#like from how it seemed in episode 1

[fantasticgothicpeachsludge]

Something something Agent Haldwell being from Jennifer’s movie something something probably her love interest something something they probably had weird “you’re coming with me little missy” kind of banter written by weird male writers something something Jennifer changing the misogynistic script something something drowning him in his own piss

[livemedown]

THE II S1 REMASTER IS OUT! Time to dump my thoughts!

The artstyle is fantastic! It feels a lot like the old one, but obviously far more polished. I love that they used stock music, too! However, Season 1's bad artstyle quite literally has a lore explanation now, so making it look better conflicts with that. I am going to assume that, with time, there's going to be some sort of given lore explanation about why there's a remaster, within the canon. But, of course, the real reason is probably because Season 1 is a bittersweet stain on the show. Silly and nostalgic, but there are still people who refuse to watch the show because of it (I know some people). Having a remaster will help make the show more appealing to newcomers.

I like the gags! They really scared me with MePhone's voice for a minute, but I like how they incorporated it. I especially enjoyed how well the voice actors copied the inflections that were originally used, with Balloon going "alright!" being the best example. It's silly, it's clunky, but in the charming way Season 1 was. Genuinely, I had a smile the whole time watching the episode, remembering when I first found this show in middle school, and seeing how far its come. I'm very excited to see where they take this, and knowing the next episode comes 4/1 is gonna have me on the edge of my seat.

Notable thing I wanted to mention: Justin isn't involved in this episode at all, or at least isn't listed in the credits. I'm not sure if there's an artistic reason behind this, or if this is in relation to the recent controversy (I will not be discussing it here), but either way, Olivia did a great job filling in the role of Knife! The difference was noticeable, but that's to be expected for a character who's had the same voice for all of his lifespan. And for an II character, that's an achievement! The voice work in this episode is great, in short.

Overall, I'm still a bit sceptical of how they're going to handle some of the edgier or poorly-aged aspects of the show, and again, how this makes sense within the lore. However, this seems like a very good start, and I'm glad I went into this without expectations. If the remaster ends up being really good, I might finally start begging people to watch II, and not have to warn them about certain things. Huzzah!

[sunsetcurve]

Hey! Same anon here!

(Listen, I just want to see this fandom being more active, haha! And I think that you are very articulate, and quite insightful, haha! 😌)

Can I ask you what do you think, retrospectively, about Fanon Max™️? Do you have any observations about how the character was handled by the fandom? Like, the entire #protectmax2016 discourse, for example.

It's 2025, and I'd really like to be honest, haha! Can we say that it was part of the appeal? It was part of the appeal lol. Like, I think that people came for the villain phase, for the wonderful relationship between Max and Phoebe, for the character development, but stayed because he was downplayed (But I'll admit, I might be projecting here 😆😆)

By rewatching the unaired pilot episode, I've started to think that the fact that Max's skills weren't acknowledge during the series (See: Max to the Future), was a byproduct of the writers' not knowing how to justify Max's sense of inferiority towards Phoebe, when the character took Oliver's place in the show: it almost feels like they still wanted to use the "villain brother" storyline, and had already found a sympathetic rationale for the character (Oliver had no powers, and Phoebe had so many of them) and tried to make it work by trying to "trick" the audience into thinking that Max was talentless.

What do you think about that?

hi anon welcome back!! thank you so much, that’s so sweet and i also would love to get more activity in this fandom, so i’m happy to have you in my inbox 🥰🥰 feel free to come talk to me about this show literally at any time, i love talking about it!!

for the protectmax2016 thing specifically, i actually wasn’t really around in the fandom during that time (i was definitely watching the show, but i didn’t get into the fandom here on tumblr until closer to maybe 2018?) so i’m not familiar with what was going on! but i’d love to hear more about it, i’m very curious. also just more overall, to be completely honest i don’t actually interact that much with the fandom in general outside of my sphere of usual mutuals, partially because it’s so small, partially because a big portion of the content is either thunderc*st (which i filter/block on sight) or like x reader stuff (which is just not my personal cup of tea), but i’ll do my best to give my thoughts on this based on what i have seen!

i definitely have been a max defender since i started watching this show and have always been pretty open about him being my favorite, so i totally get the sentiment. i can’t speak for everyone, but i for one have always gotten more into kids shows that i think have the potential for a more complex character/relationship/dynamic than they put on screen, just because it always gives me something to write and think and talk about. i definitely have always felt like that with max, especially with his family dynamic and like, obviously most of his initial descent into villainy happening off screen, and i do think there was a lot of agreement in at least the circles that i was in that there was something interesting there. for the fandom as a whole (at least from what i’ve seen) i think it certainly helped that he was a conventionally attractive “bad boy” who, imo, had pretty compelling development over the course of the series.

i do think fanon and canon max are pretty different; i know i definitely write max differently than i perceive him on screen, not because i don’t like him in the show but because making him a little bit edgier and more reserved/cool is just aesthetically fun for me. i also do think the fanon versions of him downplay just how much of a goof he is, like he does get into some pretty ridiculous shit in the show and he’s definitely not as “edgy bad boy” as he pretends to be/he’s written by the most of the fandom. i honestly think his dorkiness adds to his appeal in the show; a lot of the reason i write him the way i do is because i either a) am doing angstier stuff than the show or b) am writing tgsa (my silly little dangerverse crossover chatfic), where i write everyone a little more charicature-y to make them all more distinct (since there’s so many characters). i will say though, i also think part of the reason fanon max is sometimes inconsistent is because canon max is; i really like the way he’s written overall, but i think max as a character suffers from the writers needing him to be different things for the narrative at different times: i kind of talked about this in my answer to the last question about seasons, but he spends most of s1 being pretty sweet at his core despite his posturing, but then spends a lot of s2 being a more one-dimensional asshole while he’s creating conflicts for phoebe. i think s3 and s4 are way better about this, but the thundermans undercover has kind of started to go back to that characterization of him being selfish/unwilling to own up to his mistakes so they can play it for laughs or create more conflict. it’s definitely not always like that, but he does change a lot episode to episode. i think max characterizations in the fandom generally tend to lean more heavily on that asshole-with-a-heart-of-gold idea, because it definitely is more appealing, and in doing so he gets to be a little bit more cool and edgy and serious.

i’m getting a little off track here so sorry for the tangent—but like, with max’s skills and the original idea of oliver specifically, i definitely do agree that the writers kind of wrote themselves into a corner when they wrote max’s primary reasoning for becoming a villain to be about not being as good as phoebe but then also…didn’t give us much to explain why he feels that way or where it comes from. because, to be totally frank, phoebe does in canon work way harder than max, and that seems to be the main reason she’s more successful than him. in fact like, i would argue that some things seem to come more naturally to max than they do to her, and she just puts more time and effort and care into getting it right (report card is a great example of this). i do think it sets up a reallyyyy interesting parallel between them, where they’re both hyper-perfectionists but it takes them in opposite directions (i talked about this very briefly here), so i do still think it still makes sense for both of their characters, but at the same time with like us not ever seeing the beginning of max’s villain arc it’s really hard to pinpoint where his “inferiority” comes from, especially when, when he does start actually trying, he does just as well as phoebe. and yeah, i think it’s definitely reasonable and a great observation to think the writers tried to write away some of the things he’s especially good at; he’s consistently shown as extremely smart by the things he does, but the narrative and the other characters in the show generally treat him like he’s not, and the show itself doesn’t really acknowledge just how intelligent he is (except when he’s calling himself a genius). there seems to be a general sentiment of frustration towards max to the future specifically for being especially guilty of this. i honestly agree that knowing about oliver makes all of this a lot more sense: obviously i don’t know what the writers were thinking, but if i had to guess it seems like they wrote oliver as a villain with no powers who relied on his intelligence to give him a leg up, turned oliver into max and gave him powers, wanted to keep his inventions/intelligence as part of his character and as a plot device but didn’t have a good way to balance it out with his powers, and so just kind of left it as Something He Does without giving it much weight as like, a particularly special skill of his that sets him apart. it does feel kind of weird overall because it seems like the writers both try to put him on equal footing with phoebe ability/powers wise but then want to justify his feeling of inferiority, so a lot of times he’s kind of written off as just seeming either lazy or careless, which is where i think the fandom depiction of him (where things like adhd/dyslexia/other learning disorders are popular hcs, he has a more complicated relationship with his parents/their expectations, etc) helps to fill in some of the gaps.

this is getting super long so i’m gonna wrap up but like, this is a very long-winded way of saying i definitely agree with you about everything. i like max’s portrayal overall but i honestly think that because for a long time he doubles as both the secondary protagonist and the antagonist, the writers spend at least a decent amount of time not being completely sure what to do with him. this is where i think, while obviously him not having powers would’ve made for a very different show, it could’ve been really interesting for his character; i think there’s even a world where his powers developed later on like in s2 or 3 but his experiences built enough resentment to where he still wanted to be a villain, and i’m really curious as to what that version of max would’ve looked like. for the most part i think the change from oliver to max was for the best, but i think the villain justification made more sense in the original pilot, and would’ve made for a super compelling story. i have like a million more thoughts on max as a character but that’s all i can coherently put into words for now, so let me know what you think and thank you so much for the ask!

[thepandalion]

finally watched the latest Severance episode

what the fuck

[vaniliens]

Im not even sticking around for the drama that stuff gives me heart diseases im just here to see where this guys gonna lead us and to make fun of him if it ends up bad and ignore it if it was good

[maddy-ferguson]

i'm actually not a lesbian yes the concept of heterosexual sex disgusts me on paper but it appeals to me with a few select men. and that's how i've always felt but the lesbian masterdoc which was written by a girl who turned out to be bi got me. and a lot of other bi women with a preference for women. it's crazy to have that much influence when you think about it

[spellsparkler]

writing elias is fun for, i expect, the same reason a lot of people find the dark urge fun: I know more or less what's going on with her and she's got no fucking clue. she's a very information-driven person, and as soon as she realises that there is some largely indefinable difference between her and the rest of them she immediately starts trying to catalogue it and narrow it down. it's interesting to write someone who is so deliberately aware of themself and observing themself all the time

[shigussy]

as someone thats a longtime gay ship enjoyer no ships have had me feeling quite as insane as destiel, bkdk, and buddie.

[kennys-parka-jacket]

I am once again thinking about The Poor Kid

[cave-monkey]

Monkey King 2009 Episode 3

Them having Stone Monkey (apparently purely on instinct) constantly scratching while being introduced to the troop was pretty cool, since that's a legitimate deescalation behavior in monkeys. Something about how revealing stress acts as a bonding behavior and makes it less likely they'll be attacked. Humans do it too, kind of, when they rub at their hands or shoulders or neck (etc. etc.) when nervous or overwhelmed. ("Empathize with me! I am very stressed!").

Also something-something instinctive behaviors aside Stone Monkey being excited/overwhelmed/maybe a little overstimulated and choosing "ESCALATION!!!" as his response to all of that. He thinks the troop being scared of him is hilarious. He's scratching the fur off his arms but he's also going to get right up in your face anyway. Cautiously join him in admiring his cool new rock? He is going to play-lunge and also scream. Absolutely amazing. The troop has no idea what to do with these mixed signals. This kid is a menace and I love him.

Six Ears even gets in on the scratching behavior occasionally in the background, which might be because Stone Monkey actively terrorizing literally everyone trying to be playful (because he has the social skills of a literal, actual rock) is stressing Six Ears right out or it could be an attempt to deescalate on Stone Monkey's behalf. Monkey version of following in his new friend's wake throwing apologetic grimace-smiles at everyone. Possibly it's both. Point is: They included these behaviors and it's very fun.

You can also tell it worked because in just the journey to the cave you watch the four generals' views on Stone Monkey go from "uncanny valley horror entity lurking in the forest probably to kill us all" to "what a rude little kid >:| Emphasis on RUDE."

And, okay, I admit, I have softened my stance on the four generals. Somewhat. They seem to actually be taking their jobs seriously now. Maybe Episode 1 was a wake-up call and they won't utterly fail to notice an incursion until it's in the heart of their territory again. I don't want to go too crazy, but maybe they'll even be able to even muster a coherent response! Good for them.

Should probably still not be managing children, though.

Speaking of, Six Ears's increasing despair watching the train wreck in motion that was the four generals fumbling hard in giving Stone Monkey his very first etiquette lesson after he finally settled down and seemed willing to hear them out is also very relatable and hilarious. He knows they failed the test. Stone Monkey is definitely never going to listen to them again. They blew it. RIP Flower Fruit Mountain.

Stone Monkey does check in with Six Ears when he decides the generals are useless about explaining though, and that's pretty cute. He trusts his friend :) He also definitely internalizes that thing about having to ask to leave the presence of the king, so at least they managed to teach him some manners. ONE manners. A single manner. (Spoiler: They immediately regret this.)

But hey! This time Six Ears is left entirely to his own devices and still manages to get caught smack in the middle of enemy action. Not the Generals' fault for once! Six Ears just attracts this kind of thing, I guess.

3/3 Six Ears is Damsel-ed, but only 2/3 it's the adults' fault. The tally develops.

[talesfromthebandgeekmafia]

Guys, I’m not gonna lie…The new live action ATLA is not bad.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't

(Editing to add: see this post for details on the Mel's armor/shield theory)

S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.

The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.

No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.

But Viktor was, in Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.

1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?

2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's

Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?

She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.

Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?

Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:

But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.

[gaylittleguys]

I’m really not liking bly manor nearly as much as hill house. I feel like the strength of hill house was the family dynamic underpinning everything and made me invested and interested in these characters and how they fit together, and there’s not really anything as compelling here :/ I don’t think I can bring myself to finish the last two and a half episodes. at least not right now.

[frogmascquerade]

Doctor who spoilers in the tags ! Empire of death

[kianamaiart]

🌟KIANAMAIART FAQ🌟

FAQ wahoooo!!

GENERAL QUESTIONS

Who are you?

I'm Kiana, I'm a queer, Japanese Jamaican woman, and a Director/Storyboard artist who works in animation. I'm currently at Disney Television Animation.

What are your pronouns?

I usually go by she/her but I don't really mind any pronouns~

Where did you go to school?

California College of the Arts (but I dropped out when I was hired at Disney)

How did you get hired at Disney?

My bosses found me on twitter. They liked my drawing style and asked if I wanted to take a storyboard test. I did, I passed, I got interviewed and moved to LA two weeks later to start storyboarding.

Your work seems familiar. What do I know you from?

I've been on the internet for a long time! It could be a number of things. As maimai97 on dA I had a comic about next gen Pokemon characters called Pokemon 25 Years Later. As kilala97 I had some popular next gen ponies and also had a Steven Universe gemsona named Larimar. I'm also @yamujiburo, known most for drawing Jessie x Delia (hanamusa) a lot. I also work professionally! I've worked as a storyboard artist and director on Disney Channel's Big City Greens, I was a storyboard artist on one of the Steven Universe anti-racism shorts and I was a storyboard artist on Pokemon: Path to the Peak. Most recently I've been on season 6 of Dropout's Game Changer!

What program and brush do you use to draw?

Default brush in Storyboard pro. Photoshop sometimes just for compositing or specific effects.

PPPIDWTBAMG QUESTIONS

What is this project?

This is a project that started off as a silly idea that has since grown into me creating a 10 minute pilot animatic.

What does "pilot animatic" entail?

It means that it's effectively a pilot/episode 1 of a (potential) larger series. It's fully voice acted but is not fully animated. It's an animatic, meaning it will be comprised of storyboards in video form.

When and where can I watch the pilot!?

Now and right here!

What would this series be rated?

Ideally like PG13/TV14! Or whatever they call it. Definitely more geared to a YA audience. Not completely kiddy but also not what most people would consider adult animation to be

What are you planning to do with the project now that the pilot has released?

Don't know yet! There has been a lot of studio interest and even offers, so I'm in the process of talking with them and seeing if I can find this show a home or if I want to try doing it on my own or if I want to even continue with it at all. I know you guys are curious, but even if I wanted to tell you I couldn't. Just trust that I will make announcements as they come~

You said Aika had teammates, will we see them?

Because of the studio interest and potential for more of this show, there's some stuff I'm still holding close to my chest. This is one of them.

Do the characters have parents??

Zira does! As for Aika and Eclipse, this is something I'm still developing and don't really know myself haha

What are the characters' sexualities?

Don't know right now. Headcanon away!

Is "Star Guardian: Guardian of the Stars" a reference to that vine?

Nope! It's more so a parody for just really long and redundant titles which I love. Similar to the title of this project, which is called "Pretty Pretty Please I Don't Want to be a Magical Girl"

[holydramon]

got to chapter 8 (which I believe is where things diverge)!! anyway popping the biggest bottles cause all my theories regarding haru and miyuki have been proven correct so far.