#literally her replacement

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Maybe the truth at the heart of Shadowstruck is the importance of family. Because the most compelling stories in this universe are about what happens when you tell parents that some of their children have no right to their love, care, and protection. It destroys what should be the strongest and most natural bonds of love, and that simple horrible thing leads to all the complicated problems in their oppressive society.

[aroaceleovaldez]

i have suddenly become obsessed with a theme that HoO established but never proceeded to extrapolate on, which is:

You are Percy Jackson, and you have been swapped with a boy who was allegedly everyone's favorite person, but they have decided to replace him with you. They just met you. You stand next to his best friend and the people he's known his entire life. In his home. In his cloak. In his place. They stopped looking for him.

You are Jason Grace, and you have just found out you have a long lost sister who completely replaced you in her life with this girl you just met. Your lives and personalities are mirrors. She is you, living the life you were robbed of.

You are Annabeth Chase, and you have just become starkly aware that you have been inhabiting the void left behind by your best friend's long lost brother. You and Luke were just replacements for him. Now you have to look him in the eyes when he has nothing and know you took that life from him.

You are Piper McLean, and you have just found out your relationship is fake and built entirely on the memories of Annabeth Chase. You have been given a boyfriend when hers has been taken away. You have no idea how much of it is real or not but regardless you feel like if your relationship isn't exactly in their image that you have failed.

You are Leo Valdez, and you have just learned that you are the echo of your great-grandfather. You are not your own person. You just exist to be a mirror of him. A doppelganger. An actor and stunt double facing all the danger he never had to but wearing his face. To be there for his best friend decades later simply because he couldn't. You are playing a role. A seventh wheel and a pawn for a goddess who carefully sculpted your entire life for her own purposes.

You are Hazel Levesque, and the only reason you are alive is because your brother couldn't save your his sister. You are a consolation prize. An apology. Your existence here is misplaced in every way but you inhabit it anyways.

You are Frank Zhang, and you are a shapeshifter. Inhabiting your own body feels strange and clumsy when you could be literally anything at any time. You are anything and everything and live your life with the simple certainty of knowing exactly how you will die.

[sillylittlecharacters]

Honestly, from the little that we know about Petronille's character, an initial rivalry between her and Mirabelle makes so much sense. If you play your cards right, you can craft a dynamic tailor made to play on their insecurities!

For example, Mirabelle has shown a lot of insecurity around her ability to complete basic tasks, like needing to be taught how to cut vegetables with a nursery rhyme presumably in her teens. How might she feel being faced with someone her age able to raise a child alone? And in the case of massive, important, life defining tasks - tasks as large as saving an entire country? Mira might think that someone like Nille probably could've saved Vaugarde alone, without dragging several other people down along with her to aid her in a doomed quest…

And in Nille's case, well, if one was going to have any type of grudge against a group of heroes for taking your younger sibling directly into royalty related danger, it would make sense that most of your ire would be focused on the capital H Hero herself. The Chosen One, handpicked by the crabbing Change God, beloved by all of Vaugarde and most importantly, the perfect replacement for Nille in Bonnie's life. After all, it was Mirabelle who was there for Bonnie when they needed an older sister the most - Nille might be worried that one day Bonnie will weigh their options and decide that Mirabelle is the better choice.

Now, obviously, this is all within the realm of speculation, but I think it's interesting. I know that Mira is sober for religious reasons, but their dynamic has the potential to be a perfect cocktail of insecurities, jealousy and imposter syndrome.

And buddy? I need a drink.

[uniiiquehecrt]

Voice actors are NOT the same as actors.

It takes a specific kind of skill-set and training to be able to warp and meld the voice. It takes a certain kind of talent and dedication to hone that talent into the ability to meld the voice and invoke emotion with one's voice alone. Actors are used to using their voice secondarily to their body language and their facial expressions. It's all mirrored back on camera. They do have nuance. But it's a different kind of nuance and a different kind of training to produce that nuance.

Voice actors might get their likeness transposed on their character's design, and maybe their mannerisms might seep into the character's animation. But when it's all said and done: their presence is in their voice. They are bringing a character to life, showing that emotion in their voice, trying to keep a specific accent, drawl, pitch, tone in that voice and keep it consistent for their recording sessions.

The voice actor is like a classically trained musician who can play first chair in a competitive, world-renown orchestra. The actor (who fills the voice actor's role) is like a moot who played violin in beginner and intermediate high school orchestra and thinks they can get into Juilliard with that 2-4 years of experience.

This doesn't mean that the HS orchestra moot can't play. They can even be really good at it. Maybe they won competitions and sat first chair. But they are not in the same league as the person who's been training their whole lives and lives and breathes to hone their craft using the instrument and all of the training they've ever acquired to perfect it. They are not meant for the same roles. They are not in the same caliber. You do not hire the HS equivalent when you want to play complex music in a competitive orchestra.

Actors are not the same as voice actors.

And furthermore, actors - especially big name actors - taking the roles of animated characters for big budget films or TV pilots makes no sense anyways when - at least in the case of TV pilots - there's not a point to hiring a big budget actors anyways. That money could be used elsewhere (like paying your animators), and the talent that is brought onto the screen for X character could then be hired on to voice said character no recasting required.

I wouldn't say voice acting as a profession is in danger exactly, but it's certainly being disrespected and overlooked for celebrity clout, and this has ALWAYS been an issue. Shoot, even Robin Williams knew that much - which is why he tried so hard not to be used as a marketing chess piece for Aladdin and got royally pissed off when it happened anyways. People shouldn't go to any movie (but especially not animated films) because "oh famous actor is in it". People should go because it's a good movie and the voice acting is good.

People who honest to god think that voice actors are replaceable because "oh well anyone can voice act" or "I like xyz celebrity so naturally it'll be good" ... Honestly I just wish you'd reassess your priorities because you're missing the point and are part of the problem.

Voice Actors ≠ Actors.

[autism-corner]

LEVI FROM @bubbiedubs!!!!

[fear-no-mort]

i cant get over the whole time in the real world rick just sat there watching over morty and when he woke up finally rick sounded SO happy the way he just yelled his name excitedly the second he woke up,,,

[zabiume]

Hello! I just wanted to ask if you think Orihime might have been a little too complex for the audience that bleach was aimed at? (teenage boys that is). I mainly interact with the bleach fandom on tiktok (the bleach tiktok fandom is horrendous but moving on) the opinion of Orihime is kind of mixed on tiktok, there's a big portion of people who love her, but there's also a big portion of people who hate her. Whenever I get into an argument about her and ask why people think her writing is bad, they always say stuff like; ''she's too emotional/she has too many emotions'' and I'm just like ??? How does that make her a bad character?? To be fair the bleach tiktok fandom has A LOT of internalized misogyny so it's not that suprising that they hate Orihime, but again I wanna hear your opinion because I do feel like people on tiktok trow around the good/bad writing a lot without even really knowing what it means.

this is an interesting question! my joke answer is that it should be illegal to hate orihime😂, but my serious answer is that i feel like there's a difference between enjoying something as an audience member vs enjoying something as a critical reader, so if we're talking about pure enjoyment, it's perfectly okay for people to have preferences and like/hate certain characters based on those preferences. enjoying something as an audience is subjective. for instance, i really can't stand the kuroko no basket movie as a critical reader but i do enjoy it a lot as someone who was there to have a good time! i liked seeing my favorite characters again, i liked seeing them bicker and interact. sometimes stories fulfill simple needs, like "woah! that was a cool fight!" or "some dude had an incredible entrance backed with an incredible OST" and your knee jerk response is to just enjoy it. i have lots of characters that i don't really care about, so it's not surprising to me that orihime is a character lots of people don't care about. it's not a big deal.

but i think critical reading is a little more nuanced than that, especially if we're talking about what "counts" as good writing/bad writing. i don't think there's one particular way to write a Good Female Character, and i think trying to make good female characters a monolith is very bad for writing in general. trying to make any identity a monolith while writing them is obviously bad, and having different kinds of characters is a better indicator of good writing to me, which i would argue that bleach does, to a certain extent. there are lots of female characters in bleach and they're all very different from each other, and we do get to see some interiority, however rich or poor. BUT, i also think it's important to note that kubo does draw women like a freak, and a lot of the fanservice leaves a bad taste in my mouth. it's good to view a series in its totality — what it does well, what's kind of shitty, etc etc. you can acknowledge some of the great character beats for a lot of these female characters but also acknowledge that the story is not free from the author's perception of the world, and of women in particular. yes, a lot of them are interesting and have engaging storylines, but sometimes they are here to be Sexy keeping a specific kind of reader in mind (male) and orihime is not free from that kind of depiction, though she is nowhere near the only bleach character to be a "victim" of that! even ignoring the fanservice aspects of it, we could always make an argument about certain storylines and have those criticisms be valid, but it's important to do that in good-faith, which is what i mean by seeing a story in its totality!

and this is where the point you bring up comes in, because i think a lot of fans don't account for their own internalized misogyny, and how much accountability they have as an audience in writing certain characters off, especially if they're pushing goal posts that they wouldn't for male characters. yes, it's important to be critical, but you have to be critical of the series in a way that suits the genre. bleach is a shonen, which is historically a genre that appeals to the lowest common denominator of people — which means it's not going to be a transcendent, transgressive indie work of art that has radical things to say about gender and society and capitalism or whatever. if you want that, you have to pick up a manga that does that and assess how effectively or ineffectively it achieves those goals. as it stands, i think it's cruel to expect things from a story that it never even set out to do.

i know this is getting long, but my point is that when i look at orihime, i'm not holding her to the same standards that i would a character from a shoujousei or a seinen. i'm looking at her in relation to other characters in bleach, and seeing how effectively or ineffectively she fulfills her role in the story. and, if i'm allowed to be controversial: i think she's an amazing character for what her role is supposed to be! she's a love interest in a shonen, which should have doomed her from the start, but nope! she's got great relationships with characters other than ichigo, she has flaws, she has a complex belief system that is taken seriously + sometimes challenged/sometimes validated by the narrative, some of the biggest themes in bleach like the rain or the heart are explained through her, she has at least one pivotal scene in every arc (even when the plot of that arc isn't centered around her), and we get such a rich view of her inner life in every chapter centered around her. we know so much about her — from silly things like what she likes to watch and eat, to major things, like who she want to be, what she believes in, what her fears are. we get to spend so much time with her. she gets to have an antagonistic relationship with a character without actually being a full-fledged fighter. even the most bitter of orihime haters i've seen have at least acknowledged how iconic her moral clash with ulquiorra was, and the scene where he accepts defeat in front of her (he WAS accepting defeat and telling her he was wrong btw; you can't take a non-romance moment, convert it into a romantic moment, and then cry about how orihime's plotlines are only ever centered on romance. YOU are doing that, not her!), is routinely seen as one of the most iconic bleach scenes of all time. speaking of iconic scenes, orihime is in some of the most memorable bleach fights even when she's not an active participant, and a lot of times, her presence leads to a major change in how the battle is going

[literally 3/4 of those fights have a major moment with her in it, and they're voted 1st, 3rd and 4th place. yes, those were ichigo's fights but his relationship with orihime is at least hinted at or mentioned in of THREE OF THEM]

it's also worth noting just how seriously the narrative takes her feelings. we see orihime happy, angry, sad, jealous and she's allowed to be it so openly and sincerely, even at the risk of ridicule. she's allowed to cheer people up, but she doesn't exist just to do that! there are so many scenes where she's in need of comforting, where she needs reassurance, and she gets to be a scared, insecure teenager just as much as ichigo does. she's bright and vivacious, she's defiant, she's loud, she's a dreamer and a yearner, she's lonely, she's emotional, and she's so, so warm and kind and human. like, i'll be honest, so many shonen fans seem to think girls can either be tomboys or shy/submissive, but they're the ones boxing characters into those stereotypes when they don't even fit (orihime ESPECIALLY doesn't fit into either category but i've seen so many people do that)

and like, yeah, kubo can be a weirdo, but he defended her, and he considered her important enough to acknowledge her growth, even when he was running short of time. and he could have so easily made orihime's envy of rukia this catty thing of like. oooh girls are falling over themselves for ichigo, they're FIGHTING for him, but he doesn't...do that. he allows orihime to be insecure without making her the butt of a joke, and he allows her the complexity her feelings deserve. and he gave rukia enough respect to have orihime want to be her friend, even as she navigated her complicated feelings about her.

and these are all OUTSIDE of her role as a love interest. as a love interest, she's basically perfect. she has meaningful and thematic parallels with ichigo, she has so many heartfelt moments with him, her confession is almost universally loved by normal people, and ichigo is so kind to her that you never feel like she picked someone who doesn't value her or respect her. these are definitely bare minimum things, but again, i'm judging it by shonen standards, and by shonen standards, she is very, very lucky. i can work with this much material, this is good enough for me, but if people's standards are higher then maybe it's not hitting for them idk! maybe their expectations for good writing were different! at the end of the day, i think it's a good thing for characters to be widely discussed because it just means there's a lot to talk about, and that's always a good thing, but let me just plug my favorite tweet to summarize my thoughts on the matter

[shima-draws]

I have a lot of thoughts about ONK right now but the main one is how much I fucking LOVE Miyako. Her character development going from “I’m going to reveal the truth about these twins to the public so I can get tons of money” to “I love these kids as if they were my own and I know I can’t ever replace their mother but I will be here for them always” makes me want to fucking cry. She really girlbossed it up with Strawberry Productions too. I’d do anything for her

[soularsss]

She's here!!

The writing might be a little hard so I can edit in a transcript if anyone needs one lmfao

her costume is supposed to be giving vintage superhero and I was so tempted to give her a Robin style mask

anyway!! Im very much of the habit where I make one general oc for something and then reuse them for other fandoms as well, Kaidou has been my superpowered/mutant oc since.. gosh.. forever...

A bit more about her is she is in her 20's, since the plot i've got in my head takes place around a lot of classes, I have been toying with the idea of her having fried her brain a little and being in such intense fights from a young age inducing Night Terrors/Hypnagogic hallucinations. Oh and she will refuse to play any form of card game with you because she SUCKS.

If youre wondering where she is now and what Ive been watching that brought her back enough for an actual design, I have a very rough and all over the place MHA college au that spurred the idea :,) And thinking back on where she first popped up, i think it might have actually been the same anime! But that is all less important tbh.. I just wanted to show you all the babey

[everythingwasalreadypicked]

Something something Thalia and Alabaster sharing a fatal flaw... something something childhood bestfriends Annabaster... something something Thalia being made Artemis's lieutenant to satisfy her thirst for power and to get her off Olympus's back, Luke promoting Alabaster to General for the same reasons...

Something something Thalia renouncing the kid she knew and cursed the gods with all these years, and not recognising both him and the child they took in anymore

OHHH I'm having thoughts and Unwell no one stop me

[darklight-owl]

Sorry I'm about to ruin Eternal Diva for y'all but the whole Melina thing genuinely haunts me every day like. Melina is dead right but she doesn't die at the end of the movie where she willingly supresses her consciousness. That isn't Melina that is a copy of Melina that genuinely believes she is Melina. Because the Detragan didn't take her out of her body or anything it just made a backup of the data stored in her brain so if the "original" is unusable then it doesn't matter because you have another one right there. Melina never actually got another chance at life because her consciousness never actually left her body. Oswald probably knew that but he was so desperate and so unwilling to accept his daughter's fate that he pretended he had saved her. He wasn't even using these young girls' bodies as a vessel he was modifying their personalities for them to imitate his daughter so he could PRETEND she was still alive like what the fuck.

Anyway when you notice that the movie just gets a whole lot more depressing.

[parab0mb]

Average conversation between these three dweebs.

I don't actually know their canon heights (I think Lea is supposed to be the shortest) but Emilie being small fits the meme format better and is funnier so french gremlin she is. Also my heart tells me that Apollo is built like an actual blade of grass.

The og meme btw:

[thefloatingstone]

I really want to draw something meaty and put some characters into The Situations but I am dealing with a double whammy of art block and some REALLY insane migraine/Sinus issues the past 3 or 4 days.

So all I managed was a quick Solana. I wanted to give her a cool leg prosthetic but then I didn't really draw her legs sdjfdsjkfsdhf So that's the level of cognitive function I am dealing with at the moment

Fun fact! I really dislike a lot of the female turian design! So I just... ignored the parts I disliked lol.

[zabala0z]

Welcome back to “new TMA fan listens to season 2!” and im ur host. So far I listened to 3 episodes from season 2 but I gleaned a lot of connections from it. Oh what is it unknown viewer? Golly gosh I’m so glad you asked. <3

MAG 41: Too deep

Jon’s such a dumbass like bro get the hell out of those tunnels. I didn’t make many connections since he was just yapping the whole time but it’s interesting there was like a wine bottle from 2003 down there??? Who is drinking down there??? My notes say that the tunnels could’ve been connected to the tunnels from MAG 35, the one from Harold Silvanas statement. Like literally connected. Could be a stretch but hey, they’re both tunnels.

Also he found those circle of worms. No theory but could be a portal or some shit

MAG 42:

This one was kinda creepy to me just cause of the guy at the end being like “encore?” So casually like bro there are dead bodies. Anyways something stuck out to me; that crystal shop.

Jennifer mentions being near a shop called “crystals. Books. Tarot” and a guy, tall, black and face of deep worry staring at her and asking what she was listening to. Then mumbling about protecting her hearing. This reminded me of MAG 32, when Jane mentioned working in a crystal shop (“Good Energies spiritual supplies shop) and how her coworker, Oliver, would stare at her with sadness and a bit of fear in the end.

Both seemed to know something. While Oliver wasn’t given a physical description, my theory is that they’re both the same people and he….knows crap or something. My only connections in the vague idea of knowing something and working in spiritual shops but who knows.

Finally. MAG 43:

Oh god. First, I love Basira. She needs to be paid more. Next, we finally have a name for the unnamed burn victim from First Aid (MAG 12)! Diego Molina. Apparently an assistant curator. He was yelling the same stuff from first aid about “Asag” yada yada but he had that red leather bound book that was mentioned in MAG 12. The one Gerard asked if the paramedics brought. He was killed by Gerard that episode but the event from MAG 43 happened half a year earlier. Nice to know a name.

(EDIT AUG 2, 8:11 PM: forgot to mention but I’m assuming Gerard and Diego know each other since Gerard seemed to be chasing after this book in First Aid and Diego had it. Both were found in MAG 12 together and Gerard later killed him so I wonder what’s their beef? Their deal?)

Also, Alice Tonner, or Daisy, mentioned spider husks. Possibly a reference to Arachnophobia (MAG 16)? Or any other statement with spiders since they pop up a lot in the magnus archives. She also mentioned vampires which could be related to Vampire Killer (MAG 10). Maybe she had to investigate one of Trevor’s kills or even knew a vampire, who knows.

Anyways. Jon is apparently going to get those tapes. I mean go you. Be careful

So that’s the end of my post! I took a couple day break to recover from the trauma of the last couple episodes of season 1. Everytime I post like these types of things, I always feel like that one meme

Like that’s me. I have a 15 page document on the magnus archives opened in front of me. Guys that’s me.

[spacedlexi]

so often i see people try to downplay violet and minervas relationship like it wasnt Real enough or was some Inferior Romance that her relationship with clementine could Never compare to, and i find it so annoying and boring

she LOVED minerva!! and its okay that she did!! she was her first love!! childhood best friends turned girlfriends!! seeing her being so heartbroken and miserable about what happened to minnie, how deeply and desperately she missed her, hugging that bed frame so pathetically. but clementine makes her CARE again. makes her LOVE again. slowly violet becomes comfortable with the idea of opening her heart up to people again, after trying so hard not to because the pain of losing people she cared about was too much to bear (especially when she blamed herself for them being gone)

then she learns minnie didnt die. shes falling in love with clem while grappling with the fact that minnie might still be out there??

then she meets minnie in the woods. but minnie has changed just like she has. theyre both different people now. and slowly violet is forced to come to terms with the fact that the person she loved so deeply isnt that person anymore??

violet at the beginning mourning minerva and blaming herself, to shooting her to save clems life. she LOVED minerva once, but she doesnt like the person she is now. and shes not gonna let her hurt anyone else she cares about. shes done mourning her by the time they get to the bridge, only crying out for tenn

like idk i just find their relationship evolution to be so interesting and sad as shit. the fact that they once loved each other so much and it has now come to this?? but violet makes her choice and she Chooses clementine, because she admires and loves clementine, probably similar to the way she used to admire and love minerva if the way she talked about her is any indication

i just think "i never thought i would ever feel this way again" is way more interesting than "wow minnie Never made me feel like This"

[kacievvbbbb]

You know what honestly I don't think we talk enough about Yuuji and Nobara's relationship, just how much they meant to each other

Nobara means so much to him, just seeing her resonance enough to give him strength. the parallel of yuuji in this fight for his life with Sukuna and Mahito and being so weighed down by everything that he has lost and everything he is still trying to save and then Kugasaki hits that resonance and Yuuji sees that he’s not alone and god something about it always being Nobara and her insanity breaking him from that sorrow and giving him that last push to fight like he's not alone. It's why it's her death that really unravels him that really makes him feel like he can't go on. It's only when Arata tells him that she's not dead yet that there's a minuscule chance she just might make it through (and a truly hype speech from the one and only Aoi Todo) that he's able to get up again and give it all he's got.

He loves her so much that even the thought that Angel might fill the space she left in their trio that she might somehow replace her is enough to deeply unsettle him and make him keep his distance. and god what.

And Nobara loves him right back, maybe it took a little longer but she got there. Nobara whose whole philosophy is keeping the best getting rid of the rest who looks at love like it's a scarce resource actually shed tears a boy that by her own admission she'd only known for 2 weeks. just god. It's yuuji she tells about her chair system, it's him (and the rest of those boys) that she let pull up his own chair in her heart by her own analogy she literally made extra space for him in what she viewed as a limited seating. God doesn't that just drive you insane?

He means so much to her that she entrusts her last words to him. She wants him to carry those words on to the people she loves. That she can look at him and smile and tell him to spread the word "it wasn't so bad" Life wasn't so bad and that he was a small part of that is just so ughhhhh.

God how do I go on