#the ultimate origin story

[whatsabriard]

Hart to Hart 5x01 - Two Harts Are Better Than One, Part 1

Jonathan and Jennifer reveal how they first met and fell in love in the midst of murder and international intrigue in the picturesque locale of London.

The Council of Bungalow 10 made an executive decision that this episode is too important to have only 10 gifs. Therefore it is two parts.

[vaguely-concerned]

I still can't believe that bioware has morrigan tell you a whole story about how as a kid she came upon a girl she thought was so beautiful that it rocked her entire world and awakened new and bewildering longings in her (longings which by their very existence angered and perturbed her mother)... and then they have the temerity to ask me to believe she's straight

[wearywheats]

Right after shadow first has the realization ® he, as any self respecting raised in a lab creature with no experience in romance does- immediately looks up how to romance someone. Unfortunately that search is targeted towards the human version of what he is (actual hedgehogs) so he’s a lil confused.

But hey he got the spirit at least lmao.

[the-cassandriad]

i've not written poetry in years (i'm more of a novelist) but i allowed myself some cassandra thoughts (as a treat). i actually had a lot of fun with this and i'm desperate to do more with the idea in the future so we will see.

inspired obviously by my own muses, @two-bees-poetry for the brilliant contrapuntal poems about greek myth, and anne carson, specifically when she talks about cassandra's speech being split in two and her bridging of past and future!

more of my logic in the tags because i'm annoying!

[scribeofmorpheus]

everyday i learn more about joplin, everyday i wish they just cancelled veilguard or took longer to make the joplin project they envisioned.

i think i'm just gonna put all the blame on anthem atp.

[article link]

if they were in such a rush to make me5, why didn't they just go ahead with that project and then make da4 after--if the funds allowed for it?! i bought the artbook and that literally just made me go down a spiral.

like... this hurts me so much man.

[link to video where comment is from]

[mircsy]

OC doodle before I forget how to draw anything else from Greek mythology and EPIC

[xxplastic-cubexx]

Charles representation enjoyed here again! I’ve not read much of the comics bc I can’t afford them but I just rewatched FC and I was wondering if Charles being paralyzed is the same in the comics (Erik doing it)? Do they often include that part of his story?

hello my inquisitive friend :] !!!! im more than happy to give some more info bout the origins charles' disability in the comics- to the best of my abilities that is !

while they don't include an origin for his paralysis in EVERY story/run, as far as i know there are three major ways charles loses his mobility (though like yourself, i havent read many of the comics so far, so i could be missing a few. this is the part where i invite readers to submit additional info if im leaving any out)

the very first manner of charles losing his legs was relayed to us in the original X-Men run of the 60's in issue #20

(X-Men #20: "I, Lucifer!")

before magneto was regarded as charles' main adversary there was the extraterrestrial lucifer (who sported the same color scheme, ironically. it wasnt as though lucifer came before magneto so it was definitely A Choice..) who charles would have a semi-reoccurring feud with for a bit early on in the series. during their first encounter, charles would corner lucifer in his lair only to have a stone slab dropped on him, disabling his legs indefinitely

the second manner in which charles loses his mobility- and the time where erik is the most involved and is most deliberate- comes from. Our Favorite Universe in 2001: The Ultimate Universe

(Ultimate X-Men #1: "The Tomorrow People")

as is typically how charles x magneto team-up arcs go, while charles and erik worked together for some time it wasn't very long before erik wanted to pursue more Dramatic Measures for mutantkind. and As This Story Goes, amidst trying to escape the savage lands sanctuary he and erik built, erik drove a metal spike through charles' spine, leading to his disability in this verse

lastly, we have the House of M- or more specifically its prequel miniseries, Civil War: House of M- verse in 2008:

(Civil War: House of M #2: "Revolution")

(Civil War: House of M #3: "Reign")

similar to Ultimate and the movies, this is another timeline where charles and erik team up. this time however, charles is more willing to follow erik's ideas after seeing the horrors of genosha upon reading the mind of a mutant who escaped the island, and the two seek to liberate the other mutants left behind. unfortunately, during their mission, a sentinel collapses the building charles and co. are infiltrating, leading to the loss of his legs

hope you had fun reading- i had fun typing up everything and looking back at these issues :] !

[withthewindinherfootsteps]

Wei Wuxian and Narrative Agency – Part One

For Xiantober Day One: Genius… albeit stretching the prompt so it refers to MXTX and MDZS itself, but at the end of the day it’s still about WWX – so no harm done!

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

The narrative is a very active player in MDZS’ story. How it presents information, what it chooses to show and omit, often reflects important facets of its themes and characters – Nie Huaisang, for instance, is so good at hiding behind his mask that not even the narrative can hold him accountable; the present day’s storyline as a murder mystery and the slow reveal of information about the past both prompt the reader to think critically about the truth of events, when the importance of thinking critically is an important theme; and the dangers not thinking critically (and instead basing conclusions on rumours without much evidence) are shown by tricking unquestioning readers into the very same trap the cultivation world falls into, as the information given by the title, summary and in-universe rumours – which contradicts how we see actually Wei Wuxian act – turns out to be false.

But nowhere do I love this trait more than in its treatment of Wei Wuxian – and, more specifically, in its way of emphasising his agency. We’re not just told how much his active choices define his character, and we’re not just shown this in-universe through his personality, worldview and the events he causes. I’d argue that this aspect goes a step further, and shapes the structure of the out-of-universe narrative as well.

There are two main ways this happens: one, in how the aspects of Wei Wuxian’s life that are shown and hidden directly tell us what’s important about his character (which is good writing but isn’t necessarily tied to this shaping of the narrative), which is what we’ll explore today; and two, how what’s shown and hidden reflects what Wei Wuxian himself prefers to dwell on, resulting in the narrative respecting his own thoughts and feelings on matters (which very much is tied to it). We’ll explore this at a later date.

But as for now – let’s explore my favourite aspect of MDZS.

(Here, narrative agency will be considered the ability of a character to meaningfully influence their events and the story they’re in.)

Tragedy, Circumstance, Choice

If we simply look at Wei Wuxian’s backstory in a vacuum, it seems almost typically tragic. His  parents died in circumstances beyond his control, he was left alone as a child with nobody to care for him, he was forced to grow up fending for himself on the streets, he was faced with abuse when he finally was taken in… as with all typical woobies, everything simply happened to him, and none of it was good. It’s just another example of the lack of agency being used for sympathy points, right?

…Except there’s one problem with that idea. We don’t actually see any of this.

It would’ve been easy to start the flashbacks during these times. We’re telling the story of Wei Wuxian in (largely) chronological order, and these are likely important experiences for him! But instead of starting in his street days, or evenat the moment Jiang Fengmian took him in*, we start at the lectures in the Cloud Recesses. That’s not even something mentioned in, and therefore something that’s able to disprove, the rumours at the start of the novel. So why is this the case? 

Well, there are multiple reasons – the main one being that MDZS is also Lan Wangji’s (and Wangxian’s) story, and having the flashbacks open with their first meeting is very satisfying. But I want to focus on something else.

This period doesn’t have to be shown, because what happens to Wei Wuxian, especially out of his control, isn’t what’s important about his character.

We’re not even at Lotus Pier here, where Wei Wuxian certainly has more agency than he would’ve had as a young child, but where the harm caused by Madame Yu is still completely out of his control. Here, he has agency! Though there are consequences, he is free to act, and what happens to him is a result of those actions and not of circumstance. Yes, he gets punished more than others who also take those same actions (due to classism); yes, it’s not his choice to be picked on by Lan Qiren in class (yet look how he responds, twisting the situation to his advantage and ending up tricking Lan Qiren into letting him leave, which is what he wanted to do. He is not at all helpless here!); yes, these choices have been influenced by his learned mindset from Madame Yu that punishment is arbitrary and will happen anyway, so you may as well do what you want regardless. But there is cause-and-effect here. It’s not circumstantial tragedy.

Therefore, instead of our first impression of past!Wei Wuxian being that of an unfortunate woobie, it’s of someone who has the freedom, ability and will to choose and act (and that’s after these initial tragic events have taken place). This is compounded by the fact that before we see any of his backstory, we get a similar impression of him in the present day.

If the purpose of his tragic past was to earn him sympathy points, to make us pity him due to how much he was influenced by events out of his control, this would’ve been a terrible way of going about it… and it’s this that betrays the true reason for its existence. Because now, the flashbacks instead show us how little these tragedies define who he is! From the very start, Wei Wuxian isn’t someone defined by circumstances out of his control, but rather by who he is as a person and by what choices he makes in the present day (which is both a mindset in-universe, and a nice little out-of-universe detail that lines up! Because out-of-universe, this means he’s not defined by sympathy points from a backstory, but rather by his great character writing… aka, by who he is as a person and what choices he makes). And this refusal to be defined by tragedy is a conscious choice on his part, too – but we’ll explore that more later. 

The important thing is that this idea of Wei Wuxian isn’t because of what exists in his past, it’s because of what parts of his past are shown to us (as well as what he chooses to do, with agency, in the present). 

Now, if this relationship between what’s displayed and what’s omitted was just a one-time thing, I might’ve considered it a cool detail or a nice way to establish a character, but not something the narrative is actively focusing on. But it’s a pattern that continues throughout the flashbacks. What, arguably, are the two other most important times in Wei Wuxian’s life where he doesn’t have enough agency to meaningfully influence his circumstances? His three months in the Burial Mounds (before escaping – he managed to assume some control of the circumstances but not enough to substantially reduce his suffering in his time there), and his loss and death during the First Siege. And we’re not shown either of them! We skip to when Wei Wuxian has emerged from the Burial Mounds and is torturing the Wens, or we skip to the present day – both times he has agency once more, because, again, what he’s like without it doesn’t matter enough to be shown. 

Furthermore, I’d argue this does actually contrast the other tragic events we see in Wei Wuxian’s later life. Things do go horribly wrong, but it’s either due to choices he knows the consequences of (see: rescuing the Wen Remnants in the first place), or instances where he still has some ability to act in the situation and influence it within the limitations. If he’d had no ability to influence circumstances at Qiongqi path, he would have died in the ambush; if he’d been unable to do that at Nightless City, he would’ve died then, too (of course Lan Wangji helped him escape as well). The attention drawn to him losing control of his actions in both instances is very interesting, but intentional or not, it’s still his actions influencing the plot. And that influence happens to be detrimental. The very ability to act and influence, at a base level,  is not taken away (though, of course, that doesn’t make these events any less tragic).

So, so far, the narrative seems to be telling us that the ability to act and choose is key to Wei Wuxian’s character. And it’s doing it through omitting his moments without agency in favour of instead showing us his moments with it. 

Let’s see if this is echoed in the text itself before we go further – because even with this pattern, nothing would end up mattering if Wei Wuxian’s agency wasn’t actually that important to the story itself. But thankfully it is, and that first impression we get of Wei Wuxian in the Cloud Recesses turns out to very much be accurate! Though there are defining circumstances out of his control that occur, such as the massacre of Lotus Pier, the majority of the important events of his life are due to his own choices. He didn’t happen to be forced to cease traditional cultivation and solely use guidao, didn’t happen to lose his Golden Core in a fight with Wen Zhuliu or due to some force in the Burial Mounds, it was his own choice to give it and his spiritual powers away. He didn’t tragically happen to get targeted by the cultivation world, it was a result of him acting on his morals and protecting the Wen remnants (a choice which he was fully aware of the implications of). He isn’t a protagonist to whom things simply occur, and that activeness and agency is my favourite thing about him. 

That’s not to say that the times Wei Wuxian doesn’t have agency, or feels like he doesn’t have any, don’t exist at all, either – but they are rare enough to have attention directly drawn to them in his internal narration:

Or else what could he do? He could do nothing. He was powerless. Lotus Pier had been destroyed, both Jiang FengMian and Madam Yu were gone, and Jiang Cheng had disappeared as well. He was the only one left, alone, with not even a sword in his hands. He didn’t know anything, he couldn’t do anything! For the first time, he discovered how little his power was. In front of something as large as the QishanWen Sect, it was the same as a mantis trying to stop a chariot. - Chapter 59, EXR translation

(And even in this circumstance, note that he still does force himself to act – to carry on searching for Jiang Cheng, to place his faith in Wen Ning – and does accomplish his goal (albeit with the help of others)! So even in dire situations, he isn’t simply passive. This is actually also the case with his time in the Burial Mounds, almost certainly the First Siege, and even his days on the streets as well (Chapter 20: he did actively fight with dogs to get food despite their danger and his growing fear of them, rather than just waiting and hoping to somehow receive some more). He can’t influence or immediately influence his circumstances, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.)

Overall, although they do influence him, Wei Wuxian is very much who he is in spite of his circumstances, not because of them. We’re shown the importance of his agency both in-universe by the major impacts his choices have on himself and the plot, as well as by narrative presentation – important periods where he lacks the ability to meaningfully influence anything are often mentioned but not directly shown, which suggests that such moments and circumstances aren’t as important to understanding Wei Wuxian’s character as moments where he does have this agency are. And I’d argue this works very well. Depending on the version of the story you consume, you may end up having different interpretations as to how much circumstances were at play nearer the end of his life – but nobody comes out of MDZS thinking about Wei Wuxian, the poor bearer of yet another generically tragic backstory.

(Part Two | Part Three | Full version on AO3)

—

*We are shown this moment in more detail in Chapter 23… but even then, it’s through the framing of Wei Wuxian remembering Jiang Yanli’s narration, not through a flashback proper or even him remembering the experience itself!

[tragicalwisteria]

Walburga: (looking at the stray animal Sirius and Regulus brought in) Get that hideous thing away from here.

Regulus: Sirius, Mother wants you out of the house.

Sirius:

[donelywell]

August 31- September 2 2023

A couple of characters set in the future.

Mephiles and Iblis are sort of reincarnated into normal Mobians in the future, since the 06 events kinda rewrites history for a moment.

Mephiles is a sort of father figure to Iblis, helping her through the wastelands and developing her Chaos Abilities of Pyrokinesis. Mephiles himself has the ability of illusions, he can change his form at will. He lost his leg, so he uses his ability to make it seem like a metal spike is there instead of a stick holding him up.

Iblis and Silver have these bands wrapped around their limbs, they are Chaos Energy suppressors, like Shadows Ring Inhibitors. They are supposed to be a temporary attachment until the user is properly trained into being able to control the chaos ability they have, the more Chaos Energy they have, the more suppressors they need to wear.

Silver unfortunately has Telekinesis, one of the hardest Chaos Abilities to master, and since he had no one to properly train him, he will likely never be able to take off his suppressors.

His father abandoned his family shortly after Silver's Chaos Ability developed, knowing how big of an issue it would be to train and properly use. Mercury, Silver and Zinc's mother, was absolutely pissed by him suddenly flaking on her, and has to raise 2 children alone in the apocalypse now. She tries to look at the bright side of things though, teaching valuable morals and making sure everyone gets a good laugh in each day.

Zinc is the baby sister, and due to her being a literal baby, she can't retract her claws or walk properly yet. So Mercury carries Zinc around wrapped in a blanket around her back.

Silver is a shy kid, he blames himself for his dad abandoning the family, and feels like a burden because he can't handle his Chaos Ability yet. Plus, it doesn't help that he looks a lot like his father, almost like a constant reminder of the man who left his family. Mercury keeps trying to tell Silver that he's done nothing wrong, but he begs to differ.

Shadow ages slowly, very slowly. Even after 200 years, he only went from looking 15 to looking like he's almost 30. He's mostly alone, with Omega being his only company for a while. He goes about his day with his Dark Rider being a bounty hunter, doing odd jobs he finds at the mission board in popular cities and towns.

The last gift he received was from Tails, he cherishes it as a reminder of the time he had with the main cast of characters 200 years ago.

He eventually takes Silver under his wing, becoming a sort of father figure to the poor, lone hoglet. He teaches him a bit of how to control his Chaos Ability, but because he doesn't have telekinesis himself, he can only do so much. They'd need to actually find a person with the ability to properly teach him.

[lacrimasaintegabriel]

Question: is it just me, or am I getting sick and tired of hearing Hellsing Ultimate abridged references in every media related to Hellsing in general? (Please do not defend me on this)

TBH Everytime when I looked up videos of the OVA or the Hellsing OSTs on youtube or any slight fanart of the characters,

EVERY QUOTE FROM THE ABRIDGED FLOODED THE COMMENT SECTION.

YES, EVEN THE QRTS IN TWITTER WERE FLOODED WITH IT.

And this is even the worst part: some “fans” refer the abridged over the original because it is too “dark” and brushed off Alucard’s actual personality and his own past along with Seras, Integra and the other characters and would recommend/include the abridged instead because it’s “funnier” than the original source.

When will anime fans will talk about the original source without having to include the abridged for once, IMO, this is already disheartening to me. Yes I know it gained Hellsing some little popularity but the abridged instead overshadows the original plot and I kinda find the jokes really outdated and old.

[alienrascal]

City-climber

[miyku]

[wearywheats]

I find it really funny that, in all the movies we haven’t had sonic carrying someone like he does in the cartoons / games! And I like to think it’s because of the noodle arms. So have a funny comic I made as a writing break :)

[finisnihil]

I feel like one of the reasons "feminist" Greek mythos retellings suffer so much from being made into modern retellings is because these stories were originally kinda feminist for the times they originated from. Making these already woman-based stories feminist by modern standards only make them reductive.

Authors make some of the men involved worse than they were (Perseus, Odysseus, Ares, Apollo) and will often use the female characters to bash on other female characters (Penelope and Helen, Persephone and Demeter, etc).

You also have to take into account who wrote down these stories. If this version of it is from actual Greek records/can be corroborated by other sources or if it's just from Ovid's versions, who retold these stories from a Roman perspective and with intention to depict certain aspects a certain way because he had bias against authority. Sure, his versions fleshed out the female characters more, such as Medusa and Arachne, but was it truly out of care for the women in the stories or just to use them for his personal desire to villainize the gods and those in power? Ovid's Medusa doesn't feel anymore feminist than the original because I don't think he actually cared about the character as a woman in pain but as another knife to stab into Athena and Poseidon.

How are some modern retellings any different? Margaret Atwood uses Penelope of Ithica to beat down Helen of Troy more than anything. Lore Olympus makes Persephone a sword for her mother to fall on. How are these authors any different than Ovid?

Finally, why do the more evil female characters have to be justified? There is the aspect that if a woman is not adhering to the cultural expectation she is to be made evil, but women like that do exist. Women like Medea exist. Women like Calypso exist. Women like the goddesses exist. Why do these retellings insist on making women morally upright and entirely justified to validate being "feminist"? Doesn't it just insist on a requirement to meet a different cultural standard for how a woman should act to be considered valid?

Is your retelling truly feminist if it justifies its existence by pretending the original wasn't?

[orphiclovers]

Hmm, now that I've actually read a different translation of Yoo Mia side story I feel way better about my own. In some places they matched almost perfectly, in some places the other person made a mistake, in some places I made a mistake they didn't, in some places the original was unclear and we both made the same editorial choices and in some places we made different ones, where I still have no idea who is right... at least now I know what's what, and that my back alley Yoo Mia side story version was actually real (I had been quietly worried it was fanfiction someone tricked me into thinking was official. But no. Now I've gotten multiple seperate sources confirming it's the real deal.)

I was afraid of accidentally inserting my own bias into the Yoo Mia side story with my fumbling attempts at editing, so I left a lot of unclear parts as they are, even if it looked bad. But, now I had the golden opportunity to double check those parts that I was unsure about, which I'm super grateful for, obviously! I see the other translator struggled in some of the same places I did.

Like, at the very beginning when Yoo Joonghyuk gets into Kang Woohyun's car and they talk. The other translators version is like this.

And here is what google translate gave me when I was making my version the first time.

I thought it was an obvious translation error because wtf why does he say the words twice? So this is how I edited it.

But now I'm thinking maybe it was in the original too, only meant to show Kang Woohyun was repeating the words while emphasizing the sylables. So if I was editing it now, I would do it something like this.

"I still eat well."

"Just lettuce and chicken breast, right? What diet is that? You have to eat rice. Rice! And beef too."

...That's as natural sounding as I could make it, anyway.

I won't do a total side-by-side comparison of every scene, since Yoo Mia side story is more than 12k words long and I'm not that crazy. There's a lot more little things like this. I'll just point out the most important one. (I know I'm the only person who cares this much but let me nerd out for a minute okay?)

I MISSED A PAGE! My back-alley version of the original just...didn't have it, even if everything before and after was the same. Here it is.

This is a totally new part that I've never seen before, but it's so real!!!

I FUCKING KNEW YOO MIA HAD A SPEECH IMPEDIMENT!!! I was actually writing a meta/theory post on it just now, it's in my drafts and everything (might still publish it if anyone's interested) since it was implied in the main story too but I don't know if a lot of people noticed. But because for some reason my Yoo Mia side story was missing the one single paragraph it was confirmed in, it was just a theory of mine. Now confirmed. Holy shit. I feel like fucking Matpat.

I don't know if anyone would be interested in me re-editing Yoo Mia side story with the missing page + fixing the errors I made the first time? I'll make a poll.

(Psssssst. If a real translator who actually knows Korean wants to give me their Yoo Mia side story version I would be eternally grateful and like. give u a free art commission or something 👀😊)