#the narratives around this team are being planted

[croszukis]

the nick suzuki vs the flyers storyline is so fascinating like it keeps continuing and why’d gmdb just say he hopes their prospect is half as good as nick ….

[narutouzumakiarchive]

I love the Naruto and Sasuke reunion.

When a character is suffering from some illness and an author wants to foreshadow this, one way to do so is by having the character exhibit symptoms of said illness.

Sasuke's personal affliction is the weakness that he associates with having personal bonds and connections to other people. This is something that he's forced to reconcile with during VOTE 2 with Naruto, who was Sasuke's weakness and the only person that Sasuke felt he needed to cut off to be lonely. But before we get to that moment there are hints along the way.

Now, during the reunion we hear Sasuke discuss this personal view of what bonds are. There's the repetition of the "bonds = weakness" motif that crops up throughout the manga, but more specifically, Sasuke states that the confusion that arises from having too many bonds is what causes that weakness.

This is where the first seeds of sns foreshadowing were planted post timeskip... I looked through 9 different sources (in order of what popped up on the search engine I used so there was no bias or selective filtering) to get a general consensus, and one of the primary symptoms of confusion/delirium is distractability. Distractability is characterized by diminished alertness, an uncertainty of what's going on around you and your surroundings.

And during the SNS reunion, we get just that. Right after Kurama ominously warns Sasuke that he'll regret killing Naruto, Sasuke, who Kishimoto made a show of pointing out surpassed Team 7 in strength, pointedly stares at Naruto to the point that he ignores Yamato. Furthermore, Sasuke's lack of external awareness is highlighted in the manga when Sasuke is narratively punished for this oversight with Captain Yamato's retaliation. The significance of this scene lies not in the fact that Sasuke stared at Naruto, but in the fact that Sasuke lost control when staring at Naruto. Kishimoto wanted this moment to be taken note of. It's a manifestation of Naruto being a "temptation" and cause of confusion.

And the scene itself imparts a romantic connotation that's validated by the text.

Previously, briefly discussed my view of romance which I'll elaborate a bit on in this post, using the reunion scene as an example.

So, from a scientific perspective, romantic love has been shown to be correlated with reduced cognitive control. In other words, romantic love is linked with distractability and a decreased ability to focus on tasks.

One of the ways this scientific *fact* has manifested itself in a shared socioculturally produced convention is through the Distracted by the Sexy Trope [an aside: I dislike the name of this trope], which is characterized by a character losing control (whether it's walking into walls or dropping whatever it is they're holding) at the sight of someone they find attractive.

And furthermore, this is a romantic trope that is promoted by the Naruto text. During the battle with Kaguya, we see the Distracted by the Sexy Trope manifest when Naruto uses the reverse harem jutsu on Kaguya, and she gets distracted to the point that she's temporarily caught off guard by the enemy. Now doesn't that sound familiar?

In both cases (Reunion and War Arc) there's significant narrative focus on the act of staring, and that act of staring has a tangible impact on the plot.

So not only does the Naruto and Sasuke reunion function as a way to show Sasuke still hadn't managed to cut his ties with Naruto, it's framed in an incredibly romantic way with a common romcom trope

... and this is just Sasuke's side. I haven't even discussed the way Naruto reacted towards Sasuke in this scene. But anyway, I think their reunion is neat. I also love the narrative progression from Kurama warning Sasuke that he'd regret killing Naruto directly to Naruto causing Sasuke to lose his external awareness. Kishimoto couldn't have been more clear about his intentions and the fact that the latter scene was an extension of the former and that both were connected.

[imaginesforfandom]

Heartbeat Symphony

AHHHH i love this man too much lmao. this is short and sweet so have fun my lovelies!

how have i not written for this man yet like-

Dean Winchester x Reader

No pronouns used

Summary: After a long day on the road, the couple finds solace in the comfort of the Impala. The story explores the quiet moments between hunts, emphasizing the deep connection and love they share. Back at the bunker, they unwind together, appreciating the simplicity of being a team both in and out of the field. The narrative highlights the strength of their bond and the sense of home they find in each other's company.

Heartbeat Symphony

Dean Winchester sat in the driver's seat of the Impala, one hand casually resting on the steering wheel as he glanced over at you. The rhythmic hum of the engine was the backdrop to the comfortable silence that filled the car. You had been on the road for hours, chasing down the latest lead on a case, and now the two of you were finally heading back to the bunker.

As Dean drove, he stole glances at you, appreciating the way the soft glow from the dashboard highlighted the contours of your face. The quiet moments between hunts were just as precious as the action-packed ones. He reached over, fingers brushing against yours, and a warm smile formed on his lips as he interlaced them.

"You doing okay, Y/N?" Dean asked, his voice a soothing melody that echoed through the Impala.

You nodded, leaning over to rest your head on his shoulder. "Yeah, just tired. Ready to get back and hit the hay."

Dean chuckled, the sound vibrating through both of you. "Well, we make a damn good team, don't we?"

You smirked, lifting your head to meet his eyes. "The best. Team Winchester."

As the familiar sight of the bunker came into view, Dean couldn't help but feel a swell of contentment. The two of you had been through so much together, and yet, every moment felt like a new adventure with you by his side.

Once inside the bunker, you kicked off your boots and flopped down onto the worn-out couch in the library. Dean joined you, sitting close enough that your shoulders brushed against each other. He reached for the TV remote, flicking through the channels until he found an old black-and-white movie.

"You know," Dean said, his arm finding its way around your shoulders, "we make a pretty good team in and out of the field."

You laughed, snuggling closer. "Yeah, we do. I wouldn't want to hunt monsters with anyone else."

Dean turned his head, planting a soft kiss on your forehead. "Me neither, Y/N."

The movie played in the background, but you found yourself more captivated by the steady cadence of Dean's heartbeat. It was a comforting symphony, a reminder that you were home, safe in the arms of the person you loved.

As the night wore on, you both drifted off to sleep on the couch, tangled together in a mess of limbs and blankets. The bunker echoed with the quiet sounds of the TV and the distant hum of the machinery that kept the place running.

In the darkness, Dean whispered words of love, promises, and gratitude, knowing that every day with you was a gift. And as you slept, you couldn't help but smile, feeling the warmth of his love surround you like a protective embrace. Together, you faced the challenges that came your way, hand in hand, heart in heart, a team bound by something stronger than any supernatural force – love.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i loved writing this OMG!! i can't believe i haven't written for Dean yet. i absolutely adore him so so much lmao

[majaloveschris]

You know, another blog made a good point I hadn’t thought of before: that both sides are feeding the narrative, and that’s why it seems like this whole thing will never end. I mean, how long has it been said or implied the end was near, and what happens instead? New content is always dropped. It was said that he fired Megan, and that he cut Tara off, but what happened? Megan and Tara both show up at the New York premiere after not being seen for almost the entire year. And his whole family was there, after it was implied he wasn’t on speaking terms with them.

I honestly think they’re (his team) torturing and gaslighting the fandom on purpose now, because let’s be honest, the blogs and the fan accounts are the only ones paying close attention to everything. The general public doesn’t care about either of them. They don’t even know who she is. He’s not properly know outside of Captain America. So why do all this stuff to cover their bases if the general public isn’t asking the questions the fandom is asking? Blogs make a point about the immigration laws, and the brands that are connected to this whole thing, but the general public isn’t consciously aware of any of that. The average person can’t spot a specific brand of watch or clothing, and they can’t list immigration laws off the top of their heads. Why would these little things be spotted or cared about by the general public?

A part of me wonders if both sides are all plants, whether they realize it or not, because both sides in their own way have been the driving forces carrying this stunt to where it is now. Everytime something happens, who talks about it most? Who points things out? Who makes lists of the holes and the things that don’t add up? Both sides are being used; one side just got paid and the other side didn’t. But they’re both being used to keep the manipulation and the gaslighting going. And I don’t think they even realize it.

How many times has certain blogs changed their rhetoric as to why a breakup article hasn’t been published yet? How every time an anon calls out that what they say doesn’t add up, they magically have an explanation? I’m not discounting the things they got the right, but they always seem to get the biggest thing wrong. Now it’s that all players are always brought in for the finale, but what will be the new explanation for November ends and a breakup still hasn’t happened? What will it be when December rolls around and it still hasn’t happened then either?

Sometimes I stand on the outside looking in, and I see just why this whole things keeps going, around and around in circles, a cycle that just keeps on going and never changes. The people who pay attention to it are just as much players in this game the same way Chris and Alba and everyone else is. And it doesn’t matter if you only post make one post about it, or if you post social media numbers or do tarot readings or debunk every single thing that comes out, you contribute to the stunt. You keep it going. Even I’m doing that by sending this. Like everyone who is exhausted, I wish they would just end this. I wish Chris would stand up for himself and put himself, and everyone around him and all of us watching, out of misery. A fan called this a “push and pull” and that’s exactly what it is. It’s like a bad carousel that won’t end. And honestly, it won’t stop until everyone decides they’ve had enough and just gets off, all players included.

Yeah, talking about this whole relationship definitely feeds the narrative, but that's not the reason why this whole thing is still going on. Even if nobody gave a shit about them, or even people would believe they are real and nobody would doubt it, this whole thing would still be going on. We aren't the ones keeping this alive, and we won't be the ones ending it either. This will end when they want it to end; it is simply that. 

Not everybody is going around telling people that the end is near or that it's already ended, and I don't agree with those who do it. Nobody here can know for a fact when and how this ends, and people shouldn't be spreading this whole thing either, especially after they were proved to be wrong a hundred times. This whole thing ends when they say it ends, not when some random person reading a blog says so. But people shouldn't believe it either when they say something like that. Nobody here knows when this ends, so spare yourself from disappointment and don't believe everything you read online. 

The whole "he fired Megan and he cut Tara" thing comes from the fandom. They haven't said or done anything that would give even the slightest indication that he did those things. You can't blame them for something they had nothing to do with? Did Chris say those things? No. Did he imply those things? No. People made those things up. You say it's been implied, and then they appear somewhere. But we can't hold them accountable for things they have nothing to do with. If some people think he did something without any evidence, but then he proceeds to do the exact opposite, it's not his fault. 

Just like in every fandom, most contents are for us. We are the ones sharing it, making it more viral, but saying they are torturing us is a bit of a reach. I agree about the gashlight part, since we believe this is not real, but they keep trying to prove us otherwise. Everybody can decide whether they want to be here or not. We all know what we "signed up" for, and we are all free people who can do whatever they want. If you think this is torture, you can leave and spend time with things that make you happy. Nobody forces anybody to stay here; they don't either. If it's something that has a huge negative effect on your mental health, just walk away; it doesn't worth it. They don't want the general public to care about immigration laws or specific brands. Other than those things, this is not real; people don't care, and they don't want you to do so. They want people to believe this is real, and the GP won't start digging deeper because they don't care, nor do those people who think this is real. They didn't expect this at the very beginning; they thought most people would believe this was real and wouldn't ask questions. 

This plant question is hard because I don't think everybody is paid here. Some people are just way too involved, but that doesn't mean they are getting paid. Do we help them with pointing things out? Probably. But again, we aren't the ones making this longer lasting than it was supposed to be. Even if we weren't talking here, all of this would still be going on. Maybe they wouldn't get as many good tips as they do, but the duration of this relationship isn't on us. 

Some people love acting like they know everything and that they have knowledge about everything, but that doesn't make them plants. Some people are really impulsive, and they say things based on limited information. But not everybody is like them. 

Thinking this whole thing would magically end if we stopped talking about this is a reach, I think. And it's never going to happen. There will always be people talking about this, but if this is fake, it has to end at some point, right? It's not going to last forever just because we post about it. 

This thing will end when they want it to end. We can do and say whatever we want; it's going to end sooner just because of us. 

If I can be honest with you, this whole thing is just not that deep. Some people take this whole thing way too personally and spend way too much time thinking and caring about it. I like sharing my thoughts about this, but that's it. I spend maybe like 30 minutes of my life with this and then deal with my own things. After all, whether they are really together or not is not going to affect my life. How a Hungarian saying says; it won't make bread cheaper. Would it be disappointing? Yeah, because of the person she is. But we can't let this whole thing ruin even a single moment of our lives for us. Our lives are much more important than their fake relationship. 

[respectthepetty]

Plant Daddies - Episode 3

This isn't about colors. This is about the Triangular Theory of Love in Hidden Agenda, but it's like lasagna; it has layers. Tee, is this about Step by Step?!

I wrote about plant symbolism in Hidden Agenda in Plant Daddies at Tea Time:

Yellow Chrysanthemum, the tea Zo drinks, represents slighted or neglected love and the taste of its tea is sweet.

And Red Roselle, the juice Joke drinks, represents romantic love or passion and the taste of its juice is sour.

The boys stick to those drinks.

But this week they switched without any comment.

Also, Zo told two stories this week from his Legends of Love book:

Red Roses get their color from the blood of Adonis mixing with the tears of Aphrodite seeping into the ground which caused the roses to change from white to red.

Yellow Sunflowers exist because Clytie fell in love with the sun god, Apollo, so when he left her, she looked at the sun so long that she grew roots and turned into a sunflower.

Both stories deal with a person losing the person she loves. However, the roses story is about love being taken away, and the sunflower story is about love leaving. Also, Zo stated he would cry if he lost his love, while Joke stated he wouldn't leave that person in the first place.

Yet Nita's take on the story is to move on from the past and find someone else.

Once again, this isn't about colors, but we now have two separate occasions where plants/flowers are included in the narrative, and those items are color-coded yellow and red, which only adds to the way we are seeing those colors pop up in the show with a third color.

I mentioned in the Plant Daddies at Tea Time post that primary colors seem to be intentional in the show because this episode, the only colored clothing Joke handed Zo when they were shopping was yellow.

Yet by the end, Zo was in blue with his yellow backpack.

So what does this have to do with the Triangular Theory of Love?

Well, all things come in threes:

The Primary Colors:

Red

Yellow

Blue

These are the basic colors needed to make all other colors; therefore, all colors start from these three, and all colors stem from these three colors.

The Love Triangle:

Joke likes Zo.

Zo likes Nita.

Nita likes Joke?

Issue - We don't know if Nita does still have feelings for Joke because her response to the story seemed as if she would get over Joke.

The Dating Rules:

Rule #1 - Do not gawk at your love interest.

Rule #2 - Ease into it. Don't rush. Oh, AND CONSENT!

Rule #3 - Do whatever Joke says.

Rule #3 - Stay true to yourself starting with the first date.

Issue - Joke seems to have problems sticking to his own rules.

The Triangular Theory of Love:

"It breaks down love into three components."

Passion - Zo is passionate about pursuing Nita.

Intimacy - Joke tells Zo he must ask Nita out to build this.

Commitment - And once they begin to date, this will evolve.

Issue - Zo already notices his heart isn't fluttering around Nita the way he thought it would, yet his heart seems to be doing something around Joke, which is maybe why Joke continues to advise Zo to do some self-reflection and try new things.

Because just like Khai and Third in the correctly titled Theory of Love, this process isn't just for Zo, but Joke:

Passion - Joke is passionate about getting Zo by any means necessary.

Commitment - Joke is committed to this bit, he made Zo give him explicit promises (to work together, to help him get in the debate team), and he already stated he would be committed in a relationship during their story time.

Intimacy - This is what Joke is lacking, which is why he developed this huge scheme to get Zo to spend more time with him.

The Balance:

Is this a story about finding the middle ground between two extremes?

So far, we have a story about Joke, a passionate guy who drinks sour red roselle juice and openly admits to being aggressive about love like the thorns of a rose, trying to develop intimacy with a boy who drinks sweet yellow chrysanthemum tea and says he would just stare at what he can't have than go after it like a sunflower in order to show his commitment . . .

Then both of these boys need each other to find that balance between their two ways of loving.

Joke has launched in elaborate plan to get Zo while Zo was willing to admire Nita from a distance for the rest of his life. Zo can't just stare at his crush (Rule #1), and Joke can't rush into things (Rule #2), yet neither has been truly themself from the start to get the other person (Rule #3).

In order to make this work:

Joke needs to learn sweet intimacy.

And Zo needs to understand burning passion.

So they can find a balance and be able to commit to each other when the time comes.

And maybe that will help their friends find a good balance between the secrets they hide in the dark and the looks they give in the light.

And maybe even rethink how they see things so they can find new meaning in what has been in front of them the entire time.

Because that look was more than what Kot said. Right?

[monsterlets]

pokemon team ideas:

the best pokemon to make lookalike furniture out of (e.g., the easy one of "snorlax beanbag chair")

the best pokemon to throw off your opponent; "but they're so cute!" [team murders opponents' pokemon]

a pokemon team for a gym in a decommissioned nuclear power plant

pokemon team of JUST "that is a man" pokemon that you don't immediately hate because of uncanny valley (challenge rating: near impossible)

a team of pokemon whose colors/designs are just Slightly Wrong but if improved would be great

a team of pokemon where the shinies are infinitely better than the regular forms. caveat: at least 3 pokemon Cannot just be your favorites. lol

a team of pokemon where their designs make no evolutionary or biological sense given their referents and environments.

a team of GIANT pokemon that would not hurt you (or not you, just opponents, whichever)

a team of teeny tiny pokemon that would KILL you (or not you, just opponents, whichever)

a team for a gym in a bustling street market

a team for an elite four/champions road member with the aesthetic and narrative of a union organizer (throughout the game they create some kind of union among trainers to overthrow the villains or something; broad possibilities for aesthetic available here, but that's their journey and vibe)

the best pokemon to make lookalike furniture out of (e.g., the easy one of "snorlax beanbag chair"):

it's just four bean bag chairs a coat rack and a table

the best pokemon to throw off your opponent; "but they're so cute!" [team murders opponents' pokemon]

here come the murder babies

a pokemon team for a gym in a decommissioned nuclear power plant

had to get my favorite nido in there and I think at this point I'm contractually obligated to put toxapex in every poison type team I make

pokemon team of JUST "that is a man" pokemon that you don't immediately hate because of uncanny valley (challenge rating: near impossible)

bruh.

this is the best I can do

a team of pokemon whose colors/designs are just Slightly Wrong but if improved would be great

folks these are all personal opinion but I am very opinionated. and I will explain myself. let's go

flaaffy: I understand that the line is meant to represent a sheep being sheared but it makes me uncomfortable that it stands up at the same moment it loses its pants. please either put it back on the ground or start shearing it from a different place. thank u

umbreon: three things- 1) get rid of the pupils. it's the only eeveelution with black pupils and I like them much better without 2) the yellow circles look so unnatural to me. the rings around the tail and ears are fine tho. get rid of the ones on the legs, fill in the one on the forehead to make it a spot (it even evokes the moon more that way) 3) for me this is too many colors for such a simple litte guy. either make the eyes yellow to match the markings, or make the markings red to match the eyes (I think the yellow could be regular and the red could be the shiny. blood moon. sick)

skitty: it's very cute, it reminds me of a neopet and I like that. but the facial features just don't look real to me. make em look a little less drawn on and I'd like it

female jellicent: pretty much the same issue, the eyelashes look painted on. why are they 2 dimensional

east sea gastrodon: for context for everyone else we were just talking about this last night. I just don't think the color scheme works as well as the west sea gastrodon. make the green a bit darker and cooler, make the blue quite a bit lighter, and then make the yellow accents a cool color so it's more cohesive (I think purple would be cool). I still like him tho it's still gastrodon at the end of the day. but I would never ever choose it over the west sea gastrodon

gorebyss: the clamshell bra. get rid of it

aaaaaand I've hit image limit I'll have to continue in a reblog

[ben-talks-art]

I think "The Drill" might be the best episode to introduce someone to Avatar

You know how the first season of a show usually has a lot of clunkiness because the creators and writers tend to still be figuring out what they want to do and how they want to do it, and because of that, the start of a show may not be the best representation of that show's best qualities?

I think rather than starting from episode 1, if someone who never touched Avatar wanted to get into it, "The Drill" would be a great episode to spark that interest. It pretty much has everything in it that makes this show great.

It shows the dynamic of the team with Sokka being the leader, Katara being the support, Aang being the ace Jack-of-all-trades, and Toph the muscle, with each using their powers and skills to help solve the problem.

It shows some nice philosophy and good lessons for kids by having the heroes observing their opponents in order to come up with a way to beat their opponents and using a really clever strategy of taking a challenge by parts instead of trying to solve it all at once.

It has a great showcase of how powers work in this world, and a great showcase of what the action scenes look like with this animation with the battles between Aang and Azula's team.

And, most of all, it doesn't really spoil or ruin that many things for people that didn't saw previous episodes. It has a pretty simple narrative of "bad guys doing bad guys things, heroes try to stop them!", and yet, it still plants a lot of nice seeds that makes you wonder how things got to the way they are for newcomers.

People will go "Why's the kid missing his Bison? Why are the fire people fighting the earth people? Why can the blind girl fight so well? Why is that kid and his uncle sneaking around? Are they secret agents?"

Like, it raises questions without ruining anything, all while showing the appeal and who might and might not like it.

Idk, to me this just feels like the perfect "newcomer baiter." It has great build-up, one of my favorite climaxes, it servers as its own isolated story while still serving the larger narrative, and even has some nice humor.

It just works too well.

I honestly would love to have someone who never saw this series try to watch this one episode and hear what kind of impressions they would take from it.

[mixelation]

reborn au notes 2 self, chunin exam edition

on kushina: i want to write her as a badass, but in light of the recent minato oneshot, i've decided that while she is a badass, she was actively kept from the frontlines of the third shinobi war because oooh ahhh our precious jinchuriki!! so she's not actually like... very well known internationally. so what this means

both itachi and deidara are like "well if she was any good i would have heard of her" and then ideally both of them would have separate "oh god what the fuck what the fuck WHAT THE FUCK" moments because actually she has an OP bloodline limit, is a fuinjutsu master, and has insane chakra/stamina. and this is BEFORE you factor in the fox

iwa denies minato entrance for the chunin exam tournament despite it being traditional to host foreign kage because they're terrified of him planting a hiraishin seal. they're then iffy about letting his wife in with fuinjutsu supplies. but they too are like "well if she were worth knowing about, we'd have heard of her"

on kisame/mangetsu: i forgot i pitched the idea of kisame being there to babysit bby mangestu entering??? i think i'll keep this element. nothing i post on tumblr is "set in stone" but this change probably wouldn't affect the written pieces very much. so the tourament is

First round:

Tori vs Some Chump (opening match -- expected to be underwhelming and supposed to give people time to find their seats -- Tori finishes it in less than 30 seconds)

Itachi vs Kurotsuchi (Itachi wins)

Deidara vs Some Chump (Deidara wins)

Mangetsu vs Some Chump (Mangetsu wins)

Second round:

Tori vs Itachi (Itachi wins but in a complete reversal of her previous match, Tori draws it out)

Mangetsu vs Deidara (Deidara wins but the bloodline limit is ANNOYING)

Final: Itachi vs Deidara (Itachi wins)

i'm not 100% what mangetsu at 13's personality would be, but i like the cracky idea of of him having a weird little crush on tori. mostly because i think it would make both her and kisame like (INTERNAL ALARM BELLS GOING OFF) but also for plot reasons*

tori: idk what to do i've only ever had weirdos be attracted to me???

deidara: only weird-- tori he sneezed too hard and turned into a puddle. he IS a weirdo

*basically i'm toying with the idea of tori going SOBBING to mangetsu that iwa kidnapped her mentor, because kisame will report to kiri that they did this, but mangetsu's more emotional testimony will sell it to kiri. i decided with the piece i just posted that it makes more narrative sense for tori to pull herself together and make moves on a plan rather than waiting for deidara and itachi to solve it for her. so she's like: okay, im confident we can get to her, but how do we prevent a fourth war in the event iwa decides to claim WE attacked first? witness from another village. okay here i go~~

kisame has no personal stakes in doing anything about kushina or their mission so he's not going to physically help with that, but he does consider itachi his ally so he'll happily go and tell the mizukage that he was presented with strong evidence that iwa tried to hold the hokage's wife ransom after she and her team diligently obeyed all their stupid rules....?

on the hiraishin seal that the utano** clan picked up at the very beginning when tori was 4: originally i had the idea she'd use it to take down oto somehow. like she gets her hands on it and chucks it around until minato comes to check it out or something. but instead i decided it's better if she just figures that out on her own. although NOW i'm debating if she leaves the hiraishin seal out in the open in the hopes konoha comes ot check it out and take care of any degs for her. <3 the consequence of this is that she's on minato's radar before they ever meet, but i'm noooot sure i like this

either way i think i'm going to use it to very slowly foreshadow hiraishin!tori. but also maybe. out of spite, and because she spent a lot of time studying one when she was a kid.... she paints a couple hiraishin seals in iwa as payment. as a little treat <3

(this is NOT the most politically savvy move so even if minato privately thought it was funny, i think he's reprimand her. even when she's like "no i ARRANGED for kiri to back us up, they're not going to do anything because they CAN'T." but alternatively maybe she writes a note that she hid one.... can you find it? <3 <3 <3)

**i know i originally wrote it as "uta" but "utano" looks more like a name so i'm changing it lmao

[pyreo]

I know there's people who like their fantasy storytelling to take a few steps away from reality, you know. Nothing that verges on allegorical to the stuff we worry about in real life. And I think I'm on the opposite team to that and y'know, the further away we get from gw2's original core story the more I see The World Summit instance as more pivotal than it appeared.

It's the part in the middle of Season 2 where you bring the world leaders together to try and insist that they need to aid you fighting Mordremoth, a primal force who's only just now awakened and started causing disruption and deaths. Mechanically, it serves to show the various cultures being made aware of the upcoming antagonist for mostly the first time.

But there's something that grips me to this day about the realism in that segment. You know full well that this thing is beginning its warpath and will kill those around you. You and your guild know that you need to take action immediately before it gathers itself together to a point you cannot fight it any more. I don't think the scene serves much more than obligatory scaffolding in a narrative sense but it echoes the way I feel in real life all the time. It's the focal point where I've never felt more aligned with my Commander.

Smodur: They're plant creatures! How hard can they be to fight. One good flamethrower and…

Knut: Mordremoth is not yet as close as the Sons of Svanir. They press in around our homesteads. That is more important.

Phlunt: Are you saying we should put ourselves on the line to protect all of you? We are safe in Rata Sum.

Jennah: I'm not ashamed to admit that I don't see how this will work. What are you asking of us?

It's not easy to ask the Main Five Peoples to get anything done together - they do come from legitimately incompatible cultures and there's bad history between humans and charr, and sylvari and asura. But you have to present an argument to each one to convince them this is the most important thing to devote resources to.

It's been about ten years since this was written and it still feels exactly like every conversation that deflects from the reality of climate change. The 'we have bigger things to worry about', the 'it's not that bad', the denials, the giving up, the ones who have enough to feel secure individually and don't really care.

That and the way the narrative turns from 'you're the hero, slay the dragon' to a domino effect that cannot be stopped, wrenching the planet off its hinges and it was all down to you. There's a big difference in changing the threat from ancient dragons awakening to devour all life... and it being the Commander's fault that the stabilising effect those dragons had is unplugged. The allegory becomes undeniable - you doomed the world. You have to chase down that tether and pull the weave back from unravelling even if it'll tear you apart. And even if nobody realises how close their lives are to ending, even if nobody respects you for it.

You have to look the most powerful people alive in the eye and plead with them to fucking help you for god's sake knowing it's a crisis and if you don't take action right now instead of waiting for it to get worse... being able to tell them 'I told you so' will be no solace at all.

And fuckin.... if fantasy stories are there to give us hope for ourselves, nothing hits as directly as the journey from "It's not that bad, why should we put anything on the line for you?" to

That hope means something very real to me.

[spade-riddles]

Anyone else think this CNN article was planted by Taylor's team?

I know the popular consensus is that it's Travis protecting the stunt, but I'm just not feeling it. CNN is a huge media outlet. There's no way they're not connected enough to know Travis is a beard. And let's be real here - who is the bigger star? Who would they want to keep sweet more? Taylor, or this guy who was a nobody five minutes ago and will go right back to being one the second she dumps him?

If someone can demonstrate a connection between CNN and someone like 🛴, then I'd consider that. But right now, this feels to me like a story unfolding. "Associates" has business connotations. They could have said friends or family if this was Team Taylor trying to shut this down. But "associates" suggests "business interests are uncomfortable with people talking about even the possibility of Taylor being gay". That's a very different narrative to Taylor being uncomfortable.

Scott Borchetta tried to keep her in her country conservative box and later betrayed her. Scooter, well, the whole world knows how much he upset her on a personal level. It was "anyone but him", even before the masters sale. The recent email leak makes Scott Swift look like he was pushy and controlling over Taylor's career, from childhood. It's building a picture, isn't it?

The public will want a reason Taylor found it so hard to come out. "Because the business interests around her didn't want her to" is easy for everyone to understand, and this new article is something a lot of people can look back on later and say "look, they IMMEDIATELY tried to silence this!", as proof that even now, Taylor is struggling against these interests.

"It's all part of the fucking story", maybe?

Very interesting ask, anon ...

[inshelliesworld]

Buckle up. This is long.

Last night after dinner w/my fam I watched the SAG awards so I am a little behind on the conversation around the Chris Evans Clown Show Comedy Hour. However I read a couple of asks received by @nancydrewwouldnever about how he’s been looking like the Raggedy Andy version of his normal self these past few months and I couldn’t agree more.

I thought so watching the SMA videos People put out.

Back during my more naïve days, I just thought he was possibly exhausted and that could very well still be true. But after the rabbit hole I’ve been down for the past couple of months, I am of the opinion he's exhausted for a different reason than work requirements. Which is just that – my opinion: observation mixed with speculation.

I don’t think this RS – if it is rooted in PR like I think it is – was ever intended to last this long. From what I have gathered, the Netflix show and movie for which AB would have benefited the most having a lot of attention were originally supposed to both release in the first half of 2022. One or both were delayed, the show being very delayed -from first/second quarter all the way to the last quarter of the year. So not only did she lose out on a bump for the movie, but by the time her show finally launched it pretty much had already been axed by NF. So when Mr. SMA 2022 does the CP Marathon (horribly) with her, the only project she has going on at the time is hanging by a thread.

That's her fault for being lazy and entitled. A million golden opportunities were missed by her/her team, but I feel like Chris wasn’t going to sell anything very well anyway, as he likely was being pissy about this situationshit lasting so long. Which led me to thinking that “laser focus” press question was a plant to tie back to the earlier article BUT made me think it could possibly have been contrived as a way to signify the end of their "RS" had it gone to plan. The question would allow room for him to insinuate he was single again and “focused on finding the right partner” to “pour himself into” bc “awe, shucks, I’m just so unlucky in love…” 💀

BUT THAT CAN’T HAPPEN… he can’t signal the end of something that hasn’t yet been announced. So it looked to the viewer, and especially his fandom, that he was signaling his singlehood – and for his fans, to debunk the rumors flying around about his Lolita. NOW he has to stutter around and trap himself in word prisons and go take a quick pap sprint the same time as SMA announcement bc that’s when the show drops and do more photos and BS to sell the OVER year-long narrative when they were really prepped to do a 9ish-mos storyline. All the OG pics and scares (IMO) that were preemptively shot not only look slightly better but they also would have fit in with starting the RS storyline Fall 2021 and, if nothing would have been delayed, the end falling somewhere Summer 2022.

I think this is why he does such a shit job selling it. He struggles to sell intimacy anyway, but he’s not even giving it the ole college try bc he’s pissed off that it’s taken more time than he expected and dragging his feet. I mean…. All these rumors about the same chick for months HAS to have a negative impact on his harem, right?? 😂 Now she’s pissed that he’s dragging his feet – or maybe she wanted it to turn into more than what it is and he’s noped the fuck out – so she throws a hissy fit with the yoga cert mess, her mom’s pic, and her OF shower pictorial.  

It's possible had this not dragged along for this long, all the dirt that has surfaced RE: her and her sOuLMaTes being racist, antisemetic, fat phobic, basically all around horrendous ppl that has TANKED his image and lost him a good portion of his fandom would have maybe not surfaced. The mess would have been announced, been annoying, and been over before anyone cared enough to dig that much - or at least make that big of a deal about it, bc he would have been rid of her. I know that this dumpster fire mimics SS a lot but I think that Chris agreeing to a much shorter version in the beginning is why there are SO MANY pictures all at once. He probs didn't want to do this for the 2 years or whatever that SS committed to.

I think he has thrown his own tantrum of “I ain’t doin this shit anymore” and has left it to someone else to handle which is why he is AWOL from everywhere, including going out to dinner with his friend/castmates, and not doing his own SM anymore (I personally don’t think he’s posting anything at all right now himself). Seems he’s also made sure that he/his team control the mass narrative to the GP.

I think they’re riding this shit show out until the end, letting their teams do whatever they need to do. Even if she has the DESIRE to show up for anything like the Twitter reading (was she even invited? Was she wanted by her castmates/showrunners? Hollywood is show BUSINESS afterall so even if she wasn’t wanted she would be expected to show up to make good on production companies’ investments & save face?) the situations aren’t really going to be great for her. There would be – and SHOULD BE – backlash involving the discriminatory posts, which she obvs has no intentions of denouncing. IMO she should have done it anyway for her fans, but her not doing it goes a long way to prove her entitlement, lazy ass attitude, and ungratefulness. But from the looks of  those Star Power reports from IMDB that someone shared, it’s not her that’s hurting… it’s HIM. 🤡

He’s suffering greatly, which is also deserved, and he very likely knows it. It has taken a noticeable toll on his looks, his presence, his gait, and his energy. He looks like a shell of his former self bc he is. And he’s seemingly off licking his wounds until he can start his Chris Evans Redemption Tour.

I would like to put it out into the universe that my birthday is next month and it falls within their usual “drop” timeframe so it would be a fantastic birthday gift if March’s bomb was the BUA.            

[justenjoythegossip]

MEAN GIRLS, CONTROLLED OPPOSITION, “USEFUL FOOLS” & THE STREISAND EFFECT

There has been some controversy regarding my post about the Middle Voice and some misunderstandings that I feel I should clear. I never intended to cause any harm to anyone, that is why I never use mods’ name (not when I talk about Team Real or Team PR or the Middle Voice either) as my goal is never to attack an individual or a group of people. I just try to share my observations, to look past the picture that is being sold, question narratives, try to show the dynamics at hand and the responses that could result from it.  

Mean girls recognizing themselves…

Certain mods felt attacked by this article when I never had them in mind in the first place when I actually wrote it (which, I guess, is quite telling). But also, some rightfully recognized themselves, managed to gather around with their friends for a senseless blocking spree to boot me off the island. They have twisted my words, tried to discredit and ridicule them, which is a classic manipulation technique by the way. 

It has been fascinating to see that all that I wrote (and I wrote plenty) has been reduced to the very silly notion of… plants. And yet, the picture is so much more complex than that. And I have been very careful anytime I have written about Team Real/PR Blogs or the Middle voice to define those groups very specifically and with as much accuracy as I could. And as you probably noticed, I always use the expression “plants/trolls”. Why? Because, those groups encompass a wide range of different profiles. Plants are actually the small minority of the bunch while trolls represent the largest majority. But since trolls consist of so much more than trolling, I guess it is rather important to define who they are and what they do. 

Controlled opposition: a powerful strategy & a psychological weapon… 

* “Controlled opposition is any person or organization which appears to be on one side, but is secretly working against the interests of that movement… With controlled opposition, one organization can play both sides. Controlled opposition can also act as spies, feeding information back to opposition organizations, feeding disinformation to those they pretend to ally with, and deliberately instigating infighting to ensure activist work does not get done”. https://www.hegemonmedia.com/p/what-is-controlled-opposition

PR strategies tend to mirror the games we find in Politics, so we can often use the same concepts to explain what is going on. Lenin once famously said that: “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves”. Middle Voice mods, Team PR mods and even Team Real mods work according to those very same basic principles. Some might find it strange that I include Team Real blogs to the controlled opposition. And yet it makes a lot of sense because some key players from that faction of the fandom used to debunk the stunts Chris, Abba and their teams were “trying” to pull, and they also used to criticize Chris very vehemently, even calling him disgusting names such as groomer or pedophile. And yet, some of those mods made a very “(non)sensical” U-turn and started to ship the very controversial couple. Obviously it only appeared to be nonsensical, but the reality is very different. Those mods were meant to pave the way for the fandom to embrace them as a Hollywood power couple after initially rejecting them vigorously. If such extreme voices could come to “accept” them, then the casual fan might just do the same. A classic manipulation technique in PR games that include so many of it. 

Such tactics include plants (as discussed previously), who work directly for their teams and are meant to drive/sell certain narratives to the fandom. But what is particularly interesting is that you don’t need a whole bunch of them. You might only need one or a couple in each groups. That’s the beauty of it. The rest of those groups will consist of “useful fools”… 

By the way, important sidenote, some people (or groups of people) likely use different accounts to add more weight and credibility to what they are selling. Certain Team (Real/PR/Middle Voice) mods share such similar tones, voices and rhetoric that it seems quite suspicious. It might be coincidental of course. But again probably not. 

The “useful idiots” are very useful tools…

Plants are the original agitators and lead the way while trolls follow in their path. If we use the same concepts as earlier, they are the equivalent of the “useful idiots” in a controlled opposition. 

“A useful idiot or useful fool is a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically being used by the cause's leaders.”

So obviously you don’t need to be a paid plant to play the exact same role in those PR strategies. All you need is to be susceptible and respond to a certain narrative, not question it and then amplify it yourself. So anyone can be an unwilling “useful” idiot” without even being aware of it, that is what it so pernicious about it. 

And when it comes to trolls, they will respond to very specific narratives that involve any kinds of controversy or that will trigger heated discussion because they tend to crave the attention and the drama. 

The “Streisand effect” or how not to draw attention to an issue…

*”The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead backfires by increasing public awareness of the information. The effect is named for American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress a photographer's publication of a photograph drew far greater attention to the obscure photograph”.

From a PR perspective, it’s very often smart not to respond to a rumor (true or false) or to a controversy so that you don’t draw more attention to it. Especially since it can be quite dangerous, if your response to a PR crisis is deemed inadequate, it can have even more lasting damage. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s recent apology is a good example of that. They didn’t grasp the severity of their situation and their frivolous response got them cancelled. Pure and simple.

It's true for Chris’ shitshow with this very problematic woman as well. No acknowledgement, no problem! But it’s also true for all these mods who made such a ridiculous (and stupid?) fuzz about being called out plants/trolls when they were never even mentioned by names. Good job on planting this seed inside the minds of their followers. Although I am sure some of them are very much aware of their tactics at this point. 

[ficretus]

Theory: Speculating about Summer Maiden

So far Summer Maiden is the only Maiden we have no whereabouts of. Not even Vacuo novels provide anything about her or her Relic. I wanted to throw some thoughts around who I think will be Summer Maiden by the end of the Vacuo arc.

CURRENT SUMMER MAIDEN:

As I said, no idea. But let me get one thing out the way, I don't think Summer Rose is Summer Maiden or that she'll be at any point in the story. This might seem relatively weird considering so far characters with season in their name did eventually become Maiden of their respective season, but I don't think this is the case with Summer.

First of all, it would be bit random considering that power is tied to Vacuo and Summer herself doesn't have any Vacuo connections we know of. Second, it is somewhat implied that Summer is still alive, likely being Salem's Grimm experiment. If Summer was Summer Maiden and is under Salem's control, why would Salem bother with Cinder? Summer would be loyal subordinate that is second to none in combat. Why would you need to groom new subordinate of questionable loyalty and lesser combat ability? Third, in case she isn't Summer Maiden and is just one of Salem's thralls, I don't think she can inherit the power. Chronologically she'd be in late 30s or even 40s, making her too old to inherit the power.

For Summer to be Summer Maiden, it would mean she became one ages ago and isn't currently under Salem's control (because that kind of creates plot holes in Salem's plan). But I feel that both kind of damages her character (she becomes another Raven, abandoning her family for her own goals) and wastes implications Hound creates. I think her fate will be revealed during Vacuo arc, during summer portion of the story, if that makes sense.

I suspect we'll have another Amber or Fria situation with current Summer Maiden. As in, minimally established character that will give away their power to more important character narrative wise down the line.

GATHERING CLUES:

First place I looked into is The Four Maidens, in universe fairy tale about Maidens. For those uninitiated, it's a fairy tale about recluse Old Wizard being visited by girls representing Maidens. They visit him in sequence of Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, each teaching him valuable lesson.

Maiden lessons are key part to focus on here. While in the story, they are something Old Wizard has to learn, in RWBY it's something Maidens themselves have to learn.

For example, Winter appears in front of Old Wizard's house, sitting in state of absolute tranquility. Wizard sits down and copies her example thinking about his own strange predicament. This somewhat matches Winter, who in her own moment of clarity realizes Ironwood is lost cause and turns against him.

Other two examples are much clearer parallels. Spring shows up and plants flowers all over Old Wizard's yard, turning a pile of dirt into beautiful garden. This implies Spring Maiden is all about fostering life. This matches well as a lesson Raven needs to learn as a Spring Maiden, someone who both abandoned her family and used her protege as a decoy.

Fall Maiden urges Old Wizard to be thankful for what he has. This matches Cinder who needs to learn to be grateful for what she already has, instead of seeking out all other Maiden powers.

Summer Maiden convinces Old Wizard to step outside. Upon doing so, Old Wizard starts laughing at himself for even staying indoors all this time. So whoever becomes Summer Maiden needs to have a flaw that makes them distrustful of the world. Their character arc needs to be about opening themselves to the world.

______________________________________________________________

All three current Maidens also have personal connection to the members of Team RWBY. This is either set up for eventual transfer of power to respective members of Team RWBY or they simply exist as dark reflections of respective team members.

Raven is Yang's mother, Winter is Weiss' sister and Cinder is Ruby's nemesis. This mean, whoever will be Summer Maiden needs to have some kind of connection to Blake.

______________________________________________________________

Lastly, all three current Maidens were at some point of the story antagonists. Winter was an antagonist during the portion of Atlas arc as Ironwood's most loyal subordinate, Raven was antagonist throughout most of Mistral arc and Cinder is still major antagonist. So whoever becomes Summer Maiden had to have been antagonist at some point of the story.

CANDIDATES:

First candidate I have is Gillian Asturias, one of the main villains of Vacuo novels. She is leader of villainous Crown faction, who seek to restore Vacuoan monarchy with Gillian in charge. She believes she is descendant of legendary Vacuoan kings, albeit this claim is based on delusion her father convinced her of.

Why do I think she might become Summer Maiden? First of all, she is an antagonist. While at the end of the novel, she gets imprisoned... it's RWBY prison, nobody stays there. Her Semblance allows her to siphon Aura which theoretically means she could take the power all by herself (since all transfer methods we've seen so far were Aura based). She also has a motive to become a Maiden, what better way to show you are true heir to the throne then seizing divine power that allows you to control the elements.

She also fits with Summer Maiden lesson. She is extremely traditionalist, avoiding the use of both Dust and Scroll. Crown members are also xenophobic to some degree. Both of these traits make her good candidate for a lesson about opening yourself to the world.

Issue with her is that she has no connections to any member of Team RWBY. While it's not out the question they might eventually interact, I am doubtful writers will have her establish some really personal relationship with Blake. I think she might become Summer Maiden, but more of a interim Maiden like Penny was.

______________________________________________________________

My preferred choice so far is Ilia. She matches all the criteria I've set up earlier. First of all, she is a former antagonist. Second, she matches well with lesson of Summer Maiden. As an antagonist, she was member of more radical version of White Fang that was no longer about Faunus equality and more about their supremacy. This "us versus them" mentality symbolically parallels Old Wizard refusing to leave his house, closed off from everybody else.

Summer Maiden lesson can also be manifested in another way. If you think about it, it's almost inevitable White Fang will appear in Vacuo to assist the good guys. And who else will be there? Ace Ops. Ilia will be forced to work side by side with people who represent abuse she suffered as a child. This could create interesting dynamic of Ilia and White Fang refusing to cooperate with them, creating an issue for good guys cause (in fact you can have entire Volume 10 be about previously opposed sides coming to terms with each other for the greater good considering you'll have Ace Ops, Happy Huntresses, White Fang and potentially even Branwen tribe all working together). Her character arc would be about letting go of her hatred and trauma and opening herself to the world, fulfilling the Summer Maiden lesson.

Of course, Ilia is also personally connected to Blake. Yeah, she is "just" her friend, but when you think about it, that's the most personal relationship Blake has outside of her team. Unlike her other team members, she doesn't have a sister, her mother is too old to inherit the power and her nemesis was not only male... he is busy being dead. Ilia becoming a Maiden would also diversify the roster by giving us Faunus Maiden. After all, if all kingdoms are coming together why not also have that symbolically reflected in Maiden roster.

_____________________________________________________________

What are your thoughts? Do you have any other Maiden candidate you think is more likely? If you do, feel free to comment it.

[chibivesicle]

Trigun Stampede - Episode 8 - Our Home; time for a flashback since Vash passed out.

With all of the paradoxical pacing of the series, we were due for a flashback to give us more Vash information since we got Wolfwood with a side of Livio, last week.  This is sort of taking various elements and hits of flashbacks from the original anime and manga and with our breakneck pace, compressing them down.

We get the birthday celebration with Vash and Nai.  It seems this version is in line with the manga where only Rem is awake at the time on their ship as opposed to the anime with several crew members manning the vessel.

We are not surprised that Vash is elated at the party and Nai is being grumpy.  It also points out early on that despite being twins, Vash does not appear to have any plant abilities; thus, he needs to eat, sleep etc while apparently Nai does not.  Thus, the brothers aren’t parallel in their abilities at this moment in the Stampede narrative.

In the artificial park, Rem is being a doting mother on the two of them, happy that they have come into her world.  We haven’t learned yet that her long term significant other had passed away yet, spurring her to take the current job as a Seeds team member.  There is also the subtextual fact that it is clear she’d been thinking of having a family with that man. 

Of course things take a turn for the worse and it jumps to the point where their escape pod has crashed it Nai’s monologue is more complete including the line that Vash gave him a passcode that allowed him to hack into the system and change things.  Thus, this makes his previous statement of being an accomplice to the events makes more sense now.  However, instead of being forced to travel with Nai after the catastrophe and sticking with his brother out of guilt and not understanding Rem’s last message to him, in Stampede Vash flees from the start. There is a horror scene of dying people reaching out to him and Vash runs off screaming and apologizing before collapsing in the desert near a group of survivors.

He wakes up on a ship with a woman confirming that he’s an independent plant.  The apparently are on ship three which did not crash and are trying to survive what happened.  Wow, love how simple it is for Luida to confirm that Vash is a plant with a simple flashlight!  It was better in the original that it was not all that obvious that he was a plant.

We also learn that the woman with dark hair is Luida from the original uncrashed ship and the man is a much more mature version of Brad.  The Doctor with the hat appears to not exist in this story line at all - or at least is not a senior member of the leadership team at this point.  The ship is surrounded in a sandstorm that conceals it from the outside with bursts of lighting soooo . . .

yeah, the sandstorm at the end of episode seven is clearly and indication that they caught up to Vash.  And Vash is currently passed out having the flashback like he did on the Sandsteamer in the original anime and manga dreaming about Rem.

It is also cannon that the uncrashed ship is protected by the harsh winds around it.  The difference is in the anime, Wolfwood is the one who points out that they can’t avoid reality of the surface while in the manga, they are working much more covertly to assist on the surface.  As they can still send out a distress call to humans elsewhere which becomes important later on in the manga with the return of humanity and more independent plants.

Anyhoo, as the flashback continues Luida tries to be compassionate to Vash while Brad is a dick.  The writing for this entire flashback is meh at best.  We get it, they don’t trust him because he’s a plant and Vash at the moment isn’t very interested in living.

We learn that they tried to recover the black box from ship five and any of Rem’s possessions which appear to be a journal and some photos.

Brad is trying to recover the data from the black box and the flashback follows a tried and true plot point.  They don’t trust Vash, keep him locked up and he’s not too motivated to eat. This is much more subtle than the manga where Vash actively did try to commit suicide and was saved by Rem upon learning about Tessla’s fate.

Finally, to give Vash a plant ability, he learn that he can talk to the plants.  So, when a plant starts to malfunction he comes in to save the day.

Of course for dramatic plot purposes, this happens right when Brad was able to recover Rem’s last message to Vash and we get to hear her line that the ticket to one’s future is blank.

With Vash saving the day and helping the group survive, he gets upgraded from questionable plant independent to normal person with a room!  Luida also notes that Brad helped convince the rest of the crew and things progress as we would expect.  He slowly integrates into ‘normal’ life and starts to interact with people like a human.

Time passes and he continues to grow and we see a change in him.  He’s lost the weird plant markings on his body which marked him as youth and no longer appear on his teenage body as he travels around with Brad assisting in plant mental health counseling.  What does he do?  Chat with them, make them feel better and it fixes the problem?  If only it were that easy and additionally, it is skirting around the manga issues of plants having lifespans and the horrible abuse and suffering that dying plants are subjected to.  Maybe we will learn this later?

His hair has become messier and the darker undercut is now visible.  Honestly, having Vash be a plant whisperer is cute and all buuuut . . . if you look at his personality in the original manga and anime, him being friendly with the plants is expected of his personality, since he was.  Of course he’ll talk to all the plants and help them calm down or assist.  We get this early on in the anime as he consoles a tired and exhausted plant with a bottle of Wild Turkey as a tribute.

This also is the key plot point that ultimately is how Vash is able to defeat Knives.  Knives could also communicate with the plants but convinced them to work with him out of any anger or resentment towards humans or consumed them by sheer force and willpower.  Which he then mentally cut them off from him to keep his independence and force them to his will.  It was the fact that Vash knew each individual plant from his 150 years of wandering that he was able to convince them to turn on Knives - no group of individuals are a monolith or united in a single goal.

I yawned as the episode progressed since it went as expected.  Vash gets a thank you from the rest of the group for being a plant whisperer and saving people etc etc.

I do think the scene was exceptionally well animated.  Though the backgrounds are rather lacking and sterile despite Vash’s photo wall, which looks just like White’s various photo walls in her UK childhood home or in the HL hospital where she’s trapped.

Vash is thankful for his gift of new clothing and the scene where he hugs it while thinking of Rem is touching.  We get the link to red geraniums and Rem’s love of them as well as how that determination will manifest through Vash’s own actions as he gets older.

But we gotta stick with the writing on easy mode and generate an unnecessary conflict between Vash and the ship three crew which is only there to force him to run away.  Brad eventually is able to discover that Vash lied about what happened.  Knives is alive and we can be certain, tricked Vash into giving him the access codes to cause the disaster.  Brad spouts of xenophobic nonsense making a very snap judgement as Vash flees out into the desert night.

The two of them search his room and Luida finds his hand written note that he needs to atone for the sins of his brother.  Ah, yes, here we get a glimpse of the massive amount of guilt that Vash is always carrying in the originals masked by his silly behaviors.

Of course, Brad feels bad and Luida declares that they need to rescue him.  The flashback then briefly returns to the present timeline.  Vash wakes up in a room, similar to the one he had on ship three.  For the first time we see him without his sunglasses!  Took you long enough Studio Orange.

He bolts up from his dream/flashback and orients himself in the moment and we see a picture is on display on the table facing him.

The picture reveals the team from his wall when he was a teen as a plant whisperer.

And we know Studio Orange isn’t subtle, so Vash asks aloud if ‘they’ saved him.

Of course they did Vash!  I said last week that was what the sandstorm was that approached and picked up our four person team.  He then looks forlorn and glances down at his robotic arm.

The episode then shifts back to end on the flashback where Vash met up with Knives five years after he’d been rescued by ship three.  The man in the white coat has to be Conrad along with two generic copy paste goons with a mirror tool applied.

They are on an abandoned ship with red and implied to be dead plants.  With that they then zip to the ending credits!

Overall, this episode was a bland back fill.  The only positive was that, for once, they took a few seconds to breathe and slow down the all action all the time pace.  However, this would have served the narrative a lot better around episode four or five.  The pacing not the actual story reveal.

It sounds weird, but getting the motivation to watch episode eight was real as the series is losing my interest an attention.  Part of it is just a ‘me’ thing.  Reflecting on my initial reaction to the series, I realized that I came into Trigun Stampede with unrealistic expectations for this new version of it.  And now that the artistic directions are super clear, it doesn’t have much overlap with the original anime and manga.

And as I’ve stated many times previously, even with the vast differences with the ‘98 anime and Trigun Maximum both stories get at the same moral questions and dilemmas.  Is Stampede going to get there? Right now, no.  It isn’t going in that direction.

One element of Vash’s flashbacks that I have missed is the song he associated with Rem.  In the manga, it is simply sung indicated by musical notes and makes him reflect on her and the ‘98 anime was storytelling gold with a creation song being implied on humans re-creating civilization out of the ‘wild’.

Rem’s song - Sound Life was brilliant in the original anime.

It is things like this which really added to the vibe of the series and set a theme. But, I am biased to the original OST and really think it was totally on point for the anime.

Overall points from this episode:

1.) Characters that again, have changed - Luida and Brad.  In the original manga, neither of them are older than Vash.  This already implies a compressed timeline.  The entire point is that they are younger humans who grew up always knowing Vash from being children to adults.  We have lost their unique perspective which was crucial to understanding how others viewed Vash. Brad is even more simple minded than in the originals which is a disappointment but we know the writing is threadbare.  Luida again is stripped of her strong female leadership qualities and becomes Rem 2.0 for Vash.  They are shadows of their former characterizations.  Boo.

2.) Female characters continue to be stripped of their character and qualities from the originals.  We’ve already lost Milly Thompson.  Meryl Stryfe was uwu-ized and made junior to Roberto.  Now, Luida has become Mom 2.0 to replace Rem.  Can there be a single female character who has the original independence and not being pigeon-holed into an extremely outdated gender norms/behavior?  It is 2023 in a sci fi anime.  If the ‘98 version was less obsessed with gender roles and the manga wasn’t obsessed with gender roles - why does Stampede want to go down this path?

3.) Reactions to the series in general.  I wish there was an easier way to get data about the reactions to the series.  I want a Gallup Poll for all the data on the viewers of this show!  However, I can’t help wonder if there is a clear divide in the reaction to Stampede based on viewer demographics.  My gut is that likely women and the strong LGBTQ fanbase of the originals are not as impressed by this lackluster effort at Trigun.  The Golden Kamuy fandom had a lot of women and queer readers and I can see how the same group would like the original Trigun and Trigun Maximum.  It seems counter-intuitive at first, but the more you think about it, they easily would have a similar type of readership besides the typical seinen demographics.

Most of the youtubers who have made comments appear to be men, and they are like - oh its fine, sure, I miss Milly but its alright that I have found.  I wonder if they don’t realize that by removing a key female character from the cast is a disappointment.  Yet, I’m not going out of my way to determine who has the loudest voices on the internet either singing praises of Stampede or hating on it hardcore.

I partially disagree and agree with a recent review that dropped today.  I agree with that review that it is an entirely different series, that there is nothing wrong with the CGI and that the loss of Milly was a bad idea. However, I disagree with that review feeling that it is still Trigun and the review is overly optimistic about Stampede thinking the Gung-ho Guns will be better (? some are already dead or likely eliminated due to not fitting the vibe) and Wolfwood will get the chara development which he deserves.  And mainly that the review says that Stampede is more in line with the manga and I’m guessing this follows with the assumption that the manga is always better than the anime with the terms of ‘filler’ and ‘too slapstick’.  I’ll have to wait until that reviewer speaks more about the manga, but I am not of the mindset that manga = better than anime but reading the manga helped me to understand aspects of the anime and also appreciate the differences between both forms of media.    I don’t want to fall into the diversity/representation rabbit hole, but those were things that the original content got.  If you stop and look at Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront, Yasuhiro Nightow continued on to create another diverse cast of characters.  He cleverly shifted human racism to be xenophobia towards Beyondians in the world of Hellsalem’s Lot.  Leonardo Watch is accepting of all species and friends with them as well as the entire rest of the Libra main cast.  The fact that a part of Manhattan excludes Beyondians with armed guards speaks volumes to the author’s critiques of modern day society.

The homogenization of Stampede makes it seem sterile, unrealistic, and out of sync with the sci fi element.  Thank back to the original Macross and you have a more diverse cast than in Stampede.  Macross has a lot of other issues like the horrible sexism that is of the 80s, but hey, at least a future society is global and represents the visual diversity of humanity. I’m a bit scatter-brained today, but what I’ve gotten from Yasuhiro Nightow’s works whether it be Trigun or Blood Blockade Battlefront is that he has comments on diversity and acceptance along with morality of a society and of individuals.  Coming from a much more homogeneous society that still struggles to deal with its own indigenous peoples that have been relegated to second class status for over four hundred years and all dressing that come along with that form of governmental and cultural oppression.  Golden Kamuy did a good job of this up until the final arc which fell flat (see my previous metas on the topic) and even a series like Samurai Champloo brings in those groups  focusing on Christians, Ryukyuans and Ainu characters either as main charas like Mugen or having an impact on others.  Fuu’s father being a Christian who had to abandon her and her mother and the Ainu character they cross paths with, on the run from the Edo government in its early days of the ‘civilization’ of the north which gets the spotlight in Golden Kamuy’s late Meiji era focus.

Nightow’s stories thrive on having a larger society in which his main casts exist in and work to protect.  This was highlighted by the comment I got about the loss of all the normal people on the planet - which existed in the ‘98 anime and manga.  This also explains why B3 works so well in NYC turned into HL.  People are working to allow others to have normal lives and protect what is important to them.  It brings a realistic humanity to the stories which is what Stampede is missing.  These series never shy away from all the terrible things humanity may do, but that it is always balanced out by those who strive to follow a higher calling/moral code etc.

Anyways, I’ve blathered on far enough with this week’s episode which didn’t really give me all that much to chew on.  It was necessary Vash backstory.  We have a different timeline of events.  We have all the characters who are both older and younger at the same time.  It was predictable and boring.

Clearly, the next episode will continue the flashback and Knives is gonna cut of Vash’s arm like in the manga, Luida and Brad will help him and we should see Wolfwood, Meryl and Roberto as well.

[majaloveschris]

they kinda were! Even in 2021 like october-december they were the first ones putting articles out saying there was rumors of them dating // This is another reason why I believe it’s PR, back in November some Portuguese sites started to post about the rumours BEFORE there was even evidence that they met in person (before NYE 1.0) so I think her side did that. When the first rumours started it was because we got a glimpse of Chris shoulder tattoo that looked like Saturn and Alba had that emoji on her IG, that was enough for people to start the rumour BUT we didn’t even know if they ever met. I would even think that their teams contributed to start the rumour around that time to start their plan

I wouldn't be surprised if the whole "they are together" narrative was started by their teams. However, we also need to note that starting and spreading this rumor wasn't necessary since, according to a ton of people, if he starts following someone who happens to be a woman, he is certainly sleeping with them. So, from his part, it was enough to start following her.

The same goes with the tattoo thing. I'm sure Alba had already had the Saturn emoji in her bio for a while and that Chris didn't get that tattoo, so they can start a rumor with that or because of her. I can imagine their teams seeing an opportunity there, and there were certainly a lot of people who believed it might be true, which was surely a huge reach.

This whole rumor started with a follow and the tattoo/emoji thing. As I said before, I wouldn't be surprised, and I'm sure, on some level, their teams' hands were in these articles and rumors floating around.

But we also have to admit that they didn't have a hard time planting this since, as I mentioned before, people believe he has to do something with someone for the most ridiculous reasons. The same thing happened with Shakira and Selena. However, I also think that with these mind games, they've achieved that if he comes back to Instagram, now even more people will start spreading even bigger rumors of him being connected to the woman he started following. Because before Alba, those rumors didn't really happen to be true, or at least we didn't know about them, but with her, it happened, right? They made a lot of people really eager for new information and more details, which won't be beneficial for them after this whole thing ends.

[wanderlustmagician]

So Cataclysmic is the name of what I call in my notes the Witches AU. Yes this is LU, it’s all I wanna write right now. :D

Some General World Building things;

> Your average witch will only live the same amount of time as the average Hylian/Human. Roughly 80-90 years.

> Familiars usually appear around the time a young Witch’s magic has begun to out grow them. They live longer than most animals, usually the same lifespan as their Witch. Some witches will have more than one at one time and rarely, a witch will lose their familiar and have a new one appear.

> Magic usage isn’t very flashy. It’s more mundane, like “here’s a tea blend to make you feel better” or a blessing given by a princess or priestess or ceremonial witch is something you can feel

> Every living thing holds magic, but not everyone can use it. Witches are those who can use it, be it their own or others.

Now onto the Boys! In the beginning I’m going to focus on Sky, Twi, Wild, Legend, and Hyrule. Though in the true beginning it will be just Sky, Twi, and Wild. As the timeline progresses, the others will eventually emerge. This means I’ve gotten some more developed than others, mostly by necessity.

Sky

> older than he looks, will not explain (believed to be 2,000+ years old)

> Air Elemental Witch, can do Earth, Fire, and Storm magic if pressed or emotional enough

> Had a Loftwing familiar

Twi

> chronic middle child, but tallest (somewhere around 500+ yrs old)

> Green Witch, very focused on the plants and animals (he can talk to the animals, sense the energy of the plants around him)

> can turn into a wolf due to his adventure, the shadow magic has no affect on his actual magic

> does not appear to have a familiar, will not explain

Wild

> actually 117

> formerly a Ceremonial Witch, but if he doesn’t remember being that… then it doesn’t count

> eventual Kitchen Witch, when he stops denying himself, and teams up with Twi and Legend to help make things for the shop

> familiar was lost, once he accepts his magic again… a new one appears

Legend

> older than Twi and that’s all that matters (somewhere around 750+ years old)

> Crystal Witch (objects have power, especially crystals, and he’s going to hoard them all)

> bullies Twi into letting him have an Orchard

> familiar is not often seen by the others and became changed after one of his adventures

Hyrule

> older than Wild (what like that’s hard?) (somewhere around 400+ years old)

> Cosmic Witch (very in tune with what the stars and cosmic bodies are saying, somehow can hear the goddesses the best, denies it)

> claims that he never had a familiar

This is very bare bones. For a lot of reasons. Mostly because I’m still figuring out somethings while writing. This is the AU I’m doing for Febuwhump, so as things shake out I’m taking notes on it. As always, I play fast and loose with what I write. If it looks good, sounds good, I’ll break my own rules to leave it. So if the concept of the magic in this sounds a funky, that’s because it intentionally funky.

That said… Time, Wind, Warriors, and Four will be in this eventually. This is going to be, intentionally, very Sky focused due to his own specific struggles and sometimes very Wild focused until I hit a certain spot narratively.

Though for fun; Time is a Hedge Witch, Warriors is a Ceremonial Witch, Four is a Secular Witch, and Wind is a Sea Witch.