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yoshilisk · 2 years ago

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WHAT Is happening in trigun stampede... i don't watch it i'm just nosy and i like hearing people hate on stuff... talk about it‼️‼️‼️

so um. i'm gonna do a readmore bc i rambled a lot and also what in the goddamn

so, some context assuming you're not familiar with The Lore. in trigun, humans are able to survive in terrible conditions because of plants: creatures that can create electricity, food, water, all kinds of things. they can't live outside of a controlled atmosphere, so they're kept in large glass containers. in the manga they look like angelic beings; in stampede, presumably for "gotta make the names literal" reasons, they look like alien fairies with flower petal wings. in both cases they're always feminine-looking.

vash and his twin brother, knives, are independent plants--they look like humans and can survive in the outside world. in the manga, vash & knives often refer to the other plants as their sisters, and vice versa. iirc the plants call vash "red brother" which is cute :)

anyway. context over. in the most recent episode of trigun stampede, knives has abducted vash and put him in some Sci-Fi Water. this allows him to invade vash's mind by stabbing him with his knives (which he makes from his body, and that's why he's called knives. this is actually NOT a case of orange trying to make all the names literal--he was always like that). he spends the episode erasing vash's memories to, in his view, "fix" vash's love for humans. during that process vash becomes petrified and sprouts a bunch of tree roots. some of the roots reach out and attach to some plants nearby.

a scientist working for knives gives exposition: in this version, plants are able to create things by pulling from a "higher dimension." he asks, rhetorically, why independents like vash & knives have free will and the other plants don't. then he says it's because the others are just husk bodies that don't have souls. so knives is going to use vash's unique special powers to go to the higher dimension, touch the "core," and give all the plants souls.

then the plants lower their petal-wings to reveal their bodies. the tree roots coming from vash are attached to their... very pregnant-looking stomachs, and their faces are agape.

not only is NONE of this anything like the original story, but i just... i genuinely don't know what the point of it all is. i've seen people say that last part is playing into a theme of bodily autonomy being stolen, but i still really do not like it. the manga also had themes of autonomy re: the plants, but it was generally in a "being treated as a tool or an object, not a person" way. labor exploitation type stuff. not... the main character being (either metaphorically or literally) forced to impregnate a bunch of his fellow kind?? who, again, were referred to in the original version as HIS SISTERS???

there's also the fact that stampede has repeatedly minimized and shaved the edges off of female characters, so they're less capable, less important, and have less agency. i feel that the plants being said to have no free will in this version is one more example of that. add in a scene where they're forcefully impregnated and are basically props for shock value, and it just... it feels really bad.

overall my thought is that it's needlessly gratuitous and fucking weird. not that the manga is innocent of being needlessly gratuitous (looking at a certain scene in legato's backstory 😕), but i'd hope for an adaptation to be better about that, y'know? not make up new, different things to be gratuitous about.

(oh, and as a side-gripe, stampede previously downplayed knives being a very paternalistic, "this is for your own good" type character. originally, he cut vash's left arm off because he was mad that vash tried to defy him and just generally wouldn't listen to him about humans being bad. stampede changed it so that he cut vash's arm off to save vash from getting absorbed by a magic sci-fi black hole. now he's back to being paternalistic? make up your mind)

#sorry it's so long ily #stampede negativity #yoshiposts #if anyone stumbles on this and wants to argue: please save both our time and don't

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fireladyfae · 8 months ago

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Please share your thoughts about this as well as spread the word! Thanks so much. ^_^ ♥ Transcript:

Sometime around June 3, 2024, Instagram and FB announced that it has plans to use people’s public posts and images to help train AI tools across meta services. This includes both original artwork and regular photos (i.e. selfies, family pics, etc.) which will be used to train the company’s AI image generator.

This is due to go into effect on Wednesday, June 26, 2024. Any posts, images, image captions, comments, and stories that are shared publicly will be used as part of training Meta AI. It has also claimed that it will use data dating all the way back to 2007. However, it will not include anything sent through private messaging.

While it is possible to opt out of posts being used for meta ai training in Europe iirc due to EU laws, IG & FB have made it nearly impossible to opt out in the US.

Some artists have decided to leave Instagram altogether and move to Cara. Cara, founded by Jingna Zhang, is a portfolio app that protects artists’ work from being used as training gruel for AI. AI content can be posted only if it’s clearly labeled. Listed on Cara’s FAQ page, the app protects its users from AI scraping by implementing ��NoAI” tags on all of its posts. The website says these labels “are intended to tell AI scrapers not to scrape from Cara.” Although Cara’s labels aren’t a “fully comprehensive solution and won’t completely prevent dedicated scrapers”, it is a step towards rejecting complacency to AI stealing the work of artists, without their consent.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to stop at just Instagram and FB. Right now, almost everything posted publicly on the internet is considered fair game for AI training. It's going to become more and more important to carefully read all terms and conditions in user agreements to ensure there aren't any hidden statements giving the company access to your data for AI training purposes.

According to an article from: College of Saint Benidict Saint John’s University (https://guides.csbsju.edu/AI-Images#:~:text=%22To%20create%20AI%2Dgenerated%20images,image%20and%20text%20fit%20together) even sites such as Canva use AI. And their image sources are not restricted to just Instagram or FB. "To create AI-generated images, the machine learning model scans millions of images across the internet along with the text associated with them. The algorithms spot trends in the images and text and eventually begin to guess which image and text fit together.”

With this knowledge, it really doesn’t feel like anywhere is completely safe to post your art or images anymore.

Can anything protect art?

Image cloaking. As described by the website gelato. https://www.gelato.com/blog/how-to-protect-your-art-from-ai

Cloaking images with Glaze or Nightshade

Have you ever wanted to use a tool that shields your artwork from AI, making it invisible (well, almost) to their prying algorithms? This is exactly where image-cloaking tools like Glaze and Nightshade come in, offering a powerful way to deter AI from using your artwork.

How does image cloaking work?

Both Glaze and Nightshade employ a technique called "adversarial cloaking." They analyze artists' artwork and introduce subtle, imperceptible changes to the pixels. These modifications don't affect the human eye's perception of the image, but they confuse AI algorithms trained on standard datasets. Think of it like a visual camouflage, making your artwork appear different from AI while remaining unchanged for you.

Benefits of cloaking:

Deters AI training: Cloaking your artwork makes it less effective for AI model training, which discourages AI from replicating your unique style.

Promotes originality: With AI adept at mimicking styles, cloaking adds a layer of protection. It hinders AI from easily capturing the essence of your artwork.

Offers peace of mind: Knowing your work is less susceptible to AI imitation can be a significant source of comfort.

However, there are a few important factors you must keep in mind:

It's not foolproof: While effective, cloaking isn't an impenetrable shield. Highly advanced AI models might still be able to mimic your style to some degree.

Software availability: Currently, both Glaze and Nightshade are under development. While Glaze is available for download, Nightshade's release is pending.

Potential ethical concerns: Nightshade specifically might introduce noise into AI training datasets, potentially hindering overall AI development. This raises ethical considerations that are still being debated.

IN CONCLUSION:

As an artist – Overall, in the end it really seems that aside from programs to shield your art, there seems to be no escape from AI learning from your images.

Leaving the only three options as: shield your art before you post it *anywhere.* Don’t upload it at all, or just upload as is and hope for the best.

As an artist supporter – As a supporter, now more than ever we really need to check with the artist *before* sharing their art. Make sure that the artist is ok with it. If an artist has taken down their images, but you share it on your platform anyway, then their art still can and will be used by Meta AI. It’s the equivalent of you literally stealing the art from the artist yourself and handing it over to AI to do with it as it pleases. And that’s just rude. Please do *not* do that. Ask first!

(The only other acceptable alternative to asking is if the artist has already posted in their BIO or on their page somewhere that it is in fact, ok to share their art *with the proper credit* being given to them.)

For your personal account – Really, the option here is the same as it is for artists as it is for our personal family photos and selfies. Either shield it first before you upload it, don’t upload it at all, or just upload it anyway and hope that you never see you or your family’s likeness on anything you’re appalled by.

FOR ARTISTS TO ANSWER – WHAT NOW?

Now armed with this knowledge….

1 - How will you personally be sharing your art in the future?

2 – Are you ok with others sharing your art? Why or why not?

3 – What’s the best way for your fans to support you? ^_^

#Artists #ProtectArtists #Art #ZutaraArt

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liesmyth · 2 years ago

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i also don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but: I felt like the "mundane" scenes in ntn were actually some of the most interesting and thematically relevant parts of the whole. the way the sections about the new rho refugees are paired with john telling his story as a series of "necessary evils" was especially compelling to me -- it feels like all of the consequences of his/the empire's power are finally being revealed, and one of the worst consequences is that kids are still being traumatized by war and displacement in the same ways they were on pre-apocalypse earth. i feel like that's why new rho had to feel so "familiar" and "modern-day" compared to the fantasy vibes of the nine houses. like, until ntn we had no clear picture of what the rest of the empire looks like, or even what war(s) the cohort is involved in. but then when you find out, it hits you that for the average subject of the empire, there's no "heroic" interpretation of anything necros and cavs train to do -- they're nothing but parts of the machine that's constantly destroying people's lives. and this pov is presented as just as important as that of the main characters! idk, it's a jarring shift and the pacing is pretty off-putting, but it worked for me (thematically and emotionally). another thought: when harrow and mercy were off killing planets, there was no indication that humans lived on any of them, iirc, but in ntn it's revealed that lyctors have forced large numbers of people off of their home planets. so were john & co. lying to the new lyctors about that, or is it just considered normal/justified in-universe and not worth mentioning? in any case, harrow seemed really disconnected from what killing a planet means (in htn), and i feel like that could end up being a big deal when we get back to her perspective. especially given that she's finally interacting with alecto

I love this ask, thank you. I think a lot about this post about John and Kevin, two kids playing with dolls ten thousand years and a galaxy apart. Humanity is fundamentally the same; there's love and there's bad everywhere. Both John (duh) and BoE ("necromancy is a disease you released" don't get that).

On John's revenge: the thing is, the Cohort isn't killing people. Like, they definitely don't mind killing people, but it's not their primary mission by far. John could literally kill millions in a heartbeat if his objective was extermination. He could have sent the Lyctors to wipe out entire planets generations earlier. Instead, he's using the Cohort and the resources of the Houses to drive the population of the occupied planets from place to place, over and over. He's dooming the descendants of those who left earth "on dollar store support" to a perpetual hell as climate refugees. Like Augustine says, it's purely symbolic retribution.

(IMO, this quest has an end point and we would have been in the home stretch no matter what; this is more of a verge into theoryland, but I think he does have a plan and a time limit, and he's playing capricious deity biding his time. After that, it's reboot, and maybe (?) actually letting go. Something something forgiveness not so hard nor anger long. This time will be the time we get it right.)

On Harrow & co killing planet: I think HtN actually lays the difference out pretty cleary! They were killing all planets on the path of Varun (so he couldn't kill them first and absorb them). When a Lyctor kills a planet, it's immediate. The Cohort does it to make it easier for necromancers to use thanergy; we don't know the specifics but I'm pretty sure it's fucked up (since John, of all people, says that the way Lyctors do it is "kinder"). Anyway, dead planets can no longer support native lifeforms, but iirc the process takes a long time to complete. Ianthe says that New Rho was "settled" 700 years earlier; what I'm assuming happened is that all planets in a given corner of space are "flipped" within a very short timeframe, remain viable for life for a few generations, and then probably become inhospitable for native lifeform all around the same time and everyone needs to be evacuated. I THINK they can be resettled after, but like, the entire biosphere is fucked.

#Anonymous #ntn #tlt #tlt thoughts #ejg #me every time i have a john emotion: TERRIBLE GUY (affectionate)

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whumpster-fire · 4 years ago

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Extremely Hot His Dark Materials Take:

The conventional wisdom that daemons’ settled forms represent who you truly are as a person and are a unique, symbolic representation of it is what’s said in-universe but it isn’t true, or at the very least isn’t the whole truth. IDC what Philip Pullman’s said is actually canon, stuff like “Servants usually have dog demons because they have a submissive/servile nature” is really not plausible fite me.

Animal symbolism is a social construct and is not universal among cultures, and just like the alethiometer symbols, an animal species can have many meanings. As a result, for any one person there are usually many species which are a “valid” representation of their soul, and which one their daemon actually settles as is not set in stone from birth. Daemons don’t consciously choose their settled form - and humans certainly don’t - but it reflects a variety of influences, including symbolic “nature” but also cultural influences, social pressures, what animals the daemon actually knows about, the nature of the relationship between the human and daemon, and what forms are physically comfortable or practical. But the common uniting factor in all of those is that a daemon’s form reflects what you want and need as much as what you are. Not superficial wants, but deep deep psychological needs and what’s important to you. And sometimes fears as well.

Factor #1: Societal Bias

Strong cultural predispositions toward settled form, combined with form stereotyping. I think it was said in the books that “most servants had dog daemons because deep down they wanted to be told what to do.” Think about this: is this likely to be true? Given that people generally wind up in jobs by luck of the draw and by what’s available, and most people even in the most socially mobile modern societies usually don’t end up in their “true calling,” and in Lyra’s world your occupation seems to very often be determined by your birth. Do you really think all the kids like Roger Parslow, who’s working as a kitchen boy because his aunt who was a servant at Jordan College raised him, are naturally subservient? Well, is everyone who works in a service industry job IRL naturally subservient? Hell no! However, this is a very, very convenient lie for a classist society that teaches people that they were born into a “station” in society to tell. If your daemon settles as a dog, obviously you were meant to be a servant all along, and you and your daemon spending your entire childhood being told that because this is the station you’re being born and raised into your daemon should be a dog or some other “appropriate” form and couldn’t possibly cause them to be biased towards canine forms by this.

But if a daemon takes a form that’s obviously unfit for their station, clearly your true calling is elsewhere and it was never truly meant to be. It’s hard to falsify as long as most daemons are settling in “expected” forms. And most do, at least to an extent. A daemon’s form is influenced by drives and desires, and while most people don’t necessarily want to be bossed around and told what to do, most people do want to fit in.

And having fairly broad categories of “expected” can help that, because that gives room for daemons to find a form within that category that genuinely fits their nature. Someone extremely independent and strong-willed but growing up always expected to be a servant might end up with a husky daemon. Someone with a leading (or even controlling) personality might have a herding breed. The same goes for Gyptians and Witches being expected to usually have bird daemons.

On the other hand people with certain daemon forms might also be actively recruited for certain jobs, based on both symbolism and the physical abilities of that form - e.g. the Tartar mercenaries and other soldiers seem to almost all have wolf daemons. These may be very common in their culture to begin with, and then there’s further selection based on the symbolism of “You’re a wolf, you’re powerful, noble, and a natural killer but you’re a loyal pack animal, you’d make a great soldier.” But then in addition to that, because of the no touching rules, people in jobs where they fight other people are at an advantage if their daemon can fight other daemons.

Factor #2: Age

Settling age is... around early-to-mid puberty it seems like. I’ve seen speculation that it would be later in more modern societies as the age of maturity drifts over, but it seems like 12-14 is fairly common. But brain development continues until around 25. Like... seriously. Daemons are settling when their humans would be middle-schoolers in our world. People mature and change a huge amount in that decade of “settled but not fully mature.” Unless daemons can presciently predict how they’ll change over time - or if the soul’s nature is fixed and people tend to change in away that approaches that over time - your daemon’s form may be based on what you were like at settling age.

Factor #3: Knowledge and Familiarity

His Dark Materials is mostly based in Europe / Northern Eurasia, and the vast, vast majority of the settled daemon forms in the novels are native to that region. Off the top of my head the exceptions are Stelmaria (a snow leopard, native to the Himalayas but that’s still an animal she and Lord Asriel could have encountered / read about as a child), Mrs. Coulter’s daemon (a monkey, I don’t think we’re ever told what species. Not native to Europe but again Marisa had the resources to travel, read about exotic species, visit zoos, etc and everything about them is weird, IIRC the African soldiers in Amber Spyglass had various african daemon forms (so, where they’re actually from), and Hester. Hester’s the most important because while she took the form of an arctic hare, which is native to North America where Lee’s from, her form is native to a completely different part of North America, that she and Lee probably wouldn’t have been familiar with, and it took years for anyone including her to even notice.

This suggests daemons may be able to take forms that are unknown to them, but we never see a raccoon or an oppossum or a bobcat or some australian animal as a daemon as far as I know, so my best guess is that they had some secondhand knowledge of the arctic and had at least seen what an Arctic Hare looked like but forgot how to tell one apart from a jackrabbit, Hester had an unconscious longing for the North that neither of them were aware of, and she had a strong and possibly less-unconscious desire to get the hell out of Texas at sometime around settling age. And they assumed she was a jackrabbit because daemons usually don’t take forms they’re not familiar with.

Factor #4: Physical Preference

A daemon is not a shadow or a heraldic crest - they’re not just an insubstantial symbolic reflection. A daemon is an integral part of a person’s being, and they are one, but at the same time the daemon are a living, breathing creature even if their physical body is unstable. One soul, two bodies, two minds, two personalities. Their form subjects them to some - although not all - of the physical abilities and limitations that animal would have, and the same sensations.

Again, a daemon’s form is often influenced by what’s important to them, and to the pair. Most daemons take on a huge number of forms throughout childhood, and there are some things about those forms that are important to them. For some daemons the freedom of movement of flight is a fun, childish thing to play around with, and perhaps tactically useful, but it isn’t torture to give it up. For others, flight and the freedom it represents are their very heart and to be bound to a grounded form forever would be unbearable. Some can’t give up the ability to take small forms that can hide and go unnoticed, but some hate the vulnerability and helplessness of small size and could never be happy in a form that can’t walk alongside their human without fear of being kicked or stepped on. Some can’t give up the joy of swimming, or climbing, and for some their humans can’t. The daemon of someone who is a mountaineer and climber in their soul won’t be a snapping turtle. And... this is complicated, because part of it’s the human’s nature, but part of it is tied up in experiences which the human can feel too, and that are important to them, but they don’t experience in quite the same way.

Sometimes it’s just too convenient. Witches’ daemons are nearly always birds because witches spend much of their time in the air and can separate from their daemons, and only with flight of their own can a daemon take advantage of this power; in a flightless form they would take far longer to travel any distance, and their witches would have to land every time they separated or reunited. Another animal, like a fox or a mink or a rabbit, might fit with a witch’s nature too, but a witch’s daemon will become a hawk or a heron or a dove instead.

And sometimes a certain from is just comfortable and it just feels right even though the symbolism might not fit the stereotypes.

Factor #5: Human-Daemon Relationships

This is something I talked about a bit in my post about autism and daemons: the form a daemon settles as is often affected by the nature of their relationship with their human.

First of all: barring severe internal conflict or mental illness, while a daemon’s settled form is not chosen by the human and does not follow their whims, they don’t take a form that makes their shared life inconvenient and miserable. Out of how many sailors, John Faa and Farder Corram knew what, one guy with a dolphin daemon? Usually sailors’ daemons would be seabirds or otters, or animals like cats and rats that aren’t technically aquatic but are well-adapted to living on a boat. Does this mean that the sea isn’t their true love? No: it means no matter how much you love the sea being trapped on a ship for their entire life (and not even the entire ship: how high in the rigging can you climb without going too far from your daemon who can’t leave the water?) sucks and is actively dangerous. Imagine your ship is wrecked and your daemon carries you to shore through the storm (because humans die of hypothermia if left in the water too long in many parts of the oceans)... except you’re literally unable to get out of reach of the crashing waves that will drown you, sweep you away, or batter you to death, without dragging your daemon up the beach and then they’re stranding and dying, and you can’t go get fresh water which your body needs because your soul is an anchor binding you to the water. How many things that are a sailor’s job are you unable to do because you can’t go more than like ten yards from water deep enough to swim in?

Daemons do not consciously choose their forms, but their subconscious is not stupid. Taking a form like a dolphin doesn’t mean the daemon is symbolically expressing their nature, it means the human is denying it to the point where their own daemon is afraid of being torn away from it and cannot trust their human. But again, this event is happening at middle-school age, so what’s likely happening is something like a 14-year-old cabin boy falling in love with a girl in town and wanting to marry her and move inland and abandon the sea forever, and his daemon being horrified by the idea and wanting to make sure it can. not. happen. ever. And then both of their lives are ruined. Meanwhile the other cabin boy on the boat had a non-dysfunctional relationship with his daemon, who settled as a seagull and trusts that when he goes to visit family a little ways inland for a couple days it won’t be permanent.

Anyway: disregarding dysfunctional people like Mrs. Coulter, some humans and daemons are more physically affectionate with their counterparts than others, and in different ways.

Some pairs are happy spending most of their time at the edge of their not-painful range. Some pairs are perfectly comfortable with the daemon taking a tiny form and hiding in their human’s coat pocket most of the time and sneaking around the rest, and with the daemon hardly ever speaking to other humans, and that closeness and the moments of being held in the palm of their human’s hand and being stroked gently with one or two fingers is perfect for them. Some pairs are content with the distance a form like a bird of prey imposes, where the daemon must perch near their human because their claws would injure them if they landed on their shoulder or arm without protective clothing.

But many people and daemons are more “touchy” with each other, for whom the physical nature of the bond between human and daemon cannot possibly be given up. Some daemons settle in the forms they took to fly, or to hide, or spy, or fight, but many settle in the forms they took to rest, to soothe and comfort, to lick wounds and let their fur or feathers be stroked, to share body heat, and sometimes to help hold their humans upright or drag them to safety. Some pairs are content with the daemon sleeping on windowsills or perched on bedposts or on nightstands, or under beds or at the feet of them, but some curl up under the covers together whenever they can.

In less poetic terms, daemons settling in fluffy, huggable forms because they and their humans have a deep-seated need to cuddle with each other is just as valid as daemons settling as birds because they need the freedom of flight.

This is often the case for children whose need for touch is not met properly by others, or those for whom it is too much, or it cannot be trusted. Parents, friends, and lovers aren’t always there, but they are always there for each other. But there’s not always trauma or neglect involved, and it’s not always people who have few or no close and intimate bounds outside themselves. Plenty of content, well-adjusted people still have relationships like this with their daemons because we’re human beings and touch is important to us, and it doesn’t really matter if you share a soul.

#His Dark Materials fandom #daemon #silly headcanons

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randomnameless · 1 year ago

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Yep, in 3 Hopes, we have at least confirmation that Thales was around (and apparently the leader of the Agarthans? Even if there was some "dissent"?) 1000 years ago, so given her behaviour and general sprite, it'd make sense that Kronya is a newbie, or a "disciple".

Agarthans and shapeshifting is odd, maybe it's a new trick they learnt in those 1 000 years?

Seteth doesn't know, and Sothis who still had her wonky memories (she remembers everything at the time she fusion dances, but before it's a fog?) doesn't seem to know about it either.

Yes, Alois has a family, they're referenced in his supports (especially with Manuela) so that could be a reason why his S support with both Byleths aren't... romantic at all.

Linhardt hating blood while have a THE crest meant to heal people could have been a fascinating issue to explore, like people expecting Lin to heal them because he is supposed to be one of the best healers, but Lin doesn't like the sight of blood, so he refuses to heal said people... but instead we got... what we've got.

The lack of camaraderie between the Eagles is also interesting, in SS they're more close knit together than in CF for "reasons" but yes, at this point in the story, it's mostly just the children of the current Ministers of the Empire being in the same class because they are from Adrestia, and bar some pairs, they don't have any chemistry or links or stories with each other (as opposed to the Lions!).

The experimental Demonic Beasts (I think we have 3 experimental demonic beasts? Agarthans are trying to refine their new weapons!) being part "dragon" is also a nod to the crest stone being draconic in essence - but again, bar being a nod, this will never be brought up (iirc no one in the script wonders what is the difference between monsters and dragons, nor even wonders what are dragons or monsters...)

What do you mean by Sothis's paralogue not making sense? Imo, Remire was a first attempt but the human hosts couldn't "morph" yet, they just became violent and lost their minds - After being expelled from GM (within a month?) Solon refined his gaz/poison/whatever he uses to turn humans in demonic beasts and this time it worked !

The Blue Demonic Beast in Sothis's paralogue is a "natural" one, not an experimental one like the ones Agarthans are trying to craft.

I think the devs at first had the idea of making Edel able to mess with Sothis's time powers - but the idea was scrapped in the final release, so maybe that's a leftover?

Granted, given how Sothis reacts in 3 Hopes when she learns people close to her died, her "it's fate you can't do a thing" in Houses feels very weird - especially since, by then she most likely remembers what she used to be (there was that moment when she nearly connected the dots with Rhea singing the lullaby after the Goddess Tower's events...)

Edel's "toughen up" speech is a bit callous, but maybe she thinks by giving Byleth a goal they can, idk, put aside their grief and move on? It's weird, but again, Edel and self-awareness aren't a good match.

IDK about Thales's plan regarding Edel to begin with, yes she has the Crest of Flames so could theoretically be super OP, like OP enough to beat Rhea... but Rhea bodied Nemesis, who had the same crest of flames 1000 years ago, so what makes Edel stronger than Nemesis - who had the Sword of the Creator? Her Minor Crest of Seiros?

---

Edel's reasons for targetting the Church are all over the place - but in CF, in some of her exclusive events, she has some, hm, opinions on Nabateans. The localisation tried to smooth the edges of her words, but I'll let you see by yourself!

(if you're playing SS first, she has interesting lines against Seteth and Flayn!)

Flamey dissing Thales for what happened in Duscur is hilarious when you consider the reveal cutscene in the Lion routes, where she dismisses Dimitri - who has told the world he wants to know and find the truth about Duscur. I had the feeling the devs wanted to highlight how Flamey knows she associates with people who are dangerous and amoral, but she accepts this association to get rid of the Church because somehow the Agarthans/Thales are the lesser of two evils in her mind?

From both doylist and watsonian POVs I can't see how that makes sense, but the game completely drops this angle post timeskip so...

So her reasons for targetting the Church are a mix of "they're not humans" + "it's their fault if Adrestia doesn't control the world anymore" + "they put value on crests" + "they make people believe in a goddess who doesn't answer their prayers" -

I don't think she targets the Church to keep Thales in her pocket, but rather, the inverse, Agarthans have been working in the Empire for some time now to create a gap between the Church and the Empire.

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Sylvain's lines and, well, all the "lore" we get about people being tested for crests or what not is wildly inconsistent in this game - as you pointed out, Ingrid is the heir but was supposed to be married out, and what Sylvain says most likely only applies to the Kingdom - in his situation, having a crest and being able to use the Relic is mandatory to protect the border.

But in the Alliance, Holst is the heir of House Goneril, fights against Almyrans and has no crest.

Hubert trying to make sense of Kronya's murder impulses lol - but it indeed helped them in the long run, with the knights scattered, their infiltration + invasion plan worked wonders.

Ah, Dorothea's backstory!

Through various supports (Yuri and Dorothea! or even Flayn and Manuela) it's heavily implied rising stars at the opera were subjected to sexual abuse to become "divas"... and checking the ages of both Doro and Manuela when they became divas, it's actually quite somber and a background information which reveals a bit about how much Adrestia currently* sucks.

*in 3 Hopes, the Doro'n'Manuela paralogue's description mentions the Mittelfrank Opera company going to "comfort" the imperial army, which of course generated the shitstorm you can guess in several places of the world (a japanese game? with an imperial army? being "comforted"?) but the "comfort" angle was nuked out in the localised version, which is one of the good thing this localising team did.

IDK what the Sealed Forest was supposed to be, a junkyard for broken golems or a real forest, but yeah, that bigass stone with the crest of flames on it really seems like it'd be important... but it actually isn't, because the game didn't give a fuck.

I supposed the Holy Mausoleum is used for worship and some religious ceremonies, but the Holy Tomb (which predates Garreg Mach!) is the true resting place of the dead nabateans?

OK, up to the coronation (aka route split), but I couldn't include the coronation notes without hitting char limit.

I don't actually have too much to say here, since it's just the Kronya stuff, which... doesn't really reveal much. I'll just note that Kronya's sword has her as "Disciple Kronya" which I guess is interesting.

Since there's nothing else, I guess there's the point regarding what people know about each other going into the big part one finale:

Solon referred to Byleth as "Fell Star" already when casting Zahras, so the Agarthans had cottoned on about Byleth's situation at least in part, likely due to the Sword of the Creator.

As mentioned before, Edelgard and Hubert know that Demonic Beasts can be created artificially, and I would even say that some artificial ones already exist.

It is mentioned by several characters that Byleth's minty green color is "familiar" or "like someone else" and Flayn even directly says they match now. This is a super easy connection to make.

Seteth seems to not know that Agarthans can shapeshift, which works with Thales not wanting Kronya's body to be taken so that the specifics of their shapeshifting aren't discovered. iirc Seteth does obliquely refer to the Agarthans as being the likely culprits.

The Flame Emperor and the Death Knight being antagonists is at least known to Dimitri even though he theoretically wasn't around for the missions when we see them. Monica being an imposter is common knowledge after the fact. You doing a ceremony to receive a revelation from the goddess is common knowledge.

Anyway, the most interesting part starts after this.

Live blogging notes:

The Blue Sea star is not visible in winter. I kind of headcanon it as a planet in the same solar system, not an actual star in a different star system, but it being visible Jul to Dec and then invisible the rest of the year matches more with actual stars.

Alois doesn't like it when you blush at him lol

Alois has a wife and daughter???

Linhardt: I hate blood and killing :( (is friends with Hubert somehow)

Manuela: you need 13 charm to win; Sylvain: has 21 (albeit after the +5)

Full names: Alois Rangeld, Manuela Casagranda, Shamir Nevrand

The contestants are Sylvain (from me, because I think he's cute), Dimitri (who forced him into this?? he's so desperate NOT to get picked and yet??), and Raphael (Claude apparently showing his sense of humor).

I do not understand why the "dance competition" is doing waltz movements... alone. Especially when the dancer outfit is like that...? That's not a waltz outfit. And why are they dancing alone?! Listen, I've only seen AMVs of dancing animes but, it was definitely way cooler.

Shamir votes for Dimitri lol

You know, when GD made the promise to meet in 5 years, it was kind of cute. Not terribly meaningful, since their relationships were quite casual on the whole, but cute. Having Edelgard suggest it, knowing what she's planning barely months from now, is...... it's pretty messed up. It doesn't help that the Eagles don't really have a sense of camaraderie either.

Same cinematic for the ball. It was kind of one thing when Claude takes you by the hand and pulls you onto the dance floor (?) in GD, though the focus on Edelgard and Dimitri was pretty pointless, but here, it's just weird.

It's vaguely annoying that you can't choose who you meet at the Goddess Tower. I got Marianne on GD, and I got Ashe here... presumably because I recruited him by getting his B rank.

The chapel is within the monastery's walls.

OK, poking at the Demonic Beasts in the chapel, they are "Experimental Demonic Beasts" with "A shard from a shattered Crest Stone" embedded in their foreheads. They are a "more resilient variation." Although this won't be unique to them, they're also labelled as both "monsters" (unnatural beings wielding magic) and "dragons" (born or descended from the goddess herself).

There are 4 beasts and 3 students in trouble.

Jeralt suggests that the students being turned into beasts has "something to do with Remire," but I have come to doubt that Remire was a test run or directly related to the same research. The timeline is just too tight, and the Sothis paralogue won't make sense.

Bye, Jeralt (again).

Thales tells Kronya she must survive because there's a role he needs her to fulfil, but then Solon will kill her in like a month. In a scene later, he says that his only aim was actually to keep the mystery of their bodies from being revealed, which would happen if Kronya died (her body could be taken by the Church, I guess).

Worth noting that Seteth is very confused about Tomas and clearly does not know that Agarthans can shapeshift.

The explanation for why Byleth accepts Jeralt's death is still so weak. "It's fate," says Sothis. OK, but like, why. Because Thales said so??

Guardian Moon (January) is named after Seiros, who first appeared during this month.

The scene with Edelgard after Jeralt's death is a bit... She starts with a very tough love "have you lost the will to act" approach and discusses how no one can understand your sadness. Others can only offer the tears of an outsider. So she won't cry for you or stand still with you, she can only promise to offer her hand when the time comes for HER to move forward. Which is such a weird direction to take? What does this promise have to do with Byleth grieving?

Thales describes the Flame Emperor as their greatest creation, powerful enough to "burn even the gods." So it seems like they experimented on Edelgard specifically to create a powerful soldier who could face Rhea.

Based on this, it does seem like Edelgard targeting the church is a combination of needing to keep the Agarthans cooperating with her by going along with their aims and getting rid of the Knights in case their interfere (since the Knights supported Loog's separation from the empire). Very impersonal, despite how she sometimes frames it.

Edelgard directly tells Thales that there will be no salvation for their kind and blames them for Duscur (and the shit they caused in Enbarr, presumably the Insurrection of the Seven?).

Sylvain says that most noble children are tested at birth to see if they have a crest. Of course, he also says you can't be the heir without one, but like... Ingrid's family wants to marry her out and she's specifically the only one with the crest, so...

The dancer animation is killing me. It's so stupid.

Hubert suggests that the real aim behind Jeralt's murder was to provoke the Knights into spreading themselves thin hunting his killer.

Manuela says the dagger that killed Jeralt wasn't made of iron or steel and the wound it caused wasn't ordinary.

A lot of the named Church people are out of the monastery this month. Which means you can't train with them, which is annoying...

Dorothea casually drops how she had to survive kidnappings, attempted murders, and who knows what while at the opera. Girl, what??

Linhardt mentions, as we're entering the Sealed Forest, that we have no official mission this month. I guess things were too chaotic to assign us anything.

Kronya is using a sword called Athame, which is described as being crafted with archaic methods. Kronya herself is referred to as "Disciple Kronya." She also has a passive called "Agarthan technology" which makes adjacent foes deal 3 less damage. Is this the weird tentacles she has behind her?

Regarding the Sealed Forest itself, there's some ruins, the platform Kronya waits on (where Solon casts Zahras, which uses the pillars on the edges), a glowing red stone embedded in a sigil on a ruin wall, and the remains of mechanical weapon (I think the kind Rhea keeps in the Tomb in her paralogue?).

It snows on the Locket, I guess because the Throat is a mountain range.

The Holy Mausoleum vs Holy Tomb thing is SO confusing that Rhea has a dialogue line that uses the wrong one lmao

Everyone at the monastery knows we're going to receive a revelation, but Manuela mentions that this is the first time she's heard of the Holy Tomb.

One of the Knights at the monastery mentions that he noticed more people in town than usual. Edelgard's hidden troops are on the move...

Dimitri mentions "this month's mission," so it seems Blue Lions have one, which should NOT be going down into the Tomb with Byleth... I would say this, but Felix's dialogue expects you to do something about Dimitri and like... he's not in my class, dude...

#kyogre-blue #sorry if it's long #I kept this in my drafts and then I forgot lol #Mittelfrank being a glauque place is revealed here'n'there in various supports #they had to illustrate Adrestia' decadence?#but yeah that paralogue in Hopes is uh...#in itself not that bad even if you wonder why the imperial army that was supposed to attend the spectacle #isn't moving its ass to protect a dancer from bandits #but that description and the knowledge from FE16 about what those singers do to become famous #I liked demonic beasts as a concept and really wondered how it was going to be solved/treated #you can guess how disappointed i was lol #we come from FE15 where being turned in a witch is a disaster and Sonia still believes she can save her sisters #to this nonsense about demonic beasts being completely eluded #FE16

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redteabaron · 4 years ago

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Different anon… Here is the thing though, Drogo/Dany isn’t a parallel to sansan. People who make that comparison either lack severe reading comprehension, which is not surprising for this fandom, or they want to use it to validate sansan. (Tyrion was the older guy Sansa was forced to marry. Dany and Sansa have opposite journeys and their marriages are a part of that.) But sansan’s mirror is Jorah/Dany. Book!Jorah is an older guy who has a creepy obsession with a teenage girl. He dumps his trauma on her, he projects onto her. But he is also her advisor, her confidante early on, his protector. There are also the same BaTB elements sansans love to talk about. She even refers to him as her bear. But he was lusting after her ever since they met and then he assaulted her. He forced himself on her. She is uncomfortable with his actions, but she doesn’t possess the necessary language and she doesn’t understand consent (we know this because of how she frames her relationship with Drogo but also how she expected Lhazareen women to be ok, even be thankful for being married to their rapists, and her dubcon relationship with Irri) so she recontextualize what happened and chastise Jorah for kissing her not because she is a teenager and he shouldn't and she didn’t consent to but because she is his Queen. That's the language she has, so she expresses her discontent, disapproval, rejection with that. Sandor was verbally, psychologically, physically abusive to Sansa but he also occasionally protected her in King’s Landing. He lusted after her, made sexually inappropriate comments to an 11 year old child but he was also the only one in KL to have honest conversations with her. Then he assaulted her, held her at knife point. She was afraid of him kissing her, killing her, she had nightmare about the assault which she clearly registered as a sexual one despite what his fans claim his intentions were. Sansa has a habit of romanticizing/redefining these things. Sansa thinks Arys Oakheart was preferable, that he was kind because he beat her less hard than the other Kingsguard. She remembers Tyrion as someone who were kind to her, someone better than Joffrey even though he molested her and she had him in her nightmares too. She separates Littlefinger and Petyr in her mind because just like with the other men before him the thought of her sometimes-protector at the same time being her abuser is too much for her. Just like Dany she recontextualizes what the Hound did to her and turns the assault into a song to cope with it.

These two pairings has the same dynamic, the difference is fandom’s response to it. (The slight differences are that Dany had actual amiable feelings for Jorah -not romantic love or sexual feelings but friendly, sisterly love for him- and she as a Queen had a lot more agency than Sansa as a prisoner had. She isn't as powerless as Sansa, she could have easily banished him, punished him, even ordered his death.) But no one in fandom writes essay after essay why and how could and should Jorah and Dany end up together. It’s an outrageous suggestion. Dany is a main character, she is the heroine. She is a Queen. Why should she ever end up with someone as lowly as Jorah? Someone as old, as ugly as Jorah? But Sansa, meh she is not an important character. And she needs to be punished, first because she was a child making childish mistakes. Secondly, she is shallow, she refused to be raped by her older, ugly husband. So she needs to end up with an older ugly guy to humble her. Even when the author expressed his distaste of the trope of a noble girl running away with a lowly guy in medieval stories, nah that doesn’t matter here. Sansa being of high nobility, a princess won’t have any factor at all who she’s gonna end up with. They had to keep assuring themselves that she is not a main character so she could even end up with a villainous character, that she is not a Stark so she could end up with people who hurt/fight against her family. The hypocrisy of this fandom, and their selective reading is most clear when it comes to these two “couples”. Almost all sansans (whether it is the actual shippers or those who think it’ll happen because well it’s Sansa what else she’s gonna do besides being a reward bride for some hideous guy) hate Jorah/Dany (as they should) while trying to justify how and why Sansa should end up with the hound. Let's forget the abuse and pedophile, let's assume those never happened, even then it makes no sense. There is not a narratively satisfying way, a logical reason how Sansa could be with Sandor. But they ignore all that because it doesn't fit in with their vision, with their interpretation of the books and characters. Because admitting Sansa is a main character and more than a reward for their pedo fave has a ripple affect, it challenges all their theories, they all crumble. And they just can't let go of their 2 decades old theories, they just have to be right, they must be right. That's why they all took the show's ending as a personal offense, especially the QiTN Sansa. I just can't wait for the books!

Yeah, agreed. jorah and sandor are mirrors of each other. I mean I hope they both die without any glory or honor, personally. I don't really care if they have sacrificial deaths for the greater good - or whatever framing the show had intended - jorah and sandor were also whitewashed and made more pitiable/likeable.

Whenever dany x dr*go is used to validate literally ANY pairing, I am suspish. In particular when we acknowledge that dany absolutely couldn't consent - she was 13 iirc - and was sold off by her abusive brother to a man twice her age, but Sansa reimagining her trauma about Sandor's assault to something less traumatic is considered being hateful to Sandor because he's unattractive. (And I never really listen whenever ppl give me shit or deny it was assault; pertaining to my job, I'm pretty fucking aware what assault or intention-to-assault looks like, and I think most ppl do to, they just seem to lose awareness when it comes to their ships or certain characters).

I think it has to do with Sansa being the archetypal "Pretty Popular Girl" - the one who like feminine things, sort of fussy, likes feminine colors and just in general is feminine. She seems to remind people of the classic mean popular girl we saw popularized in 1990s-2000s high school movies - the one who gets her comeuppance in the end when the non-feminine girl somehow triumphs in whatever way, or she's the one who learns her lesson and stops being quite so feminine, or hooks up with a most-popular guy. The Mean/Pretty Popular girl has to be humbled in some fashion. Fans who don't like her, tend to view this as a way for her to pay for the error of her ways.

Like being a prisoner of war. Or not wanting to fuck tyrion. Or not wanting to run away with sandor.

I mean...all of asoiaf, beyond the politics and magic, is all about trauma and the human response to it - which is varied and depends on circumstances, personalities, and a lot of other things. One of the more vile things GOT did was whitewash jorah and tyrion the way they did imo. Jorah was a predator, circling Dany, regardless of whether she thought of him fondly, he just happened to not be violent towards her - she cries when he forces a kiss on her. Tyrion was a predator who molested her when he acknowledged she was a child "but he wanted her anyway". I've seen a lot of ppl react more sympathetically towards Dany. I haven't seen much recrimination against dany for refusing him the way we see sansa being hated for not wanting tyrion or sandor, hell, even petyr.

But - Sansa, imo, in the larger or at least circles of the fandom that have been around longer, is a more ideal whipping girl for the outlet a lot of ppl crave. See again the popular girl trope. She can't fight, she has no magical creatures, she is not a Chosen One of any kind. She has her wits and her ability to observe and adapt who has no choice but to navigate survival surrounded by people who have more agency and power than she does. That's it. I guess in a world of amazing abilities and magic and warfare, this is very boring, particularly when she doesn't weaponize her femininity or sexuality, where she's beautiful without being dangerous or magical or erotic. And I guess ppl feel that because of that, she needs to be punished for not being as extraordinary as she should be, OR, because she was the "Mean Popular Girl" (she wasn't) she must be humbled, and the ones to do it are the ones she refuses.

It's really delicious knowing they don't get "to have her" 🤢. Hopefully they just both fuck off to the ends of the world or die, idc they deserve zero thought.

#anti jorah #anti sandor #anti tyrion #anti Petyr #asoiaf #anti daenerys targaryen

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all-seeing-ifer · 4 years ago

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Greek mythology references in Ulysses Dies at Dawn masterpost

I saw a post a while back by @spacetrashpile analysing all the arthurian references in High Noon Over Camelot, and since I know quite a bit about Greek mythology I figured “hey! I should do something like that for Ulysses Dies at Dawn!” I’m just going to go through each of the songs in order and analyse/explain the references in them - hopefully other people will find it interesting!

“The City”

Starting with the title - Ulysses is the Latin name of Odysseus, legendary king of Ithaca and hero of the epic poem The Odyssey. Interestingly, Ulysses is the only character in UDAD who is given a Latin name instead of a Greek one. There’s a couple of potential reasons for this but the most convincing to me is it’s meant to reflect Ulysses’ opposition to the Olympians, who are all based on the Greek gods.

Jonny calls the story a “labyrinthine task of a twisted tale”, referencing the Greek myth of the Minotaur, which was kept in a labyrinth to hide it from the world. This reference becomes even clearer when we later learn the City’s original name.

This one’s less a reference to Greek mythology and more to like, actual history, but the description of the City expanding to cover the whole planet is reminiscent of Greek expansion in ancient times. Ancient Greece was made up of many city-states, or poleis, which established colonies or “daughter-cities”, mostly in western Asia, or “Asia Minor” as the Greeks and Romans called it.

The story opens at a “run-down gin join” called Calypso’s - Calypso is a sea nymph who plays a fairly major role in The Odyssey, keeping Odysseus/Ulysses trapped on her island for seven years.

Fittingly enough, Calypso’s apparently pays money to Dionysus, whose mythological namesake is the Greek god of wine.

Broken Horses

Ilium is the Ancient Greek name for Troy, the city that Greece went to war against, according to myth,. Part of this war is described in the epic poem The Iliad, in which Odysseus is one of the soldiers laying siege to Troy.

Much like the Trojan War of Greek myth, the siege of Ilium is said to have lasted a decade.

Ulysses’ gambit with the horse statue sending out a signal driving the people of Ilium mad is pretty obviously a reference to the Trojan Horse - the wooden horse the Greeks built as a “peace offering” to the Trojans that they used to sneak their soldiers into the City and that brought them victory in the war. Like in the UDAD version, Odysseus/Ulysses was apparently responsible for coming up with this plan.

“Olympians”

Ulysses’ wife is named Penelope, same as Odysseus’ wife in the myths

The Acheron is the name of one of the five rivers of Hades, along with Styx, Cocytus, Lethe, and Phlegethon

As a sidenote, in Greek mythology Hades is the name of the underworld as well as the name of the God of the dead - fittingly enough reimagined in UDAD as the controller of a vast network of half-dead minds (and also Ashes)

The most powerful families in the City are called the Olympians - the name given to the twelve most important deities in the Greek pantheon

Poseidon Industries is named for Poseidon, Greek god of the sea and one of the twelve Olympians. Jonny calls them “one of the architects of the Ilium War”, which seems like an odd reference since iirc Poseidon doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the Trojan War. I guess that’s just there to give Ulysses a reason to want to rob Poseidon Industries.

In the Odyssey, Poseidon hates Odysseus/Ulysses for attacking his son, a cyclops called Polyphemus. In UDAD this is changed to Ulysses stealing the diamond from Poseidon Industries’ laser, which is also called The Cyclops.

My Name is No One

The song’s title and chorus is a reference to Odysseus’ famous trick for escaping the Polyphemus’ cave. He tells the Polyphemus his name is “no one/nobody” (depending on the translation) so that when he attacks Polyphemus and the cyclops tries to call for help, he calls out “No one is attacking me” which obviously none of the other cyclopes take seriously. (There’s also a great pun in the original Greek based on the Greek words for “no one” and “cunning” being very similar, but it loses a lot in translation)

However, just like in UDAD, Odysseus messes up this plan badly by calling out his real name when he’s still too close to the island of the cyclops. (although in the Odyssey it’s motivated by him wanting Polyphemus to know his name so he can get glory, rather than just being drunk)

Odysseus bests the cyclops by taking out his eye (there’s debate around it but cyclopes are generally depicted as having only one eye). Obviously in UDAD the cyclops is a machine not a monster, so this is replaced with the diamond at the heart of the laser being called its “eye”.

Also, I’m not sure if this is an intentional reference, but there is a fun irony to the fact that in the Odyssey, Odysseus tricks Polyphemus by getting him drunk so he can then blind him, while in UDAD Ulysses steals the eye of the Cyclops while drunk themself.

“Trial By Wits”

As well as My Name is No One, the whole concept of no one knowing anything about Ulysses’ appearance, gender etc. could also be seen as a reference to the “My name is nobody” trick, or possibly just a spin on Odysseus being a kind of “archetypal hero” - they could be anyone!

Heracles is better known by his Latin name, Hercules (son of Zeus, demigod, inhumanly strong and all that jazz)!

Ariadne is the name of the Cretan princess who helped Theseus slay the minotaur

Orpheus is another of the most well-known Greek mythological figures - the main myth surrounding him says he went into the underworld to rescue his dead wife Eurydice

Oedipus is most famous as the main character of a famous tragedy. His parents are given a prophecy that he would kill his father and have sex with his mother, and so decided to abandon him. As is so often the case with Greek oracles, he ended up doing both things anyway, seeing as how he, y’know, didn’t know who his parents were. The mechs apparently chose to reference this in the most mature of ways by having Jonny call Oedipus a motherfucker. Kind of a lot.

Aside from committing both patricide and incest, Oedipus’ other achievements in myth included winning a battle of wits against the Sphinx, a monster that was killing anyone who couldn’t solve its riddle. This monster is reimagined in UDAD as a disease that Oedipus finds a cure for.

Riddle of the Sphinx

The chorus of the song is taken almost word-for-word from the riddle asked of Oedipus by the Sphinx: “What goes on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” The answer to the riddle is “man” - crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane (third leg) in old age. The Mechs being the Mechs, this is made completely literal in the world of UDAD.

“Ulysses’ Will”

Like the Oedipus of myth, UDAD Oedipus also ends up killing his father and marrying his mother without knowing. Since he’s replaced his eyes with data sockets by the time he helps kidnap Ulysses, it’s pretty strongly implied that he blinded himself like mythological Oedipus as well.

The “twenty years of sirens” could be a reference to the twenty years Odysseus spends away from Ithaca in the Iliad and Odyssey

Sirens

The sirens were half-bird half-human creatures that Odysseus encountered as part of the Odyssey and that tried to lure him to his death with promises of knowledge.

As well as referencing this story, the line “let the lotus set you free” references another episode of the Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of the Lotus-Eaters. Anyone who eats the Lotus fruits falls into a state of apathy and will never want to leave the island, so it’s a fitting episode to reference in a song about Ulysses drugging themself to escape their memories of war.

“Trial By Strength”

Heracles’ backstory is essentially the same in UDAD as in the original myths: one of the many children of Zeus’ many affairs, except in UDAD Zeus has affairs with women from “the lower levels”, instead of just mortal women.

Favoured Son

The tasks Heracles performs for Zeus are a reference to the most famous myth about Heracles - the twelve labours he performs to atone for killing his family.

The song references “the ferryman” who takes people into the Underworld. In Greek mythology the dead travel to the Underworld in a boat rowed by the ferryman Charon.

In both the myth and in UDAD there are...what you might you might call “extenuating circumstances” for Heracles killing his family - in the myth he’s driven mad by Zeus’ wife Hera (bc she’s very angy about Zeus having all those bastard children with mortal women) but since Hera doesn’t play a role in UDAD this is changed to him being framed by Zeus himself.

In addition to being king of the gods, Zeus is also the god of thunder - which is where Heracles’ nickname “The Thunderbolt of Zeus” comes from

“Loose Threads”

Heracles and Orpheus “Backing up Jason on the fleece job” is a reference to the myth of Jason’s quest for the Golden Fleece along with his crew (the Argonauts), which included Heracles and Orpheus.

Hylas was Heracles’ servant and another member of the Argonauts. While on the quest he was kidnapped by nymphs, and depending on which version of the myth you’re looking at, either fell in love with them and stayed there forever, or was murdered by them (Hylas is also the only character referenced I had to google to even know who they were lol)

Heracles telling Ariadne that “Your dad helped me out once” is presumably a reference to the seventh labour of Heracles: capturing the Cretan bull. Now the story of the Cretan bull is actually really long and ties into a bunch of other myths but essentially it was sent to Ariadne’s father, King Minos, as proof that he was the rightful ruler of Crete. However, Minos ended up helping Heracles by letting him take the bull with him to prove that he’d successfully caught it (which seeing as the bull was destroying Crete at that point doesn’t seem like a huge favour on Minos’ part, but ok)

Trial By Song

UDAD Orpheus shares the mythical Orpheus’ main defining trait: his skill at singing that he used to help him on his journey to the underworld.

Trial By Song is a lot more metaphorical than all the others so there’s not that many direct references to the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in the lyrics - probably the most direct one is “But all the landmarks moved as I walked past/Now I can’t look back”, which references Orpheus’ deal with Hades that he can take Eurydice back to the world of the living as long as he doesn’t look back at her.

“The viper town that bled me dry” could also be a reference to Eurydice’s death from a snake bite.

“Hades”

UDAD Orpheus’ motivation is the same as mythical Orpheus - wanting to bring back their dead lover from Hades.

Ulysses, Heracles, and Orpheus all visiting the “underworld” is taken directly from mythology (although unlike in UDAD, Ulysses/Odysseus never actually speaks to Hades).

Underworld Blues

In Heracles’ confrontation with Hades, he says that “I was sent here your dog to seize/Of my tasks, of my tasks/This was to be the last”. There’s a couple of points here - the mythology reference is to the last of the twelve labours of Hercules: capturing Hades’ guard dog Cerberus. However, I do wonder whether this is meant to be literal (in which case guys, why are we not talking about the fact that Ashes obtained a pet dog while in The City?), or if this is a similar case to all the mentions of ‘horses’ in High Noon Over Camelot actually being about motorbikes.

Orpheus singing to Hades and trying to convince them to release Eurydice is also taken directly from Greek myth, except instead of being moved by Orpheus’ song and agreeing to release his love like in the myth, Ashes just tells him he’s poor for a bit and then says he should go commit some crimes.

“Trial By Love”:

The general concept of Ariadne’s backstory - her helping Theseus fight the minotaur only for him to abandon her - is the same basic idea as the myth of Ariadne and Theseus. Although UDAD Ariadne is at least a bit more fortunate in the sense that she wasn’t truly in love with her Theseus, and he also doesn’t straight up leave her on a deserted island.

Ariadne’s family creating the minotaur is also part of her character in the myth. The difference is that in UDAD the minotaur was created intentionally, while the mythological minotaur was the result of Poseidon making Ariadne’s mother fall in love with the Cretan Bull as punishment for King Minos not sacrificing it to him (I said the Cretan Bull story tied into a bunch of other myths!)

The presence of the minotaur in the City is yet another thing that makes even more sense when we learn about the City originally being called Labyrinth!

Ties That Bind

Ariadne’s family name is Minos, same as the name of her mythical father King Minos.

Ariadne describes her family’s actions as casting a “dark horned shadow” over her, which references the typical depiction of the minotaur as a man with a bull’s head and horns.

In the myth of the Minotaur, Ariadne helps Theseus by giving him a ball of string that he then unwinds as he walks through the Labyrinth, letting him find his way out again. In UDAD this is changed to “strings of code”, that shut down the minotaurs programming. (And if you think that pun’s bad, just wait until we get to Torn Suits!)

The song’s title also brings to mind string or thread, so it can be seen as a subtler reference to Ariadne’s gift to Theseus. Same for Ariadne’s line about “heartstrings long since cut”.

“The Daidala”

Daedalus, the leader of the Suits, shares a name with the mythical craftsman and father of Icarus

He is rumoured to “trade as an Olympian under the name Hephaestus” - a fitting alias as Hephaestus was the god of craftsmen and artisans like Daedalus

The rumour that he killed his son for “getting too ambitious” references the myth of Icarus, who famously died after literally flying too close to the sun using wings held together with wax. The heat of the sun caused the wax to melt and Icarus to fall into the sea. The story is often interpreted as a warning about the dangers of ambition.

Interestingly, it could also reference another myth surrounding Daedalus - one in which Daedalus kills his nephew Talos because he was jealous of his achievements.

Daedalus is also apparently the architect of The City, which was originally known as Labyrinth. This once again references the labyrinth which held the minotaur, and which Minos forced Daedalus to design. Considering the labyrinth’s purpose in myth, it seems like an appropriate name for a city that keeps all its inhabitants trapped with no way out.

Presumably the Daidala in the title refers to the City: Daedalus’ finest creation. In Homeric Greek, daidala is a word that refers to finely crafted objects such as armour.

This track also has another reference to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth when Orpehus offers to sacrifice himself to open the vault - “But he can’t see it through can he? Flinches, looks back. And it doesn’t work.”

Torn Suits

This song is notable for having quite possibly the worst pun in Mechanisms history - “Ulysses pulls out their snub-nosed laser and fires the last shot, splitting the beam across twelve axes”. This references one of the climactic scenes of the Odyssey, where Ulysses/Odysseus wins an archery competition against his wife’s suitors by shooting an arrow through twelve axe heads. (get it, axes as in the weapons becomes axes as in the plural of axis do you get it?????)

Another, marginally less bad pun is Heracles getting “the lion’s share” of the beams, referencing the popular image of Heracles wearing the skin of a lion he killed as one of his labours.

“Sunrise”

The code to Ulysses’ vault: Elysium, is another word for the Elysian Fields. In certain Greek religions, this was an afterlife separate from Hades’ world where heroes and those chosen by the gods would go after they died.

Ulysses’ vault is revealed to contain the “sole surviving oak tree”, under which Penelope is buried. While it’s not as direct a reference as some of the others, this is pretty clearly inspired by the way Odysseus proves his true identity to Penelope at the end of the Odyssey - by telling her that he carved their bed from a tree still rooted to the ground, something only the two of them know.

The track ends with an homage to Homer’s use of similes in the Odyssey: “And as the weary hound, once more at its master’s feet after so long, lays down with the sunlight warming its fur, breathing its last – even so did the eyes of Ulysses close forever.” Not only is this stylistically identical to Homer’s similes, it also doubles as a reference to Odysseus’ dog Argos, who waited for him for twenty years and finally died when he saw Odysseus again.

Elysian Fields

This is possibly a bit of a stretch but the image of Ulysses lying beneath the last tree, next to where Penelope is buried, especially with how they say they’re “with my beloved” and “beside my wife” really brings to mind the scene in the Odyssey where Odysseus and Penelope lie in their tree-bed together for the first time since Odysseus’ return. Which, incidentally, is theorised by some to be the “real” final scene of the Odyssey and everything after that was added on later, but that’s another story.

That’s everything I’ve picked up on but it’s possible there’s more I’ve missed so let me know if there’s any more! I’d like to thank the Mechs for giving me an opportunity to put my useless and extremely niche knowledge to good use!

#the mechanisms #ulysses dies at dawn #udad #ifer rambles

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bthump · 4 years ago

Note

How have you come to read Berserk? Do you remember what your thoughts and impressions were while reading this story for the first time?

ty for your interest!

I actually watched the 97 anime first. I watched it with a friend like a decade ago and I don’t remember those first impressions very well because a lot of weed was involved lol. But I do know I thought I’d be bored by it and ended up surprisingly invested and engaged. I of course shipped griffguts and I was definitely shocked at how close to canon it was, with scenes like Casca’s cave monologue and Griff’s torture chamber monologue.

Then I found the Band of the Hawk scanlation and read that bc I wanted more, though I often found it confusing. I actually just checked and realized I still have a little wordpad doc I wrote notes in back then while I was reading it. So here’s some highlights:

- I adored both Guts and Griffith, and I called Guts “Gatts,” thanks to the scanlation.

- I found their trauma backstories really fascinating since I’d never rly seen that with male characters before.

- I hated Puck a lot lol :(

- From around the Lost Children arc: Hell, he's doing the same as Griffith did - building a mountain of bodies. I predict that he will eventually use the Behelit, and his sacrifice will be... Griffith! Because enemies can also be the most important person to you. But then he will turn it down. Also if he takes Jill, she'll be the Casca to his Griffith. Waaaiiit... if they explicitly state that it's a possibility Gatts'll use the Behelit and get all demon-y... well, obviously the temptation will be soon, and he'll say no. Not a climax as such. Just an event. Damn. Well, unless a central theme of the rest of this is Gatts' temptation to monsterize himself.

well hey I called Guts getting his own Casca parallel follower, I just didn’t know it would be Farnese.

- I was seeing Casca and Griffith parallels apparently, but I was being vague so I don’t know what parallels exactly. Maybe just the ‘shell of former self’ thing.

- very exasperated by how no man can interact with Casca without trying to rape her.

- went ham during hill of swords ofc but surprisingly not at Guts forgetting his urge to kill lol: OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS CHAPTER IS CALLED REUNION ON THE HILL OF SWORDS OMFG REUNION OMG OMG OMGOMGOMGOMGOMOMGOMGOMOGMOGMOGMOMGOD OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

- bb me still knew what was up re: Griff: He's not sociopathic, he's just so singleminded that he'll do anything for his goal. I was going to say that he's so single minded that he doesn't care what he does for his goal, but that's not true - he DOES care, he just does it anyway.

- I was getting bored with the Millenium Falcon arc and didn’t care about any of the new characters aside from kind of liking Serpico and absolutely hating Isidro. I didn’t say anything about Farnese but I do have a vague memory of getting excited that there was another female soldier character followed immediately by disappointment that she can’t actually fight. So if I didn’t like her back then that’s probably why.

- I was a little disappointed when Guts got the berserk armour because fight scenes aren’t as cool when the protag has a magic power up. I was right tbh.

- I seem to have quit writing around the beach chapters. I think I did actually drop it around there probably, I’d already taken one break and I was forgetting stuff and generally losing the thread of the story iirc.

also I believed Griffith was very likely to get redeemed at the end? Here’s my “reasoning” lol:

Consise, laid-out reasoning why Griffith will be redeemed. He'll probably die right afterwards, but he will certainly sacrifice himself in an act of redemption. 1. The slug-dude did so for his daughter in an act of foreshadowy self-sacrifice. 2. Skull-knight dude tells Gatts that he perhaps has the power to stop fate or whatever. 3. Griffith's whole friendship speech that throws everything in motion. It's super important, but one aspect that is truly important is that for him to call someone a friend, he has to be an equal - following his own dream, etc. When he becomes Femto, this gives Gatts the motivation he needs to get real. If Femto/Griffith eventually sees Gatts as his equal, this metaphorically equals friendship. Of course this will manifest in a respectful arch-enemy thing, once Femto learns to truly fear Gatts, but the metaphor is still there and it will come out when he eventually DOES sacrifice himself because he can't bear to lose his one equal/bff/etc. It will be very Final Gameish. 4. The only man who made Griffith forget his dream is Gatts. Gatts has a huge amount of power over Griffith in regards to his desire to rule everything. 5. Portions of the story are still seen from Griffith's point of view - indeed, a humanized Femto - and this gives me great hope that during these bits we'll see more greyscale characterization. 6. Also in a weird way they kind of have a child together apparently. Idk. 7. Based on the whole sequence before The Golden Age, Gatts gets dark. And ruthless. Mirroring Griffith's transformation, just a bit. 8. Also the fact that Gatts has a freaking

I didn’t fail to copypaste it properly, I just never finished that sentence. But it was probably “behelit” if I gotta guess. Final Game def references the never-made 70s Doctor Who episode where the Master was going to sacrifice himself to save the Doctor, fyi, not the Sherlock Holmes story. Me lowkey comparing every hero/villain dynamic to Doctor/Master when I was 20 is presumably why I assumed they’d get to a respectful arch nemeses vibe lmao.

I guess tbf I wasn’t talking about a redemption arc so much as a humanizing death lol, I just wouldn’t call that a redemption now. I don’t completely disagree with my past self, though I def had some dumb ideas.

It sucks that I dropped it before all the good parts of the MF arc tbh, Griffith vs Ganishka and Guts and Zodd teaming up etc. I wonder what I would’ve thought of it.

Anyway yeah lol, ty for asking and prompting me to find this lol, it was fun to reminisce!

Oh also if you want to see my more recent and technically third impressions lol I did start this blog just to liveblog my more meta-y re-read of Berserk. Here’s the tag for that in chronological order.

#Anonymous #ask #b #i'm gonna tag this #berserk liveblog #lol

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elkian · 4 years ago

Text

I was gonna do a “missing the point”-style meme but I’m honestly not sure that would even work tho so:

Harry Potter and My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia have similar issues with introducing and then immediately ignoring ENORMOUS issues re: ableism.

I think these two series in specific come to mind bc it’s ableism within a specific empowered community, and in both cases the series are pretty well-known and the community (Wix/Heroes) are immediately identifiable to many audiences.

[WARNING: Discussions of ableism, child harm, and abuse on multiple levels.]

What’s the problem?

SQUIBS.

[This post got stupid huge SO here is a tl,dr for all you lovely people who understandably have no time for this.

TL, DR: Both Harry Potter and Boku No Hero have a bad tendency to implement or imply a level of disability regarding unempowered people in empowered societies. They then continue on to completely disregard important conclusions to these implications, such as how heavily it is implied that these unempowered people (Squibs) are so ‘worthless’ to those societies that their very deaths are merely a byline rather than an actual tragedy.

This is especially troubling in MHA/BNHA when so many other political and worldbuilding considerations HAVE been planned out, and seems to be less-discussed in the fandom as a whole, so that’s a much larger chunk of this post.]

That’s your tl, dr!

Here’s the Harry Potter angle:

HP has a bit that I’ve seen people discussing already: Neville’s magic was discovered when his uncle dropped a literal child a potenial lethal distance.

Neville activating his power and surviving is celebrated, and then JKR immediately glosses over the glaring issue this has introduced: the heavy implication that a Squib dying from this incident would have not have been mourned or even really commented on.

The few adult Squibs (and isn’t that a whole new slice of wonderful /j) are generally disliked and ridiculed for some reason or other. Now, while obviously there are plenty of places where the Venn diagram of “disabled” and “asshole” intersect irl, when your ONLY presentation of a disabled character or group is, every time, an asshole or a fool or both, boy! That’s bad!

Neville (who is generally presented as magically, physically, and mentally weak and often treated as comic relief) is a bit better via the POV Character constantly having positive interactions with him, but this is still a mess. Yes, Neville canonically is not a Squib, but it’s not subtle that he’s on the cusp OF being a Squib, and that is a key element of ridiculing him in many situations (also the whole trauma thing multiple times, like if I really get into it I could do a whole double-size post of how Neville was done dirty or nearly dirty by JK all the time but this isn’t that post).

This isn’t even the point of this post. Let’s move to MHA/BNHA

Hero Academia has differing but honestly even worse issues. And I’m aware that different countries handle ableism and accessibility in different ways, but if you think too hard about it this is an absolute clusterfuck.

What is the problem now?

Squibs! Or rather, the main character of the series, Midoriya Izuku.

Deku (a nickname meaning “useless”! Imparted after his disability is recognized! hilarity!!) is also born without powers. Even worse in some ways, he is born without powers in a world where the overwhelming majority of the global population has some kind of empowerment. I can’t recall if it’s outright stated or only implied that someone with a functionally useless (and hoo boy, usefullness to society is its own post nope not today i do not have that much energy) Quirk is still more of a person than a Quirkless human.

That sink in? Okay, let’s move on.

In a narratively not-uncommon turn of events, Deku gains power. This is partially a product of, and directly tied to, his own work and determination, as well as his willingness to help even when physically outmatched.

To an American audience (NOT the intended audience though I wouldn’t doubt it if Horikoshi meant to have international appeal more or less from the start), this is a deeply satisfying narrative. Who doesn’t love an underdog story? And we even learn that the strongest hero of all time (til this point, anyways) was ALSO born Quirkless!

However, from here, things take a nosedive.

The key problem is a combination of story progression and overall thought put into worldbuilding. Horikoshi’s efforts may not be the MOST thorough, but he has put a great deal of work and thought into his creation (he at least understands the concept of implications and sometimes plans accordingly, looking at you JKR). However, that tied with story progression and personal repercussions actually works to the detriment of the matter.

Especially given recent turns of events.

[BIG MEGA SPOILERS FOR FAIRLY RECENT PLOT

STOP HERE IF YOU’RE NOT CAUGHT UP

SERIOUSLY]

What I mean by this is the current state of events re: two particular recent/recent-ish plot arcs.

First, Quirk Removal, and second, Endeavor’s comeuppance.

Quirk Removal/Loss was the start of my realization to what the narrative was doing regarding Izuku’s Quirklessness and the state of being overall.

This arc was a perfect time to bring up Midoriya’s past! A lot of Western works certainly would have done so! And yes, it may be bordering on done-to-death, but many elements of Hero Academia put new twists on common themes and cliches; it wasn’t unreasonable to hope that he might do it again.

Instead, little to NOTHING is discussed during this time! In fact, iirc I’d go so far as to say Midoriya straight-up never considers his past at any point during this arc!? If I’m wrong then it obviously made little impact.

NOW, not every disabled character needs to incorporate their disability and/or skills gleaned from living with it in every narrative. In fact, it would get tedious and questionable if they did (note: this does NOT mean ignoring/forgetting the character is even disabled when convenient. Like, I’d like to think that’s the obvious point of this post but... *gestures at tumblr*).

But the complete lack of it here feels really weird. Like, almost hollow. I think Midoriya makes some kind of suggestion to Mirio of his former Quirklessness at the end of the arc, but nothing that made any kind of impact.

Let’s move on.

Endeavor.

Now, the problem with Endeavor’s arc is not the arc itself. Or, rather, it’s the fact that Endeavor’s Comeuppance is pretty good.

This is a problem because someone else should be getting this exact same arc, yet the issue is never even RECOGNIZED, let alone addressed.

Endeavor’s abuse of his wife and children, all in the name of creating a Heroic legacy, is publicized and tanks his popularity. The general public is now aware of what he’s done to the people closest to him, which aside from giving him a more correct reputation, means they can’t trust him to protect them if they can’t trust him to protect his own family.

This isn’t the goal of this post and I’m no expert regardless, but up to this point (around chapter 290) this was handled in an interesting way. Endeavor is humanized and often shown interacting with people in a way that, while often domineering, isn’t always aggressive or abusive. He runs a Hero Agency for crying out loud! But abuse in the real world often isn’t constant, nor happening to everyone in contact with the abuser. So this is a surprisingly good lead up to the reveal, where you can understand how most people never realized this was an issue.

But here’s my main point. Let’s examine some traits and actions that come up:

physically abusive to a child (often dangerously so) to the point of permanent trauma and severe scarring in some cases

target of abuse was weaker (physically and/or regarding Quirk power)

often abused victim emotionally/psychologically, bringing this weakness up again and again

own immense power led to rising in the world of Heroics

comrades, fellow Heroes, UA teachers etc. not aware of prior abuse issues

Who does this sound like?

Endeavor, who has a whole fucking arc dedicated to this reveal and repercussions?

Or Bakugou?

Reminder: This isn’t a hate post. This isn’t a character post, or even an abuse post. This is about ableism.

Bakugou exhibits many, many traits and actions that Endeavor was literally just punished for. So why does the treatment of these characters in-universe differ so drastically?

Two primary reasons I can think of, which feed into each other:

1) Bakugou was a child (still technically is a minor, remember! Still a first-year high schooler!) when this started. This doesn’t mean he’s strictly innocent, but it’s an important point, because it leads us to

2) Bakugou Katsuki’s abuse of Midoriya Izuku is socially accepted.

Reminder of the audience’s first encounter with Katsuki. The very first page with him is him and his grade-school posse picking on a kid that Izuku is trying to protect. His posse is showing off their Quirk powers and mocking Izuku’s lack thereof.

Then we flash forward to late-middle school versions of the kids. Bakugou, in front of a fucking teacher and entire class, is verbally, physically, etc. abusive to Izuku. He trashes his stuff, threatens him, tells him to kill himself (which, as Izuku notes later, is a fucking felony in Japan too).

No one stops him.

No one criticizes him.

We don’t even get a shot of like, some more ‘regular’ students being like “man Bakugou’s kinda fucked up but we’re too scared to do anything about it” NO. NO. Everyone more or less either backs Katsuki up or straight up doesn’t care.

Remember that this started when Katsuki and Izuku were four. Remember that Katsuki’s power is absurdly dangerous, ie. LITERAL. GODDAMN. EXPLOSIONS.

Izuku has scars. He probably has hearing loss! He may have gotten at least one concussion which can cause serious neurological issues and open him up to further risk!

He could have died.

And?

NO ONE. DOES. ANYTHING.

THIS is the point of the post. THIS is the value placed on Quirkless people in this society.

And yet. Despite Endeavor’s comeuppance. Despite All Might and Izuku’s blatant ‘value’ to society through Heroics. Despite so many other political implications and quandaries address in the Hero Academia series.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing about this is addressed. The nearly-lethal ableism towards Quirkless people in this society is never ONCE brought up properly once Izuku receives One For All.

There is so much potential here! There is so much worth talking about! And yet we’ve moved into what feels very much like the Final Battle without it being addessed, despite numerous, numerous opportunities for a meaningful conversation about it along the way.

Mirio losing his power! Hell, Mirio’s powers’ drawbacks (and pretty much every Quirk’s drawback! if acknowledged properly!) border on a disability-analogue, and even more when Yuga’s laser comes up, and yet again and again we fail to truly engage with the matter in a meaningful way.

At this point, even if it comes up in the finale, I’m going to be disappointed in this particular aspect of the series due to the complete and total shut-down it’s been given so far.

What the FUCK, Horikoshi?

#elk text #24th #February #2021 #February 24th 2021 #I hope the bold helps with reading #long post warn #elk has thoughts #sorry for the ramble #Ableism #other shit comes up but plz keep in mind that that is the PRIMARY POINT OF THIS #also:#child abuse warn #abuse warn #harry potter spoilers warn #boku no hero spoilers #like REAL BIG spoilers for later Hero Academia stuff!#this is not a character hate post and i will block judiciously #elk has feelings

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nyanberri · 4 years ago

Photo

I've finally finished the first set! It's the same kids again tho, lol. But next time will be never before seen characters! So I wanted to get everyone drawn in the Omniverse style so I could visualize it all properly and it also made for a good opportunity to tweak designs as needed. They're all heavily referenced from official art so I could get it perfect and it made for great practice too! Of course I added some personal touches to the art style too cuz if I didn't it would have bothered me too much, lol.

Anyway, below the cut are finally proper profiles for all the kids and some additional info as well!

M'kay, so before we get started on the kids' bios, it's important to specify this is an alternate universe. And I don't mean it's an AU of the Prime Dimension. This is quite literally another universe within the omniverse. It's a mostly untouched one that even Paradox, Eon, and Maltruant have never been to and therefore a lot of things are different while a lot of things are still the same tho. It's unofficially called the Feniverse cuz Fen is the main character, but it does have a more official name. I'm just, uh… not aware of what that name is yet, lol!

Anyway, the Ben in this dimension branches off from the development of Prime Ben. Anybody remember the fact that the very first Ben 10K episode said Ben became the way he did in the future cuz he killed Vilgax by ripping him to pieces? Yep! That's what this Ben did too! But obviously he doesn't end up exactly like that Ben 10K. But so this dimension's Ben is therefore officially labelled Slayer Ben since some people refer to him as 'The Vilgax Slayer'. And that experience did definitely screw him up pretty bad, which is why he's so different from both Prime and 10K.

So from left to right:

Name: Fenrick Fih Rook-Tennyson

Age: 13

Height: 5'1

Voice: Todd Haberkorn

Bio: Fen is Ben and Rook's son. He has always been known for being quiet, surprisingly wise for his age, and quite the troublemaker. In actuality, only two of these things are true. Fen is more calm than he seems and as a young child he wasn't much of a talker, giving people the perception that he's quiet. Unfortunately, Fen also has many great ideas that end up badly. However, his ideas always come from the desire to help someone or solve a problem, but he always gets caught when his plans fall apart, making it look like he causes trouble. Some people even accuse him of trouble he didn't start, not helping his reputation. And as the son of Ben 10 of all people, he tends to be held to higher expectations. His wisdom never ceases to amaze people either. Even Ben and Rook get surprised at the wisdom he recites, wondering where exactly he learned it all. Due to that, he tends to put up a fight whenever himself or someone else gets wronged. He especially defends his friends and fellow alien kids in town. Although his only true friends seem to consist of his childhood friend, Millie, and his cousin, Sven.

At the age of 13, Fen discovered his ability to transform into a couple dozen of Ben's aliens. He quickly aspired to become a hero like his parents, much to Ben's disapproval, who worries about his safety. Despite that, Fen wants to form a hero trio with Sven and Millie and become the next generation of heroes in the galaxy.

Developer's Notes:

Fen's almost always been the same since I first created him, with just a few design and character tweaks done to him. He used to have a talent for jewelry making but that was switched out for him being wise for his age. He was also a bit more generic as far as the upbeat and reckless young male protagonist with famous parents archetype goes, but he's been adjusted enough that he now stands out from that archetype. Or, at least I hope, lol. Also, funny thing to note, Fenrick is not a real name! The closest name there is is Fenwick and iirc, that's a last name! I considered changing it to Fenwick or even Fenick but Fenrick is too special to me. His, uh, unfortunate name even has an impact in-universe with him being embarrassed by it and some using it to make fun of him. Also in-universe, I chalk it up to Ben having a dumb moment by misremembering the name Fenwick and Rook not knowing any better to catch Ben's mistake. Also, if you think his hair style is stupid, good. That's the point. He wanted it like that when he was seven and Ben and Rook were like 'sure' and it's been like that ever since.

Name: Millicent

Age: 13

Height: 5'0

Voice: Jennifer Paz

Bio: Millie is Ester's daughter. Her biological father is a human who decided he didn't want to be a father and Antonio soon stepped up to fill the father role when he and Ester got married. She has been friends with Fen and Sven since they were all babies. Millie is the level-headed one of the group and has been noted as being oddly emotionless. Her tone of voice is almost always flat and she usually keeps a straight face when not looking nervous. She never intends to be rude, but she will bluntly say whatever comes to her mind to her peers. At the same time, she can be nervous about making bold decisions and hates being a part of any decision making. She either refuses to do anything, or apologizes profusely for making a decision even when nothing bad happens.

Due to being more human than Kraaho, Millie is perfectly capable of handling the temperatures of Bellwood. However, she is still a bit sensitive to cold temperatures and needs to bundle up more than others during the winter. She sadly cannot handle the heat in the Hot Spot for very long either. Much to Millie's dismay, she was not born with the Kraaho's stretching ability. No one can figure out why, but it's simply something she can't do. As a result, she considers herself a normal human and has resigned herself to the fact that 'normal' is simply all she will ever be. Despite this, she has taken up quite a big secret that contradicts her decision and expresses who she wishes she really was.

Developer's Notes:

Millie only ever had one design change with her outfit and slight adjustment to the way her hair works and she's been the same ever since. Since the beginning she was always calm and stoic and I've always worried that she doesn't have much of a presence or purpose, but now I feel like she plays off Fen and Sven well enough that she stands out thanks to them. I've always flipped back and forth between Fen and/or Millie having a crush on each other, but I've finally settled on them both just seeing each other as near and dear loyal friends. It ultimately works out better that way and doesn't cause conflict with Millie's personal story or Fen's real love interest(and the one other character with feelings for him). Her name also used to be Mina, but since I've now taken that as one of my own names, it felt really awkward to keep her as that. I used to have a habit of naming characters with names I wanted before realizing I could change my name in the future, lol.

Name: Sven Elijah Levin

Age: 12

Height: 4'8

Voice: Wally Wingert

Bio: Sven is Gwendolyn and Kevin's son and Jenny's older brother. Sven is a rather unfortunate boy. He is constantly terrified of everything to the point of running millions of 'bad ends' through his head. He can barely talk most of the time without being a stuttering mess and always thinks he's going to be in trouble for anything and everything he does. Everyone is certain he either has severe anxiety or paranoia, or likely both. Perhaps even more. Who knows. Sven tends to cling to his cousin, Fen, who he looks to for guidance and advice, most of which isn't anything Sven should actually be following. Because he is a grade below Fen and Millie, he's often left alone to deal with problems in his own classes, or really just panic about them. He does, however, have a close relationship with Zed and likes to be the one to take her out on walks in the afternoon. And not many people know it, but he's actually a pretty decent artist.

Even though he is an Osmosian thanks to being Kevin's son, no one knows what ability he may have. It doesn't really matter though, since he wants to stay out of any potential trouble that having powers could bring him. Regardless of that, he has an interest in magic thanks to Gwendolyn's expertise in it. He even sneaks peeks at her spellbook and the strange bag she keeps in her office that he can hear a voice coming from at night.

Developer's Notes:

Now Sven is a character whose personality has always been pretty much the same while his design was never consistent until reaching his current one. He was originally very anime looking and in a gaudy orange outfit that I regret even thinking about, lol. He looks much better in neutral colors. I guess there's not much to say on him though, which makes me worry he's a tad unremarkable, but perhaps it's just since I'm leaving out the things about him that are better left discovering on your own… if I ever get to finishing that fic that is… ahaha.

Name: Saki Boulais

Age: 13

Height: 4'11

Voice: Stephanie Sheh

Bio: Julie and Hervé's daughter, one of the more popular girls in school, and the most deceptive in town. Saki has gone her whole life, since the first time she told a successful lie, tricking people into thinking she's a completely innocent little girl who's never done anything wrong. This allows her to get away with anything she wants, and she especially enjoys getting Fen in trouble when they butt heads with each other. The two have even been enemies since they first met at age three and Saki pulled Fen's tail, he pulled her hair in return, and she managed to get away with claiming he started it. Their feud has even turned into murderous intent, which Saki refuses to hide.

On a lighter note, Saki always has the company of her two best friends, Rachel and Diane, who will gladly join her in her tormenting of others. Saki even greatly admires the most popular girl in school, Fiona, and whoever the mysterious new hero girl, Miracle-M, is.

Developer's Notes:

Yes, Saki was always meant to be That Bitch in the cast. I feel like it's unrealistic to have all next gen kids be friends and get along with each other. It's perfectly believable to have some of them dislike, and in Saki and Fen's case, even hate each other. It makes it more interesting with them being Ben and Julie's kids respectively too. Adds good drama, lol. But anyway, really the only thing that's changed about Saki is her hairstyle and some other slight design tweaks like her necklace, shorts, and shoes. I also just recently changed her colors from purple and blue-ish purple to just blue so that isn't not all three girls here wearing purple. She also looks better in blue and it contrasts nicely with Julie's pink imo. I suppose I do worry about her being disliked since she's so antagonistic and with her being Julie's daughter, I really hope her character doesn't send the wrong message since I genuinely love Julie a lot. It really is just For The Drama Of It All. I think it's really fun to watch her go into full 'Murder Fen' mode too. Very fun to write, lol. Oh right, also Boulais is my headcanon last name for Herve. I just wanted her to have his last name but he doesn’t have one! So I had to pick one for myself.

Name: Jennifer Elizabeth Levin

Age: 10

Height: 4'6

Voice: Brina Palencia

Bio: Jenny is Gwendolyn and Kevin's daughter and Sven's younger sister. She is surprisingly serious and stoic for her age. She gets annoyed by her family's constant 'abnormal' status and wishes everyone could just act normal with no weird events happening. She throws herself into school work as a means to keep herself out of it and tries to keep her personal life at school with friends far away from her life involving family. She seems to have a quick temper, but really she just acts that way to get what she wants since she knows it works and in the hopes that she can use it as an opportunity to vent her frustrations. She hates getting involved in her brother and cousin Fen's antics, but sometimes her no nonsense attitude is needed to resolve a situation. She has a strange obsession with eating bread, finding it the perfect food and almost always exclusively eating something with bread involved. Gwendolyn definitely worries about her diet, but Kevin finds it harmless.

She may not have the spark like her mother, but she doesn't dare confess that her status as an Osmosian became very apparent just recently. As a result, she has a stash of broken objects stuffed under her bed and cracked floorboards that she covers with her rug.

Developer's Notes:

Jenny went through a decent redesign. Character wise I feel like I still don't have some things etched in stone for her as I still haven't gotten to the point in my writing where she does anything of interest. She could honestly probably end up pretty different from her bio here if I'm not careful, lol. The characters write themselves as they say after all! But I definitely prefer the newer Jenny compared to the previous way I envisioned her character, which was designed to fit a character type I actually hate just cuz I felt it worked for her. Thankfully I can avoid it tho with the big overhaul I did after returning to these characters. And I do like Jenny cuz I like writing her dialogue, but it still feels like her character is still that of a person I would not wanna be around, lol.

Name: Bevel Tennyson

Age: 20

Height: 5'9

Voice: Dee Bradley Baker/Yuri Lowenthal

Bio: Bevel is the youngest of the Big Chill offspring born twenty years ago. They were in an accident involving a passing spaceship on their way to Kylmyys that damaged their right wing to the point they could no longer fly. It's suspected the wing has severe nerve damage, making Bevel unable to unfold it as well. Their siblings helped them make it the rest of the way to Kylmyys, but over the years, the dangers of Kylmyys left the siblings with only Bevel and the eldest two, Emboss and Curve, remaining. As they got older, Bevel could never forget their only memory of their parent, who the others didn't remember. A desire to reunite with their parent caused Bevel to make the lone decision to explore the universe in search of their parent.

Bevel is a very cheerful and sweet person, but their secluded upbringing and lack of knowledge about Earth makes them very naive. They will believe anything they are told and have a very black and white moral view due to not understanding nuance. They have strange habits that appear unnatural in their attempt to act human and have an intense craving for Earth candy. They have also taken up being a mercenary to get by after leaving Kylmyys and once they join the Tennyson family, Rook suggests they use the skills they've picked up to become a Plumber, but that's an idea Ben isn't fully onboard with.

Developer's Notes:

Right off the bat I want to shout out that his old human design used to keep the Necrofriggian antennae. I still think it's a cute design even tho it wasn't canon compliant with the antennae. The only things that have changed about him too are just that, his hair style, and his shoes. Plus I stuck bunny ears on his hoodie recently as a shout out to those antennae he used to have. Otherwise he's always been the same. And I guess I haven't explained why he has a human form, but that's also an answer to discover later. I didn't draw his Necrofriggian form tho cuz we should all know what the UAF design looks like(and yes I am screwing with art style difference bullshit cuz OV Big Chill is not real and you cannot convince me otherwise). And I also just realized his pronouns aren't matching up in this section so I should add his official pronouns are he/they, but characters refer to him by he/him and narration uses they/them. He is still a Necrofriggian and therefore doesn't do the whole gender thing after all. Which is why he's fine with anyone viewing him as whatever they want to too. He just goes with it. That's also why he doesn't get what's weird about him calling Ben 'Mother' after he learned the word, lol.

#staff so help me if this disappears from the tags EVER we will have a problem #ben 10 #ben 10 oc #fenrick (oc)#Millie (OC)#Sven (OC)#saki (oc)#jenny (oc)#bevel (oc)#my art #artists on tumblr

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colourful-void · 5 years ago

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Amity is the Weakest Witch; A theory on magic ability

I was rewatching some episode of the owl house, and I had a thought.

I’ve seen people talk about how powerful Willow is and how much we see her do once she gets moved to the plant coven track. And thats 100% true, Willow is fantastic, but as I kept watching, I noticed, so was Gus. He’s just as impressive as Willow, if not more than. Which made Amity look pretty weak by comparison. That got me thinking, which lead to this theory.

I think that Amity is weaker than the other main kids, and possibly ever other Witch we’ve seen at Hexside, based solely on innate magical ability.

In this post I’ll go over examples of Amity being weaker, what being weaker really means, why that may be, and what this could mean for the story in terms of plot and parallels!

This one’s gonna be long so under the cut it goes. (tldr at the end!)

First off, let’s talk about Magical Ability.

As Eda explains, all witches have a sack of bile attached to their heart which lets them do magic. My assumption is that by having a larger sack of bile, a witch would have ‘more magic’ than someone with a small sack.

In comparison, let’s say it’s musical talent. If someone is born with perfect pitch and good rhythm, and other things like that, then you can assume they’d be better at music then someone who doesn’t have perfect pitch, and whose rhythm is a bit off. However, if someone trains and works hard for a long time they could become better at music than the person who was born with talent, based on merit of technical skill and dedication.

It’s a common concept, that hard work and dedication are more valuable than talent people are born with.

In the world of the owl house, I believe magic works the same way!

So what’s my proof that Amity is any less magical than the others? She is top student, after all (then again, post that episode the badge literally never comes up again, but for the sake of argument, let’s say she’s still top student)

Let’s compare some magic, according to what each character has done in their respective tracks!

Starting with Gus, some of the most impressive magic he’s done!

- Created an illusion with free will - Created three unique illusions of him and his friends - Created fifteen illusions of himself while running

That can’t be easy, Gus is really impressive with his magic!

Willow too, is very impressive! Despite being a late bloomer and being teased, she’s done a lot of great magic.

- Creating vines that took over the entire school - Making plants that look like people - and a bunch of other examples (especially in Wing it Like Witches, not to mention all of Hooty’s Moving Hassle)

Willow is really powerful, but powerful at plant magic. She can’t do abominations well at all. Keep that in mind as I move on to Amity.

Compared to what we’ve seen Gus and Willow do, Amity is kind of... underwhelming.

Amity’s top accomplishments include:

- Making an abomination that can follow instructions (twirling, carrying her, high fives) - That but bigger. - thats pretty much it.

While Abominations have their uses, in general they aren’t that impressive, or versatile. While it’s hard to compare different magic, when directly pitted against each other, Gus and Willow have more going for them.

If Gus, Willow, and Amity all got into a fight, Willow would probably win. In episode 3, Willow and Amity do ‘fight’ with Amity’s abominations (around 3-5 iirc) against Willows vines (huge, wrapping around the entire school, able to move and carry people independently of the other vines) and it’s clear who the victor is.

While it’s less clear who would win in a fight between Gus and Amity, (Gus’s illusions don’t seem to be tangible, meaning that a fight depends more on the circumstances (planning, trickery, etc) than pure magic.

When comparing Amity and Gus’s magic, the similarities are easy to see. They both create humanoids (however Amity is limited to only monsters while Gus can make projections and objects) that can fulfil tasks. However when we compare their differences, I think Gus comes out on top.

Gus’s Illusions: - free will and thought - can create several unique illusions at once - can form words, witches and humans, and more - can be defeated by being touched

Amity’s abominations: - follow instructions - can create a few at once - all look the same - can only create monsters - stronger than illusions

While abominations are better weapons, I’d say that illusions are more technical and creative, and have more effort in them.

So compared to the other witch kids, Amity is the weakest in terms of pure magic ability.

Now you might be saying ‘hey that’s not fair! Amity can do more than just abominations’ and you’re right! But there’s a few things to note.

a) we see amity using a training wand to create fire spells, and we can assume this isnt something new she just got. why would she get a wand to learn something new she wasn’t going to need. by need I mean,

b) witches are locked into a single coven, so they can only perform one type of magic. since amity is in the abomination track, unless she manages to get into the emperors coven (which considering current episodes, seems like a scam and impossible) she will eventually be sticking doing only abomination magic.

so the earlier point still stands, at least for the sake of argument.

Sub topic: what does it mean to be weak?

In the context, Amity seems to have less powerful magic then the other witch kids. Despite that, she’s a hard worker (hence being top student) and trains her magic ability to be better than the other students. When I refer to amity as weak, I mean that I believe she was born with less magic than the other students, and is working overtime to become more powerful.

I also have a theory that amity’s brown hair is tied into her having less magic, hence the dying of it and the symbolism in her drawings.

For those who don’t know, in every drawing Amity’s done of herself, her roots aren’t showing. If the green is symbolism of magic abilty (since the colour is associated with Azura, who can be seen as representing magic) then it’s telling that Amity’s ideal versions of herself include being naturally green haired, or in symbolism terms, naturally talented with magic.

moving on the the next part of this analysis: why is amity weak?

My guess is that Amity was just born with less magic. Maybe a smaller bile sack, or something like that. There’s also a possibly that Amity was cursed when she was really young (like sleeping beauty, just been born and got cursed young) by someone, further adding to the parallels between her and Eda.

I’d love to hear other people’s theories as to why Amity isn’t as magical as other characters, since theres a lot of reasons it could be.

How Does Amity Being Weak Affect the Story?

a few reasons!

first off, if Amity has less innate magic then the other witches, than Luz has no innate magic, which further gives the characters something in common and pulls them together

second, if amity’s parents care so much about their reputations as Blight’s then having a ‘weak’ child would be disgraceful, hence why Amity is seemingly pushed harder than her slacker siblings.

third, it explains a lot of amity’s behaviour. When amity and Luz make up in covention, Luz wins amity over by explaining that she’s working hard to be a witch. for someone that’s worked her entire life to get where she is, that would be the first time that Amity truly understood Luz, for a moment. it also lends a lot more weight to her line ‘Humans have no magical abilty, but I doubt that’ll stop you’

So what’s the point? (tldr)

Amity is likely weaker than the other witches for some reason, either by being cursed or born that why. Her magic is less impressive by comparison to Gus and Willow’s magic. This explains Amity’s commitment to hard work, and also brings her closer to Luz.

If you have any thoughts lemme know, this got a bit ramble and I have no clue if it even makes sense, but thank you for reading it all!

#the owl house #amity blight #toh #toh amity #the owl house amity #the owl house theory #amity blight theory #long post #I regret making this it took like 4 hours

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lecliss · 4 years ago

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Yeah so just finished Omniverse for a second time. Forgot everything half way through season 6 so that was all pretty much new to me. I feel, I dunno. Maybe cuz my brain does recall that I've gone through this before so I wasn't all that emotional about it. I'm usually such a crybaby when I finish shows. But I do rarely rewatch them so I guess I don't know what my usual reaction is to that.

I dunno. I think it's more that I didn't really... care? The Maltruant plot is, meh. Probably because he's an entirely new villain so for him being the 'final boss', it didn't mean much. It being surrounded by a season of content that I was about halfway disappointed by too? Made it much more meh. So it wasn't all that emotional.

However, I got super teary eyed when Ben was rapidly transforming through all his aliens and I recognized it was in the order he first transformed into them throughout the entire series. That was powerful and I was trying not to breakdown, lol. Also the universe creation scene was pretty so I felt emotional from that too, but otherwise not much else came from me aside from laughs about the funnies.

Sorry this is gonna be long and kinda ranty, but I just feel like I need to get it out. Season 8 did not feel powerful. It was the final season and they obviously knew that since they were wrapping up loose ends with Vilgax and Charmcaster. That was nice and all, but I feel like, to me at least, because I could recognize that and the episodes didn't feel so dramatic and meaningful about it, it didn't matter much. Like, 'okay time to wrap everything up and get it all in its place to end this show' and it didn't feel like anything more than that.

I also have problems with the way Rook was handled and Skurd kinda ties into that. Rook got great development and once I recgonized that I feel like he became an even better character than before. But because his relationship with Ben was now so close, it became harder to use the 'we don't get along but we have to work together anyway' type antics. Skurd was introduced to create more alien toys to sell, that I've read before and am pretty certain that's confirmed(and I also don't mind that since I understand selling toys is a big part of the franchise anyway). Ben and Skurd now have that 'we don't get along but we have to work together anyway' type relationship. And I noticed Rook seemed to talk a lot less in season 8, barring his final focus episode with Kundo and Fistina.

Therefore, Skurd became, in my eyes, a replacement for Rook, and Ben started to, sort of, bully Rook. Like, obviously in a way friends do, but also in a way that friends do when one friend is being harsh and doesn't recognize that what they're saying is actually bothering their friend. And that really bothered me. Rook became a target for Ben to bully for fun and I'm not gonna blame Ben, because I think that was just a shitty writing decision.

I also have a problem with "The Secret of Dos Santos", not only because of Ben's bullying of Rook in that episode, but because of the severe romance problem the entire show has and is shown off very noticeably in that episode. I just can't understand bickering with a guy and then you think he's gonna apologize but he doesn't but he does show you a cool helpful thing and then... you kiss him??? Even tho he didn't apologize?? I'm not cishet and I do know how to write women so, okay then. Go ahead and make no logical sense I guess.

And I'm sure all of us are bothered by the romance writing in OV(in varying ways of course), so no need to make people see the hundredth rant about it or whatever, but Imma just say a bit anyway about generalness of it.

I've never liked romance in Ben 10. I don't remember my opinion on the Benwolf episode from the original series, but I know I liked 10yo Kai at least a bit. I also liked Julie. I just, didn't think she was a great romance choice for Ben. And there's the thing. Little crushes are fine by me, but full on dating and romance getting involved in an action series bothers me. I never felt like Ben needed a girlfriend, and I'm in camp 'if he has a girlfriend, a completely normal human one isn't a good choice for a superhero'. The trope only causes unnecessary problems in my eyes. Getting kidnapped and making plans that have to be ruined when hero duty calls, those are things that happened in UAF. We didn't need that kind of stuff imo.

And I'm fine with Gwevin since they both were always involved in the hero work, but the drama annoyed me, especially that particular Charmcaster incident in UAF. Actually, thank you OV for not doing that with them this time. But, Ben 10 never needed romance. I have ships I like anyway tho, but the unnecessary-ness of it in UAF and the poor writing in OV was not needed. Also, I'm the kind of person that hates harems. Ben Tennyson, a 16yo, did not need a harem.

Otherwise, I love the show. Removing nostalgia from the original series, OV is definitely my favorite series(cue me getting shot). I love Kenny too, so it's not like I despise that Ben ended up Kai, just how it was written that they did not get along at all and even seemed to have that same bickering as adults. It just was not enjoyable.

I keep going back to that, but anyway, still, I treasure the show and everything good it did. It gave us Rook, Ester, and my favorite alien, Ball Weevil, returned many character designs to their roots of the original series, brought back Lucy, the two part season finale with the other Bens made me cry, and so did the season finale with Malware. I will forever stand by the statement of Ben talking with younger Ben and getting Feeback back being the greatest scene in the entire show.

Oh, right, and about the Rooters. Fuck Servantis. I will slaughter the man with my own bare hands and I will make it slow and painful. Anyway! The show put in effort to make these retcons related to them make sense. I'll give them that credit. But the problem lies with UAF and its decision to make Kevin an alien and all the Devin backstory stuff. The original intention in the original series was for him to be a special kind of human(basically a mutant iirc) and UAF made him an alien instead. OV wanted to go back to the orginal intention, but needed a way for that to make sense.

It was a mess, but I understand what the point of it was. Something had to be done to make it make sense and there was no way it would be a situation that didn't bother at least some people. I find 'your memories were a lie the whole time' as a form of retcon to be such a bad trope, but what else was there to do? For the decisions they made to handle it, it was perfectly fine. I just wanna torture Servantis is all because the Rooters got off way too scott free. They essentially had no punishment and I want to see the blood of child abusers spilled on the floor. Immediately.

Anyway, again. I love the show. Will always love it. I thank OV very much for all the joy it gives me and at the end of the day, it's a fucking cartoon. I love it, I hate some things in it, but I can put it down and go care about something else if I wanted to. I'm not gonna let the parts that bother me actually ruin my day or anything. Cuz again, it's a cartoon and I may not feel like it, but I do have a life. And I'm gonna spend the limited time I have in this shitty life by enjoying the things I like, which is the parts of OV that make me happy. 💚 Mainly Rook. And Ester. And the Evil Bens. And many more things, actually. Okay, I think the emotions are finally setting in. Oh god, I want it all back already!!! 😭😭😭😭

#ben 10 #ben 10 omniverse #long post #child abuse mention

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