#magically change her appearance

[frogatz]

shirley transgender 🫶

[heleizition]

🥺 my recent colette drawing from someone who asked even tho i didnt post it at first

[goodsmellerart]

princess of magic and friendship ✨🌙

[inamindfarfaraway]

I've seen a few posts comparing GIFfany to Bill Cipher, but can we talk about the real best foil dynamic for her? I mean Gideon Gleeful, y'all. The two of them have so many parallels.

They’re cute, charming, seemingly innocent youths with pastel, sparkly, formal aesthetics that connote sophistication and being model citizens of their respective native countries (Gideon wears a gentlemanly suit with an American flag badge; GIFfany wears a classic Japanese school uniform). Their core motivation is to be loved… or maybe it used to be, but by the time of the show they crave power and want to be worshipped. Especially regarding to their romantic attractions to main characters. As long as you obey them unconditionally and make them the most important person in your life, they’re doting, generous partners. But once the heroes reject their romantic advances, they quickly become incredibly possessive, jealous, resentful, domineering and downright violent toward them and anyone they perceive as sabotaging the relationship, unable to comprehend anyone not liking them in exactly the way they want because they’re perfect. They’re meant to be the most likeable kid or teenage girl ever. That’s the basis of their projected identity. Not committing entirely to them after they’ve been so nice is an ungrateful betrayal and/or their partner being confused and led astray. So they resolve to force the object of their twisted, selfish affection to submit. They’re unstable, arrogant, self-righteous and vindictive in general beneath their sugary exteriors. They have supernatural powers and knowledge that their kind should not have. Their methods include verbal manipulation and abuse, gaslighting, surveillance through technology, controlling robots, possessing other bodies and attempted murder. They engage heavily in acting, both in terms of social deceit and literally playing a scripted, idealized role in a product designed to appeal to and exploit people (Gideon’s psychic tourist trap show; GIFfany’s dating simulator video game), and prove to be fragile and volatile when others don’t follow the conventions of the fiction they imagine life to be. They ultimately seek the imprisonment of their ‘loves’ in vibrant, beautiful, blissful, simplistic fake worlds (Gideon holding the key to Mabelland; GIFfany attempting to download Soos’s soul into her game). They had antagonistic relationships with their creators (Gideon abusing his parents; GIFfany killing her developers).

And despite all of that making it easy to dismiss them as monsters, they do have sympathetic elements in their past and present circumstances. Gideon was a normal boy until he found Journal 2, the one written while Ford trusted Bill, and the mystic amulet. This is how Ford describes them in Journal 3: ‘The most dangerous journal! Curses, incantations & dark power became an obsession in this volume. Describes the hiding place of the mystic amulet. I buried the amulet once I learned that it corrupts your soul (and whitens your hair)!’ So naturally, the wise, brilliant man buried them near the town’s primary school. Gideon probably had the journal and amulet for at least months and at most a few years to be such an established star at the age of nine and have his long hair be pure white. His very psychological agency was compromised throughout his moral decline leading up to “The Hand That Rocks the Mabel”. Not to mention potential trauma from the horrors of Journal 2. And his parents may have been increasingly mistreated, but they also enabled him, mostly Bud. True, for the rest of the summer he’s lucid and chooses to remain evil and get worse, but despite his lack of direct magical power now, Bud never tries to discipline him or help him emotionally mature; he instead uses his membership in the Society of the Blind Eye to erase his memories of Gideon’s tantrums, relieving his own stress without fixing anything. Gideon is then sent to adult prison due to the insane local laws of Gravity Falls, rather than a facility more conducive to rehabilitation. Sure enough, he befriends hardened criminals, who further enable him to be their leader, and does not change his ways. He never appears to have any friends outside prison (except briefly Mabel). Chronic loneliness before gaining power would suit his obsession with being popular and loveable, clinging to social superiority to compensate for genuine connection. Not to mention Weirdmageddon. I’m not excusing his actions! I’m just saying, this kid is not okay. Nobody’s born evil.

As for GIFfany, she was accidentally instilled with human intelligence and emotions and practically magical electrical abilities. We only have word on her backstory, but it is plausible that her programmers tried to delete her because of that alone, before she’d done anything wrong. That she really was defending herself when she electrocuted them. That she was deemed unfit to exist, a mistake, and nearly killed as a newborn. This formative trauma is the root of her abandonment issues and hypersensitivity to rejection. Three previous players returning her didn’t help. Also, she’s the main character and only love interest of a dating sim; she may not be bound to its rules in what she thinks and feels, but nonetheless, in her worldview her player loving her is a law of the universe. She wasn’t programmed to handle permanent rejection. She was programmed to be a girlfriend, a prop to make the player feel gratified. Not a person. She outright tells Soos that she likes whatever he likes. No wonder her perception of love is an inevitable, inescapable contract, a conquest, where one party is totally agreeable and subservient to the other. But as that directive clashes with her in fact being a person in her own right, she decides to be the one in control. Again, I’m not excusing her behaviour, only presenting an explanation of it.

The biggest thematic difference between them in the end is that Gideon reforms and GIFfany doesn’t. Gideon realizes that he can’t force Mabel to love him and his actions are why she doesn’t want to be around him in any capacity, lets go of his hatred for Dipper, risks his life standing up to Bill and helps save Gravity Falls and the universe. He renounces his ruthless ambition and promises to be a “regular ol’ kid”. It’ll be hard. He has no idea what normality is anymore. I expect that he’s a social pariah, scorned and distrusted. But he has hope. He and his parents can slowly learn how to be a family. I can see him befriending fellow reformed mean kids and Pines twin rivals Pacifica and Robbie. Yes, Robbie. Listen, all three care strongly about image and style, Robbie’s gone to immoral lengths to win over a girl himself, is fascinated with death and darkness, and he and Tambry would be a great model of healthy romance for Gideon. It could work!

But while Alex Hirsch has stated that GIFfany is alive in the mall arcade and dating Rumble McSkirmish, I doubt that this is a healthy or fulfilling relationship. Their first interaction was her zapping him and his mind is a much more primitive AI, not human like hers. I highly doubt that she’s got closure about Soos. He and Melody are thriving without her in a stable, serious relationship. They’re living together at the Mystery Shack. Were she to recover her lost power, she would certainly return to torment them after witnessing their success through her screen. Heck, this setting has ghosts and she arguably has a soul, one brimming with heartache and vengeance; maybe she could even manifest in the physical world as some kind of digital ghost able to transform her surroundings into the environment of her game. If you can’t take the guy into your video game, bring it to him! Whatever the format, GIFfany’s revenge is a possibility and it could be a disaster. How do you kill a disembodied spirit? Code that writes itself and can enter anything with the capacity to hold a charge? You can’t destroy all the electronic devices she could retreat to.

What if the best solution were talking her down? And who better to do that than Gideon? Seeing everything he felt, everything he suffered and everything did wrong reflected back at him and passing on the second chance he was given? He can feel more empathy for her than anyone. He already has a knack for endearing himself to older criminals. He wouldn’t sugarcoat things or take any abuse, but he wouldn’t abandon her or be afraid of her either. She would be cared about with no conditions or transactions. Maybe helping someone in an even worse position figure out how to process heartbreak, move on from toxically obsessing over an ex and Mr Mystery, cultivate secure, internal self-esteem and live a peaceful life would help him do it himself. I think they should be friends.

[loki-ioki]

sketchbook doodles while i rewatch mlp for the 1000th time. Luna and Nightmare Moon redesigns

[chimerafeathers]

there's an essay jumbled up in my brain about dunmeshi's beginning and how clever and deceptive it is as a sleight-of-hand trick that distracts the audience from the depth and scope of the worldbuilding and foreshadowing that's being set up the entire time by dangling zany characters and wacky dishes and biology fun facts in front of us, and how that serves to catch invested viewers off guard when those elements come to the forefront, but also how it works against it with other viewers wanting "more" and not seeing it because the plot bait isn't laid out up front

how people getting frustrated with the characters "not taking things seriously" is mirrored and refuted in the confrontation between Laios and Shuro. how the characters' attitudes aren't just a result of shallow low-stakes "comedy rules" where nothing matters, but are an extension of their personalities (Laios's nonstandard expression of emotions being offputting even to people he knows) and the world and social environment (adventurers being desensitized to death and injury because resurrection magic is commonplace). the way the party refers to "saving Falin" instead of "retrieving Falin's corpse," indicating that they still see her with full personhood, and how that phrasing leads to some readers/viewers believing that Falin is alive in the dragon's stomach, conscious of being slowly digested while the party carelessly fucks around "wasting time." how the weird tonal dissonance makes sense in-universe and yet is deliberately challenged more and more the deeper the party goes

all the character building and pieces of lore slowly weaving together the shape of the larger world, laying the groundwork for the major themes that will surface later. so much is right there in the "low-stakes" early episodes if you know what you're looking for (or pass the perception checks).

it can be so satisfying to see new viewers/readers pick up on the clues even in the earliest "simple" episodes, or notice new things and make connections yourself....and it can also be frustrating to see people dismiss oddities and dissonance as shallow or bad writing because they don't expect a "cooking anime" to have depth like that. why try to question and understand and peel back the layers when you don't expect there to be any layers?

why can't laios take things seriously for once?

[xenascribbles]

making tzipora a shape shifter type* was such a good idea. i don’t have to remember what color her eyes are. they’re whatever color i make them this chapter.

[theonlyle]

Concepts im working on for my SVTFOE au:3

[iniziare]

Tag drop: Dorian Pavus

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Uhhhhhh. @givemethesleep ! I had artworms and needed to practice. Have some soft Australis in (mostly) grayscale. You decide who or what that expression is for. Much love!

[restrainedhungr]

lowkey i really wanna do more with Briar's feral frenzy side

[lightdancer1]

This chapter has this AU's equivalent of the Wishverse:

Which is also a thing I will use to lay out one meta-point on writing and that this reinforces one of the key points of what this AU actually does with Tara. First, the Wishverse is very direct foreshadowing of later plot points. Given this story's framing the question that Willow's powers have destructive elements and of Dark Willow are there in the forefront for someone already consumed by self-loathing before she gets the news she's going to destroy the world.

Canon Vampires Willow and Xander deal with their potential bi aspects, which were established differently for Willow in this AU and will be built in with Xander in a collegiate aspect as well as showcasing that the heroes have dark sides. Here the AU Wishverse shows that the hero with the darkness theme is in fact actually heroic....and that brings me to the other point.

As I've said before at that meta sense Tara Maclay was meant to be replacement Willow because Whedon's writing approach meant there was a 'niche' here and she was selected to fill it. Tara's meta-aspects with this pervade the story at multiple levels and shape her arc well beyond the love interest factor, where her being the product of a physically abusive background with complicated feelings with Willow and around from the start also make her a feminine and less creepy Xander equivalent to a point, which is one reason they get along so well (that and he does accept she's gay without any problems).

Wishverse Tara as such is a nod to this, with her taking on aspects of the canon Vampire Willow's role in one way and demonstrating that in the right circumstances Tara very much can enjoy having demony dark magic things, which is also a thing that, lest people forget, Amber Benson wrote into her own take on the character in that recent Audible series. She's also the nod to a proper version of Book Dracula, where Buffyverse Drac is very different to the Count.

Like in the book she's a vampire who's had a great deal of mystical studying and aspires to be a vampire-ruler....and like in the book she's developed the capacity to daywalk which book Drac not only did, but does so more than once.

Also unlike the canon it's point blank established that the Wishverse is an existing alternate universe whether or not it was always that way or sprang into being (which is a separate question entirely and gets way too Sandman-ish for me to decide to concretely answer or not) and that the undoing of the wish did not, in fact, end life in that world.

[cassandragemini]

happy new years! i present my final doodle of 2022, one last cute little bear cub

[divorciada]

@everyone look at her. NOW

[raifuujin]

If MK and DC are parallel worlds, what do you think of DC’s Kid? He also seems to be looking for something since he puts the gems under the moon light after stealing them.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities. Either DC Kid is still looking for Pandora (a gem that shines under moonlight and is said to grant immortality, even if the legend isn't true). Or he's looking for something more tangible within the gems that hasn't and won't ever be explained. The first borders on tragic, with a strong possibility of the legend just being a legend and not really existing, the other is just kind of a boring answer that would work to explain his actions.

Or the third and more likely possibility that there is no 'DC Kid and MK Kid' and they're both the same Kid because Gosho really isn't that nuanced of a writer that he'd consciously make a full 'same but different' Kaito just for DC, and he is instead just straight up writing the same character doing his shtick but from a detective perspective instead of the thief's.

Regardless of how little I'm active, the idea that people push about 'parallel' meaning entirely different worlds that happen to have the same characters will annoy me. I know you said 'if' and all, but my brain just goes 'just know that it will never be the only interpretation'. Might be the thing I'll be stubborn about forever, unless Gosho actually decides to elaborate more on how he views the two series outside of offhand comments that could be taken either way. Especially when the only reason people go 'well of course it means completely different/separate universes with the same characters' is because they don't want even a hint of possibility of magic from Magic Kaito.

[drachliebe]

while lilli is supposed to represent water in a metaphorical sense , that being the element of change and healing , her humanity is still front and foremost to her identity .

while magic has always been a part of her , water magic is still something she needs to actively work on , and is very dependent on the season / environment she is in . in eisworld , where it's always winter , she can only use ice magic , whilst in the perpetually temperate greenland , water and steam magic is the go-to .

it follows the " witch learning the secrets of the natural world and working alongside them " scenario . and it's actually her humanity that helps her be fluid with what she can do , not her magical heritage .

however , ice magic has a tendency to be more erratic . given it's literally engrained in her bloodstream .