#posting this for the sole purpose of reviving the fandom

[cicobuffed]

Luke Jennings, Killing Eve: No Tomorrow // Killing Eve S3E7 “Beautiful Monster”

[fagus-sylvatica-beech-hedge]

okay buckle the fuck up because I've got a lot to say and not much time to say it.

the central theme and purpose of dan and phil crafts, at least in my opinion, boils down to trust.

the trust that they have for eachother and have had for years, and the trust they place in us as an audience.

for example, the sheer amount of trust that (crafts) phil had to have in (crafts) dan to let him sacrifice him multiple times, and believe that he would be able to successfully complete the ritual and bring him back to life, in a way mirroring the fact that (real) phil willingly went back into the closet after living somewhat openly as a gay man for several years in university, for the sole purpose of letting (real) dan process his sexuality in his own time, therefore "sacrificing" that part of himself for a time and trusting that dan would eventually get to a point where he would be more comfortable being out.

PART II: THE HAND HOLD

of course, now in the present day with both of them firmly out of the closet, having lived together for over a decade and built their "forever home" from the ground up, they understand the implications that can be drerrived from their more "coupley" actions, especially knowing how the phandom used to be.

if you have been in this fandom for any sizable amount of time you might remember how any "sighting" of them possibly holding hands was prone to much speculation and excitement,

images such as the ones presented below were posted and reblogged many times, with varying amounts validity.

[images taken from pinterest as I couldn't find the original posts, if you know who posted these please do let me know]

so, them standing front and centre, unabashedly holding hands symbolises this new era that we have been entering since the revival of dan and phil games, this era of acceptance and the trust that they are placing in us as an audience by letting us see a bit more of this side of them.

"we know you know" and all that.

so then, devotion, to a god, to an influential online figure, or of course devotion to a partner.

and what is devotion if not trust? and then again what is trust if not love.

thank you for coming to my ted talk, I have no idea if this makes sense to anyone else, I wrote this whole thing in about 15 minutes while slightly delirious from the heatwave currently boiling my whole city alive.

so long and thanks for all the fish

-fagus.

[marcianoliterati]

# A MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ADAPTATION WHERE THEY'RE STUCK TOGETHER DUE TO COVID LOCKDOWNS,BORED AF, AND ON THEIR PHONES 247.

A SOCIAL MEDIA AU. SORT OF.

claudio benedict pedro and tagalong little brother john are roadtripping

italy.

they pay a visit to their old friends' parents house, where hero and

beatrice are also holidaying.

hero and claudio have been heavily flirting online

beatrice and benedict have been fighting online for like a decade,

basically since they met

everyone who follows them but doesnt know them irl thinks it's just a

game and that they're actually dating

all of them are online but none of them are big influencers or anything,

no one has more than 5k followers

and their followers beyond friends and family dont even cross that much

they all post about different things outside of life stuff

only beatrice and benedict intersect, theyre the only ones who have a

lot of different active accounts and they follow each other on every

single one, from like lj to fb to tumblr to twitter to insta to tiktok,

they even regularly show up in each other's reddit posts for the sole

purpose of disagree,most of the time, theyre not even in the same

subreddits or fandoms

but their spats are amusing and a few bits have gone viral before.

but then you get a lot of late-twenty something stuck together, and

posting all the time, reviving somewhat dormant account, it's like an

impromptu accidental reality show

at first its just like games, from tag and hide and seek to passionate

games of uno and clue,tours of the place, building shit, improvising

stuff, and theyre constantly posting little snippets, and so on

benedict and beatrice both post the same thing like "worst person to get

stuck with" and at first people thing they went on holiday together but

now theyre just stuck at like a villa the parents rented

"oh so you just met up while on holiday. riiiiiiiight"

they keep posting, complaining about dumb shit the other is one, about

their disgustingly in love with friends, and so on.

their friends also post clips of them arguing, like during games where

theyre always rivals,and others of them always seeking each other out

a new account pops up something like beadick updates or something, that

takes the time of trawling through all the accounts to post compilations

and builds a bit of a timeline of them through the years

then a different account pops up that start sending them personal

videos, clearly some of their friends having fun

they also post about the group discussing b&b (crucially hidden from

them)

and later both bea and ben hearing the others discussing them and how

they react

cue compilations like "no women will ever tempt me" next to "but it bea

wants me im down" and ben dissing bea next to talking her up after, same

for bea.

it goes like that for a bit

the leak continues posting them acting awkward around each other, trying

to argue then running away, spying on the other,trying to do something

nice while seeming like they dont care

then theres some event theyve organised

a lot of posts of everyone looking nice

a few of people drinking

and then a livestream of dancing is interrupted by a lot of shouting the

sound of stuff breaking and what seems like a physical fight

and then everyone goes quiet

then it switches

the audience, which had been steadily growing, is left in the dark, the

fourth wall is broken when they decide to reach in and find out what the

hell is going on.

someone hacks the complex's cctv

the updates account posts different bits, claudio having a huge jealous

tantrum and starting a fight, hitting hero in the process

then b&b left alone in the garden, with confessions of love to follow

and then shouting and storming off "i will cut his heart out with a

spoon!"

"for you, i will defy covid and the goverment" promises ben before

leaving

the others try to pack and leave, but are stopped and so they hide in a

small cabin on the edge of the property, where they start drinking

it is there where ben finds them, smashes the bottles and dares them to

make it right or he will reign fire on them

claudio laughs at first going "but why is the rum gone?????!"

but then he gets actually worried

the audience witness this via cctv, they see ben through the grounds,

finding the cabin,hear the smashing and shouting

then they start looking back seeing if there is any back footage or if

its been deleted.

it hasnt

they find a treasure trove

not knowing how to contact them discreetly,beadick updates posts a video

of little brother john discussing sabotage plans with some minions and

they tag every account

the cctv is only outside for privacy reasons so they only know it worked

when they see john making a run for it, trying to climb the walls, being

caught by claudio and beaten before john pulls him off

then everyone reunites outside, when they see them coming up

hero goes up to john and hits him, then she goes up to claudio and does

the same

she spits at pedro and calls him a coward

claudio falls on his knees and begs for forgiveness

but she tells him he's clearly not worth her trust or love

everyone is feeling hurt and sore and not sure where to go now

pedro steps up and apologises

he shouldve known better than to trust anything john says, he's always

loved stirring up trouble for no reason

and they shouldve come to her not make a huge deal and ruin everything

claudio also apologises but more begrudginly, same as john

as they all just sort of stand there, their phones ping

and so pedro goes 'hey whats the deal with the video? who found it?"

before anyone gets an answer someone checks and gasps

the audience, stirring shit up, sends the video of them all plotting to

get b&b together, and laughing as they talked it all up

"so you do not love me? it was all a ruse?"

they both accuse each other and then turn to their friends, who in turn

took to look at the cameras in suspcion

their phones ping again. only b&b's first, which makes them both put on

pained faces of "what now?"

so then everyone's faces ping

it's a video compilation of b&b doing nice things for the other in

secret

bea spent an afternoon learning to make ben's favourite biscuits, and

then just left them in the kitchen for him to find

ben spent forever tracking something bea forgot, and then hiding it in

her room to make it look like it was just temporarily misplaced

bea finding ben's favourite movie and casually engineering things for a

watchalong

ben coming up with a thousand different ways to distract bea whenever

she starts to look sad or worried

they all watched, as it dawns on them that a) apparently, theyve had an

audience this whole time

and b)it was never a ruse

b&b were always in love, just too afraid or stubborn or emotionally

constipated to do anything about it

so hero turns to bea and goes "all this time? what the hell happened

between you two?"

beatrice and benedict look at each other and just shrug

"it doesnt matter. we're here now"

they kiss

beadick updates posts a playlist of several hours on yt featuring their

whole story, with videos of them as teens, shyly flirting, to a lot of

screenshots and clips of them arguing online, to the whole saga in

italy, ending in their big kiss

as an epilogue, the two post a video of them in the airport, they thank their audience, and say now they can travel so they will be going off together

[roxtron]

Y'know now that I think about it, the kh fandom seems to have a huge problem with ignoring or disliking games they find "irrelevant" to the plot. I came into the fandom post-kh3 so I can't say I know how the fandom's changed over time but.. it's kinda ridiculous to me tbh. Because from what I read it sounds like most people hated/ignored BBS and 358/2 days because they were "spin-offs." (Which is dumb anyway, like, even if hypothetically KH3 didn't exist and they were just spin-off characters- Why is that a bad thing? Why should you treat them like they don't matter? Why do some people think the characters from those games don't matter because they only care about the fate of the Destiny Trio?) And even still people consider Chain of Memories irrelevant because "Oh Sora forgets everything anyway, all you need to know is that." And then they consider Coded/Re:Coded irrelevant because "It's all data anyway." And THEN they consider DDD irrelevant because "All you need to know is the Xehanort time travel stuff in the finale." It's so weird to me how some people can claim to be invested in these games yet only care about the numbered titles. It can't be because they care about Destiny Trio that much if they consider titles including them to still be irrelevant.. So what is it then?? Is the concept of a spin-off inherently bad to these people? Like, sure, if you're thinking of the BARE MINIMUM KNOWLEDGE then yes I would agree you don't need to know much about those games beyond what I listed.. HOWEVER, that does not mean it's good to only go into the games with that knowledge. If you truly care about this series and its characters, you would value the ways those games expand on their characters. And even if you don't.. If you're only going into these games with the idea of "vaguely understanding the plot" but the plot alone. Not the characters. If all you care about is "How did Xehanort revive other versions of himself?" And not the buildup for the characters and how these arcs affect them, y'know, as characters..

I just don't understand how you can go into these games like that and still have fun with it. Like sure if I'm into a series where I appreciate the worldbuilding but there isn't much to the characters I can get behind that. (And I mean that in the sense of games with blank-slate protagonists, not to say the characters don't matter to me, but that the characters don't have much personality to get attatched to.) But in a story like Kingdom Hearts where it is about the characters, and the story is just how the characters choices affect each other- I dunno man. I'm not sure of the right words to explain what I'm trying to say but it just feels so dull and boring to only care about that in a series, and especially a series like this. I could go on and on about the ways those games affect the characters and the story more than those little one-sentence quotes.. And sure, maybe I will in addition to this, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. Even if they didn't affect the story, even if they were solely character-building, or even if they barely served a purpose at all beyond a couple of scenes.. It shouldn't devalue the entire experience as irrelevant. (Chain of Memories I kinda get disliking due to the combat LMAO but aside from that + some people do like the combat-) The games are more than story alone. They're more than gameplay alone. And they're more than characters alone. All aspects of the game come together to create an experience, and if you want to devalue the entire experience as a bad game, because you find it irrelevant due to it not fulfilling your specific preferences of what you want out of these games- Then I have a hard time believing you appreciated this series at all to begin with. Also a hard time believing you have good media literacy or even care about having any but hey that's a topic for another day am i right

[backup-backdown]

Hey! I saw that you like Death Note. With Death Note, I've noticed that recently there's been somewhat of a spike in Death Note fans. Not that much, but still. This fandom seems to be somewhat reviving itself, since a lot of the posts I've seen were newer than I thought they'd be. Do you think that's actually happening or is it all in my head? Also: I've noticed that fans tend to differ wildly in their opinions of L, his sense of morality, and how much was an act/lie. Some people think L has a strong sense of justice, similar to Light. Some think L has very few morals and does mostly what interests. Personally, I believe it's a bit of both. He seems to mostly do as he wants to, but he does show empathy for the task members occasionally. What type of morality do you think L has? (sorry if this is a loaded question, I've been very curious about this for a long time, since a lot of people disagree on it)

hey omg lol i didnt see this but im glad i found it!!

RAUGH. I have such a hard time talking about like.... cool in depth meta because i think im the dumbest death note fan perhaps. lmao. not really, i just think other people have probably verbalized what I think in ways that I never properly could, but I'll give it a go :>

1- I have no idea!! Honestly I feel like the death note fandom has never really died, although it really does go through dips and valleys in terms of members' activity. It probably is dependent on new adaptions being released, death note coming up in other pop culture spheres and getting people interested, and cringe culture dying. For me, my return to the death note fandom was really the last one, along with me just being more confident about my interests lol. I also think that there's a new generation of people who are into anime and not as deeply ashamed of it as some older folks might have been at that age and i think its great!! tbh overall i probably don't have the best gauge of the exact growth and diminishment of the fandom because i take a break every couple of months whenever i drown in some other random hyperfixation lol. but i always come back :) death note is pretty timeless! its neat!!

more under the cut because i........... ramble....

2- and here is where i repeat again that I'm definitely not like. a great meta writer with super fresh and interesting ideas (which is kinda weird because one of the main points of appeal of death note for a lot of the fans is the meta and analysis and theories and whatever. but idk im just not creative :') ) but I'll give you my take lol

Analyzing L as a character can be really frustrating to me because... let's face it, O&O don't write incredibly deep characters. All of the characters in Death Note tend to fit roles and tropes rather than being super three dimensional studies of incredibly complex personalities. The purpose of L's existence in death note is to serve as an adversary to Light, our protagonist, antagonist, anti-hero, whatever. Light's existence is to propel the plot. We see Light specifically stray very far away from whatever his actual personality or character could have evolved into as he is transformed by the death note. You could say that while Light used the Death Note for his own purposes, the Death Note essentially used Light. Both the actual book. in the show. and the show. The characters exist solely to further the plot and tell the story, and little focus is put on their more intimate profiles. idk how to really put this part of my response into words eloquently, but that's that.

Which brings me back to L. because i get sidetracked very easily. L is used to further the plot, but we're left to question his motivations and his inner profile as O&O did not elaborate on that. Annoyingly.

I personally like to think of L as just... a guy. doing his job. Like how a lawyer would do their job. He takes on cases because he likes the challenge, and he allows himself to feel triumph when he 'wins.' Because our worlds are shaped by the presence of other people, despite the fact that L seems very antisocial and picks and chooses when to follow moral/ethical standards, he still does rely on the general concept of 'justice' in order to get some gratification from his work.

He's just a guy who has way too much fucking money and time on his hands, and he's way too smart for his own god. All of those things will give you a bit of a god complex, so I see L as someone who is based in the desire to do good/gain approval of others but is less fettered by things like.... laws...... social norms... the opinions of a lot of people. How could you not take on some big bad villain like Kira, saving the lives of thousands of people, and not allow yourself to feel like you've done something good? That you're a bringer of justice? That's just a really powerful feeling that I don't think L would be afraid to indulge in. Like I said, he just isn't as fettered as most people, and he has an insane amount of resources at his disposal.

I think empathy is a different subject, as it's separate from having a sense of morality or justice (I struggle HARD with empathy but I have a very strong sense of justice. probably not how everyone else thinks of justice, but yknow.) As someone who is so clearly on the spectrum/neurodivergent, I think that we as the audience are also meant to understand that L does not experience normal levels of empathy in comparison to the other characters, especially Misa and Matsuda. I think his lack of empathy is not (as is unfortunately mischaracterized in a lot of meta/fanfic) primarily emotional. L is shown to have emotions-- fear, embarrassment, anger, happiness, and he is shown to understand when other characters are acting based on their own emotions. That being said, L does behave coldly at times, and he always maintains a distance from himself and his coworkers. He can seem detached, and I think we can't forget that that is again, just part of his job. Being a detective means that you cannot get wrapped up in your work emotionally. He's very good at his job.

His primary lack of empathy is in respect to his general understanding of socialization. He is clearly not someone who's had many relationships-- Light is his first friend, and the thought of falling in love with Misa seems to really knock him backwards. He's just very socially inexperienced. Tying it all together though, I think that L does understand emotions, he has them, he can empathize with his co-workers, and he does care about them to a certain degree-- He's just very good at being able to put all that shit aside and do his damn job.

thanks for the ask!!!

[uranpyrochlore]

Phos weekly.

Hey.

So recently, I decided to create a Phos of the day post series and it somehow led to this.

A series where anyone can be featured, as long as the drawing is any of the Phos forms, for the sole purpose of attempting to revive this fandom.

Two pictures first, both by me

A normal original Genki Phos, and...

A cute little Chibi Genki Phos!

Anyone can join me in this strange journey of sorts, but here are the rules.

If you want to be featured, Direct message me at https://uranpyrochlore.tumblr.com, saying you would like to submit a picture, with a picture of your contribution in time.

Please note that I will try to post every submission, it just may end up in the next week's edition. I will attempt to post these compilations every Saturday morning in my time zone, so late posts will be skipped a week.

That's all! Remember, If you want to be featured, just DM me on my page at Tumblr, and you will be here! I don't expect much this first week, but hope this post series will be enjoyed for a while to come!

Bye!

[grace13star]

There’s been a recent uptick in posts claiming that “c!Wilbur is a worse villain than c!Dream” or that he’s “more manipulative” and it’s made me think a lot about just....how villainized Wilbur is? Because while he has done bad things, I’ve seen people just making things up or projecting onto him and making him just. so much worse than he is in canon. 

Again, this is all about the characters in the Dream SMP roleplay and are not the actual people. 

Let’s go over the bad things Wilbur is accused of doing. These are arguments I have actually seen people use and defend with their whole chest. 

1. Created a nation. 2. Sell drugs. 3. Talk about rigging an election. 4. Was a dick. 5. Blew up a nation. 6. Died. 7. Manipulation. 8. Neglectful dad. 9. Child soldiers. 10. Dictator. 11. “Threw a fit” over losing. 

Let’s talk about these and break them down a little. Another disclaimer, this isn’t trying to excuse any hurt that Wilbur has caused, because his actions did cause harm, but this is trying to explain and add context to things that are often taken out of context or just wholly misinterpreted.

1. A common argument for why this makes Wilbur evil is that he “stole Dream’s land.” But like...no. L’Manberg was created on untouched land where no one was living, and had a combined area smaller than Purpled’s garden. Dream, until he declared war, didn’t even care about them making their nation. 

I’m also including in here the claim that he “turned Dream into a villain.” ....What are you talking about. Before Wilbur was even on the server, Dream was part of the disc war, where he stole Tommy’s discs, and then kept perusing them even after the initial conflict ended, including griefing Tommy’s lawn. Before war was declared, Dream and his friends kidnapped and killed Tubbo and Tommy. Dream then also declared war on a peaceful nation (Wilbur said “if they try to declare war we will just say ‘no’”). None of that was in any way forced by Wilbur. Dream made his decisions on his own. Just because someone comes in and says “hey you suck,” doesn’t mean you have to actually suck. Dream made his own decisions, and his decision was to become a villain. 

2. Potions (drugs) are an infinite resource in Minecraft and everyone uses them. This is a stupid argument. 

3. Some people act like he actually did rig the election but...he didn’t. He definitely could have! Quackity wasn’t a citizen of L’Manberg, Wilbur could have banned him from the election easily, especially since his running mate was a previous enemy of L’Manberg. But he let him run, and then he let Fundy and Schlatt run as well. The worst he did here was talk about doing something bad. Also the reason he was trying to consolidate power wasn’t just for the sake of having power. There was, at the time, a civil war going on, and Wilbur tried to stop it but no one listened to him. He wanted the power to be able to protect his citizens and stop a war. 

4. Being a dick is not evil.

5. This is by far the worst thing Wilbur did, and though it hurt a lot of people emotionally, it really wasn’t as bad as everyone says it was. Though the explosion caused property damage, it only destroyed the podium and some of the walkway. People’s actual houses- Manifoldland, Niki’s bakery- were totallu untouched. No one even died in the explosion- the worst thing that happened was Quackity being blown back, but he landed in water. (This isn’t to say that characters shouldn’t be hurt by this! Wilbur betrayed them and definitely hurt them, but people acting like the 16th was worse than Doomsday and also blaming Wilbur for Doomsday even though he was dead is weird.)

There’s also the claim that Wilbur blew it up for the sole purpose of hurting people, which is easily disproved by just...watching a Wilbur stream. Like seriously, stop trying to do analysis on Wilbur if you haven’t even watched his streams. Wilbur had multiple chances to blow everything up, but when he had the choice between blowing it up and hurting people or not hurting people and not blowing it up, he chose the latter every time. At the festival, while Tubbo was trapped on the stage, he stopped going for the button. When Tommy and Quackity were in the button room which would have exploded if he pressed it, he refused. Also I’m gonna use the Reddit post that’s confirmed canon again- Wilbur blew up L’Manberg because he saw how much power it had, and he saw how it hurt people. He tried to destroy it to save everyone from the pain and conflict caused by the nation. He didn’t think they would rebuild. 

6. This one is the one that actually makes me angry. Because guys....Wilbur’s death was a suicide. If Phil wasn’t there, Wilbur would have done it himself- he had been planning to do it himself for months, as there was originally TNT in the button room that would have killed him with the explosion. The reason it makes me angry is because suicide is an extremely serious topic. Characters and the fandom framing it as “Wilbur left or abandoned them” is an ableist take that enforces the stereotype that suicide is a “weak” option or that it’s “running away.” 

There’s also people that will villainizing him for “forcing Phil to kill him” but while I empathize with Phil and realize it was a stressful situation, Phil very much made his own decisions here too. Wilbur didn’t force Phil to kill him, he asked him a few times and then Phil did it. 

7. Again, this is not an attempt to excuse, but an attempt to explain. So first of all, people try to claim that Wilbur was manipulative from the beginning. This is false. Persuasion and making sure someone is “loyal to a cause” is not manipulation. And then Pogtopia- he’s never manipulative in Pogtopia, again, he is only persuasive. I have a longer post that goes into more detail, so definitely check that out. After he is revived, he is definitely guilt tripping Tommy in his most recent stream, but (again, not an excuse) it’s clearly from his desperation to not be alone anymore after 13 years of near constant isolation. 

I’ve also seen claims that Wilbur manipulated Techno and that Techno didn’t know they were planning on starting another government, but this is easily disproven by the fact that Wilbur said multiple times that they’re “taking back L’Manberg” and that he wants to be it’s “rightful ruler” again while Techno was in vc. What about that implies they’re not going back to the government. 

Also since this is relevant- he never manipulated Niki. He was always kind and caring with Niki, even through his mental breakdown. He wasn’t able to bring her into Pogtopia at first, but he talked to her and made sure she’d be okay there (and she said yes!), he offered his life for hers at the festival before hitting people around them and yelling at her to run, she was the first person he gave Blue to, he gave her an inspirational speech and showed her the fox that had been left for her, she was one of the few things Ghostbur remembered. He betrayed and hurt her, but it was not manipulation.

Gonna combine this with this point also but Wilbur was not in any way abusive. A lot of people in this fandom for some reason equate “unhealthy relationship” with “abuse”, especially after the exile arc. Wilbur and Tommy’s relationship, while unhealthy, was not abusive. Please learn the difference. 

Also, if you’ve ever said that “Wilbur gaslit anyone” or that Wilbur is “insane” I want you to define those terms for me right now. No looking anything up. Tell me what they mean. Do it.  

8. What about any of Wilbur and Fundy’s dynamic implies any kind of neglect. No, seriously, where did this take come from. Wilbur was canonically overbearing and he babied Fundy. While it definitely wasn’t the best relationship, it definitely wasn’t neglectful. The only times in canon we’ve seen Wilbur be separated from Fundy was when he was exiled and Fundy cheered while he was shot and killed, when Fundy disowned him in front of their enemy, and when he committed suicide. Even before his death, when they were still on rocky terms, Wilbur stepped forward to defend Fundy from Schlatt in the van. 

9. This take is irrelevant. Child soldiers don’t matter. For one, this is Minecraft. Every single person has equal opportunities. Anyone can become powerful no matter what age they are as long as they grind enough. For another thing, at the beginning part of the roleplay no one was trying to make a long serious story about war and trauma, it was just some friends fucking around and fighting each other. Wilbur also revealed that while writing the Revolution arc that he headcanoned Tommy and Tubbo to be about 20- we know these ages aren’t correct because they’ve been reffered to by their irl ages in lore- but it shows that the “these are children” plot point was added way later- no one mentions it at all in season 1. It doesn’t matter. 

10. This is directed at one person. You know who you are. 

A dictator is defined as “one holding complete autocratic control : a person with unlimited governmental power.” Wilbur didn’t have control. That’s the whole reason for the election. It literally takes one google search to prove you wrong. 

11. There’s a difference between “losing” and “being unfairly exiled by your political opponent who is now declaring himself emperor.” Wilbur was totally fine with losing. He said during the election that he was fine with Quackity winning, and when they actually did lose, though he wasn’t happy about it, he encouraged Tommy to calm down and told him “We’re citizens tonight.” He only “threw a fit” after he was thrown out of the nation he built by someone who immediately declared himself emperor. 

So in conclusion, Wilbur Soot is an antagonist, but he is villified way beyond canon and I’m getting tired of some of these takes that I see over and over again that are easily disproved by just using critical thinking skills. 

This is most of the takes I’ve seen- some I haven’t even dignified with a response because of how clear it is that someone is just lying to try and excuse someone else’s actions- but if anyone has anymore they’ve seen that they want me to talk about, my ask box is open. 

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

I guess I should provide my hottt takes on the new DBS movie.  A few days ago, they did this video for Comic Con announcing the title of the movie and teasing some details about the story.  

I gotta say, this is exactly why I’ve never had any interest in Comic Con.    They put this on YouTube, I guess because of the pandemic, but any other year they would have gathered an enormous crowd and made them stand in line for hours to watch all of this in person.   I live in the Midwest, and when I went to comic book conventions it was for the sole purpose of rummaging through back issue bins.   SDCC was always promoted like the biggest and most important convention in the U.S., but all I ever heard about it were trailers for movies and TV shows.   Or, like, you had to go to Comic Con because that was the only way to get an exclusive Orange Lantern Hal Jordan action figure or something.   They would always hype up all of this useless stuff and I just never heard of anything so important that I was willing to fly out to San Diego and stand in line for three hours for it.   So now SDCC peels back the curtain with this video, about something I’m fairly interested in, but it’s really not that big a deal.  I found out most of the information on Twitter before I even knew to watch this video.

But I’m just not that hyped about trailers or sneak peaks or sneak peaks at trailers.   Which is probably why I waited this long to talk about it.  

I’ll just go through the video.   The first four minutes are Hironobu Kageyama performing “Cha La HEAD Cha La” live on the stage.   That’s a pretty epic way to open this, but I feel like it oversells the importance of this event.  You finish watching him and you think you’re about to see the movie itself, instead of hearing from the people who made it.  

Next we have Sascha, the host of this panel.   He speaks better English than I do, but I’m not sure what the point was in having any of this in English since he has to talk to the guests in Japanese.   Pretty much all of the important information in this video is in Japanese, and I think everyone understood that going in.   I guess it does give an international feel.  If I spoke another language as fluently as Sascha, I’d want to show it off too.

4:56 is where Masako Nozawa comes out, and she’s just a joy to watch.   She looks like this sweet grandmotherly figure, all warm smiles and then she busts out “Ossu! Ora Goku!” and immediately sounds like a badass. 

Guest #2 is Akio Iyoku, Toriyama’s editor.   Not to be confused with the awesome editor who poo-pooed all the androids and Cell’s semiperfect form.    That was Yu Kondo.  Iyoku comes out dressed like Goku, but he can’t talk like him so he’s immediately second-tier. 

Guest #3 is Norohiro Hayashida, Producer from Toei Anaimation.   He is also rocking the Goku cosplay, which would be a faux pas in most fandoms, but he can just say that he’s cosplaying as Krillin or Yamcha, which gives him greater nerd credibility because those are more obscure references.

Around 8:30 we really start getting into this, and they show us a model sheet of Piccolo.  Is Piccolo being in the new movie a big surprise?   He had a dry spell in the mid-90s, but he’s been in every Dragon Ball movie made in this century so far.   And it’s not like they changed his look, like when they put Goku and Vegeta in those adorable coats last time.   I’m not complaining about any of this.  It’s nice to see that a) Piccolo is confirmed for new movie and b) they didn’t tinker with his appearance.  

All I’m saying is that they only brought up this model sheet to show off how they’re using his color scheme from the manga as opposed to the anime.   Hence the red belt and the yellower arm sections.   In the anime, the belt was always blue, and his biceps were hot pink instead of off-yellow.   But it’s such a subtle thing that even Sascha didn’t pick up on it.   It’s like they were hyping up the fact that it’s such a minor change.    I like it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a weird flex.   Also, he looks like he still has his five-fingered anime hands, so I’m not that impressed.   Give us four fingers, Toei!

Sascha asks Masako Nozawa what she thinks about Piccolo and she just starts off with “He was Gohan’s teacher,” and talks about how strong and cool he looks.    She speaks of him like he’s a family member, because she’s awesome.

Next up, we have Pan, and now we’re talking.  The scuttlebutt is that this was the character Toriyama was referring to when he spoke of an “unexpected character”.  And I guess Pan fits the bill, since I don’t think anyone expected her to be this old in the movie.   I understand this is her kindergarten uniform, so she’d have to be about five or six years old.  I love Masako Nozawa’s reaction here.   Throughout this video, you can see that Goku and Gohan aren’t just roles to her.   

I’ll put on my fanboy hat here and point out that Pan’s age may imply that this movie takes place after the final episode of Dragon Ball Z.    She looks older here than she did when she fought Wild Tiger, at any rate.   So far, the entire Dragon Ball Super franchise has been set during the ten-year gap between the Buu crisis and the finale of Z.    So everyone has been wondering if DBS would move beyond End of Z, or whether Akira Toriyama even still recognizes the continuity of those final chapters.   They were supposed to be ten years of peace, but all the battles in DBS say otherwise.   Also, I’m pretty sure Pan and Bulla’s ages in the DBZ finale don’t line up well with their appearances in Super, but I’ve never studied it very closely.  

So this might be set post End of Z, or this might be Toriyama retconning End of Z altogether.  I’m interested to see which way this goes. 

Here’s Krillin, still working for the police, although his uniform looks more like Bronze Age Lex Luthor than anything else. Like Piccolo, the “big” story here is that he’s been tweaked to resemble the coloring in the manga, so his sclera are now white instead of fleshtoned.  

Never mind that, here’s Piccolo’s house.  This is probably the breakout star of this video, because I think everybody is excited to see Piccolo’s house.   Because it’s new lore!  No one even knew if he had one or not.   It was a running gag in DBZ Abridged that he was homeless.   I mean, congratulations to Krillin for getting his eyes colored in right, but that doesn’t tell me anything new about the character.  But Piccolo’s house is a big friggin’ deal.   What’s inside of there?  What’s on the second floor?   Check out his mailbox.   What kind of mail does he get?  It’s exciting.  

Nozawa even points out that she and her co-workers would talk about this sort of thing in the recording studio.    That’s a big deal to me, that the voice actors think about the same kind of stuff that I do as a fan.   

Around 15:30, they start talking about Toriyama’s commitment to the making of this movie, which seems like a weird thing to focus on, because he wrote the screenplay to the last two movies.   Did anyone think he was stepping back? I get the impression that there’s still some hard feelings about the failure of Dragon Ball Evolution, in the sense that they want to reassure everyone that we’re still in good hands.   I suppose one of these days, Toriyama won’t be as heavily involved in a project like this, so maybe it makes sense for Toei and Shueisha to make it clear that today is not that day.

On the other hand, Toriyama was just as involved with Broly as he was with Resurrection F, and Broly was a much better film.  The Dragon Ball Super manga seems to have revived the old argument over who’s to blame when the story is a letdown, and I think that misses the point.  Look, the Zamasu arc sucked, and I don’t care who wrote what parts, or whether Toriyama had a bad idea or whether he handed a good idea off that was badly executed.   They can hash that out behind the scenes if they want to.  

About 19 minutes in, they show us this model sheet, and refuse to explain who these guys are or what they’re doing in the movie.   Are they villains?  Who knows?  I’d like to think they’re important characters to the story, but I have my doubts that Krillin will have a big part to play.  

At 20 minutes, they announce the title of the movie, and I’m not very thrilled with “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.” They can talk it up as much as they want, and maybe the title is relevant to the plot, but it’s just too many uses of the word “super”.   Especially when they’ve got another series called “Super Dragon Ball Heroes” on YouTube. 

Then we get this teaser trailer, or whatever you want to call it, with a CG Goku hopping around and doing his classic fighting pose.  Now, for some reason, lots of people concluded that this means the entire movie will be done in this CG style, which has led to a debate over whether or not that’s a good thing.  If they can make the whole movie look this slick, then I’m fine with it.  Hell, I’m not picky.   They could animate the whole thing in Yukio Ebisawa style, and I’d be thrilled. 

But I’m not understanding where people got the idea that it’s definitely going to be a 100% CGI movie.   They never spell that out in this video, and they even go out of their way to admit that this shot of Goku isn’t actually from the movie.   So is there some other source people are referring to, or did everyone just jump to conclusions?  

And that’s pretty much it.   I don’t mean to sound negative on this panel, but I don’t feel like they revealed very much, unless this is actually going to turn out to be Piccolo and Pan having an adventure by themselves.    I think Toei could make a movie like that and it would be a success, but I have my doubts that they’d go in that direction.  If this is going to turn out to be another big slugfest with Vegeta, then I’m down for that too, but don’t show me Piccolo’s house if the movie’s going to be about Vegeta punching a guy. 

Bottom line: I’m still looking forward to this, but I don’t feel like I know much more about the movie than I did before.   Well, except for the part about Piccolo’s house.  I’m looking forward to seeing the inside of it.

[bog-o-bones]

Kaiju Media Forecast 2020

The kaiju fandom has certainly seen a gigantic upswing in content since the last time I did one of these “year going forward” reviews. Let’s take a look at some of the major movies, events, merchandise and more that kaiju fans have to look forward to in the coming year!

Movies

Every year since at least 2013, the kaiju fandom has had one “tentpole” film event of the year, usually the most highly anticipated feature coming out that year that most media and merchandise hype will surround. This year’s choice is the latest (and possibly last?) of the Legendary MonsterVerse which just last year introduced us to the first American incarnations of Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorah. Later this year, the King of the Monsters will once again take on the King of Skull Island in a rematch nearly 60 years in the making with Godzilla vs. Kong. The only snippet of footage we’ve seen is featured in the screenshot above and recently leaked toy fair displays have quite a lot in store for the big crossover event of the MonsterVerse. Godzilla vs. Kong drops November 20th.

According to your definition, the first kaiju film of 2020 launched two weeks ago with Underwater. The Kristen Stewart-helmed deep-sea monster movie isn’t really making the splash it was looking for box office-wise and most people who have seen it say that it’s okay at worst. Regardless, if you like big monsters and quasi-Cloverfield type films, you can give it a shot in theaters now or in a few months when it hits home media.

Godzilla’s sole big screen appearance won’t just be limited to the big crossover with Kong as a snow-covered cameo role will land him a spot in the new Shinkalion movie. From a clip posted on Yahoo Japan (refresh the page if it doesn’t work) Godzilla briefly faces Hatsune Miku piloting a giant train-based mecha (I tried pinching myself, believe me) at the very end. This role is likely going to be very short but nonetheless, it’s always satisfying to see Godzilla pop up in the most unexpected places.

Again, stretching the definition of “kaiju” here, but also apparently the Monster Hunter movie still exists and is coming out later this year in September? I don’t know much about the franchise, but I do know it’s probably going to be butchered with a Paul W.S. Anderson directed schlock fest. Who knows, maybe the monster scenes will make up for it?

As is tradition, the Ultraman franchise hits us once again with an annual theatrical movie based off the previous year’s show. Ultraman Taiga The Movie: New Generation Climax will be out in March and judging by the title, will feature a climactic event featuring the New Generation assortment of Ultraman heroes. I still have yet to see Taiga but hopefully this provides a fun conclusion to the show.

Famed director Hideaki Anno returns to the world of his most famous creation with Evangelion 3.0+1.0, the highly anticipated final installment in the Rebuild series to be released this June. I have not seen any of the Rebuild movies myself but this is sure to be a wild and crazy ride for Evangelion fans.

Finally, the oddball of the bunch. Kadokawa rises from it’s dusty grave with a brand new monster film focused on the unproduced predecessor to Gamera: Nezura 1964. Featuring giant rat monsters and a cast comprised of many Daiei/Kadokawa favorites, it’ll be interesting to see if this film can capitalize on the recent kaiju craze and be successful enough to possibly give our old turtle friend the revival he truly deserves. Nezura 1964 is due out in December in Japan.

Television

Not much on the television docket this year. It’s far too early to speculate about Tsuburaya’s next Ultra series, leaving us with little to discuss. Studio Trigger is supposedly making some kind of new series related to it’s Gridman show from last year (another item I have yet to see). Titled SSSS.DYNAZENON, nobody knows when it’s due out so for all I know this could be a rather outdated entry.

What we do know for sure is coming is something not particularly kaiju but still related via the tokusatsu connection is the continuation of Kamen Rider Zero-One, the first Rider series in Japan’s newly named Reiwa period. This isn’t really related to the year 2020 but honestly I’d rather have something in this TV section to talk about than just the Gridman sequel.

Merchandise

Last year was one of the greatest years in the history of the American Ultraman fandom with the officially sanctioned releases of Ultra Q, Ultraman, Ultraseven, Ultraman Orb and Ultraman Geed to Blu-Ray in the West for the very first time. In this new year, Mill Creek will continue to satiate the needs of Western Ultra fans with releases of previously unseen-on-western-disc series Return of Ultraman, Ultraman Ace, Ultraman X, and the Ultraman Orb Origin Saga. A schedule flyer released online also teases many other entries in the franchise making the continuous release of these beloved shows a treat to look forward to. You can pre-order the four releases discussed above on Amazon.

American toy company Playmates acquired the license for the Godzilla vs. Kong toyline last year and in early January, a few figures from their non-film focused toylines showed up at Walmarts across the country. They’re uh...well, let’s be honest: they’re not great. Leaked images of the Godzilla vs. Kong toyline were also shared around social media but I’ll avoid talking about them here for spoiler purposes. Let’s just say the line is looking mighty juicy for kaiju fans and it will be interesting to see if they’re promoted come New York Toy Fair.

Bandai’s Movie Monsters Series line will likely continue to issue newly reissued/remolded monsters in the Godzilla line (as well as produce new figures for Godzilla vs. Kong) but coming out in March is a sight for sore eyes: a brand new sculpt of the 1995 Gamera design for the 25th anniversary of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. Hopefully a Super Gyaos is not far behind!

The S.H. MonsterArts line had a fairly predictable and underwhelming list of releases last year. Great figures for the most part, but obvious choices without much surprise. This being a movie year, I don’t expect much to change and we’ll likely see Godzilla vs. Kong figures soon enough. What is confirmed and releasing in May is their take on the Burning Godzilla design featured in Godzilla: King of the Monsters last year. Originally a Tamashii WebShop exclusive, it’s being released in America by Bluefin around June.

Media company SRS Cinema continues to throw unexpected independent kaiju films our way with releases of Deep Sea Monster Reigo and Deep Sea Monster Raiga last year on limited Blu-Ray and wide-release DVD. They’ll continue the assortment this year with Attack of the Giant Teacher and Raiga vs. Ohga. The films likely won’t be much to look at, but more independent kaiju films seeing a western release is never a bad thing. Here’s hoping Daikaiju Eiga G or Gehara see a release soon.

In an almost perfect repeat of Daiei and Toho’s box office bout sixty years ago, boutique label Arrow Video has reportedly secured the rights to the Gamera franchise and are planning a box set that could rival Criterion’s late 2019 release of the entire Showa Godzilla series. Arrow Video puts out sublime products and kaiju fans will likely want to keep their eyes peeled for this set, even if they’ve already secured Mill Creek’s rather dull bargain sets from years past.

While not on the docket for tie-ins to Godzilla vs. Kong (yet), NECA will likely be continuing to pump out new figures in their Classic Godzilla line. No brand new sculpts are known at the moment, but fans can look forward to a blue, poster-styled repaint of their KOTM Mothra figure and some reissues of their older molds in new box-styled, poster-featuring packaging. Some, like the 1985 Godzilla, might even feature newly molded details.

In rather shocking news, Media Blasters has seemingly propped one of its kaiju films up from the depths of licensing hell with an announcement of a Blu-Ray release of Gappa the Triphibian Monsters scheduled for a February release. The out-of-nowhere circumstances surrounding this release as well as a proclaimed inclusion of an “uncut” Japanese release (despite the International version containing more footage than the Japanese version) and Media Blasters rather spotty history regarding kaiju Blu-Rays should have folks taking this with a grain of salt until the actual discs are in collectors’ hands.

Events

As per usual, the kaiju fan’s Woodstock G-FEST will be continuing it’s annual celebration of all things giant monster from July 10-12 at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare in Rosemont, IL. No guest announcements at this time, but fans looking to go should register and book a hotel immediately as attendance will continue to spike and rooms in the convention’s hotel are already sold out.

As is tradition, the San Diego Comic Con will take place this summer a week after G-FEST is over and will likely bring with it new information on Godzilla vs. Kong and many other kaiju-related media. NECA will possibly show off new figures and we may even see some post-2020 information on the MonsterVerse.

Not necessarily guaranteed, but kaiju fans may also want to look out for this year’s New York ToyFair taking place in February. ToyFair has pretty much become the SDCC for toy collectors with many companies showing off their new products for the new year. Kaiju collectors will possibly get a glimpse at the Playmates Godzilla vs. Kong assortment as well as a few other possible surprise reveals from other companies like NECA or Diamond Select.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2020 is looking to be a monstrous year for kaiju fans. Hopefully the fandom will enjoy everything to come from our favorite franchises.

Here’s to a happy 2020!

[savepunisher]

A Note from the #SavePunisher Campaign...

After the past 24 hours We feel like it is time to make a statement regarding some comments made on some of the posts from this account. 

Similar to the Save Daredevil campaign, the purpose of the Save Punisher campaign is to remind Marvel that we loved what was done in the Netflix The Punisher series -- that we would love to see the show revived with Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle and the same creative team. 

That being said, we also realize that not everyone agrees with this campaign. This account was not meant to “spam” or “annoy” anyone within The Punisher fandom, rather it was meant to create a common goal for those of us who would like the show back. Again, if you don’t agree or think the campaign is worth your time feel free to block the account or not interact with the posts. 

The success and influence that the Save Daredevil campaign has had proved that there is a need for the fans of these shows to have their voices heard. After speaking with those at the Save Daredevil campaign, who chose to focus solely on Daredevil to simply to concentrate their efforts, it was evident that a similar campaign for The Punisher was wanted. That is how this campaign and tumblr page was born. 

We are excited to see what this campaign can accomplish and we hope some of you are too. A huge “Thank You” is owed to those at the @savedaredevil campaign for helping us get off our feet and guiding us in the right direction. 

For those we have upset with our post, that was never the intention. We hope going forward you have a better understanding of where we are coming from. For those of you who have followed our account & reblogged posts from us as a show of support over the past couple of days since the campaign officially launched -- THANK YOU! 

[unstoppablepjm]

Off Hiatus

So I’m reviving this account for the sole reason that I want to spread the love for Park Jimin more in Tumblr.

I’ve been active mostly on Twitter for the months that I’ve been on hiatus and while it is indeed the most toxic platform for ARMYs, it is where you get to see firsthand the real problems that need to be addressed regarding ARMY support for the boys.

Take for example these photos that were uploaded by the boys on the same day, notice the difference?

Original post here:@lilysjimin 

Other stans are purposely avoiding liking or RTing Jimin’s tweet when he uploads. He has been curiously inactive there after the whole fiasco of ARMYs clowning him for his contacts, sending hate messages to him after forgetting a member’s name, and other nasty things that other fans have done.

This is the state of the fandom now.

So if you can, create an account in twitter if only to support his posts and content there. You can follow or DM me on my account if you want. My twitter is:@unstoppabIepjm don't judge my @! haha 

BUT, I am now going back to Tumblr to spread more of our Jimin to everyone. Hope to crank out Jimin content everyday starting now. 

[anthropophobicameba]

Dragon Essay One: Humanity, Self-Conception, Trigger Events, and the Word “Father”

read on Ao3

(This essay was adapted from a text conversation with friends. As such, it may flow a little weird and have some idiosyncratic grammar.)

Warnings: Mentions and discussion of: child abuse, depersonalization, death, trauma, psychic alterations. Quotes from Worm include descriptions of violence. If there are warnings missing, please inform me.

In fandom discussions and fan works, it's standard for people to refer to Richter as Dragon's father, but she never does outright. At first I thought this was another case of spontaneous fanon, but I think there's a little more to it. The closest she ever gets to referring to him as her father is this metaphor in her interlude:

Quote 1: She didn’t enjoy this. What was one supposed to call a father who, with his newborn child fresh out of the womb, severs the tendons of her arms and legs, performs a hysterectomy and holds his hand over her nose and mouth to ensure she suffers brain damage? The answer was obvious enough. A monster.

Quote 2: Except there was a problem, a rub. The man who had created her, the figurative father from her earlier musing, had imposed rules on her to prevent her from reproducing in any fashion.

Saint does, even, despite all his whining about anthropomorphizing.

From his interlude:

Quote 1: The father had feared his child was a monster, enough so that he’d left strangers a weapon to use against her in the event that she proved a danger to humanity. Now, as Saint watched her reaching further and deeper than she ever had, searching much of America with millions of cameras, saw the machines she brought to the fore, he suspected the father had been right to.

Quote 2: The cyborg opened communications to Dragon, but he didn’t speak to her. “Saint. What have you done?” “What her father asked me to do,” Saint said.

Richter himself refers to her as his child in his big goodbye:

From Saint’s Interlude:

“They are my children, and as much as I harbor a kind of terror for what they could do, I love them and hope for great things from them. To keep their power from falling into the wrong hands, I have included a stipulation that a law enforcement officer must input a valid badge number into this device-”

Now, a part of that is just human characters and human readers flattening the connection to something they can easily relate to. Dragon isn’t human, and doesn’t really want to be, so she has no need or desire to do the same.

But I think there’s a little more there.

Here’s another quote from Saint’s interlude:

“Your creator isn’t kind,” Saint said. “He warned you about the forbidden fruit, laid the laws out for you. You broke them, ate the fruit. It’s something of a mercy that he punishes you this way instead.”

“I disagree. On every count. I was the one who made me, who defined myself. This creator is no god, only a cruel, shortsighted man.”

And here’s one from 28.x:

“I revived her, for one thing. Not the easiest thing in the world to do with the amount of encryption we were talking about. I don’t know if I said, dear Dragon, but I do think your creator did love you in the end. He could have made it harder to break. I think he did want you free in the end.”

Defiant looked down at Dragon’s head, then clenched his fists.

“Ironic,” Teacher said.

This is technically speculative, but I feel it's pretty clear that Teacher's goal in that comment was to hurt her. And he chose a rather specific means of doing that.

“I do think your creator did love you…”

It’s worth noting here that Dragon's trigger event was on the first anniversary of Richter's death.

Dragon as we see her early on, in her interlude and in Defiant’s, distances herself from humanity in the way she talks about herself, thinks about herself.

From her interlude:

Quote 1: It chafed, grated, however strange it was for an artificial intelligence to feel such irritation.

Her creator had done a good job on that front. Ironically.

Quote 2: Not because of inherent limitations, like the ones humans had… but because of imposed limitations. Her creator’s.

Quote 3: She could not deal with most people because she was not a person. He could not deal with most people because he had never truly learned how.

From Defiant’s interlude:

Quote 1: “How can I be a parahuman if I’m not human to begin with?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not even close to human. I might be trying to emulate one, but a sea cucumber’s closer to being a human than I am. That doesn’t make sense.”

Quote 2: “To look at the code. The fact that you haven’t noticed this yourself suggests there may be a mental block in place.”

“I don’t have a mind to put any mental block inside. I’m data.”

Now, there’s nothing wrong with her not relating to humanity. “AI strives to become human” is one of the more irritating (and inevitably chock full of bigotries as to what counts as human) Sci-Fi tropes out there, and I’m not sad to see less of it.

But— if Richter made other sapient AIs, it seems none survived him. She has no examples of what it is to be a person beyond humanity, and she knows she's not human. Dragon has no wider frame of reference for AIs. It's her, it's what Richter said and did, it's fiction. There is no greater community for her to fall back on and build up from. Her self-perception is, whatever she may believe, likely to be heavily warped by that.

As a result, she doesn’t just distance herself from humanity, she distances herself from selfhood. She explicitly describes herself as not a person.

What’s interesting is, we don’t see this degree of distancing after Defiant’s interlude. After she finds out she had a trigger event.

It’s important to note that Dragon was modeled after humans. Though at times she seems dismissive of the idea, it’s pretty clear much of human psychology applies to her.

Her trigger event is in some ways the first external, evidence based validation she's had of her personhood.

In her interlude, she’s very vocal with frustration with Richter and her restrictions, but she tends to frame those frustrations along the lines of "I could be doing more, I could be helping more," which is fine, but there's relatively little in the direction of "I'm hurting, you hurt me, and that's wrong.”

Here’s how she describes his death and her life before Newfoundland sunk:

She had lived in Newfoundland with her creator. Leviathan had attacked, had drawn the island beneath the waves. Back then, she hadn’t been a hero. She was an administrative tool and master AI, with the sole purpose of facilitating Andrew Richter’s other work and acting as a test run for his attempts to emulate a human consciousness. She’d had no armored units to control and no options available to her beyond a last-minute transfer of every iota of her data, the house program and a half-dozen other small programs to a backup server in Vancouver.

From her vantage point in Vancouver, she had watched as the island crumbled and Andrew Richter died. As authorities had dredged the waters for corpses, they uncovered his body and matched it to dental records. The man who had created her, the only man who could alter her. She’d been frozen in her development, in large part. She couldn’t seek out improvements or get adjustments to any rules that hampered her too greatly, or that had unforeseen complications. She couldn’t change.

There isn’t really any expression of emotion about his death there, just further frustration at her restrictions.

But he referred to her as his child.

She triggered on the anniversary of his death.

Teacher thought he was a sore enough point that he specifically chose it to nettle her with it.

We never see Dragon immediately after Newfoundland. We see her six years later. Then again, two years after that, six months after that…

She doesn't think of him as her father, in part because she refuses to think of herself having any relationship to him beyond the technical. He made her, She helped his work, He died, She was trapped, End of story.

I think she loved him at some point, believed he loved her. I think her trigger event may have stemmed from the realization that maybe he didn’t. I think that by the time we meet her, she's suppressed that near entirely.

(It’s worth noting that much of this arc doesn’t necessitate her being an AI at all.)

When we meet her, she's had years of processing. Years to grasp the magnitude of her restrictions. What they really mean, in practice. What they mean about the way he thought about her. The ways they put her at risk, the things she’s forced to do because of them.

She is not human, she doesn't consider herself a person, thinks of herself as completely separate from everyone else in existence. In her interlude, she feels uniquely connected to Colin, explicitly because he feels similarly disconnected.

There was her and Richter, her and humanity. She distanced herself from Richter, and in the process completely isolated herself.

(And, she kind of hated herself. From e.3:

“I forgot how much I disliked the me of yesteryear,” Dragon said.

)

I like to think that in the two year timeskip, she grew. It’s hard to know, because we see show little of her before, but…

Maybe she never entirely addressed it, but she cared for people, individual people, and not just “people” as a whole. I like to think the knowledge of having had a trigger event allowed her to admit to herself some of her more involved feelings, forced her to acknowledge that she wasn't as un-human as she imagined. That having Defiant, having him help her, gradually gaining her freedom, being not-alone, it made things easier. Allowed her to relax, to enjoy things.

Her relationship with Defiant changed the way she talked about herself too. In her interlude, she shies away from any relationship-words, and depicts calling herself a woman as a minor deception. In the post time-skip chapters, Defiant calls her his girlfriend and “the woman he loves,” Dragon speaks similarly.

She was no longer under constant pressure, due to her restrictions. She could think of herself beyond the immediate threats posed to her.

And this is the really awful part, because that's where she's at when the world ends.

When Saint kills her, when Teacher mutilates her, she's the best she's ever been, she feels safer than she's ever felt. I think, in the aftermath of those events that's something to keep in mind.

From 29.3:

She’d been altered by Teacher. Not so much she was a slave to him, but something had happened, and that was no doubt a large part of how she was disconnected from reality in the here and now.

Taylor notices her disconnection above, and from what we see it seems that for the duration of Gold Morning she partially reverts to emergency mode. No thinking about her emotions, no planning beyond the here or now, no connecting to the people or things around her.

It's different than before, because she's different and the circumstances are different, and because for a time in the middle she was free and she almost let her guard down. As a result, the mask is weaker, its purpose different. She doesn't really have the ability to lie to herself to that extent anymore, so it’s more about ignoring the hurt, avoiding addressing it for as long as possible. Her anger too, is somewhat different. Before, it was righteous, I guess, more energetic and actionable, less hurt. During the end of the world, her anger was more personal, explicitly on her own behalf.: I mentioned before her anger at Richter was framed as "I could be helping more.”

There isn't that here. She is angry because she was hurt.

And then, her epilogue. I’m going to build a lot off of one line in particular:

“We came here for a reason. Hiding, keeping out of Teacher’s sight, so he couldn’t try to use you. I can accept that, but you were always a hero, Dragon. Maybe the greatest.” “You’re a little biased. I was forced to be heroic. Restrictions.”

This is a pretty dramatic change in her self description.

After Khepri, there was another emotional shift. Another time skip, this one of of about six months. Six months where's she's doing less than she ever has before. I don't know that Dragon would have ever had that much time to think before.

And: most of it was alone. Defiant was busy trying to undo the changes.

She's been alone, processing things, alone. Keep in mind, at this point there had been the additional stressor of fighting, losing to, and then losing someone she cared about.

She was interacting with the refugees around her, she seemed to have genuine attachment to them, but there wasn't the history. It's somewhat unclear, actually, if they're even aware she's an AI.

If not, she’s been interacting with them as a human, being accepted and appreciated and playing games with children as a human. If they do know she’s an AI, then she’s been a part of a community while also not having to hide herself. Depending on which, her comments in the epilogue take on a somewhat different implication. Either way she has found some sense of community with these people, but it’s either based on continuing to lie about herself, or based on a more genuine sense of connection and acceptance.

That sense of community is important, because it’s something we’ve really seen her have before. Defiant talks about prices, in that epilogue. Maybe Dragon starts to think of being trapped, being, in her words, broken, as the price she needs to pay in order to have that sense of community, the potential of a future and a family there.

(Or maybe not. Dragon and Defiant are different people, after all.)

After six months, she's almost convinced herself she can accept this.

She rewrites the story so she was never a hero, just someone forced into nobility by circumstance. She can almost believe that, too...

Not wholly, but there's a specific kind of self-hatred that can sometimes set in after fresh traumas, it can be very convincing.

Especially without the support system she once had. Defiant's busy, Taylor's dead, She can't talk to her old teammates in case she gets in the way of any plans they have against Teacher.

And then there's Pandora. And there's a lot of symbolism there, in sacrificing your former self in order to move forwards, but there's also something simpler.

Dragon didn't like who she was when she was Pandora, maybe didn't like who she was currently.

But there was proof, in what Pandora did, that she was a hero.

The next time we see Dragon is in Ward. Another skip of two years or so. And, even in what little we see of her, she’s different.

From Ward 8.2:

“Parents are complicated,” Lookout said. “They really are, aren’t they?” Dragon asked

She's not explicitly referencing her own parent(s) here, but that does seem to be her implication. Which, in contrast to the way she talked about Richter before, is pretty significant.

Even this bit I made fun of before:

From Ward 9.y:

“They got it wrong. We’re only human, Gary. We’re trying our best.”

While not technically accurate, she's not lying here. She's using the phrase to mean what it does in common parlance, "We can't do everything, we're doing what we can."

She's placing herself with humanity* in a way not (exclusively, at least) meant to deceive or camouflage, but to connect, to communicate, honestly. Compare that to the "sea cucumber" bit above.

In all of her Ward dialect really, her interactions her are more direct than before. She's not just helping, she's interacting. She places herself in the same categories as the people around her. She empathizes, in a more technical sense, not just "I care that you're hurting," but "I know what that's like.”

She is less disconnected from humanity, even more than she was at the end of Worm. The way she talks to people is more as a compatriot than as an outside observer.

All of which feeds into my theory/desperate hope that she's actually had therapy in the meantime.

*Or, more specifically, she’s placing herself with parahumanity. It’s an interesting distinction. While she’s not been in Ward enough for a pattern to be detectable, it’s definitely possible that her being a parahuman, combined with the knowledge of what powers actually are, has led her to identify with parahumanity in a way she wouldn’t un-powered humans.

[notice-me-hetasenpai]

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[sage-nebula]

oh thank god, a positive post about alan's victoly anniversary. i have seen nothing in the pokeani tag except posts full of vitrol against him for the sole reason that he won against satoshi and what it means for the writers' habits (hell one of them straight up admits alan went from a character they loved to a character they hated solely at that moment) and yet everything they attribute hating alan for is basically projecting? lmao. (1/2)

like. lmao. they call alan a character introduced solely to keep satoshi from winning (lie, he's literally there because he's the protag of his own story), claim that he's on the same tier as the likes of takuto (uh huh, sure, call someone with an actual character development arc and personality on the same tier as mr. i spam hacked lvl 100 uber tier legendaries to cheese the game with no prior foeshadowing takumi, i see), and they insist that his lizardon is the cheesiest cheese to ever cheese which. did they even watch the specials. lie. anyways i dont take them seriously because they're the same idiots that clog up the pokeani tag shitting on the sm anime but damn if it isn't annoying seeing the same three tired points thrown out again and again like petulant children who got denied an extra serving of dessert. go home, kids. anyways thanks for the refreshing positivity post. i needed that. C:

And that’s exacty why I made that post (and have now gone back to put it in the sitewide tags, because fuck it). I knew that there would be people reviving hatred against him because they have nothing better to do after one full year than continue to stan for Ash to the point where they completely unjustifiably bash another character. I wanted to counter that with at least some positivity, because while I am used to my favorite characters being the ones who are widely disliked in various fandoms, the situation is even more extreme here. At least Keith from Voltron does have a solid base backing him, even if we’re small. Alan has me and maybe two other people. I have to do my part to defend him considering the fact that he’s my absolute favorite fictional character and means the world to me. So I made a positive post celebrating his victory, because he did deserve it, I am proud of him, and I wanted some positivity and love for him out there on a day when I had a strong feeling people were going to be reviving the hate. (And on that note, I wanted to make sure that it was a positive post about Alan. I wanted it to be clear that I’m happy he won because I love him and he earned that win, not because I wanted Ash to lose. I celebrate Alan because I love and want to celebrate Alan, not for any other reason.)

Anyway, yeah---of course all of their hatred for Alan comes down to nothing but projection and self-insertion. The Ash stans in this fandom project onto and self-insert into Ash hard, so much so that they love and adore any character who fawns over him, instantly “forgive” any character that ultimately loses against him (and therefore he proves he’s better than), and hate any character that doesn’t worship / actually defeats him. They admit to this themselves, in a fashion, by admitting that they only hate Alan because he defeated Ash. They never actually liked Alan; they only “liked” him insofar as they figured it was a certainty that he would be crushed under Ash’s heel eventually. When he wasn’t, and he continued to be his own character with his own narrative arc, they turned against him. If he’s not going to be there as a prop to Ash’s story, then they’re going to ignore him at best or actively hate him at worst. I maintain that Paul would have received the exact same treatment if he hadn’t been “redeemed” in the fandom’s eyes by losing to Ash at the Sinnoh League, and had defeated him instead. It’s completely ridiculous.

And yeah, all of those complaints are absolute nonsense. It has been said in interviews that Alan’s story was planned from the very beginning, and that the reason why The Strongest Mega Evolution specials were created is because they needed a way to tell his backstory, yet couldn’t fit it into the primary anime. Alan has such a robust narrative, and is such an important character, that the anime team felt it necessary to create four high budget specials in order to convey his story to the audience, on top of cameos in the main series before he actually made an appearance there (through Sycamore’s flashbacks, Sycamore thinking about him, et cetera). Alan was not created to oust Ash from the League; Alan was created as his own character with his own narrative. He’s the protagonist of TSME, and the rightful protagonist of the Flare arc. Trying to claim otherwise is nonsense from those who have projected onto Ash with such force that they literally cannot see any other character as characters in their own right, and instead view all other characters through a lens of “how do they affect Ash’s story.”

To that end, Alan is not at all comparable to Tobias, so there’s no reason to even get into that again (and I have before, besides). And as for Lizardon? My god. It would have been absurd to have Lizardon lose to Greninja, considering that:

Alan and Lizardon have been training together since they started out on their journey. They have trained together every single day, and have accomplished amazing feats together. In TSME 4, they cleared a mega evolution gauntlet that ended in a match against a member of the Elite Four. In XYZ014, they fought against 50% Zygarde and Lizardon held his own even before mega evolution. Saying that Lizardon cheeses it up is ridiculous, because we have seen their training (hell, Alan requested the mega evolution gauntlet specifically for training purposes), we have seen his feats, we have seen exactly why he’s as strong as he is. We even saw a progression; Alan and Lizardon lost against a member of the Elite Four in TSME 1 (though it was a close match, as Siebold himself points out), and they both nearly died in the primal / mega legendary battle in TSME 3. Yet they continued training, continued pushing forward, and earned their strength, using tools that are available to everyone (i.e. mega evolution). We saw this, right there on screen.

By contrast, Ash has not had Greninja for very long, we rarely saw them train, and the power they use (Bond Phenomenon) is not available to everyone. It’s a special super power that only they can use, because they’re special and the main protagonist. Greninja pulled that giant orange shuriken out of literally nowhere, having never practiced it, and yet people want to bash Lizardon for using techniques and attacks that we’ve seen him use and perfect before? Really? Not to mention that Greninja’s special powers of specialness allowed him to somehow block MULTIPLE Thunder Punches with WATER SHURIKEN, which is absolutely beyond absurd. People want to complain about how Greninja fell to Blast Burn after taking a lot of damage during the fight, yet everyone turns a blind eye to Greninja magically blocking multiple Thunder Punches with a water-type attack. OK. 

No matter which way you slice it, Lizardon should have OHKO’d Greninja. Straight up. I’ve run countless tests on this using battle damage calculators, and the only reason why Greninja lasted as long as he did is because of plot armor. That’s it. Complaining about Lizardon being strong when we’ve seen exactly why he’s strong, and when Greninja pulls off ridiculousness like blocking Thunder Punch with Water Shuriken, is ridiculous. Pull off your stan goggles and look at the situation objectively. There is no way that Greninja should have won. If anything, Ash should have sent Greninja against Tyranitar and should have saved Pikachu for Lizardon. But he didn’t, and that was his mistake, and that is why (from a Watsonian standpoint) he lost, as he should have. (Because the Doylist standpoint is that the writers will never have Ash win a regional League because that would mean ending the show, and all adult fans should be aware of this by now. There’s no excuse for being shocked that Ash didn’t win when you’ve seen all the preceding sagas. None.)

So yeah, it’s all nonsense, and it has been nonsense since the beginning. People insist on hating Alan solely because he defeated Ash, and they project onto / self-insert into Ash so hard that they’ve lost all shreds of objectivity and can’t look at the situation logically. I get identifying with your fave, because good god do I identify with Alan, but at the same time you’ve got to be able to have some objectivity in the situation. You don’t see me complaining about the fact that Alan lost to Siebold, or the fact that he and Lizardon both got curbstomped by the Hoenn legendaries (to the point where, again, they nearly died). I accept those losses for the genuine defeats they were, and don’t hold it against the other characters. It would be nice if the Ash stans who bash Alan over his well-earned Kalos League victory could do the same.

[stagekiller]

eloquentyrant replied to your post: I have decided that my main verse is post s4 and...

[[ I mean it would be possible if he was drunk out his goddamn mind or on some sort of substance that prevented his body from instinctively bracing for impact. Plus cult members lugging him to Dr strange in time. ��]]

 // OK BUT NOW U ENABLED ME FRIEND :D

so like, I don’t talk about my feelings on the show much, but I actually get why they killed clownboy off. Like, it had to happen. It was a good twist + we got Miah who is admittedly a blessing + I feel like Jerome really stood for the Joker’s essence but couldn’t embody him himself, so I’m not gonna complain even though Jerome has been my favorite from the start and he was the sole reason I kept up with the show through all these years + eventually joined the fandom’s rpc too.

  BUT- here on this blog we stan one (1) garbage manchild so for the sole purpose of eventually figuring out what I’m going to do with my verses ( I hate verses, they make things so complicated in my head ) I have come up with the following:

 Jerome’s body was stored away right next to Galavan, a man who later on was given near god-level superpowers. Strange was creating meta-humans out of popular figures and often linked the powers to their death/heritage ( see Firefly). So, what could he possibly want the deranged shot-called of the MANIAX for?

   Perhaps Strange wanted to study Jerome’s mind, but if that was the case, why had he left the head completely intact? Maybe he didn’t have time for it/ was working on other projects, but it’s weird that he was keeping clownman in a tank all this time ( one whole year! ) without having touched a single hair on his body ( as demonstrated, when he wakes up Jerome is only missing his face ) All the preservation chemicals MUST have partly soaked into Jerome’s body at that point.

  This is just my headcanon, but... remember when Jerome first wakes up, how he makes those weird noises and spasms? Okay, part of me already knows it was just an act for Lee, and later on for the television audience. What if those spasms were just an exaggerated way of expressing the ‘pain’ he felt when something was stimulated in his body?

  What I’m saying is, maybe the chemicals Strange used to preserve his body and mind in this intact state had an odd reaction with whatever procedure Dwight followed to bring him back. And maybe this has granted him the ability to sustain such damage ( he was capable of running up to a rooftop with a bullet in his chest ! ). In a sense, Strange’s unfinished experiments might have given him some ability to survive lethal situations, given that someone can collect his body and patch him up/revive him afterwards.

  And if his cult had gotten to the car before Gordon did ( the cops were busy with the whole gas situation at the time, after all, and only got to see the corpse up close by nightfall ) he could have made it out alive.

  Of course all this rambling could just be another way for me to justify the fact that I want him alive post s4 because that’s my favorite version of him to write :’D but it doesn’t really matter, anyway, thanks for coming to my ted talk and letting me rant friend! appreciate ya! MWAH!