in the same spot as always, if the comic doesn't go through any major quality changes. It is bad, and sometimes painful, but it's not unforgivable, and we'll get to unforgivable soon enough.

-The Chugworth Academy and Roommates Line -

Yes, at this point this isn't a ranking but rather, the point of no return. Once your comic sinks below this line, there's no coming back.

11. Four Girls

Four Girls has some of the most vile, disgusting, terrible jokes and some of them just don't make sense. The characters (especially Heaven) are all extremely hateable. You just wish you were reading Daisy's Fall Apart instead. Thankfully it is short, but it is pretty much at same level of quality as Chugworth and Roommates are.

12. Spinnerette

Spinnerette is stuck at a sad, pitiable state. It's like watching the continued downfall of an internet celebrity. The story keeps doing the same mistakes over and over again, and desperately trying to pretend it is not something that is permanently stuck in early 2010's. At this point however, I am so used to Kraw's bullshit gimmicky writing and moments of drama being forced in arcs where they don't belong, I don't even care anymore. At this point, every decent character has been fucking ruined, but it is what it is. Kraw doesn't care about anything else besides the money going into his Patreon so he can keep making porn comics and figurines and Spinny dakimakuras for his disgusting audience.

13. Peter & Whitney

Peter and Whitney should have never existed. Kraw has more of a direction with Spinnerette than this comic does. It's supposed to be an autobiographical slice of life sequel to Peter and Company, but it is just a request from fans that shouldn't have been fulfilled. Peter feels like a whole different person, and there is just no conflict. I don't give a single fuck about college life of these characters, and also, it's existence ACTIVELY HARMS the existence of Peter and Company, a much better comic, because of all the retcons and foregone conclusions.

14. Las Lindas

Las Lindas is even more hopeless than Spinnerette and Peter and Whitney, because this comic will introduce the decent thing, and before you know it decent thing is ruined. At least Spinnerette has decent variety of different stories. Las Lindas will never leave that fucking farm, if we don’t count the spinoff comics half of which are non-canon and are about the same level of quality as main comic anyway. My brief revisit showed me the post-Alejandra era wasn’t as hideous as I thought but it’s pretty damn close, and with the ever-worsening artstyle and an apparent INTRODUCTION OF SUPERHEROES, Las Lindas’s level of quality could best be described with that panel where Tootsie drives into a river.

15. Carry On

Carry On may legitimately have the most hateable protagonists in this blog. It's a comedy comic from a time period when comedy was not at its worst, per se, but definitely at its most embarrassing. There are too many terribly aged jokes and just terrible jokes in general, which make our protagonists look like vicious murderers. If you are also going into this comic without reading 21st Century Fox first, you're not going to understand anything, and even if you have read it you're still going to be confused. Whether or not Rackeroon Saga will lift this comic out of the abyss remains to be seen.

16. Console Girl

Console Girl is the first comic in this ranking I just completely despise. It makes Ctrl-Alt-Delete look like Penny Arcade, it’s a comic about an ecchi console that comes to life but midway through we get a plot twist and it turns out to be a cyberpunk comic that tries to treat humanoid consoles fighting seriously…or not really, as the comic has a problem taking itself seriously, outside of some questionable moments where the author seems to project their hidden anger towards video games into the comic??? We also have in-comic non-canon filler arcs, console girls eventually becoming random fetishes instead of things actually relevant to their real counterparts and TOO MANY LITTLE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULT MEN. I’m glad this comic was never finished.

17. Ask the Werewolves

Ask the Werewolves is visually the most disgusting comic I have ever riffed. It's not the art style that is bad, it is what that art style chooses to depict, hideous character designs, disgusting body horror transformations, 100% unerotic sex scenes, men and women fighting their primal urges, giant balls cumming inside dumpsters, vomiting and so much more. Combine that with the fact it tries to include out of place commentary about modern state of housing market and the end result is a comic that angers me more than it should. It still has a surprisingly likable protagonist, but I still don't want to see the said protagonist cum inside dumpsters, or hang out with a colossal woman child who ruined his life. I don't think this comic is gonna go anywhere.

18. Monster Girl Academy

Monster Girl Academy is just…the worst. It was solely created to make Kraw even more rich, but I would forgive that if the comic didn’t just…fail as a webcomic, fail as a porn comic and fail as a narrative period. This comic was designed for lowest common denominator with fetishes that are too weird to be vanilla and too vanilla to be weird. Its existence pisses me off. While other comics I’ve riffed had potential, this never had any semblance of it. The main protagonist is a piece of shit and all his girls are also pieces of shit, the only likable character is a little girl who cries and prays in Spanish, because every character reading this comic can relate to her. Fuck this comic, and I mean it with every letter of that sentence.

#article thingy

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darkwingsnark · 2 years ago

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I was tagged by @eeveelotions for this challenge. Decided to make it its own post so as to not spam others.

Rules are to share the first lines of ten [though I’ll be doing 5 because this was getting long] of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. As usual, tagging whoever thinks this looks fun and wants to do it.

.:Come Be Lonely With Me:. [Mario Franchise]

Soft dirt squished between nimble digits, spreading the topsoil evenly around the base of the newest addition to the Mario household. Vibrant red thistles stood out proudly amongst a sea of black-eyed susans and lamb’s ear– the prickly flower swaying gently in the breeze. Luigi couldn’t help but smile fondly at them from under his sun hat, firmly patting the earth as if tucking his children into bed. He supposed in a way he was, with it being a flower bed and all .

The man huffed softly in his own amusement, gently wiping his hands onto his overalls, before surveying his handiwork.

Luigi’s yard was separated accordingly: closer towards their home housed a small closed off plot of land for vegetables– specifically set aside for cooking. While Luigi was perfectly fine with going to the market to pick up most of their needs, he had insisted on a spot for tomatoes and squash– a common ingredient in most of the meals he and his brother prepared. It was a meager selection of crops, but Luigi couldn’t help but smile when remembering the last time Mario complimented how flavorful and ripe the tomatoes were. How he loved how their aroma filled their whole home when he stewed them.

An overall important and fruitful investment.

.:Same Man I Was Before:. [Mario Franchise]

Luigi liked living a quiet life. He wasn’t as gung-ho as his brother, who constantly found himself on the call of adventure– saving other kingdoms from their own tyranny. There was a reason Mario was the hero with Luigi being okey dokey playing his part as sidekick: Mario fit the role. He was outgoing, a real people person in every sense of the word; rooms filled with excitement and cheer the moment he’d enter. Big Bro was also fearless, taking charge and tackling all obstacles in his way. There weren’t problems in his world, only tasks that would be conquered.

Luigi admired his brother, sometimes even wanting to be him. Luigi couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be able to stare down his fears with nothing but gusto. To live for adrenaline thrills was such a foreign concept– heck, Luigi couldn’t even schedule appointments with Doctor Toad without fighting off a bout of the nerves! A guy he had known for years and still worried about bothering the doctor with his troubles.

No, Luigi simply wasn’t built with courage in mind and that was that.

The Rise and Fall of the King's Court

[DC Comics/Superman; co-written with @bardockarts ]

Decided to use the first line I wrote for the first chapter, since I didn’t want to take credit away from Bardock for their amazing Toyman.

Luthor had always been a man that could see an opportunity when it presented itself, no matter how ridiculous it might seem to most. He saw himself as someone constantly on the move, finding pieces and pawns to place about in his nationwide game of chess. So when Graves handed him a particular file, brow arched in that way that told Lex there was something very peculiar afoot, his curiosity piqued in a way that told him he was holding onto something special. A mere peek at the childish scrawl was enough to break his silence.

“And what do we have here, exactly?” Luthor asked the woman next to him, still reading over the application. Graves slid in closer, pulling up her tablet as she explained.

“Jack Nimball, 26. High school diploma on record, though nothing beyond that. No name or startups that would indicate anything of note for the company.”

Lex lets out a huff of amusement, side-eyeing his assistant.

“But you wouldn’t have brought this to my attention if that was all there was to it.”

Rumor Has It

[My Hero Academia; cowritten with @swampy-tiefling ]

Shota Aizawa considered himself a very levelheaded man. No matter the aspect of his life, he chose to live it through logic alone. Eri moving in with him once she was released from the hospital had followed this pattern-- Eraser was, after all, the only one who could help manage her quirk. It would have been irresponsible to send the child off to an orphanage, just waiting for her powers to emerge again and cause problems.

Then of course, there was the concern of being a guardian. Which consisted of encouraging a healthy mental development. Eri had already been emotionally stunted from abuse, so it had only made sense to work on setting up a safe environment. Which was exactly why Aizawa’s dorm apartment had slowly, but surely, transformed from a minimalist’s dream, to becoming filled with furniture and trinkets to bring the girl comfort. This too had been logical to him, it was about helping create a sense of want. Children should want things. Toys, affection, to be the one to pick what bedtime story is read-- even if it was one she had chosen every night for weeks on end . Learning one mattered was the first step in the foundation of survival. To want is to not give up, to strive for self preservation. And in turn, to protect oneself.

These behaviors made sense, so the hero never questioned it.

What didn’t make sense was the fact Aizawa was staring down at a black fish that happened to share his name.

Did You Hear...?

[My Hero Academia; cowritten with @swampy-tiefling ]

A sigh of amusement escaped Toshinori Yagi-- better known to the public as All Might--as he allowed himself the opportunity to read over the message again. Sunken eyes fixed to the screen, the skeletal man’s nimble fingers went to grab the cup of tea resting next to the monitor. The warmth, while pleasant, didn’t seem to hold a candle to the feeling he had over reading Mrs. Modoriya’s words. Though Toshinori only had the opportunity to meet the woman in person a couple of times, the hero could still hear her voice. The squeaky pitch it gave when she was floundering for words, the bouncy hum of pleasure that she shared with her son. It was enough to make him smile into the lip of the mug.

“Hmph. I should think it’s you comforting me this time around, “ the hero whispered to himself, thankful that his mutterings couldn’t be heard by anyone else within the empty teachers’ lounge. “I believe I’m starting to see where Young Midoriya gets it from.”

It, of course, being their… well, being. He was alone, he need not explain his thoughts to himself.

#fanfiction #bowuigi #dc comics #erasermic #toshinko #snark life #bardockarts #swampy-tiefling #eeveelotions #tag meme #long post

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sgt-cookie-2 · 13 days ago

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At the risk of sounding like a fukkin weeb, I do genuinely dislike the trend in Western media that "being fun to watch" is synonymous with "being for kids", which frankly is far les prevalant in Anime/Manga.

Like, if you look at the top 10 TV Shows according to IMDB's top 250, what do we see (As of 10/12/24)? 1. Breaking Bad 2. Planet Earth 2 3. Planet Earth 4. Band of Brothers 5. Chernobyl 6. The Wire 7. Avatar The Last Airbender 8. Blue Planet 2 9. The Sopranos 10. Cosmos Four of those are documentaries and don't really fall under the criticism I'm giving here, so if we discount those and only include fiction, the list looks more like this:

1. Breaking Bad 2. Band of Brothers 3. Chernobyl 4. The Wire 5. Avatar The Last Airbender 6. The Sopranos 7. Game of Thrones 8. Bluey 9. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood 10. Rick and Morty Breaking Bad, Band of Brothers, Chernobyl, The Wire, The Sporanos, Game of Thrones don't get me wrong, they're excellent pieces of media and are legendary TV shows for all the right reasons. But as entertaining as they are, they're not fun. They're very powerful and moving and all that, and for very good reasons, but there's nothing in them that gives you a feeling of hype, of excitement. Avatar: The Last Airbender deals with themes of authoritarianism, genocide, propaganda, racism, sexism, war, peace, abuse, trauma, hate, all sorts of things that the other shows deal with just as much, but it's also allowed to be fun. To be exciting. To have those moments of people coming up against each other. Yet because its animated and the characters don't swear at each other, it's apparently "just a kid's show"?

Bluey is genuinely a young children's show, from the ground up, so it falls outside this general critique. Rick and Morty is an animated sitcom. Sure, that's absolutely not something you can say is "for kids", but that's less to do with the subject matter itself and entirely down to its presentation. Is it "fun"? Yeah, absolutely. It's a fuckin' blast to watch. But it's not something that takes itself seriously.

And then we finally get to the one actual anime on this list*. Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is an absolutely legendary show that's simultaniously very explicit in how grotesque war is while at the same time keeping that spark of fun and excitement. At its darkest, it's just as dark as some of the other shows on this list, perhaps even darker, but individual episodes have lighter moments than entire series. *(Well, at least this "modified top 10" list I'm working with. The actual IMDB list has way more: Attack On Titan is rank 23, Hunter x Hunter is 33, Death Note is 36, Cowboy Bebop is 42, Frieren is 57, One Piece is 59, DBZ is 67/73 (Somehow), Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War is 76, Vinland Saga is 78, Steins;Gate is 90, Berserk is 94, One Punch Man is 110, Naruto: Shippuden is 113, Monster is 115, Code Geass is 132, Haikyuu!! is 152, Ippo is 162, Demon Slayer is 171, OG Dragonball is 185/188 (Again, somehow), Samurai Champloo is 196, Jujutsu Kaisen is 203, Mob Psycho 100 is 212, Neon Genesis Evangelion is 222, Rurôni Kenshin is 234, FMA: 2003 is 235, Your Lie In April is 245, Gintama is 246.) The only western media that really captures that same spirit of being fun are comic books. But how many people think of comic books as something for kids? How prevalant is the stereotype that the only adults who read comic books are virgin nerd losers? I've been trying to get back into novel reading recently and almost every book I try to read is either some super gritty "Everything is awful, everyone is a piece of shit and only bastards survive in this world" or some basically zero-stakes "cozy" novel. I want stakes, I want danger, but I don't want the characters to be awful people doing awful things just to survive. I want them to be exciting, I want them to be having the time of their god damn lives. But that's just not "realistic" so of course, we can't have that. No, they have to be bastards living in a bastard world. Because having hope that things might get better is childish.

(That's not to say I haven't tried those types of novel of course! I managed to get through the entire Malazan Book of The Fallen series. And I have Opinions tm. My two biggest criticisms are: About half the events that happen don't matter and the ending was less satisfying than Game Of Thrones. It didn't feel like an ending, it felt like an excuse to stop.) Now, of course, I'm not saying that Anime/Manga is inherently better than Western media, it's just a format at the end of the day. Monster, Death Note, Vinland Saga, these are all excellent pieces of media that can't really be described as "fun" in the same way. But how many anime/manga can you think of that are fun, yet take themselves seriously? That play those dark themes completely straight? Western media has a habit of equating "fun" with either "children" or "comedy". It doesn't always, of course. The John Wick films play their themes totally straight and they're hype as fuck for it. The Dark Knight is literally a Batman film. Tarantino's entire filmography is simultaniously great fun and completely straight. The entire MCU or Star Wars are also examples. (But even the fuckin' MCU is literally based on comic books). But the point I'm making is that when it comes to non-kids shows, western media being "fun" is the exception, while for anime/manga, it being deathly serious is. Even fucking Berserk, the darkest fucking fantasy around, has those moments of absolute hype and excitement that you just don't really see much in western-made media. In conclusion, Western media just isn't as comfortable with the idea that things can both be "serious" and "hype as fuck" as Anime/Manga is and that's a real detritment to western media as a whole. I would absolutely love to see a TV show that's allowed to be fun, yet at the same time, actually considered "serious" entertainment and you just don't really see that much. It's either trying to be "in on the joke" with a wink and a nod as if to say "Yeah, we know this isn't meant to be taken seriously, so we're not even gonna try", or it treats the fact jokes exist with disgust.

#cinema #movies #tv shows #films #anime #manga #anime and manga

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lifenconcepts · 4 months ago

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I MADE A COMIC OF MY LOVELY OC!

press “Keep reading” to have it sectioned off into individual frames and the description for those who can’t understand from the mere pictures alone :3

My robot Oc, RAE, which stands for Robotic Arctic/Antarctic Explorer, and their origin story.

It all begins with the casual shipment of them to the continent, which soon after is put into action to test all the years of planning and developing that was put into them. their soul purpose is to wander the cold and harsh icy desert and chart the status of a spot in the wasteland every half an hour, at an approximately equal distance to one another both vertically, horizontally, and diagonally.

They place their hand down to the ground to feel the vibrations and sounds present, sending it to base every so often. It helps with finding running water, anything suspicious, and keeping track of the large uninhabited plane. Sending updates both on the environment and also itself. Once the workers were sure of its capability to stay on track and fulfill its purpose without any problems, they turned on its autonomy, basically an artificial intelligence which makes sure they stay on course but also have all the sufficient knowledge to survive and thrive safely.

Everything seemed to be going well and dandy, they spent hours chatting the place and mapping all sorts of spectrums of wavelengths and details, but upon gazing onto the sun (which they make their eyes go black to protect their sensitive camera from breaking) they were slightly stumped. An intense gaze to the beauties of the natural world caused them to go deviant and gain sentience as they struggled with their new found emotions for a quick moment, despite their new found fear and joy - they found grounding amongst gazing at a group of penguins, and their wide range of knowledge yet little range of human understanding caused them to come to the conclusion they are a large penguin themselves.

The last panel shows them balancing the two aspects perfectly, on one side - doing their intended job, scanning the ground for a little while to get extra information, and the other side - trying to befriend the creatures around. also, fun fact, the higher their antenna the more work-focused they are as it helps get a better connection with the base! Their biology allows them to shorten it to protect it from strong winds and yet they often shorten it to avoid having control issues of their own body - to focus on the more complex and important parts of their experience rather than simply scanning thing.

yet they do enjoy their work, I assure you!

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stepswowdsen · 2 years ago

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JuAli Comic Idea [6-23-2023]

Intro

I showed this JuAli idea to my friends before, I’m glad they liked it hehe. I originally wrote this back in November!

I revamped a JuAli idea I had. Judar and Alibaba kiss with banter

*Note: It’s kinda sexually suggestive and implicitly R-15 (PG-13) rated

I used some lines from Vol. 27 - Ch. 266, and the Vol. 28 - Ch. 278 omake with Judar and haniwa (clay doll) Alibaba. The chapters where he was a sausage shaped haniwa (OoO)

Other

I usually write my ideas down in script dialogue format as potential comic ideas for the future. Also cuz I figured that bolding the names would make things easier to read

I'm busy so Idk when I'll sketch this all out and redraw it properly, but this one tweet generated some ideas in my head that I showed to Cinna and Raisu. Back in November, I roughly wrote the gist of it down, but I felt like adding to it cuz it’s one of my personal faves. It's just kissing but it's kinda suggestive/implicit so y'know.

A little comic idea I had in my head. I showed it to my friends and they really enjoyed it, I'm glad! It's one of my faves too tbh. I first wrote this in November, but I decided to make edits to it. I like writing banter!!!

I actually did some old rough doodles before that was kinda based off this idea! And I totally need to redraw these, but I really like how I drew Judar's expressions. I like practicing sketching expressions hehe

Also someone give Judar a haniwa Alibaba plushie -v-

You can read under the cut if you wanna check out the rest hehe. I wanna post more of my writing ideas here

Some rambles

*Note: Sometimes I just write the dialogue only because I have a good visual imagination, so the dialogue itself is already a good outline to use for potential comic ideas in the future, but I thought it’d be fun to add to it. I write dialogue scripts a lot (whenever the inspiration hits and I’m not doing art).

I’m a visual person, so I mainly do art (and comic idea dialogue scripts as outlines for potential art ideas). A lot of times, when I get ideas, I visualize scenes in my head, so my ideas are written in script dialogue format.

I like writing ideas down so that I don't forget and so that I can still imagine and draw them in the future. I have a good visual imagination, so even if I just write the dialogue, I can imagine what the scene conveys pretty easily.

I was wondering if I should just have short descriptions on a line on its own, just like a play/movie script would, but it’s actually easier for me to read when the name is bolded beside it, so then I know which actions/descriptions are assigned to which character, y’know.

I tend to have certain quirks when writing dialogue scripts

I put descriptions in brackets () beside the name. I decided to make them italics though to differentiate them more, cuz I also use brackets () for character thoughts.

It’s not in this one, but I’ll put a (...) on a line on its own to mark line breaks for scene transitions (or to mark that the scene is still a WIP and I need to add to it)

I’ll put any notes with (*) asterisks.

I bold names so it’s easier to read

Whenever I get hit with sudden blorbo thoughts or inspiration to write ideas, I write them in Notepad or Google Docs, but I also do a lot of reactions and discussions with mutuals/friends. Someone posts something they want to talk about in the chat (ie. animanga/game reactions, AU and art ideas, etc.) and others join in and talk about it if they have time.

A lot of times, I tend to think back on my discussions with friends a lot, because I think they're inspiring and their thoughts help give a lot of insight.

Everyone has so much insightful things to say, so I wanna quote my discussions with my friends here! So some rambles will be in discussion/chat format because I don’t feel like reformatting the post

Discussion I had with friends

This idea was actually based off this LMAO

This silly tweet was my prompt starter

I showed it to Cinna and Raisu hehe. And I’m glad Lumen and Jaqui also liked it too <3 This was our discussion

Me: I wanna say this is JuAli but none of them would talk like that. They would so do this though

Friend: No this is literally Judar he just words it differently lmao

Me: YEAH HE'D JUST WORD IT DIFFERENTLY LMAOOO

Friend: YEA

Me: JuAli's Love-Hate relationship (at first) is soooo interesting to me <33 They're so sen-core they appeal perfectly to my tastes

Me: Oh that tweet makes me want to write dialogue now. Yeah I can draft some JuAli stuff then

Friend: Omg

Friend 2: 😭 THIS MEME IS ALWAYS FUNNY

Me: Thinking about this again so I wrote a thing kinda based off it JuAli but it's kinda suggestive/implicit though

I wrote some ideas based off this. It's literally just them kissing but it's kinda suggestive/sexually implicit so just putting that out there

Friend: VALID LMAO THIS IS PERFECT Completely in-character for Judar

Me: THE WAY I'M IMAGINING IT IS SO. SPICY. NOW KISS!!!

Friend: VALID VALID!!

Friend 3: OMFGGGBVEHEVFBGBH

Me: I actually originally wrote Judar's last line as "Show me the kind of spark that charmed Hakuryuu so much". Because Judar makes an observation in Ch. 266 that Hakuryuu is charmed by Alibaba in the fan-TL :)

But I don't tend to reference other ships in my ship stuff since I usually focus on ships solo. Like in my AU stuff, I tend to focus on just the ship/characters itself.

Like I would rather deal with my multiships in their own separate AUs, since it’s easier for me to work with. Most of the time I just prefer to have my AUs focus on just the ship itself (and occasionally other charas.)

I do love AliHaku though. But I liked that line and it was good, so I still tried to include it though. NGNGNNG. Without mentioning any names, cuz let’s keep this JuAli focused

Friend: OOOH I SEE.... Valid as heck It's a good one

Me: I posted this on main, but I might as well post it again here ^^ For JuAli, I feel like at first, Judar hates Alibaba with so much love. And Judar would just constantly be like "I really don't get this guy at all" and "I don't understand what he's thinking at all!"

I feel like in the early stages of them catching feelies, they’d both be really awkward around each other and constantly headbutt each other…

Judar is verbally harsh (violently tsun) and demands around verbally a LOT, like a needy cat that wants attention and affection. The tsundere catboy bad boy... And I feel like at first, they’d both be really awkward around each other and fluster each other. I think they'd always be pretty competitive with each other (in a playful, fun way) but they'd warm up to each other over time.

I'm busy so Idk when I'll sketch this all out but it was based off this idea I had in my head.

Like with JuAli, I think their games are mostly light-hearted and fun, and enticing and passionate.

Like it emphasizes playful competitiveness, a heavy focus on drawing things out, wanting to enjoy themselves for as long as they can and do their best to make every intimate occasion they have together worth the wait. Everything about their intimacy is energetic and passionate, (just like them!)

Though it's also fun to imagine a bit more rough aggressiveness, rough kisses and biting.

When I imagine the early stages of their relationship/pining I think they'll butt heads more often and it'll be more aggressive, then it'll progress to something very loving and more on the same wave length.

Daily/Hourly accounts

Before the Twitter changes, folks would have daily/hourly accounts dedicated their fave medias, books, poems, etc. They’d put their fave quotes in (or animanga/game screencaps of their faves), have them be posted on intervals. People did it just cuz they wanna assign quotes to their fave charas/ships or have accounts dedicated to them

But then Muskrat’s stankass changes happened... I was thinking it would’ve been cute to have a JuAli daily account post screencaps of either of them from the manga tbh

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titleknown · 2 years ago

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Doing a pseudo-reblog of this fucking post because I don’t want to get in arguments over it or shove it into people’s faces, but like... I think we need to talk about the ugliness of the broader attitude in that comic (specific media referenced aside) because it keeps getting fucking spread in other posts by otherwise smart people and I hate it.

Rest of this after the break because it’s kind of ballooned into a wall of text.

Like... it is a common experience on the spectrum for people to earnestly gush about their special interests only to get shut down by a neurotypical in front of them because “that’s stupid,”

While the autism experience is diverse enough that it is difficult to categorize, that is A Thing I have seen people on the spectrum talk about time and time again, pretty damn common.

And that’s literally what that comic is doing, just on a wider scale and “funny,” Like, the setup is “the person is gushing about their interests” and the punchline is “the interest is stupid, I feel despair that this person likes such a stupid thing”

It is that exact fucking nightmare scenario for so many of us, but with the joke on the side of the Typical Neurotypical Viewer.

The core “joke” is literally "LOOK AT HOW STUPID THIS PERSON IS FOR BEING EARNEST ABOUT SOMETHING I FIND STUPID! DOESN'T THAT MAKE YOU DESPAIR FOR THE STATE OF BEING SURROUNDED BY STUPID PEOPLE INTO STUPID THINGS?!"

But it’s funny. It’s innocuous. It’s silly. Which lets it spread despite the fact that what it’s saying is; in the end; kinda fucked up.

But, the OP said this in the tags:

But like... this is really two-faced, right? Like, they’re basically saying “I don’t mean to be mean" while also saying “reading critical depth into what you like is bad because the source material is stupid,” which is like...

...Well, firstly I thought y’all fucking hated “the curtains are just blue” and yet y’all are making fun of people for doing the opposite of that, and secondly, it’s doing the same “I don’t get why people like this, therefore it is stupid/worthless” shit that y’all accuse people of doing with Shakespeare and the classics.

And like... I see that attitude a lot. with regards to the big post-Gamergate/post-Infinity-War backlash against fandom as A Thing and the fact it’s becoming more common worries me.

Like, in the common talking point of “I’m sorry that you think Toni Morrison is less good than your fanfic of Goku fucking Charizard” or “Dante didn’t write fanfic because what he wrote was actually good” (paraphrased), I want to deconstruct the core assumptions I see behind it:

The named author and the anonymous fanfic writer reflects the idea that authors working in approved mediums are important, whereas authors working in the Wrong medium aren’t. The “Goku fucking Charizard” thing is based on the assumption that sexuality (And “weird” sexuality especially) debases a work.

The idea that Dante’s “not fanfic” because it’s good primarily serves to define fanfic as based around quality rather than the bullshit insane walls of copyright law (Which is actually what the “Dante is fanfic” talking point was about).

The way the sex fanfic and Toni Morrison are pointed at each other shows that while fanfic must use its worst works as representatives, published literary fiction must use its best.

I wonder what the sorts of people would say about the fact that a novel about a woman fucking a bear literally won Canada’s highest literary award. But I digress.

It is an ugly view that is ironically pretty anti-intelectual in and of itself, but from a different angle than their opposition.

It seeks to demolish a very specific intellectual view of the importance of democratizing art/audience because it views the public intellect and taste as stupid and not worth commenting on. Better to return to a walled garden than to let the mob dictate public taste (even if they’re not really in control).

And like, to speculate from what I’ve observed, I hypothesize that comes from a view that; since corporate monopoly over media via copyright and consolidation is basically invincible, the best we can do is on a “grassroots” level.

And their view of the “grassroots” is that the culture is infantilized, by people who for stupid selfish reasons like stupid baby garbage instead of “real” art and give it all their money, and that fandom is primarily an engine for the most devoted of these stupid baby garbage worshippers.

You will note that what they deem as ‘stupid baby garbage” tends to cross over heavily into the diagram of “things liked by autistic people.” They’ll deny this, while ignoring how much a lot of anti-autistic ableism isn’t directly targeted but inherently stochastic responses against a perceived abnormality.

Point is, they feel this abnormal element is a key driver of what they think must be excised from the culture, like a tumor. So the core idea is that if they bully enough people into shutting up about their garbage baby interests, that “imperial core” of people into Dumb Baby Bullshit will be starved and Real Art will reassert its rightful place.

Note that none of this is conspiratorial, it’s stochastic. It’s a bunch of people with the same general beliefs adopting the same shitty tactics by sheer force of carcination. And they don’t even have to adopt all of the beliefs to act in the interest of that view, just enough of them.

And I am begging y’all, please stop boosting and reblogging this shit in the name of countering the excesses of fandom. There are better ways and better critiques you could be making and supporting.

And for the love of god, people who are saying this shit, you’re not helping. You are not going to break up Disney or elevate the fucking culture by shaming autistic people.

Go work on trying to decrease copyright duration, or expand arts programs, or push for antitrust, or fucking something that’s not bullying people for being publicly earnest about what they like!

#media #critique #bullying #ableism #fandom #media critique

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mango-dolphin · 2 years ago

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what are your headcanons about the heroes :0? Ive asked this question to the other shield hero blogs and now its Your turn ):) normally i would ask for each separately but why do that when i can ask for all at once XD!!

ADMITTEDLY this is a broad enough question as to where i could be making headcanons about Any Such Thing !! i don't have too many headcanons yet but i can make shit up as i go honestly. i like questions that ask me somethin a lil more specific bUT ALSO I LOVE HAVING FREE RANGE AND PERMISSION TO GO APESHIT SO LIKE. IT DOESN'T EVEN MATTER

hm. hmm. hmmmmmmmmmm. i'll just write whatever comes to my head right now!

General Headcanons

i'd like to think that each cardinal hero had a piece of media in their original world that resembled at least one of the other cardinal hero's lives:

Naofumi had this sleeper hit visual novel he introduced to his little brother as a way to get him into the medium: it presented itself as this dating simulator game about this university student and his complicated love life. As the game progresses and depending on the routes, it's slowly revealed that there is something amiss regarding the protagonist's life and how he interacts with the company he keeps. The game progresses into a psychological horror/thriller in some aspects—not really like Doki Doki Literature Club but y'know there was something going on there. Naofumi offhandedly mentioned that the game had a secret true ending that was overwhelmingly gay and his little brother called his bluff. The secret gay ending is real.

Itsuki seems like the type to strongly prefer escapist media, but I'd like to think an acquaintance at his private school happened to suggest a short and sweet manga to him that she thought he might find interesting. He decided to read it on a whim one day and was disgruntled to learn it was a Normie-verse (media where no one has powers) slice-of-life thing, but he had nothing better to do (had to wait for something) so he tried to finish it anyways. It was about this middle school prep student breaking down under the pressure that his parents were placing on him to succeed, trying desperately to find an outlet. In the midst of it all, his "slacker" older brother, who wasn't doing so hot in college at the time, took it upon himself to try and reconnect with his little brother and the two eventually start bonding over otaku culture. It was an incredibly heart-warming read but also it made Itsuki cry a little bit because he was very jealous of the main character. He wants an older brother like that so bad. he refuses to admit he liked the manga no matter what the girl who lent it says

Ren... I don't really have an elaborate one for him, unfortunately. The Cardinal Hero whose media he got would be Itsuki's by process of elimination, however! It'd probably be (by his world's standards) an older video game or anime of some kind, probably kind of BNHA-esque with those strong Golden Age comics inspirations. Maaaaybe it could've been something ongoing but got canceled? So Ren never learned how it was supposed to end.

Motoyasu seems like the type who doesn't always keep up with most popular media, or at the very least would hear about it from osmosis. If not that, he's probably right on top of popular things. Probably a mix of both? Incredibly on the pulse for some things, incredibly clueless on others, and it's random what he'll know and what he won't. He'd probably mostly get onto some stuff through his friends—probably was binging anime w/one of his best guy friends one night and what was on was this movie about a futuristic Japan. In particular, it was a split story between a criminal down on their luck but sank deeper into the underworld, as well as a reclusive high school student trying to get by. It wasn't that extreme of a movie, but for whatever reason the bloodier parts with the high schooler saving his friend perturbed Motoyasu a lot, to the point of walking out for a bit. His female friends at the time made fun of him for getting so squicked out at the movie.

i kiiiinda like the idea of the younger two of the cardinal heroes paralleling/being foils to the older two. Ren and Naofumi seem to have kinda similar outlooks (at least, the roots of them) as well as appearances; same with Itsuki and Motoyasu. they both even have the same age gap by year (naofumi & motoyasu are 4 years older than ren & itsuki respectively). There are lessons Ren & Itsuki can take from their older counterparts—both things they should avoid (naofumi's wrath and unwillingness to speak up, motoyasu's naivete and ignorance to the point of delusion) as well as things they can take with them (naofumi's proactive nature, tendency towards learning skills & self-improvement, and keeping and listening to good people around him; motoyasu's warm & friendly nature as well as his loyalty + mindedness towards the people immediately around him, rather than focusing on how he himself looks—listen he's being manipulated that doesn't excuse his idiocy and terrible judgement. but he does care about people and their PERSONAL LIVES in his own way, rather than itsuki doing good things because they're "morally just")

the cardinal heroes probably met up a lot outside of Naofumi (because, y'know, he was made a pariah), so they probably talked a bit more about stuff and got to know each other a teensy bit better. I'd like to think—and these would be conversations that happen much later, like brink of or after the Spirit Tortoise arc—the three of them all realized they all died, though they probably would question if Naofumi had died at all (as he seemed the most insistent on getting home). Ren also toyed with the idea that perhaps Naofumi didn't remember his death, so he perhaps still believed he had somewhere to go back to.

Itsuki mentioned his death first and regretted it immediately (ren and motoyasu lost it at the idea that itsuki got isekai'd the old-fashioned way). In comparison, Ren was very reluctant to mention the details of his own death, so he more or less set the stage and left it to interpretation. (Itsuki got frustrated that Ren appeared to have gone out like a hero and Ren didn't want to say anything.) Motoyasu likely lied about the exact details of his death and talked about the last few days he remembered, leading the other two to extrapolate that he got killed because of his womanizing. He'd later go on to admit that he didn't actually remember how exactly he died, but what he does remember is something he'd rather not think about.

(i also headcanon that they have scars from their deaths lol. ren's got that big stab/slice scar; motoyasu has several cuts and perforations throughout his stomach and abdomen, as well as stray stab marks on his chest; itsuki likely has some faint but permanent bruising on his backside & head)

Naofumi hears that the other three died and he'd be like What? I was kidnapped by a book. What???

Ren

gay, open about it; i'd like to think his Japan had progressed just as much in societal matters as it has technological. Japan doesn't have transphobia & homophobia the same way America (my country) does, so I'm not entirely sure how things over there would change, but nowadays from what I understand Japan is a lot more casual about people being gay than Americans are. SO there'd hopefully be far less judgement and expectation on a gay high schooler in Ren's Japan, for instance? so he can just be open and it wouldn't be a big deal.

(i also sincerely hope that Ren's Japan would have figured SOMETHING out for its atrocious bullying problem, but sadly i do think that it's wholly possible that it's still an issue. maybe not as bad as it is right now, but frankly almost anything would be an improvement considering how fucked up bullying can get over there. i can see ren's behavior stemming from even mild bullying but it's possible that he's Just Like That™.)

his best friend, the one that he saved and the one i'm assuming he played video games with? i think it'd be interesting if they were actually dating :3 but also my hc of "ren being openly gay" and "ren dating his best friend" might not necessarily line up. being open isn't a one-and-done thing, however, so it could more be a thing that ren was open back in his world (because he didn't have to hide), but ren probably knew enough about the rest of the world/medieval media to be like "maybe i should wait and see how people react to this kind of stuff <:|"

so ren probably has just never brought up his sexuality to anyone in this world. if he got the signal that it was safe to talk about it, he probably forgot that being temporarily closeted was a problem and would probably go around assuming that people knew he was gay, because that's his default—

i'd like to think that ren & his [boy]friend always wanted to move somewhere more natural and grassy—just somewhere with a lot of natural beauty. i know i said in my last post or so that he'd have the least amount of knowledge of the natural world, but i don't think that'd mean he wouldn't be interested in knowing more about it. maybe he and his friend would stay up some nights after some grinding sessions and just. talk about the future. moving to somewhere in the japanese countryside, or maybe somewhere untouched in europe.

he probably thinks about that sometimes while traveling melromarc.

i think this guy likes white chocolate. iunno.

listen. i try not to focus too hard on sexuality/romanticism headcanons because i think it's important to like. characterize folks outside of their romantic/sexual relationships. ships are really fun but also i wanna know about the Character Themself.

but sometimes it's very much a case of "i think their sexuality would inform their behavior and vice versa," even if the character themself sees their sexuality as a footnote. imo, ren just happens to be gay, sees himself as someone that happens to be gay, but his relationships and the people he knows/loves very much inform who he is. especially because he doesn't seem like the type of person to go out of his way to establish relationships of any kind.

so like. if he has a boyfriend, that's a big thing. and having a boyfriend in practice isn't interchangeable with having a girlfriend—especially if you're the same gender as your partner(s). so me headcanoning him being gay is like. he cares about someone deeply, and that someone is a guy, and he would not love him as much if he were a girl. the relationship would fundamentally be different then. Gayboy.

Naofumi

i'd like to think he was still a chill older brother sort of guy before getting summoned. after breaking down his little brother's walls their relationship probably got real close again. i could see naofumi teasing him a lot and him being teased by his brother a lot

i've mentioned it before but i think naofumi would read a lot of doujinshi. i don't mean like the Explicit Stuff but like. i think he'd be our equivalent of scrolling through AO3 and reading literally whatever caught his eye, or even whatever popped up (because he's bored). he'd be the sort of person who'd read fanfic/doujinshi of media he hasn't even read before. i think he'd just be a voracious reader in general

this is ALSO scattered about my posts & tags but i think Naofumi is some flavor of asexual and some flavor of biromantic / greyromantic. i'm going to make this even funnier and say that he still reads explicit shit anyways. he's like "ok nice." doesn't even blink. it's a story what does he have to say except they're fucking.

FORGOT TO MENTION i don't think he'd use labels either. if someone asked his orientation i think he'd be like "eh. i don't really care"

i don't think he's really dated anyone, at least for very long. he does experience some aesthetic attraction but that's about it. and even then it's like "oh, they look nice. aight" and he forgets about it. apparently he describes how good motoyasu looks in the LN a lot though so maybe he's more into aesthetics than i thought. i can definitely see it

i'd like to think Naofumi started a little garden in Luroluna alongside all the fields that exist. there's probably a little section where he does some funky plant experiments (mostly trying to make more resilient and/or delicious food) and tries to branch (ha) his skill tree out, and there could be a larger part where he puts some of his more successful plants out and lets the public do what they wish with them. There's probably a tinier section where he made some fucked up little guys but since they weren't malignant plants and/or not difficult to manage, he kept them around. People are allowed to experiment with those fuck-ups as well as long as they're responsible.

i'd like to think he fell asleep in chicken coops several times. mostly as a kid but also probably once or twice in luroluna as well. filo probably tries to snuggle up with him in there also and it suffocates him--

(i think about him being an animal friend so often you guys)

admittedly i think Naofumi's always been kind of an introvert, even before getting summoned. he seems like the type of person who prefers to do his own thing, but very much appreciates company anyways. he does have some pretty good leadership skills (apparently he ran a guild in a video game back home) so i don't think he exceptionally dislikes people on average, and in fact can get along VERY very well with folks—he just values his personal space is all

Motoyasu (discussion of abuse below)

my friend. my dear friend motoyasu. i like him a lot (this is not a headcanon i just wanted to say that i like him)

i think this man has trauma. i think this man has illnesses. i think there's a lot going on with him and i'm kind of obsessed. i'm reluctant to go in depth with what i think is going on w/him because i fear how my headcanons/readings might be taken on this character, especially as he's the least popular of the cardinal heroes. (at least, from what i could observe on tumblr FJKNSEFJKENS maybe he's more well-liked elsewhere!) anywho, i tried explaining a teensy bit of what i felt anyways, so hopefully what i intended to explain came across properly?

however i don't think his naivete (particularly his gullibility towards women) is... natural? as in, i don't think it's just something he was born with or anything. i think it had to have come from somewhere, and it's likely that it's a behavior he learned from previous relationships. he doesn't have a hero complex to the extent itsuki does, but it's clear that he views himself as someone who has to take on the burden of saving the women around him. which is like, any dude can have that sort of savior complex i guess, and it can be Incredibly Annoying™ if not other things.

but i'm combining this w/the fact that he'll believe the closest woman to him no questions asked is like... that is dangerously self-destructive behavior. this dude can have a spine so the fact that he'd let someone take advantage of him that easily, to the point where he essentially slots into that role (he believed Myne's false testimony first word no questions no doubts and just let her pull him around every which way)... you can't convince me that motoyasu hasn't been abused by a partner (specifically a girlfriend) before, if not several. i'm sorry you just can't

combine that with what we apparently learn from his backstory in the spin-off series and it's like. Dear god. Dear god if he's had to deal with female friends like that (ones who'd rather him die than be with another girl, even if it's a "i want us to die together" kind of deal), entitled to his own emotions in that way? people don't just randomly decide to stab their crush, the girls crushing on him probably treated him in other ways of entitlement (even if they were incredibly subtle), though ofc we don't know the situation for sure. like yeah motoyasu should've been more assertive and tried to talk things out, but girls. shouldn't be pulling knives on people and murdering them idk what to say. even if motoyasu might have been dating several people at once (the wiki doesn't elaborate so idk the context), he shouldn't be like. murdered over it

i do think the savior schtick as well as the flirting in general may have at some point been a front he put on (the skirt-chasing & flirtiness before the heroic schtick anyways) that he kind of just subsumed into his identity. i can see his fondness for angels (and later his tangential obsession over filolials) coming from wanting to embody the heroism angels are meant to have. angels are meant to Save, and idk. maybe he wanted someone to save him. maybe he felt like he had to be a savior to the women in his life. shrugs. he doesn't seem like the type to think he'd be able to get trauma i think he'd ignore it like the rest of his problems

anyways your early 20s is a great time for more overt symptoms of schizoaffective disorders to pop up so like. i think after getting hit w/that Big Traumatic Betrayal by Myne (as well as anime logic) i can see the personality/reality shift he experiences post-Curse Shift to have finally rattled that sort of thing out of hiding from him. him starting to see most women as Literal Pigs is what put the nail in the coffin for this hc of mine. like. uhhh

the Curse Series may be a defense mechanism for psychological trauma, but a lot of mental illness is more or less the brain trying to comprehend the world around it in specific ways. so honestly the Curse Series (and working your way through it) could very much be seen as an allegory for coming face to face with your trauma—learning how to embrace it, but also learning how to accept it and to not let it overtake you. depression can rob a lot of sensation from you (i personally stopped feeling many emotions at all), so Naofumi losing his sense of taste after Myne's betrayal didn't surprise me one bit.

Motoyasu was already straight up accepting/leaning into delusions the longer he spent in this world, being fed lies and such by Myne and the king & likely other royals, so having to come to grips with all of that ALONGSIDE later being humiliated (being forced to see how shit of a job he did as a Hero) and betrayed AGAIN by Myne... yeah. i'm not surprised he broke, and broke that hard. i personally don't even think the Pig Thing was caused by the Curse Series; again, i think it was an underlying mental illness finally rearing its head, and the Curse Series fed into it.

from what i heard motoyasu likes to make his own clothes or something? idr the exact tidbit. but if it's not canon that's certainly my headcanon. Art Student Moment.

mentioned before in some tags that i think motoyasu could be hypersexual? at the very least after unlocking his Curse Series he might have started experiencing its symptoms more and more. tfw the trauma

also mentioned in those same tags that i think motoyasu could probably be pansexual or omnisexual. i still don't really know. both could fit him. but i could also see him just never deciding on a label, nor using one.

i think, in spite of how melromarc royals/the church might have felt about it, motoyasu would probably think demihumans were really cool. i think he'd really want to befriend some and even put a few on his party, but i could see Myne/other teammates refusing or even bullying them out of the party behind his back altogether. i genuinely don't see why motoyasu would want to discriminate against them (he'd see them as people who happen to have animal features, which is SO COOL!), even if others tried to manipulate him. they could tell him that therianthropes are disgusting and greedy and evil and he'd be like "aight!" and then he meets one and is like "yo this is my homie actually. i like her" and myne would have to remind him that she's a therianthrope and motoyasu would be like "But she's epic"

I THINK THIS IS MY FUNNIEST HEADCANON ACTUALLY. "i think motoyasu wouldn't be racist." THIS IS LIKE. SUCH AN UNNECESSARY HEADCANON TO HAVE.

i'm sorry i was just thinking about it. it's so funny that motoyasu has a really low tolerance for alcohol. he probably can't handle spicy food either, but would be the kind of person who'd try repeatedly to show off and eat incredibly spicy food anyways. he'd cry so much

(abuse mentions done btw)

Itsuki

he probably feels so cool about being the only Hero with natural powers i'm ngl. he's probably tried to show off to ren & motoyasu before and he felt SO COOL. ren thought it was impressive and very fitting as a bow hero. motoyasu was also impressed and asked itsuki a few technical questions (something that caught the both of them off guard), and as Itsuki answered more and more he started to get self-conscious again. eventually Motoyasu was like "wow, that's really cool, but it sounds like you don't use it for very many applications. That kind of sucks." it made itsuki really mad, especially after motoyasu (in his dense-headed glory) suggested a few ways to use his powers (and then ren started adding on and refining those suggestions). however after he stormed off he thought about it and was like "y'know what. that would be an interesting way to use my power. alright"

(in retrospect he's still kind of upset that Motoyasu was the one to start suggesting stuff, especially out of the blue, especially after how idiotic he began to act when the church stuff started to ramp up, but he's also... incredibly thankful. Ren offered more advice as well but he wasn't always easy to reach)

perhaps has always had an interest in art and artistic endeavors, but may have felt pressured by Hero Stuff™ and honing his powers to really pursue that kind of thing. may just be because of the trinket he used to get rishia off his team, but i think he'd be a huge fan of jewelrymaking, naofumi should give him some pointers

i'd like to think that even though he faced a lot of bullying in his prestigious school, there might have been a handful of people who cared about him and wanted to get to know him + see him succeed. in particular, crossing a bit into OC territory, but i think it would be neat if there was a girl in the top class who resembled Rishia somewhat (at least, physically at first). so like, this girl would be great at most everything, would be incredibly humble about it, would be the best damn hero Itsuki's ever met. and he'd be green with envy. but this girl would also think itsuki was pretty cool and try to reach out to him, a lot. (she'd be the girl who gave itsuki that manga i rambled about in the General Headcanons thing).

getting to know this girl would (he assumed) be a bit of an in to the strongest people in the school, but turns out that she tries to surround herself w/decent people, so a lot of the people she hangs out with would be people itsuki might consider losers? anyways, this is about itsuki so we're talking about him—i think he would've admired her a lot, but his anger at himself and his own inadequacy might have caused him to lash out at her. (maybe after she saved him from something.) itsuki didn't run out into the street and die Right There, but he definitely died a few days later. that girl probably would've been kinda fucked up hearing about his death, idk if she'd crush on him or anything but. yo. that was a classmate. they were getting so close, too

following that, rishia didn't remind itsuki of Her at first until he took a closer glance and realized they looked a bit similar. so he probably felt really proud to be able to save her for once... then when rishia started doing more heroic things, it ripped out all of itsuki's insecurities and complexes full-force. sorry king about your cringe

i think itsuki is an only child. fuck i didn't talk about this w/the other characters too did i? i think they're all only children except for naofumi, they all exhibit Only Child behavior. except maybe ren. i could see ren being a middle child as well actually

itsuki probably knew a lot about archery before getting summoned, as it'd be a straightforward way to exhibiting his powers. i wouldn't be surprised if he was a bit of a gunsman too—japan has incredibly strict gun laws, but his japan could be different (especially as people have powers there).

probably a cat person. i can see it with my own eyes.

EDIT i did it for the other heroes and i forgot to do it for itsuki & kizuna. mentioned it before, but I think Itsuki would think he's straight and would try not to put too much thought/stock into it. He'd probably actually be bi, but prefer women. he's young tho and wouldn't seem very decided about it so he probably thinks it's something that he shouldn't mess around with too much. he might think liking boys would be another thing he could be bullied about so it's an idea he'd prefer to avoid. Sorry about diagnosing him with internalized homophobia. (i don't think i even gave motoyasu internalized homophobia i think i just made him clueless)

Kizuna

i don't have very many headcanons for her but honorary mention!

queerplatonic partners with Glass. i think they're about the same age, Glass is probably 19 or something. Age aside, prove me wrong

i can see kizuna having pet birds. maybe a couple finches. when Kris popped out she probably got REAL excited (PENGY!!! PENGY!!!!!!!!!)

i bet this bitch loves boba too actually. has probably tried to recreate it a few times with mixed results

as i mentioned w/itsuki, i forgot to talk about a sexuality headcanon when i did it for everyone else. I see her as aroace, or at least on the asexual spectrum!

haha speaking of spectrum. (hits her with the autism ray) why not. special interest is fishing why the hell not. we can give her the autisms. she certainly gives me the vibes. tism to tism communication

#mango japery #small-spark-of-light #shield hero #headcanon #my writing #mango's writing #naofumi iwatani #ren amaki #motoyasu kitamura #itsuki kawasumi #kizuna kazayama #writing #theory #I HOPE YOU ENJOYED these were longer than i thought they'd be but they still aren't very many headcanons to me #yeah i get. kinda crazed about this stuff #i could write novels about characters i have more thoughts on #these guys are just new to me. but i liek them :]#abuse mention #ask to tag #spinning motoyasu around in my brain i'm so worried about that guy. i'm so worried about that freak #but also i am very scared about how that might be received #i feel conflicted (if not uncomfortable) with how the wikia talks about motoyasu's delusions so #i don't know how respectful shield hero itself is about mental health issues #i think i saw the r slur in one page screenshot though (said by naofumi) but there wasn't any context so i was like #<:|............... i don't know how they're gonna handle this homies........#i'll have to read the manga/light novel to make up my mind #but motoyasu clearly needs help and i'm worried that the series might be treating his problems as a joke #if there are no motoyasu fans i am no longer alive on this earth etc etc #keep him away from filo tho.

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mtsodie · 2 years ago

Note

What is homestuck?

homestuck is a 8,123 page (series of) webcomic(s). the original comic started on the 13th of april 2009 and ended on the 13 of april 2016

its a very long and complicated story that i can basically describe as some kids fuck up their lives with the sims. its also quite unique in how it presents itself. how many other webcomics (that isnt homestuck related) has gifs and big animations and games shoved into it????

it became quite a cultural phenomenon with people in the millions coming to the site each day and breaking newgrounds bc the poor decision was made to host one of the big flashes (a 18 min long animation btw!!!) there

it also had the epilogues which is entirely text based and i refuse to acknowledge any further. after that is homestuck^2 which. basically continues the epilogues but in the original comic format. they had to stop doing the periodic updates bc the team behind it was being harassed if ircc. wild shit!

theres also 3 video games; hiveswap, friendsim and pesterquest. hiveswap has been super fun so far.... i love point and click games

ah also theres a shit load of warnings............... pls heed them if ur not comfortable with slurs (there are multiple extensions that remove them including the unofficial collection) blood gore etc and general uhhh. weirdness. put pretty much whatever you think of in there and then take away some. MAJOR FLASHING TOO

i dont want to spoil it for those who havent read homestuck yet and dont know shit about it but heres a hot tip that goes against what literally every other person says: DO NOT SKIP TO THE TROLLS. youll be quite lost and also its very very fun.... ALSO DOWNLOAD THE HOMESTUCK UNOFFICIAL COLLECTION. this thing is a lifesaver since the actual site itself is breaking down thanks to the flash shut down and general negligence. also it has other cool stuff in it like behind the scenes art and that one uncensored paradox space comic

i would love to explain the entire thing to you bc that is my talent but ummm. yeah. its long and its easier to read the comic in my opinion

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thewertsearch · 3 years ago

Text

The Mistake

First, let’s compile the evidence.

It’s extremely serious.

It defies the rules of Sburb.

Its scope is broad enough to affect another session.

The kids haven’t made it yet.

That last one means it’s not what’s currently happening with Jack. The mistake is nothing we’ve seen the kids do so far, and will happen later in the comic.

It also probably forced the trolls into hiding. This one I’m less sure about, because they could be hiding for other reasons - like, maybe they’re fighting the final boss of Sburb while all this is going down.

Anyway, now we can talk about the possibilities, starting with:

Gamebreaks

In an ask a couple weeks ago, I listed thirteen ways to break Sburb, and now we know for sure that the Mistake does just that. Could one of these be our culprit? Well...

Several options are now impossible in the kids’ session. We can’t swap entry items around, for example, because there’s only one entry item left. Neither can we broker peace between the Kingdoms - Jack would never accede.

A lot of them just don’t seem that dangerous. Messing with Dreamselves or doing each other’s Quests might be fun to experiment with, but I don’t see how they could lead to large-scale disaster.

The options that are both still possible and potentially dangerous enough are:

Modding Sburb. This one is unlikely, for the simple fact that the kids don’t have a programmer on their team. John’s probably not going to have time to read Data Structures for Assholes cover-to-cover.

Breaking Sburb’s timeloops. I’d love to see this work, but GC already tried it, and she just enabled a timeline that went right back and enabled the original. My intuition is that it’d take a lot more than that to break time, and four newbies wouldn’t be able to pull it off.

Prototyping something weird. This one could be trouble. Prototyping is such a small-scale event, with such enormous ramifications. I’ll talk about it in its own section below.

Starting a nested Sburb session. The trolls think the kids triggered their Reckoning early - but what if they didn’t? What if the early meteors the trolls saw come from a new session? I can even think of a motive. If the kids’ session really is unsalvageable, what’s their next move? Leaving the session, of course! Starting a second-order session gives them a full do-over, letting them avoid the same mistakes as last time. The one hole in this theory is that I don’t see how it affects the trolls. But we’ve already seen from Problem Sleuth that recursion is a very dangerous game - there might not be an infinite amount of room in Sessionspace.

Destroying something huge, like Skaia: Only matters if the kids can break all iterations of it. No way to do that has presented itself, but we have a lot more comic left to get through. This is one to watch.

Unfortunate Prototyping

I’m still a Typheus Theory truther. This would be a catastrophe, creating an entire Medium filled with hostile versions of these mysterious 'browser gods'. Even Jack would get the power boost, which would really suck.

Another thing to note is that if the kids weren’t on the ball, and Grandpa somehow ended up in the Kernel before Jade entered, then the Underlings (plus Jack) would get the traits of a Sburb expert, too. That might be as bad as Typheus, if not even worse. I mean, we don’t know what Typheus can do, but we’ve seen what Grandpa can do.

The Noble Circle of Horrorterrors

This is going to be one of my ‘shot in the dark’ theories, but...

The Veil fits snugly into established understanding of Sburb, but the Horrorterrors don’t. Why does Sburb even have dark gods? Are they some sort of uber-Underling?

Sburb, as a rule, is a whimsical game, much to its players’ frustration. It has a design philosophy, and the Horrorterrors don’t match it at all. It’s possible that Rose’s Grimoire is embellishing their feats a little - I’m assuming they’re not actually omnipotent - but they seem absurdly threatening. Do they factor into the war on Skaia at all? Can they even fit on Skaia?

Anyway, the point I’m getting at is that they seem out of scope. We first heard about then outside Sburb, in a book written (I assume) on Earth. Are they even instantiated by Sburb, or are they just drawn to its sessions, to the little circles of firelight in their void of a home?

Because if it’s the latter, then there’s only one incarnation of the Horrorterrors, and if the kids make a mistake involving them, its consequences could reverberate to all Sburb sessions, everywhere.

Mislead

We should at least raise the possibility that the kids aren’t responsible for the Mistake at all.

The kids’ session is clearly where the mistake happens, but the trolls have been interfering in that session since before it began. GC has already acted independently, getting John killed as a result. Are we sure the kids are the ones at fault here?

#homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 4 #theories

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cellydawn · 4 years ago

Text

undertale meta deepdive: sans is not a good person (OR the sans theory masterpost pt. 1)

❤️ || Part 2 || Part 3

Sans is far from this valiant epitome of good that the fandom so often paints him as. He’s not a hero—hell, he might even be a bad, terrible person. At least in the past. My intention in this post isn’t to crush popular fandom interpretations of Sans in a bad faith argument, rather, it is to challenge preconceptions that have existed for years and to open up discussion on the dubious morality of this popular and loved character; I certainly love him a little more after doing this analysis.

Section I - A Bad Person (The “What”)

Sans is certainly not opposed to leaving us little breadcrumbs for us in regards to his mysterious past. We get the idea that Sans is separated from his home, likely due to something he did. Something he had thought was important. Something that led him to take his home for granted.

So based off of the previous dialogue, this “type” that he intimately knows... he’s talking about himself. He was very “determined” to do whatever he did, which cost him his home, likely nearly everything he cared about given his angst.

So let’s say Sans used to be “determined”.

Sans is also aware of the SAVE function, meta knowledge that only the player and Flowey should know about because they have or have had this ability in the past.

“Take it from me”: accept that what I say is true, because I know or have experienced it. Sans should have quit when he had the chance. Never satisfied, too determined to bow out. But is he talking about the same thing we’ve been doing?

When Sans threatens us with the infamous “bad time”, he is NOT referring to the fight... but what comes after, because only after he is struck down, he gives us one final piece of advice:

But HOW does he know that the world is going to be thrown into the “abyss”? Unless he has experienced this first-hand.

This is Papyrus confronting us in the genocide run antecedent to his fight…

…and this is him on Sans. An eerily mirrored piece of dialogue from Papyrus describing us and his brother. What do we know so far? Both Sans and the player need to be kept on “the straight and narrow”, both are “determined”, and both do irreparable damage to the world, possibly sending it to “the abyss”.

Purgatory: a place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are expiating their sins before going to heaven. Not to mention the suspicious usage of the word “abyss” by Papyrus.

From the evidence gathered, it seems that the reason why Sans isn’t able to return to his world is because he destroyed it in the same manner we destroyed Undertale in the genocide run. Why else would he say “take it from me”; he empirically knows what happens when the world is pushed to its very limits.

But which world could he have destroyed? What world did Sans come from?

(Continues under the cut because this gets really long.)

Section II - The Deltarune Connection (The “Where”)

If you’ve read some Deltarune theory posts, you know that Gaster is prominently featured in Deltarune. He addresses us at the beginning of the game and there are blatant references to him (the phone call in the Dark World, the strange bunker, etc). I’m going to try to prove that Sans will also play a large role in its story. Let’s take a look at the lyrics of the end credits, Don’t Forget.

When the light is running low And the shadows start to grow And the places that you know Seem like fantasy There's a light inside your soul That's still shining in the cold With the truth The promise in our hearts Don't forget I'm with you in the dark

The truth: Sans says this to us before giving us access to his room, the entrance to which is suspiciously identical to the fast-travel doors that Darkners use. We also get access to his basement.

Promise: Sans has a history of promises. He is regretful of a promise he made in the past.

Don’t forget: Appears on a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people, in Sans’s basement. This phrase is also used in a description for "Memory” in the sheet music booklet from the Collector’s Edition. What do you know, it’s written in Comic Sans too. Go figure.

Now, let me introduce a character that is featured prominently in Deltarune, someone that is somehow related to Sans, someone who isn’t Gaster.

Ice-E is everywhere in Deltarune’s Hometown, but the only inkling we get of his existence is from Sans. The Ice-E word search that Sans gives us is interesting because the title itself is written in comic sans.

In one of the hospital rooms, there’s a “1-to-10 pain scale using Ice-E as a model”. It’s an uncanny description of Sans.

Ice-E is also characterized for its missuses of apostrophes. One might call it an “apostrophe-dog”.

Moving on.

Section III - Gaster (The “Who”)

Oh boy, this section is going to be absolutely massive. I’ll try my best to make the logical flow easy to understand. So we know that Sans did (will do) some pretty shady things in the world of Deltarune. To understand why, we have to examine how exactly Sans and Gaster are related. Let’s start with Ice-E since we know that he’s somehow associated with Sans.

The “Nightmare” variant of the Ice-E word search appears in fun values between 56 and 57. There is only one other snowman that appears in Undertale.

We are asked to take “a piece” of it. Let’s investigate where else this specific phrase is used. Following this trail of breadcrumbs reveals other phrases that Sans and Gaster-related things share.

Exhibit A: Gaster follower #2, “time and space”

The prophecy has something to do with Sans and Gaster. I’ll let the evidence speak for itself.

Exhibit B: Memoryheads, “be seeing you”

Memoryheads are the first amalgamate we encounter in the True Lab. Before their spare conditions are met, they are known as " " (six blank spaces). Gaster is frequently associated with the number six.

If we attack the Memoryheads, these statements flash by quickly in red text:

FAILURE

But it didn't work.

nope

Absorbed

Don't worry about it.

I'm lovin' it.

Occurs when the player tries to name themselves Sans.

We see the phrase “be seeing you” in only these instances. Below is the Sound Test Room that has a chance to appear if the fun value is set to 65. This is the only place that “Gaster’s theme” can be accessed in-game.

Exhibit C: The dump

“The abyss” makes an appearance again. It’s something to pay close attention to--it’s always somehow related to Gaster. So what does a piece of trash falling into the abyss mean? Well, we know that Gaster “fell” into his creation...

We know that Flowey refers to Sans as “Smiley Trashbag”. Papyrus states that Sans frequents Grillby’s, a “purgatory” and “hamburger abyss”.

(note: Papyrus is referring to a literal trash can here, but the implication that Sans is “trash-like” is here)

If it’s not clear what I’m getting to, then let me spell it out: Sans is a piece of Gaster, they are one and the same. Sans/Gaster took his “experiment” with Deltarune too far, possibly destroying the world and displacing him in Undertale.

I’ll continue this in another post because it seems that tumblr is breaking.

❤️ || Part 2 || Part 3

#undertale #deltarune #undertale theory #deltarune theory #sans #gaster #cellytheory

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goddamnwebcomics · 1 year ago

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Ranked from Best to Worst: Webcomics of Goddamn Webcomics (2023 Edition)

I made this ranking three years ago originally, but now that I've come back, before I start the next set of riffs, I should probably update my rankings. Thanks to @tjimmy1999 for giving me the idea.

0. Gene Catlow

Gene Catlow is completely uncomparable to any other webcomic I've riffed. It's probably the most unique piece of media I've ever seen. It has so many aspects in it that are fucking awful and horrible and terrible, but it also has just as many redeeming aspects. I am glad I came back to riff it to the end because what I riffed before the previous ranking was just the tip of the iceberg. Until another comic like it drops into my view, it will be uncomparable to anything else, completely outside the ranking as this fascinating piece of work that everybody needs to read for themselves.

Alien Dice

Alien Dice is my number one pick for the best comic I've riffed, but it's not really the best because of its content but because it does the bare minimum to be decent. It has likable protagonists, decent world building and it has an engaging story that can pace between dark and lighthearted moments. Unfortunately, it also has a ton of problems, with bullshit plot twists, Riley, unnecessary moments of sexual tension between animals, Riley, wildly inconsistent artstyle that never seems to stick to one style, Riley, very bland antagonists with no motivation, Riley and certain aspects of the main gimmick of the comic aren't explained well, and also Riley. I wouldn't recommend Alien Dice to anyone like I would recommend Gene Catlow, as I feel it needs to work out its issues.

2. Daisy Falls Apart

Daisy Falls Apart is a parody comic that doesn't exactly break new ground. It's harmless but I wouldn't read it a second time. It's held down by its horribly unlikable protagonist and how the whole conflict of the comic is very quickly resolved, and also too many sexual jokes in something that is based on a children's game. Out of all the comics I've riffed, this one is the most mediocre, and number 2 meaning mediocre should worry you.

3. Carnivores

This comic was originally a painful experience, but so many painful experiences came after it, it feels like one of the less worse ones despite having the worst art. Also i can tell Austin did this comic for fun, and not to convey a deep message. Also it’s probably the only fetish webcomic in history where fetish itself starts taking a backseat halfway through. Yeah, some of the entries will be the exact same as in the previous ranking, if I haven't given them any major revisits. Also the only reason it's under Daisy Falls Apart is because it has a much worse artstyle.

4. Bloody Mary

Bloody Mary satisfies your specific hunger for Johnny Test characters commiting several crimes in rapid succession. Reading the comic both entertains me immensely but it also makes me feel dirty. The crossover stuff is there to please the author and not really provide any point. It is unique in that the comic doesn't feature a full cast ensemble but it's rather just focusing on Mary ruining people's lives and interacting some random character from a North American animated thing. The only reason it's below Carnivores is the suspicious amount of unintentional racism???

5. Warmage

Warmage is enjoyable for all the wrong reasons. None of Dumok’s other comics have gone to the same level of bizarreness Warmage offers with each page. However it is also the host to the worst character to ever appear in this blog, Tsuki. Other than that, Warmage seemed to have semi-intriguing lore and also ended on a rather decent arc, so i think i could’ve been interested to see it continue, just because i wanna see how much worse it can get. But then again, spanking scene.

6. Kit n Kay Boodle

It's amazing that year by year, Kit and Kay Boodle gets more and more tame. More than anything it helped to expose me to Albert's usual writing bullshit, but somehow it manages to be tame compared to craziness of Gene Catlow. When you know that EVERYONE is fictional in the real life bits, it just loses the nightmare quality it once had. That being said I am bitter half of the riff is locked behind Tumblr's stupid filter system.

7. Dominic Deegan

Ah, Deegan, Deegan, Deegan... during my riff of Gene Catlow I apologised to you so many times I almost wanted to bump up your rating, but I feel like you're in a comfortable place. In a lot of ways Dominic Deegan is the quiessential mid-2000's webcomic, what started off as a gag-a-day comic soon became an edgy fantasy full of author screaming his political views and projecting his desires into the main characters. I think even Mookie is not too proud of the decisions he made, and Legacy of Dominic Deegan feels like an apology to correct the problems of the series. But there will always be the original Dominic Deegan, with its orcs and their fucked up culture, screaming manchild protagonists, exaggerated gay characters, magic that is random and nonsensical but also has schools based on teaching it, aggressive sports players and Siggy burial. However, who knows how it ranks after I finally finish it.

8. Roommates and 9. Chugworth Academy

The reason I made Gene Catlow 0 was also because I didn't want to rank it lower than these two, because I have no heart to say "Roommates/Chugworth Academy is better than Gene Catlow". If your comic ranks lower than these two, it's done and there is no coming back. I can safely say that I will NEVER EVER revisit these two comics, even if there are worse comics in this ranking.

10. Spinnerette

I said last time that Spinnerette was the worst comic I've riffed, and quite frankly I can't put it into words why that isn't the case anymore. After revisiting Spinny so many times since my last ranking, it has...improved. Remember that my last exposure to the comic was the Fat Spinny Arc and the first half of Hostess arc, and it seemed like Spinny was just embracing being a parade of Kraw's fetishes. However now that I've seen more of it, it's trying. But the comic is still like a fish flopping on dry ground in the middle of the desert. It doesn't want to pick a narrative, it just does random one-off stories forever. As much as I hated Colonel Glass I wish he came back just so this comic would have some semblance of seriousness again. Of course the comic has recently started fucking up the last decent characters, and I wouldn't be surprised if this comic bumped down again after few more revisits, BUT, it's still not the worst thing Kraw has made.

11. Las Lindas

Las Lindas is even more hopeless than Spinnerette, because this comic will introduce the decent thing, and before you know it decent thing is ruined. At least Spinnerette has decent variety of different stories. Las Lindas will never leave that fucking farm, if we don't count the spinoff comics half of which are non-canon and are about the same level of quality as main comic anyway. My brief revisit showed me the post-Alejandra era wasn't as hideous as I thought but it's pretty damn close, and with the ever-worsening artstyle and an apparent INTRODUCTION OF SUPERHEROES, Las Lindas's level of quality could best be described with that panel where Tootsie drives into a river.

12. Console Girl

Console Girl is the first comic in this ranking I just completely despise. It makes Ctrl-Alt-Delete look like Penny Arcade, it's a comic about an ecchi console that comes to life but midway through we get a plot twist and it turns out to be a cyberpunk comic that tries to treat humanoid consoles fighting seriously...or not really, as the comic has a problem taking itself seriously, outside of some questionable moments where the author seems to project their hidden anger towards video games into the comic??? We also have in-comic non-canon filler arcs, console girls eventually becoming random fetishes instead of things actually relevant to their real counterparts and TOO MANY LITTLE PEOPLE WHO ARE IN RELATIONSHIPS WITH ADULT MEN. I'm glad this comic was never finished.

13. Monster Girl Academy

Monster Girl Academy is just...the worst. It was solely created to make Kraw even more rich, but I would forgive that if the comic didn't just...fail as a webcomic, fail as a porn comic and fail as a narrative period. This comic was designed for lowest common denominator with fetishes that are too weird to be vanilla and too vanilla to be weird. Its existence pisses me off. While other comics I've riffed had potential, this never had any semblance of it. The main protagonist is a piece of shit and all his girls are also pieces of shit, the only likable character is a little girl who cries and prays in Spanish, because every character reading this comic can relate to her. Fuck this comic, and I mean it with every letter of that sentence.

#article thingy

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citrina-posts · 4 years ago

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Avatar: Cultural Appreciation or Appropriation?

I love Avatar: the Last Airbender. Obviously I do, because I run a fan blog on it. But make no mistake: it is a show built upon cultural appropriation. And you know what? For the longest time, as an Asian-American kid, I never saw it that way.

There are plenty of reasons why I never realized this as a kid, but I’ve narrowed it down to a few reasons. One is that I was desperate to watch a show with characters that looked like me in it that wasn’t anime (nothing wrong with anime, it’s just not my thing). Another is that I am East Asian (I have Taiwanese and Korean ancestry) and in general, despite being the outward “bad guys”, the East Asian cultural aspects of Avatar are respected far more than South Asian, Middle Eastern, and other influences. A third is that it’s easy to dismiss the negative parts of a show you really like, so I kind of ignored the issue for a while. I’m going to explain my own perspective on these reasons, and why I think we need to have a nuanced discussion about it. This is pretty long, so if you want to keep reading, it’s under the cut.

Obviously, the leadership behind ATLA was mostly white. We all know the co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (colloquially known as Bryke) are white. So were most of the other episodic directors and writers, like Aaron Ehasz, Lauren Montgomery, and Joaquim Dos Santos. This does not mean they were unable to treat Asian cultures with respect, and I honestly do believe that they tried their best! But it does mean they have certain blinders, certain perceptions of what is interesting and enjoyable to watch. Avatar was applauded in its time for being based mostly on Asian and Native American cultures, but one has to wonder: how much of that choice was based on actual respect for these people, and how much was based on what they considered to be “interesting”, “quirky”, or “exotic”?

The aesthetic of the show, with its bending styles based on various martial arts forms, written language all in Chinese text, and characters all decked out in the latest Han dynasty fashions, is obviously directly derivative of Asian cultures. Fine. That’s great! They hired real martial artists to copy the bending styles accurately, had an actual Chinese calligrapher do all the lettering, and clearly did their research on what clothing, hair, and makeup looked like. The animation studios were in South Korea, so Korean animators were the ones who did the work. Overall, this is looking more like appreciation for a beautiful culture, and that’s exactly what we want in a rapidly diversifying world of media.

But there’s always going to be some cherry-picking, because it’s inevitable. What’s easy to animate, what appeals to modern American audiences, and what is practical for the world all come to mind as reasons. It’s just that… they kinda lump cultures together weirdly. Song from Book 2 (that girl whose ostrich-horse Zuko steals) wears a hanbok, a traditionally Korean outfit. It’s immediately recognizable as a hanbok, and these dresses are exclusive to Korea. Are we meant to assume that this little corner of the mostly Chinese Earth Kingdom is Korea? Because otherwise, it’s just treated as another little corner of the Earth Kingdom. Korea isn’t part of China. It’s its own country with its own culture, history, and language. Other aspects of Korean culture are ignored, possibly because there wasn’t time for it, but also probably because the creators thought the hanbok was cute and therefore they could just stick it in somewhere. But this is a pretty minor issue in the grand scheme of things (super minor, compared to some other things which I will discuss later on).

It’s not the lack of research that’s the issue. It’s not even the lack of consideration. But any Asian-American can tell you: it’s all too easy for the Asian kids to get lumped together, to become pan-Asian. To become the equivalent of the Earth Kingdom, a mass of Asians without specific borders or national identities. It’s just sort of uncomfortable for someone with that experience to watch a show that does that and then gets praised for being so sensitive about it. I don’t want you to think I’m from China or Vietnam or Japan; not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I’m not! How would a French person like to be called British? It would really piss them off. Yet this happens all the time to Asian-Americans and we are expected to go along with it. And… we kind of do, because we’ve been taught to.

1. Growing Up Asian-American

I grew up in the early to mid-2000s, the era of High School Musical and Hannah Montana and iCarly, the era of Spongebob and The Amazing World of Gumball and Fairly Odd Parents. So I didn’t really see a ton of Asian characters onscreen in popular shows (not anime) that I could talk about with my white friends at school. One exception I recall was London from Suite Life, who was hardly a role model and was mostly played up for laughs more than actual nuance. Shows for adults weren’t exactly up to par back then either, with characters like the painfully stereotypical Raj from Big Bang Theory being one of the era that comes to mind.

So I was so grateful, so happy, to see characters that looked like me in Avatar when I first watched it. Look! I could dress up as Azula for Halloween and not Mulan for the third time! Nice! I didn’t question it. These were Asian characters who actually looked Asian and did cool stuff like shoot fireballs and throw knives and were allowed to have depth and character development. This was the first reason why I never questioned this cultural appropriation. I was simply happy to get any representation at all. This is not the same for others, though.

2. My Own Biases

Obviously, one can only truly speak for what they experience in their own life. I am East Asian and that is arguably the only culture that is treated with great depth in Avatar.

I don’t speak for South Asians, but I’ve certainly seen many people criticize Guru Pathik, the only character who is explicitly South Asian (and rightly so. He’s a stereotype played up for laughs and the whole thing with chakras is in my opinion one of the biggest plotholes in the show). They’ve also discussed how Avatar: The Last Airbender lifts heavily from Hinduism (with chakras, the word Avatar itself, and the Eye of Shiva used by Combustion Man to blow things up). Others have expressed how they feel the sandbenders, who are portrayed as immoral thieves who deviously kidnap Appa for money, are a direct insult to Middle Eastern and North African cultures. People have noted that it makes no sense that a culture based on Inuit and other Native groups like the Water Tribe would become industrialized as they did in the North & South comics, since these are people that historically (and in modern day!) opposed extreme industrialization. The Air Nomads, based on the Tibetan people, are weirdly homogeneous in their Buddhist-inspired orange robes and hyperspiritual lifestyle. So too have Southeast Asians commented on the Foggy Swamp characters, whose lifestyles are made fun of as being dirty and somehow inferior. The list goes on.

These things, unlike the elaborate and highly researched elements of East Asian culture, were not treated with respect and are therefore cultural appropriation. As a kid, I had the privilege of not noticing these things. Now I do.

White privilege is real, but every person has privileges of some kind, and in this case, I was in the wrong for not realizing that. Yes, I was a kid; but it took a long time for me to see that not everyone’s culture was respected the way mine was. They weren’t considered *aesthetic* enough, and therefore weren’t worth researching and accurately portraying to the creators. It’s easy for a lot of East Asians to argue, “No! I’ve experienced racism! I’m not privileged!” News flash: I’ve experienced racism too. But I’ve also experienced privilege. If white people can take their privilege for granted, so too can other races. Shocking, I know. And I know now how my privilege blinded me to the fact that not everybody felt the same euphoria I did seeing characters that looked like them onscreen. Not if they were a narrow and offensive portrayal of their race. There are enough good-guy Asian characters that Fire Lord Ozai is allowed to be evil; but can you imagine if he was the only one?

3. What It Does Right

This is sounding really down on Avatar, which I don’t want to do. It’s a great show with a lot of fantastic themes that don’t show up a lot in kids’ media. It isn’t superficial or sugarcoating in its portrayal of the impacts of war, imperialism, colonialism, disability, and sexism, just to name a few. There are characters like Katara, a brown girl allowed to get angry but is not defined by it. There are characters like Aang, who is the complete opposite of toxic masculinity. There are characters like Toph, who is widely known as a great example of how to write a disabled character.

But all of these good things sort of masked the issues with the show. It’s easy to sweep an issue under the rug when there’s so many great things to stack on top and keep it down. Alternatively, one little problem in a show seems to make-or-break media for some people. Cancel culture is the most obvious example of this gone too far. Celebrity says one ignorant thing? Boom, cancelled. But… kind of not really, and also, they’re now terrified of saying anything at all because their apologies are mocked and their future decisions are scrutinized. It encourages a closed system of creators writing only what they know for fear of straying too far out of their lane. Avatar does do a lot of great things, and I think it would be silly and immature to say that its cultural appropriation invalidates all of these things. At the same time, this issue is an issue that should be addressed. Criticizing one part of the show doesn’t mean that the other parts of it aren’t good, or that you shouldn’t be a fan.

If Avatar’s cultural appropriation does make you uncomfortable enough to stop watching, go for it. Stop watching. No single show appeals to every single person. At the same time, if you’re a massive fan, take a sec (honestly, if you’ve made it this far, you’ve taken many secs) to check your own privilege, and think about how the blurred line between cultural appreciation (of East Asia) and appropriation (basically everybody else) formed. Is it because we as viewers were also captivated by the aesthetic and overall story, and so forgive the more problematic aspects? Is it because we’ve been conditioned so fully into never expecting rep that when we get it, we cling to it?

I’m no media critic or expert on race, cultural appropriation, or anything of the sort. I’m just an Asian-American teenager who hopes that her own opinion can be put out there into the world, and maybe resonate with someone else. I hope that it’s given you new insight into why Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show with both cultural appropriation and appreciation, and why these things coexist. Thank you for reading!

#this deleted idk why #so here is me reposting it #atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #cultural appropriation #meta #atla meta #racism

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marimopeace · 4 years ago

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there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

#isekai #mother's basement #inuyasha #digimon #fushigi yugi #.hack//legend of the twilight #log horizon #overlord #the saint's magic power is omnipotent #the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap #a returner's magic should be special #adonis #the lady and the beast #light and shadow #kumo desu ga nani ka #her majesty's swarm #fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess #death is the only ending for a villainess #the villainess wants to marry a commoner #save me princess #the beginning after the end #the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion #trash of the count's family #this time i will definitely be happy!#silver diamond #see i normally put the raw titles for everything but the tiny korean/japanese part of my brain is so tired bc my english brain went off #the princess imprints a traitor #manga #manhwa #donghua

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levihan-drabbles · 4 years ago

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Hey guys !!! I hope everyone in this wonderful fandom is doing amazing <3 Recently, my friend and I have come up with a very interesting and fun event that we're hoping you all would like to participate in. We haven't really seen surprise prompts and drabble weeks for Levihan before, so we decided to make one! Also a very fun contest with cool awards too.

Getting straight to the point, the reason why this event is different from an usual prompt week is because we are only going to be focusing on drabbles here. (And also because the prompts won't be predetermined and given to you beforehand)

(Note: this is also open to artists and other content creators. We will be making another post tomorrow explaining how the event works for them. Till then, the writers can continue)

✒ A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space. (YeS I stole it from google)

As a writer myself, due to the limited word limit, drabbles can be a bit of a struggle sometimes, and that is primarily the reason why this whole event is also somewhat more of a writing practice (other than the fact that we need to get those numbers on AO3 up haha)

Without wasting much time, let's get straight into the details, and how this is really going to work, what are surprise prompts and the contest and its awards of course.

▶ How long are your entries really supposed to be? Well Google says 100 words but that's way too unfair so your fic should be = to or under 1000 words. The maximum you can go up to is 1500.

▶ Are there any certain prompts/themes these drabbles should be on? Yes, and that's what we are going to talk about next.

▶ And what are surprise prompts? Okay so remember back when in school, your annoying math teacher would take a surprise quiz out of nowhere without informing you? Yeah something like that but its not that bad. Also, its a lot more fun than math.

Basically your prompts will be given to you a day before you need to post them. so its really just a writing practice and there is no pressure, so don't think about the quality or something. This is about scribbling down something quick without a lot of planning.

The prompts are also going to be chosen from an OTP prompt generator, so they are going to be uhm interesting and fun to work.

We have a theme for each day (like angst, fluff etc) and the mods will choose 4 random prompts beforehand for each of these days. At the time of giving the prompts to the participants, we will run a machine to choose one randomly out of the 4. So even the mods don't know what the actual prompt is going to be for the day.

The themes for each day (except Wednesdays and Thursdays, we will get to them later)

Angst Mondays

Trope Tuesdays

Fluff Fridays

Comic Saturdays (this is for the artists, so you can ignore it)

Smut Sundays

Now, here's the challenge (and probably my favorite part about the event) -- The prompts you get are not exclusively going to be in accordance with the themes for each day.

For example, you can definitely get this for Angst Mondays :

Prompt : "Levi having to rescue Hange from a pack of kittens/puppies."

Now its up to you, with the power of levihan on your side, to write an angsty drabble based on this prompt, (okay fine, the prompts probably won't be this off bat but still)

**Exception, : for trope Tuesdays, you won't be getting a prompt but a particular trope like (enemies to lovers, protective levi, caring hange etc)

▶ What time will you exactly get the prompt then? So basically, if Levihan drabble week begins on Tuesday, 25th May, you will getting your trope (prompt for the other days) around Monday afternoon-ish. And you are allowed to post until Tuesday midnight, before Wednesday begins. (Wednesday and Thursday are contest days which we will talk about later, so you don't have to worry about getting another prompt on Tuesday and finishing it on Wednesday itself)

▶How will you get your prompt? And any other details? We'll be making another post later where we will dive deep into the timezone specifics and how you will get the prompt, and what you will tag your posts with so we can see your stuff and reblog it.

You will get the prompt for fluff Friday around Thursday afternoon, and then the writers will have a break as Saturday is for artists. Friday night, you will get the prompt for smut Sunday you will have Saturday as a break in between before posting your smut on Sunday.

The same formula applies to angst Mondays.

1st June, Tuesday, last day of the week will be the prize day. We are gonna talk about the prize day in the next section.

Wednesday and Thursdays (The contest days)

So, first of all, this is optional. If you are participating in the rest of the drabble week, its okay if you leave to opt out of the contest. Similarly, you can also just participate in the contest and not do the other days. It's up to you.

The people participating in the contest would be divided into two groups. There are going to be two winners.

Suppose we have group 1 and group 2, a random participant from each group will be chosen. This chosen participant is called the selector. Its purely luck and a machine that chooses the selector. The selector gets to choose a prompt (from a list the mods will give them) Suppose the said selector is from group 1, then the prompt they chose will be given to group two, and everyone in group two have to write on that. The selector from group two will do the same thing for group 1 members.

All of the preparation for the contest will be done beforehand, and the selectors will be informed before the week begins. The selected prompts will be given to both groups Tuesday night. By Thursday evening their works should be posted.

The word limit for Contest Drabbles can be extended to 3000 words. This is ONLY for the contest.

After all works are submitted by Thursday evening, there will be a voting period which will stretch till 1st June, Tuesday. During this period, group 1 will read group 2's stuff, and group 2 will do the same for group 1. Then they will vote for their favorite fics accordingly, the fic with the maximum votes from both groups wins. The mods will be supervising this, and reading the stuff too.

▶How do we vote? All the details related to voting will also be explained in a different post.

▶What are the awards? Okay, so one thing unique about drabble week is that there are going to be no permanent mods. We will probably have these events rather frequently, and the mods will change for each event. The mods will decide the awards so different awards for different months.

This month, the gifts are :

Well detailed and long comments on 2 chapters of a fic of your choice. These can also be two different one shots if you want.

Beta reading for a few (3-4 chapters) for any fic the winner wants (the other details can be discussed in dms)

The winners will have the opportunity/chance to become mods for the next week, next month. This is also a great way to make new friends and work with them while holding an event!

To participate, PLEASE FILL OUT THIS FORM. The last date to fill in is 20th May, so do it before that. We'll be making another post for the artists soon, posting it tomorrow most likely. You will be constantly updated, so don't worry!

if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask. Thank you so much, we will be looking forward for your participation! Much love.

#levihan #aot #snk #levi x hange #levi x hanji #levi ackerman #hanji zoe #hange zoe #drabbleweekMAY'21

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