#not really 5

[strawberryicemoon]

There are VERY few shows that are truly an ensemble main cast, as usually there is one character who is front and center. In group shots, in overarching narrative, etc.

Code Lyoko is definitely an ensemble cast though. You can make a compelling argument for every one of the main characters that they are THE primary character.

Jeremie is sort of a a shoe in as the the guy who started this whole thing. He turned on the super computer. And his role as "Guy in the chair" is never presented like some supporting cast role. He's constantly working to help fix whatever is going on, and whatever Jeremie is doing is usually the most important part of the plot. He's even blue. He''s just visually in official art, often to the side (though not always) on account of his lack of a Lyoko form's been central in some official art, but he's also been known to be off to the side or excluded altogether, since he doesn't participate in the cool sci-fi battles in the virtual world so he's really not cool from a marketing perspective. He doesn't have main character vibes so to speak, but they could tell me he's the main protagonist and I'd believe it.

Aelita is a late addition to the cast, not literally in show, but in development, not appearing in Garage Kids or the earlier short film, The Children Make Their Movies. However, the main plot of code lyoko is hinged on her and her backstory. She's the one who was trapped in the super computer, whose father built it, whose mother was kidnapped. She's not passive in her life either. She's the most important person on Lyoko, where most of the action takes place because her father gave her the keys to Lyoko, making her the only one who can do certain things. The one who must be protected.

For the first part of the show, when she's confined to Lyoko she and Jeremie have alternate roles. Aelita, the most important special powerful person on Lyoko (but unable to leave it). Jeremie, the most important person outside of Code Lyoko who acts as the eyes in the sky and programs things into Code Lyoko (and outside of it). The very thing giving them main protag potential also being an argument against that status for a show focusing on school drama and virtual world fights. On the other hand this leaves the trio of Ulrich, Yumi and Odd, who ultimately all don't have the same amount of personal investment in Lyoko, so the show wouldn't completely fall apart without them, but they still have their own traits that make them "main charactery".

Odd seems like he was almost the main character once, though not so much anymore. He's the new guy, the most extroverted and with a unique skillset (being a cat boy apparently) with the weirdly implemented, potentially but not really OP power of precognition. When Code Lyoko was still "Garage Kids", him being the new guy was seemingly more plot relevant as everyone else was in on "Xanadu" before he was introduced, and was front and center on the poster, giving the vibes that he was the main character. He's also got a dog that he snuck into school. Generally he just is not the center of the plot, and and outside of animal themed shows purple cat boys isn't something that makes you think "main character".

Ulrich is probably the closest to the expected lead character. He's just a dude. He's the everyman. He's not great at school and is the star athlete. He's the guy whose at the center of the shows main love triangle (which gets turned into a love zigzag later with him still involved in both triangles. He often gets to be front and center (in virtual form) in promotional material, but so do the rest of teammates. His associated colors are green and yellow, neither of which are ever strongly with leaders. He foils Odd, as his quiet and grumpy attitude is one usually more reserved for the edgy deuteragonist, complete with a harsh and demanding father.

Yumi is probably the one with the weakest argument. But she's still the character who is in the center of the group shot at the end of the first opening so there is still definitely an argument to be made. She's also the only day student and thus her family drama is the most prevalent, which is kinda a protagy thing to do. Her Lyoko color is red which along with blue is usually one of the central protag colors. But really, she and Ulrich go together, and the two form a sort of dual protagonist situation within the ensemble. The main argument is probably just that she's too she's too busy playing that role to be main protag. She's at the center of the shows second love triangle which is an extension of the first that centered Ulrich. She's a martial artist on par with Ulrich. Not to mention she and Ulrich both have Japanese themed forms and some official art places her on par with Ulrich in the center. She just doesn't have Ulrich's "everyman" qualities. In fact she has kind of "othering" qualities such as being the token minority (Japanese), being a grade above everyone else, and also being a girl in an early 2000s action adventure show. Basically she's got a lot going on that makes her a perfectly qualified deuteragonist type. Which may be for the best in a series otherwise full of protagonist types.

But really every character takes their turn at being central in the art, and the stereotypical "main protag traits" tend to be distributed amongst them. Ulrich may have the stereotypical skillset for instance, but Odd is closer to the stereotypical personality and Yumi has the more fleshed out home life. Jeremie drives the plot forward, but the plot is about Aelita's family. You really can't point at a single character and go "that's the face of Code Lyoko".

[razzafrazzle]

Just Checking In! (aka Something About Red Triangles)

[imperatoralicia]

I get a lot of entertainment thinking about how containers are used in video games sometimes.

[wormy-business]

I saw this question posed on tiktok, but I think Tumblr would really enjoy it too.

If a fae creature offered to give one million dollars for a bone FROM YOUR BODY chosen at random, how many bones would you allow them to take?

Light clarifications; The fae is not the one choosing the bones. The bone is taken at random. Each bone, no matter the size or importance, is worth a full million dollars. You must also declare the exact number first, you can't go bone-by-bone. You either say 2 or you say 10, you can't work your way up to a higher number. The bones are removed instantaneously, and the money is given immediately as well. You will not get in government trouble for acquiring the money.

Tell me in the tags/replies how many bones you'd let the fae take. And as always, reblog for bigger sample size.

[lena-luthor]

A minute ago you were ready to slit her throat. Yeah, well, her mother can't have her.

[xshinina]

*Married life playing in the background

This idea was probably funnier in my head

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[ato-dato]

Aziraphale please! He’s been through enough!!!

[tawnysoup]

Their POV

[mxwhore]

i call this one "nobody likes you when youre 23"

[rumble-bee-art]

A 6000+ years old demon thinks he can mend his broken heart by driving to the stars. Fool

[reasonsforhope]

Literally begging anyone who can vote in US elections to vote, and to vote against Trump. Which means voting for Harris, not abstaining or voting third party.

My family actually did move here from an authoritarian country, where voting literally didn't matter, they literally did throw out your vote, and they literally did assassinate citizens who spoke out against them.

We would all very much like to keep living in a country where those things are not the case!

You know, the same things that Trump and his stooges have openly said they want to do. And two of the main propaganda lines for why people in the US shouldn't vote, which is a lie.

Voting matters. The parties are not the same.

And make sure to vote in down-ballot races!!!

And like. The fact that voting matters in the US is a very real reason for hope. It is something you should genuinely appreciate. We can make a difference.

And a lot of people risked their lives or even died to earn that right, and it's a right not everyone has.

[romansleftshoulderpad]

As a writer, I love going back through the comments I've gotten on AO3. I promise that the minute you take of your time has been appreciated for hours/months/years

[rika-mortis]

Bonus:

[retquits]

original set vs new...?

what do we think chat. should i do some winter versions

[newttxt]

lulaw bodyswap (or, the exquisite humiliation of trafalgar law) for @strawhattery's birthday!

bonus: the original toilet humor gag that ended up on the chopping block